I Know Places [Thomas The Maze Runner] (ongoing)

[39: The Confession]

"Hey, it's Elle, right?" Sonya waved her over as she and Thomas walked by her, Harriet, and Aris.

"Yeah, hey," Elle replied with a smile.

"Aris tells us you're a serious badass," Harriet said. "Did you want to come sit?"

"I wouldn't want to interrupt your reunion," Elle protested.

"No way, come take a seat," Sonya encouraged her happily.

"We can catch up later, I'll tell the guys about everything we learned," Thomas assured Elle, smiling. If Aris and his friends wanted to tell his girlfriend how amazing she was, then Thomas was going to encourage it.

Nodding, Elle waved at Thomas before sitting beside Aris. They sat on logs of wood around a fire pit. "You have no idea how grateful I am that Thomas met Aris," Elle said before they began bombarding her with questions. "Seriously! We would still be stuck in there, oblivious, if it wasn't for him."

"Yeah, yeah," Harriet waved her off and rolled her eyes. "Aris is great, we know that. Is it true that you fought off a Crank who was pulling you down a broken escalator with nothing but a flashlight?" she wondered, leaning forward excitedly.

"And that you made everyone break your friend out of the hospital wing even though you only knew her for a day?" Sonya added, equally thrilled as Harriet. "Because that's seriously cool, and you're my new hero if that's true."

"I guess that's true," Elle allowed reluctantly. "But it makes me sound way more tough than I actually am when you word it like that!"

"No it doesn't, you were great," Aris assured her, nudging her with a grin. "I honestly think you held us together throughout the whole thing."

"We're glad Aris was in good hands while we were apart," Harriet said with a genuine smile. "After we found out what WICKED was doing to get their cure--" she trailed off sadly, thinking of Rachel and the other girls from their Maze who hadn't made it out.

"I'm so sorry about your friends," Elle acknowledged. She felt the repercussions of her previous relationship with WICKED. Even though she was working to find a cure for her brother, it seemed unforgivable that she worked for an establishment that was so willing to sacrifice young lives. "I wish we could have helped more people but we barely got out ourselves," Elle said sadly.

"Trust me, we get that," Sonya assured her. "The guilt of getting out? It never really goes away," she admitted regrettably. "But being here with the Right Arm made us realise we can actually make a difference. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to find a way for you to help."

"Oh yeah, a badass like you fits right in," Harried agreed.

They spent the next hour talking and getting to know each other. After realising Elle hadn't eaten in a long time, they brought her and Aris some food and told them more about how things worked at the Right Arm.

"It's really nice to see Aris come out of his shell more," Elle commented as she watched the three old friends giggling together. "I'm really glad we ran into you guys. Friends seem to be hard to come by out here."

"Your friend is kind of a lone wolf, isn't she?" Sonya commented when she noticed Teresa off by herself again.

Elle turned to watch Teresa stare out into the distance with sad eyes. "Yeah, kind of," she agreed. "I think that when we came here and Aris found you guys, a small part of her thought the guys from her Maze might have made it out too," Elle admitted sadly. "I don't really blame her for being disappointed that wasn't the case."

"Of course," Harriet nodded sympathetically.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way," Sonya added with wide eyes.