28. Max

W hen I finally get to the third maze, I look around to find Sasha. Instead, I see Ben talking to some people a few feet from me. I haven't seen him since this morning, and just assumed he decided to leave early and head home. Another thing, I don't even see Sasha anywhere. I'm really hoping she's with Troy.

Having that conversation with Draven really wasn't how I wanted to end our time together, but after that, who the fuck would want to stick around and help someone out? After they trauma dumped on them. No offence, not me, and I'm the one suffering with it.

I'm furious at him. Why did he feel the need to look me up? It's not like we were going to ride off into the fucking sunset together after this. No, of course not. At least I got the heads up for the maze I'm about to walk into.

Ketamine, fantastic.

What kind of person decides to drug people going into their maze?

She seemed fucked up during our brief little encounter but jeez, this is worse than I expected. I still don't see Sasha anywhere, maybe she's already gone in, doesn't seem like something she would do but I can't wait about. I need to get this over with, the quicker I get this done, the more time I have before the fourth maze to come down.

I start making my way over to the crowd of people, pushing my way through the sea of bodies, trying to immerse myself as best as I can. As soon as I reach the front, the next maze attendee steps out from behind the pretty pink door.

"Well, well, well." She begins to laugh. "Seems like enough of you made it from Lephee's maze, but just know, it won't be that easy with Blonde-Shell. Welcome to Vanity Affair. When you enter this maze, know that it is not to be taken lightly."

Walking along the front of the entryway, she looks up and down at the people standing in front, a sneer crawling over her face like even the sight of us disgusts her.

"You will face the true image of yourself when it comes to this maze. The secrets you bear will unfold into the mirror you confront. Blonde-Shell and Dobby expect full cooperation when entering." Taking a deep breath, she smiles. "Please form a single file line, you will go in one after the other and only eight will be allowed entry, every thirty minutes. The Vanity maze will not be responsible for any damage related to the body, please enter at your own risk and if you change your mind... then you know where the safe zone is."

Everyone begins to form a single file line. Lucky, I pressed myself to the front because I'll be the third one to go in. I just need to remember all my senses will be messed up and only I can bring myself out of it.

"Ok first eight... you're up!"

As we step up to the door one by one and walk in, the eight of us are crammed into a slim hallway with nothing but a light at the end. The two people in front of me step forward and I follow suit, a sensual voice comes over the speakers as we reach the door furthest away from the entry.

"Welcome beautiful people. The door in front of you, only allows space for one person. When you enter, wait for thirty seconds and then you may move into the next room. After that the door will unlock for the next maze runner until all eight have entered. Have fun. "

The moment she stops speaking, I decide to hang back. Being the last person in might work better in my favor as she and Dobby will more than likely be too interested in the other seven. I watch one by one, as they walk in and do exactly what she said. The fear rippling through my skin is something I've never felt.

If she's anything like what Draven told me, this won't be an easy feat. I have to remember to clear my mind the best I can, concentrate on getting out of there and not allowing some bitch to fuck with my head.

The door clicks in front of me, and I walk in. Closing it, I stand there for a few seconds, waiting and that's when I hear it. A small electric whirring from in front of me.

Turning to face it, a quick hiss and pop of air is puffed in my face causing me to jerk my head back and immediately I sneeze. Rubbing my hands over my face, the partials settle over my skin, and I instantly know where this is going.

The fear of being drugged already settling in my bloodstream as I feel it start to pump in my ears. The throb and beat stopping every other sound permeating my ear drums clears… all except the pulsing of blood. When the door in front of me slowly creeks open, I peak inside, there's nothing but darkness. That's when the voice comes over the speaker.

"Welcome maze runner. Your timer is set, fifteen minutes to get out of the maze, any longer than thirty, and you're stuck here forever. Good luck and remember, not everything you see is real."

On shaky legs, I take a few steps forward and look through the door. Techno music blares from the speakers in the hallway and it makes me grimace. I make my way down the hall as the heavy beat filters through my body, my hands and skin, tingling from the vibrations of the music and it's then that I realize just how scared I actually am.

Stepping down the stairs and into the first room, the bright pink and purple strobe lights dance around in front of me, and I have to squint. I can't even concentrate on anything inside this room. The pulsing lights don't give me enough time to see anything and with the drugs in my system, there's no chance of me concentrating at all.

From what I can see though, the walls are covered with bright colored graffiti and warped mirrors. Just like the ones you find in a...

Fuck...

I pinch the bridge of my nose. This shit's making my eyes funny. Straining to look around the rest of the room, I get swept up in the colors.

Wow... they're just... so beautiful... mixing together, like that. I love it.

No, don't look at the lights, you have to get out.

Rubbing my eyes, I take a deep and cleansing breath. The air shuddering from my lips as I try to calm the anxiety from within.

Don't think about them.

For all I know she's filtering the ketamine into the air filtration system to keep us doped up.

I walk through the threshold of the pink and purple room, and into another pitch-black hallway. The contrast of the bright colors glowing on the walls in the darkness, makes it harder for me to refocus myself. Stars of different shapes and sizes dance in my eyes as I desperately try to concentrate.

It's the tingling on my skin that grabs my attention first, reminding me of that all too familiar feeling from seven years ago. Of how it felt every time they injected me, the way I would scream and cry, and beg for them to let me go… but they never listened.

They just laughed at me.

I carefully step into the next room and take in my surroundings. Degrading words scattered on the walls and floor like papier maché, as I look up, I'm taken in slightly by the black and white swirls that sit on the ceiling.

Focus damn it.

Deep breaths.

I notice a girl sitting in the corner, crying. With my steps slightly off balance I stumble over to her, realizing she's mumbling something I can't quite understand, rocking back and forth on the spot and gripping her knees close to her chest.

"Ugly... Disgusting..." The girl is sobbing into her hands. "I'm gross, vile… nobody will ever love me."

I shake off the numbness in my fingers as I slowly lean forward. "Hey, are you-" I begin to speak but jump back the moment the girl turns round to face me. Her fingernails are covered in blood, her face with heavy scratch marks .

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!!" She screams, standing up and running down the adjacent hallway. "GET OUT!!! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!!"

I turn around a little too fast and the room spins enough to make me lean against the wall. Placing both palms in front of me, I steady myself and take a few cleansing breaths.

Come on Max you need to keep your head right.

I talk myself through the settling of the drug, and try my best to keep from going insane.

Remembering how it felt when I...

No, I stand up, slapping myself across the face. Where it was quiet before, my ears begin to pick up the music again. "No fucking around Max!" I shout to myself.

Leaning back, I take slow and steady steps, the pins and needles skating over my skin, becoming worse the longer I stay in here.

I need to get out... Fuck... where's the exit.

"I have to find the exit," I grind out. Shaking my head to try and stay as coherent as possible.

The music is so loud, why is it so loud?

I try my best to walk down this hallway a little faster than before, my arms outstretched to feel along the wall. Using it to keep me balanced. That's when I hear it, someone walking behind me. I can hear their footsteps.

Every step closer and closer.

What if it's one of them. My heart is swelling in my throat.

"Max." The masculine whisper comes from beside me and I yelp, falling back against the wall, arms outstretched in defense. Fear running through me as my eyes begin to blur. Flashing white lights in the hallway giving me glimpses of a man in a white mask.

"Who is that!?" I shout, rubbing the palms of my hands over my eyes, more and more because everything seems to be tripled in my vision. The sooner you get out of here, the sooner the effects will wear off in the fresh air. The sooner I can breathe.

"Maaax..." the male voice sings from beside me. I can't stay here; I need to move. So, I turn, squinting at the room before me and push myself from the wall. Walking on my very unsteady feet I wobble side to side, my thighs shaking. I see the exit in front of me and high tail it. My body feeling like it weighs a thousand tons.

Reaching out my hands further, I connect with the door and crash to the floor below. The sound of shattered glass scattering around me as I cover my face. Pain radiates through the back of my head as everything becomes even more dizzy than before. The room is spinning. Am I outside? Did I make it?

"Oh Max, what a scared little mouse." My limbs feel so heavy, and I can't... the room... fuck, it's spinning. "How's that drug feel, huh?"

Rolling my head to the side, I see Blonde-Shell crouched down next to me. Looking over me, she clicks her tongue against her teeth, my mouth is so dry I can't swallow. There's nothing to satiate how it feels.

"Good, right?" Her laughter filling the room. "Let's get you up… Dobby!" She calls. Hands slide under my back, and I'm yanked to a standing position.

Before I know what to do, I'm launched to the left and another mirror shatters as I drop to the floor.

"Pick her up!"

Dobby then grabs me by the throat, dragging me to the center of the room and I have to hold onto his wrists as he pulls me to a moderately standing position again. I have hardly any balance now, but the room feels like it's spinning more and more with every second I spend here .

It feels like I'm on a boat.

I look into the mirror in front of me, small little cuts to my cheek... squeezing my eyes shut, I think of him. It's nothing that can't be fixed.

Draven will fix me.

He will... Fuck the argument.

He's going to hate me. I'm disgusting.

"Jesus…. she's… really… fucked up."

I hear the words floating around me like fish in the sea. Muffled and garbled. I wonder what it would be like to swim with fish in the—

"Wake the fuck up!" Blonde-Shells hand connects with my cheek, and for a split second I stumble into the person behind me. Looking up, I realize it's the sock sniffer.

Fuck, this drug is insane, I can already feel the smile gliding over my lips.

I snort, "You sniff socks." I burst out laughing, the sound of it bouncing off the walls.

"Leave her in here with me, go find some others." She tells Dobby. "Hurt them." The moment she finishes speaking, the warmth of his body behind me is gone and all I'm left to focus on, is myself.

You need to find the exit, Max. Don't let them hurt you again.

The words in my mind settle me as I continue to look around the room in a blurred daze. Nothing making any sense to me at all. All the dancing fruit in the air and the little unicorn jumping over the hills, brings on a wide smile as I look up to the ceiling.

"Cute," I mumble.

"I've seen you with Draven." She hisses, but I don't care. His name bringing me back into the room slightly and I turn my gaze to her and smile.

"I've been waiting for you to get here. Just so I could punish you for touching him." Something nicks the skin on my neck, and I wince.

"Small little cuts, all over the skin. Do you seriously think, that when I'm done with you, he's going to want to look at you?"

The exit max, look for the exit.

"Tiny little cuts, Max," she chuckles. "You're nothing… to anyone."

Another little cut to the cheek, then another.

Scars everywhere.

Disgusting.

Victim.

"I heard your little conversation in the woods too. Gang raped," she scoffs. "That's tough."

The small knife nipping the skin on my cheek.

"All those things they did to you, Max. I bet you enjoyed every… single… second of it. Didn't you? You fucking whore."

"N-no." I can feel my eyes burning as I look at my reflection in the mirror. "I swear… I-I never." My voice hardly even a whisper.

"I bet you loved every single fuck you got, didn't you?" Her laughter now echoing within my ears. "Their hands all over you, touching you…. Laughing at you." Something wet slides up my cheek. "Your tears taste so sweet, little mouse."

Why am I naked…

All my scars on show, the burn marks, and their hands all over my body as I stare at my reflection within the mirror.

Disgusting.

Whore.

Victim.

"Look at you, Max," Blonde-Shell stalks around me. "You're disgusting. Do you think Draven could ever love you?"

Am I not worth it?

"Oh my God… you do. Do you love him, Max?"

"I don't… no… I can't l-love a-anyone." I see the three men in the reflection of the mirror and I'm screaming, screaming for them to stop. Begging them to let me go and to stop hurting me.

"Draven deserves better than you."

I can't breathe.

"Please..." I breathe.

"Please what Max? Let you kill yourself? Of course."

She takes hold of my hand. "This wrist right here," she points running her slender finger over the exposed tendon. "This skin is perfect, nice and thin and it'll be so quick." Her voice singing me to sleep like a lullaby. "You won't even feel a thing. Which is a lot more than a whore like you deserves."

"But... I-I don't want–"

"You tried it twice before Max, remember... This time there will be nobody here to stop you. You can let it all go here and be... free."

Max, stop. Don't listen to her. Please don't do this.

My voice screaming into the back of my mind, banging on the glass as I take the small scalpel from her hand.

"That's right Max." She takes hold of my wrist. My throat dry, my lungs tight. Void of air. So tight I feel like I can't breathe. "If you do it now, all the pain is over. Draven will never know; I'll make sure of it. I'll tell him you left. He could never love you, Max. He has no heart and even if he did, he wouldn't waste it on you."

Her words burrow into my brain, sticking there like cement, and weighing me down.

"I can't do this, I'm not strong enough for this I hate the pain… I've lived with this…" My breathing is heavy, lost within the tears falling from my face as I continue to watch what they did to me, how they hurt me. "For so long, this is all I have ever wanted..." I hear my voice.

But it's not my voice… it's someone mimicking me.

My eyeline flicking to the top of the mirror as I try to regain my composure. I feel the cold steel press against my skin.

"All you have to do is cut yourself. Do it and it will all be over." She sings to me, in that moment. "You're nothing, Max, wasted goods. Fucked by men that don't even remember your name."

My cheeks are wet.

Am I still crying?

"Please... I don't want to die." Sobs wrack my body, shattering through me like an earthquake.

"Oh, but you do." She giggles. "You told me, you told him. He belongs to me Max, he doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about anything. You were just another hole for him to fill over the weekend."

Her voice is the only thing I'm hearing as my strength slowly begins to fade. "You were just a quick and easy fuck for him. A sure thing. He's fucked so many women here, women just… like you and they never last. He always comes back to me, to my warm bed, where do you think he was earlier?" Her laughter surrounding me, echoing and binding itself to my skin. "While you were in Midnight's maze, he was balls deep in my ass."

That's not true.

The way she's circling me, is beginning to make me dizzy.

"Those boys raped you because you were a whore, Max."

"No!" I shout at my reflection. Tasting the salt at the corner of my mouth.

"There's nothing about you that's perfect," she continues, resting her hands on my shoulders and softly pulling my hair back. Revealing his bite marks. "He lied to you; they all did."

I can see everything, the mirror showing me the events of seven years ago. How all their hands touched every inch of my body. Taunting me, teasing me, calling me names. Telling me I was nothing and nobody would ever want me after they found out what they did.

"You can't give him what I can." Her voice filters back in, but I've lost all sense of awareness now and all I know is I'm a mess, I'm disgusting.

"Everyone will be happy when you're dead, Max." Blonde-Shell's voice nothing but a floating whisper now. My hand grips tighter around the cold steel of the blade she gave me, and I press it to the skin. It won't take much, just one glide. "That's it Max, you can do it."

As I'm about to drag it up my arm, something flickers at the corner of my eye. I see it. The green sign in the top right-hand corner of one of the mirrors.

TIXE

What is that?

I focus harder, squinting my eyes, using what little energy I have left in my skin, bones and mind to try and figure out what that word means and then it hits me all at once.

"Exit..." I breathe.

"What?" Blonde-Shell leans into me.

Looking into the reflection one last time and I finally see it clearly. My muscles allowing me to smile. It's not me getting raped again, it's just me, in the mirror, with Blonde-Shell standing next to me, her hand holding my wrist as I hold the scalpel to it. Summoning every single ounce of my energy I scream.

"RUN!" Draven's famous word permeates the room. Her eyes widening at my high-pitched scream. My eyes blurry, my chest tight and heaving with pain.

Fresh air Max!

Run!

Snatching my wrist from her grasp, I wrap it across my chest and as quick as I can, with as much force as I can muster, I bring it back around, backhanding her in the face. Spinning myself around in the process. That's when I see it for real, the exit sign, right behind me.

Make her bleed Max, remember.

Lifting the scalpel in the air, I slice through and stab it into her thigh. Her shriek bouncing off the walls.

"DOBBY!" She screams his name and in a split second, I hear his feet pounding into the flooring. My eyes are bulging out of my head and as fucked up as I feel right now, I know I need to get out of here. "Hurry!! She's getting away!! Grab her!"

I spin on my heel and with everything I have, I run down the narrow jet-black hallway, following the green illuminated sign and begging for this to be real and not another hallucination.

"Help me!" I scream at the top of my lungs, but I end up slamming my entire body into the door. "Grim!!" The cold breeze slicing across my face, and I stumble to the ground and cry out. "Grim where are you!?" I sob, turning myself in a circle, down on my knees in search of the one who can save me.

The gravel biting into the sensitive skin on my palm, my sobs ringing out as people jump away from the door. "Grim!" My lungs burning from the only word I can say.

"YOU BITCH!!" Her voice bellows from the depths of the maze. I turn to face the door and watch as she limps to the opening, yanking the scalpel from her thigh.

Draven where are you ?

I scramble further and further from the door as my back slams against something hard, and I immediately look up.