Bloody hell, it’s peaceful today.

Well—was.

I’m elbow-deep in garden soil, pressing down a baby parsley plant like it’s the most delicate thing in the world. Dirt under my nails, sun warming my shoulders, the whole Glade still waking up around me. I’ve always liked the quiet in the mornings. Even the pain in my leg’s bearable when I’ve got green to focus on. Things make sense out here. You plant, you water, you wait. No lies in the dirt.

Then the alarm goes off.

That metallic shriek cuts through the air like a knife through skin. Box alarm. My heart jumps before my body does, instincts kicking in sharp as a blade. I drop the trowel, wipe my hands on my shirt, and start limping toward the Box, fast as my leg’ll let me.

Another Greenie. Another lost soul.

I expect the usual—wide eyes, panic, maybe tears. Alby’s already ahead of me, Frypan and a few others falling in behind. But then I see her.

And I freeze.

It’s a girl.

My brain short-circuits for a second. We’ve never—never—had a girl come up in the Box. Not once in all the bloody time I’ve been here. The crowd’s dead silent, even Gally’s mouth hanging open like someone socked him.

She sits up, wild and blinking, like the world’s a puzzle she wasn’t given enough pieces to solve. She looks at us.

Then—she runs.

No hesitation. No questions. Just takes off, legs pumping like the Box was just the starting line.

Not away. Forward.

Straight through the Glade like she belongs to the wind.

“Shuck me,” I mutter, already moving, dragging my limp leg behind me like a stubborn dog. The lads around me scatter. Chuck stares like he’s seen a ghost. Zart swears loud enough to scare the crows. Frypan drops his crate of carrots, and someone—Winston, maybe—shouts, “We got a runner!”

She tears past the coop, kicks up dust through the garden rows, almost knocks over a water barrel. Hair flying behind her like a bloody comet, wild and furious. Like she knows exactly what she’s running from, even if she can’t name it.

But she doesn’t make it far.

Her legs buckle not five minutes in. Too much, too fast. She stumbles, tries to keep going—then crashes, face-first into the dirt. Hard.

I wince, already pushing myself into a full run. My leg protests, screaming with every step, but I shove the pain down and go.

Alby’s already there when I drop beside her. She’s gasping like a fish on dry land, skin scraped raw, chest heaving.

And she’s a bloody girl.

Real. Alive. Right in front of me.

I crouch slowly—careful with my leg—hands open, voice low and steady like I’m talking to a spooked animal. “Alright, love,” I murmur, “easy now. You’re safe. Sort of.”

Alby glances at me, then back to her. He’s calm, steady, but I see the edge in his jaw. None of us were ready for this.

“You’re in the Glade,” he says. “We don’t know how or why. Same as the rest of us.”

She doesn’t speak. Just stares, breathing fast, eyes scanning everything like she’s trying to burn it into memory—or maybe wipe it clean.

Dirt clings to her skin, there’s blood at her lip, and something about her feels wrong. Like she’s been sent for something, or someone.

And I know—just know—she doesn’t remember a thing.

But those eyes. Shuck me, those eyes. Burning like they’ve seen the Maze before we ever did.