The Best of Us - After the Death Cure

Chapter Nine

Thomas

Ava Paige. The woman who was responsible for putting them all in the maze. The same woman who had given him directions to escape everything. She was Sonya's mother. And that meant...

He felt his legs give out underneath him, suddenly unable to carry the weight of the truth. He fell backwards onto the ground. 

How could one woman be so cruel? How could she take her own children, the two people she was supposed to love more than anything in the whole world? How could she just give them up like that?

He closed his eyes and tried to remember. He tried to think back to when he worked for her. Did he know? Did he know who Newt really was?

He had always wondered why the Chancellor had her own private room with computers that showed her inside both mazes. He never knew why she needed to see inside for herself. After all, that was why she hired people like Thomas, right? But now he knew. She needed to make sure her children were okay.

He pulled himself back until he was resting against the bed. He closed his hands over his face. None of it made sense. Why would Ava Paige just let her son be consumed by the Flare? Why wouldn't she help him?

"Thomas" a soft voice said his name. He moved his hands from his face, and suddenly remembered. Sonya. Her face was saddened, her normally cheery eyes red from the tears.

He reached his arms out and pulled her into him. He felt her small hands on his back, and the wet of her tears touched his shoulder. He held her in his arms, his whole body shaking as he wept into her hair. 

"I'm so sorry Sonya"  he sobbed, "I'm so, so sorry." 

He didn't know how he could fix it. She had lost her brother, the only family she really had, and he was to blame. 

He didn't know how he could be strong for her when he was hurting just as much. He couldn't just forget how important Newt was to him; he was like a brother, his best friend. He had buried all of the pain and regret he felt after shooting Newt, shoving it deep inside of his heart. Now it had been re-opened, like a scab coming loose from the skin.

As if on cue, Sonya's voice pulled him right back to that dark alley. "Why did you do it?" she whispered, her voice calm now.

Assuming that she meant the worst, Thomas sighed, looking at the clock tick by on the wall. "He asked me to" he said, his voice still weary. "He held the gun in my hand, and begged for me to pull the trigger. He was so sad."

Thomas stopped there, not wanting to cry again. The room fell back into the same silence it had before. They stayed there for a while, him holding Sonya in his arms, her head rested against his chest. 

Then he thought of something, how could Sonya have known that he killed Newt when they were the only ones in the alley?

"Sonya" he said, looking down at her, "How did you know I shot him?"

She didn't move for a moment after, and then she shifted her body so that she was sitting in front of him. 

"I saw" was all she said, her eyes still staring at the ground.

"Saw what?" he asked, confusion clouding his brain. "You saw me..."

"No." she cut him off, swallowing the word as she said it. "I saw...him. I saw Newt, and I felt him breathing. Then it was as if I was there beside him, holding his hand."

She had looked up at him then, her eyes blurry with fresh tears. Her couldn't help but admit that her memory confused him. How could she have felt Newt breathe, if he was...

"I know what you're going to say" she spoke, her voice full of confidence now. "But it was real. I felt him, I heard what he was thinking...I...He wasn't dead Thomas. And he was thinking of you."