Blister

2 (Newt's POV)

"This food is way better than what we had at the glade!" Winston said with a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"Hey!" Frypan glared at him from across the table.

Winston swallowed, "I mean, no one can ever compare to your excellence of fine dining, but you gotta admit this is great!"

Frypan raised a brow, "I'd be mad but I really liked the way you said that so I'll let it slide."

I looked down at my empty tray. I had already finished eating because Winston was right, the food was amazing and we were all starving. How could we not eat until we were fat? But despite all our pampering, I couldn't get over Mels. The way she looked at me after getting out of the maze. Who could blame her? She was right next to Alby when...

I could feel a tight ball form in my throat as I fought back tears. No, I wouldn't cry. Alby gave his life so we could all be free. We had talked about it multiple times. Alby felt that as the leader of the glade, if he had to give his life for our freedom then he would. But then what about everyone else who died? What about the ones who stayed behind? They deserved to get out too, they should have come with us. And I didn't want to believe it, but after seeing Gally that last time I knew none of them made it.

"Thomas, you good?" I heard Jeff ask.

I looked at Tommy who was sitting beside me. He was looking at the two men guarding one of the doors of the cafeteria. We had been brought here to eat right after getting poked and prodded at and to our surprise there were other people here. Lots of people.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Thomas said then he looked at me, "Where's Meela?"

"I don't know." I pushed my tray away and rested my arms on the table, "I'm sure she's fine though." I was more saying that for myself. I had no idea where she could have been taken. We were all together for the medical stuff but then we got separated for our showers. Not like I expected her to shower with us, but ever since then we hadn't seen her. I couldn't panic yet though. These people helped us, they couldn't have done anything menacing to her.

"Have any of you seen her?" Thomas asked.

No one had.

Frypan took his last couple bites of his corn, "I'm surprised you're not freaking out, Newt."

I frowned, "What are you talking about?"

He pointed his fork at me, "Don't play dumb. You and Meela have something going on."

I looked back down. Did we? I wasn't sure.

"Yeah," Frypan waved his fork at me, "I've seen it. The way you two were looking at each other in the glade was much louder than words."

I let out a heavy sigh, "I don't really know what's going on with us. Things were fine until we got out of the maze. She hasn't spoken to me and on the helicopter I tried to take her hand but she pulled away."

"She's probably still freaked out."

Winston nodded, "Yeah, think about it. We all had months to years to get used to living in the glade, dealing with the grievers and beetle blades. We got used to death. She's probably having a really hard time working this whole thing out."

That made sense, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that there might be something more going on with her. That look in her eyes when we were in the helicopter, the way she stayed silent through all of our medical tests. She was different now.

"Hey guys," Minho sat down beside me and a young guy sat down across from him, "This is Aris. I met him when I was grabbing some food. He was telling me that everyone here is from a maze like us."