Bouncing on her heels, Tasha followed behind Minho and Newt, beside Thomas, their eyes all trained on the girl curled up before them. They stopped abruptly in the middle of the Med-Jack hut, watching and waiting to see if she changed as she slept soundly on the bed that Clint and Jeff had set out for her. Alby's pain breaths were the only other thing to breach the silence that enveloped them.
"Jeff, what's going on?" Newt asked. "What's the matter with her, why won't she wake up?" He the worry and concern in his voice was almost tangible as he fired off the questions to the Med-Jack. Jeff huffed out a sigh, laced with an exhaustion that reverberated in his bones.
"Hey man, I got my job the same way you did." He muttered, looking from Newt to the girl on the bed. She was sleeping peacefully, head pillowed on her arms, chest rising and falling with each breath. Newt looked from Thomas to the new girl, eyes narrowed analytically.
"Do you recognise her?" He asked, trying his hardest to make sense of the situation he was presented with. It had to be difficult for him, with Alby's incapacitation and the other Gladers losing help.
"No." Thomas mumbled. The Greenie had triggered something within the Glade, Tasha had known it ever since Ben's banishment. Thomas was curious in an almost reckless manner, and he cared about there people so much that it made Tasha's head hurt. It wasn't that Tasha didn't care about people, it's just that her loyalty was selective and intense. If Thomas was caring to the point of recklessness for just about every Glader, Tasha was caring to the point of self destruction for the people she considered friends. And that now included Thomas.
"Really, because she seemed to recognise you." There was anger in Newt's voice that hadn't been there before and Tasha blinked back into reality from where she had been hovering in her own little world. She knew all too well the anger that came from fear and the pressure of the people in the Glade.
"What about the note?" Thomas asked, his attention turning back to the girl. Tasha's mind flashed briefly to the sight of the note crumpled in Newt's hand, and it's dire implications. She's the last one EVER. Something was happening. Things were changing.
"We'll worry about the note later." Newt mused, considering the unconscious figure with concern. Tasha frowned, her eyebrows knitting together as she cast Newt a worried look. Maybe it was getting to him, everything that had happened in the past few days, because a long term plan is what they needed now, even if long term just meant a few months, they could ration the food.
"Well I think you should worry about it now." The intensity in Thomas's voice grew, with Tasha's silent support. Newt's attention turned back to him.
"We've got enough to deal with at the moment." He snapped, angrily, and Tasha swallowed thickly. There's no way out,she told the voice in her head to shut up, but it melted from her own to Newt's, and she thought she might be going crazy as reality seemed to be going blurry at the edges.
"He's right, Newt." Jeff mumbled, not entirely breaking Tasha from her stupor, but allowing her to barely latch onto the strands of conversation. "The box isn't coming back up, how long do you think we can last?"
No-one says what they're thinking, each jumping to their own version of the worst possible conclusion -
"No-one said that." Newt huffed, arms crossed over his chest, banishing the thought from his mind with a quick shake. "Let's not jump to any conclusions, just..." He turned back to the girl on the bed, his expression worn and tired, "We'll just wait until she wakes up and see what she knows." He paused, "Somebody's got to have some answers around here."
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Quiet is Violent {Newt | The Maze Runner}
FanfictionRunning is the only thing about the Maze that Tasha likes; breathing like her lungs are about to give out, blood pumping like it's trying to burst from her veins, wondering if she might ever stop. Well, it's not the only thing, there's the other Run...
