𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓭 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓼𝓽 - ᴀ ᴍᴀᴢᴇ ʀᴜɴɴᴇʀ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄ

Chapter Sixteen - Newt

A/N This is sad, just to warn you.

I didn't know life could hurt this much. Back in the Glade, each day that went by added another brick to my pack. I wanted to know why. What did we do that was so bad? Why did we get our lives stripped from our grasp? We were children. I wanted it to end so bad. I wanted it to end so bloody bad that I took initiative into my own hands, but life wasn't done with me.

No, life had plenty more stones to throw. Every shucking brick that I'd tried to free myself of with the jump was piled right back on me, plus some for the guilt I felt. Why did everyone care so much about me? Their pitying expressions and extra service aimed towards me only stacked the pile higher. I just wished it had worked. Instead, I was left with pain: mental and physical. Shucking leg.

When Addy showed up, it started getting better. Each smile she sent my way seemed to lift a brick, one by one, so that I didn't have to fake the cheerfulness. At last, I had the energy to care. Of course, life wouldn't be life if it didn't drag my by the ankle right back into that pit.

I suppose I could blame WICKED instead. My skin stings in the memory of the bolts of lightning that stung to the bone, successfully weakening me so I would hunch even lower beneath the stack of bricks. Add in Addy's helpless sobs as she watched and begged and you've made a recipe for a darkness like no other. Yet even then life still wasn't done with me.

Addy's hand wrapped my heart in an embrace and when she was torn away from me, my heart went with her. Only the memories stayed, or resurfaced to torture me. WICKED had Lizzy and Addy while I was stuck, a sitting duck, at a rebel camp. They had my motivation, my joy, and just about everything else that mattered.

Now I had them back, in some sense at least. Lizzy didn't remember me. Her smile was cautious, as if she wanted to believe me, but couldn't find it in her. She was everything I'd wanted to be, brave, loyal, kind, smart, and so much more. Kind of funny how are roles were reverse of the stereotype. She's my role model, but she doesn't know who the shuck I am.

I bite my lip, looking to the sandy ground outside the window to hide the tears pooling behind my eyelids. Bad enough that my own sister doesn't remember me, but my girlfriend is losing her mind and if I get too near her, I'll lose mine too.

I glance up and over to the very back of the humvee where Addy sits, curled into herself with her hand covering her mouth in a sad attempt to prevent spreading the Flare. Her dark cocoa hair ripples down her back, still effortlessly beautiful even with the grains of sand clinging to the knots.

I can't take it. I can't take watching her suffer and being able to do absolutely nothing. The dark skinned girl that seems to be Lizzy's friend leans over to whisper in Addy's ear, but the girl shudders away, careful not to touch.

"Please." Addy whispers so quietly that I have to strain my ears to their limit just to understand. "I don't want to hurt you. I know you trust me, but I don't trust myself anymore."

Her words shatter my heart. I hadn't realized there were even pieces big enough to be shattered anymore.

"Sorry, but no." Harriet is confidence reincarnated as a human. "You need to stop the pity party and lower that ego of yours. You think you can hurt me? In your dreams, sis. We're gonna get you that cure and you're gonna be fine. Hear me?"

Addy smiles softly and the simple lip twitch blasts me with a longing like no other. I'd never realized how much I missed seeing it.

I didn't know life could hurt this much. I have to tear my eyes away from her beautiful face, knowing if I don't, I won't be able to stop myself from doing something stupid like kissing her. I wouldn't mind dying together, but apparently that's selfish and I'm less useful if I'm going crazy. Thomas didn't like it when I suggested staying behind with her. We're too close to being safe and free.

Way too close.

"Hop out kids. You're on your own from here."