Subject of the Flame | Maze Runner [2]

TWENTY

[ NEWT ]

❧

Electra refused to leave Minho's side through the next couple of hours. Thankfully, the lightning slowly faded away into a torrential downpour. Through the peddling rain and wind outside, Newt could barely hear Electra muttering to Minho about him trying to find sleep. Minho groaned a protest in reply about him not being tired, yet a few moments later his snoring was a dull static in the background.

The girl looked too worried to even lean against his shoulder. Her eyes focused on Minho's relaxed snoring as if terrified his breathing might suddenly stop at any moment.

The entire time he'd known Electra, she'd held up a specific persona. Electra was cold to the point of emotionless, calculating to the point of obsession, independent to the point of ignorance. In his mind, she'd always been a little bit more similar to the Grievers than the Gladers; less a scared teenager like the rest of them and more a monster. Not that he blamed her. If he'd been stuck out in the Maze, he'd also have developed monster tendencies.

Yet, here she was, looking at Minho as if his lifeline was her own. He remembered her screaming when Minho had been struck, and the way she pulled him further through the storm. Then, when they'd finally reached Minho, she'd hugged and shook his body with such raw desperation.

He knew Electra was closest with Minho, but he never fully considered their dynamic. Even now, he wasn't sure what was between them, but he could sense something. Perhaps it was merely a consequence of relying on each other for three years. Perhaps it was something else. Newt was too tired to tell.

Newt brought his knees up to his chest, resting his head against the wall behind him. The amount of Gladers left was smaller than it had been earlier that day, but he couldn't find the energy to count heads. He'd lost count of how many deaths he'd seen in the storm. He wasn't ready to know how many people had died.

A part of him knew he wouldn't have been safely sitting in the dark, cold, and musty room if it hadn't been for Electra. The wind had pummeled him onto the floor, pushing him deeper into the dusty ground as if trying to bury him alive. His limp had been on fire, taking over any thoughts he had of safety or survival. He'd been ready to give up, to let the storm cover him in a film of brown fog, to let the lightning shatter him to burnt pieces. But Electra had pulled him up. She'd dragged him through the storm.

She'd saved his life, and the act of doing so was familiar to Newt. It was odd, that such a scary and selfish person like Electra was familiar to him in a selfless way. Had she ever saved his life before? Newt's first thought was of course she hadn't. It was Electra, after all. Yet, as he closed his eyes to try to remember, he realized she had saved him before.

Back in the Maze, when the Gladers were fighting the Grievers at the Cliff. He'd been seconds away from a Griever slashing him open when she swooped in and diverted the monster's attention away from him.

"You saved me?" Newt asked, fighting the instinct to back away from Electra. She looked feral.

"You're welcome," Electra said breathlessly, her head whipping back and forth to try to take in everything happening around her. "Be careful. Maybe the Griever isn't dead yet."

Other boys had died that day. Had she let them die? Had Newt simply been in the right place at the right time? Would she have saved other boys if they'd been in the same situation as him? Furthermore, Electra seemed to openly hate him so why would she save his life multiple times? Newt knew he had no way to answer any of his questions.

However, the act of her saving him during the Griever battle wasn't the memory striking familiarity. Deep down, Newt felt as though there had to be something else. Another moment that changed the trajectory of his life that she'd somehow been a part of. He remembered when she'd showed up in the Glade, fighting a Griever that was about to pounce on him and the Gladers around him. She'd saved his and other Gladers' lives. But again, that wasn't it.