ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

55: I'm Sarcasm

Though nothing is different. Grievers show up about as much, fights are just as frequent, and supplies come up the same.

He stumbles closer to me, placing a hand on my wrist.

I'm quick to flip up his wrist in a way that actually makes him call out in pain. He backs off of me, pouting with his lips. "You're just like Dawn. Such teases you are."

He reaches forward to touch my hair, and I grip his wrist tightly, pulling his hand behind his back until he cries out in pain. His wrist is pinned between his shoulder blades.

"You like to touch me more than she did though," I can hear his grin even if I can't see it. "She had her mouth all over me though. Sweeter than Gally's drink. I wonder if you burn the way the liquid does when I swallow it."

Ben is ripped from my grasp and thrown onto the ground before me. He lifts his face out of the dirt and the groan he makes echoes through the Deadheads when the figure before me bashes it off the ground.

"What did you do to Dawn?" I recognise that voice, though not well enough that I can identify it.

Ben doesn't answer. The figure rolls him over so that his bloody face is on display for all of us to see. I don't realise I am moving in closer until I can see the blood, so dark it looks black, painting his teeth.

Ben freezes at the face, staring it down. The boy before me reaches down, and punches Ben square in the jaw. Ben coughs, blood spraying out his mouth and painting the boy. I shove the boy off of Ben, looking at the definitely unconscious boy with a broken nose.

"I didn't need your help," I turn to see Minho, the Keeper of the Runners. His shirt is stained with the splatter of blood, as is his face. He looks from his hands to me and I roll my eyes. "Oh quit looking so guilty."

"I was trying to help you," Minho says, out of breath, "I was trying to stop him."

"I didn't need your shucking help." I spit out the words angry at him, although for a second I pause. "Not that he didn't deserve it."

Minho stands up off the ground, wiping the sweat off his forehead. In doing so, he smears blood around his skin. Thankfully it is dark and it just looks like dirt.

I take out the handkerchief from my pocket that Dave used a few days ago to help me clean off the blood. "It won't come out of your shirt until you wash it, but for now just get it off your face. Quit acting like a slinthead."

"I'm not," he rips the fabric from my hand, wiping it across my face. "You aren't the only one who can be violent you know."

I scrunch my nose together, holding my hand out and clenching the handkerchief tightly when he passes it back to me. This seems to be his firs rodeo, with this kind of aggression. The kid doesn't seem clean, the shucking Runner boy. Bet he's the kind of boy that gets in a fight with his best friend over something silly, and the two make up the next day. Doesn't seem like the kind to have fought someone, and meant it. "Sure, that explains why you were sitting next to him like some Greenbean."

"I didn't know it was Ben, that's all." Minho corrects me, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Please," I roll my eyes at his naivete. "He tried to sleep with me weeks ago. Locked me up for hitting him."

"Don't shucking think I'm Alby," he mutters. "I don't have to agree with the shank because I'm a Keeper, Greenie."

"I can see that," I gesture to where Ben lies on the ground. Doesn't seem he gives much of a dman about the fighting rules. I bet he's sleeping with Dawn, and that's why he's upset. Or at the very least, he has a massive hard on for her and doesn't know how to hide it.

Minho's eyes flicker there before flickering back to me. "You aren't telling Alby about this, right?"

I almost laugh at the idea. Who exactly does Minho think I am? "Not this shucking time. Ben won't say klunk. No story, no proof."

"You know, you aren't half as bad as you let people think." Minho looks at me carefully one last time, as if he is trying to find out who exactly I am. It's funny he can't figure out the answer; I haven't tried to hide it.

I scoff at the notion. "Not half as bad? Twice as worse."

~~~~~~~

Really talk, Minho and Michelle are such a brotp. Like, doesn't anyone else see it? They could be like a total crime fighting duo. That's my next story, I swear to it.

I hope you know how much I appreciate every single one of you. Every person who has ever commented. You're amazing.

I'll see you soon, in Ella and a Boy she once knew.