Song - Another Love (Tom Odell)
As the veins dissolved on Alby's chest, sighs of relief echoed through the room. I had run through the door, Newt, Thomas, Minho, and Gally right behind me and much to Clint's protests and Alby's squirms, I whipped off the cap and stabbed the vial of blue liquid into his upper arm. Immediately our leader had relaxed, and a sigh of relief also escaped his mouth before he fell into a deep sleep.
"Thank god for that," Newt breathed, running his hand through his mop of sandy blonde hair.
I sat back down on an adjacent bed to Alby, catching my breath. Gally didn't say anything, didn't even glance at me as he left the room. I stood up opening my mouth but closed it again. I let him leave. Thomas rolled his eyes. I watched Alby's heavy, but finally controlled breaths as he slept, ignoring what just happened.
"What about the note?" Jeff reminded.
"We'll worry about that later," Newt answered, not breaking his gaze from Alby.
"I think you should worry about it now," Thomas rebutted. This made Newt look up.
"We've got enough to deal with for the moment," He murmured to the boy, Newt's hand a millimeter from Thomas's. Someone wouldn't notice the tiny movement of Newt's pinkie that brought their skin together unless you were looking for it.
"He's right Newt," Jeff agreed. "If the box isn't coming back up, how long do you think we're gonna last?" The last part of his sentence made my spine shiver.
"No one said that" Newt choked. He swallowed, his throat bobbing as he devised his next choice of words.
"Let's not jump to any conclusions, let's just... wait until Alby wakes up and then..." His gaze reached mine for a moment, hitching my breath.
"Then we can figure this out," he concluded. No one argued over his decision.
"Okay," Thomas muttered before striding out of the room. Newt faltered slightly,
"And where are you going?" he asked.
"Back into the maze," Tom responded bluntly. We all looked at the boy, taken aback. Newt's mouth opened to say something, but Minho placed a hand on his shoulder before nodding in silent agreement and following Thomas.
Newt stood frozen. His eyes on Alby but I knew his mind was elsewhere. There was something about him. I felt like I just got him. And he got me. Like we shared the same wavelength. Maybe we knew each other before the maze... the thought hadn't really crossed my mind until now. I walked to his side.
"Newt, what does it mean when it says I'm the last one ever?" I asked quietly. He looks up at me.
"It means no more new greenies each month." He responded bluntly.
A moment passed when neither he nor I said anything. But I need to know.
"But why me,"
The blonde boy looked at me. His eyes filling with the same concern that consumes every boy in this Glade. Whether that concern is for me and what this could mean, or for the damage that I could have caused... I could not tell. Except, there was something different with Newt. The way the usual sparkle of determination has been snuffed out. His eyes looked tired. Sad.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Newt breathed, and although the dark circles under his eyes seemed even more prominent than usual, he still looked at me with a gentle smile that made my shaking hands relax and a weak smile reach my lips.
"I'm going to go see if Tom is okay... you should too," I suggested.
"He doesn't listen to me,"
"He does listen. He just... is too brave for his own good,"
We both chuckled softly before I gave him one last reassuring gaze before exiting the room.
As I left, I saw Minho and Tom talking intensely only a few meters away. I walked over to them, hearing the last part of Minho's sentence,
"Meet me in the woods in half an hour-"
"You're not really going back out there, are you?" I interrupted before Minho left. They both spun to look at me. Tom sighed,
"We have to get back out there Ella, we have a griever," he explained quietly.
"No. No, you're not going into the maze. I won't let you," I demanded.
"El-" Minho started.
"No! You guys just got out. I thought you both were dead," I croaked, voice turning to a whisper by the end of my sentence. Their eyes flooded with guilt. Tom took a step towards me and placed a hand on my upper arm.
"Ella... we have to. It could be our ticket out of here," he murmured softly. Minho stepped in,
"El... we're going whether you want us to or not but... we need your help," He revealed. I flicked between their sets of eyes.
"If Gally finds out that we are going back in..." Tom trailed off at the end.
"Yes?" As the word came out of my mouth, I saw the sheepish look they exchanged, and then I realized what they wanted me to do.
"You want me to distract him," I muttered, rubbing my face with my hand.
"He can't know what we're doing-"
"Yeah, yeah I know," I let out an exasperated breath. "Fine... I'll do it but I swear to God, if you guys get hurt, I'm going to kill you," I warned, ignoring the small smiles that crept on their faces as I stormed between the pair, over to find Gally. I ignore the tightening of my throat and use every ounce of my self-restraint to not turn around to look at them.
I found Gally fixing a wall behind the kitchen.
"Hey,"
He looked up from his work,
"Hey,"
"What are you doing?" I asked softly.
"Fixing this wall," he responded bluntly. I swallowed.
"Um, we didn't get to train today... do you want to go in a bit? Or later or you know we don't have to-"
He dropped the piece of wood he was holding on the ground.
"Let's go," he announced.
"Oh! Okay,"
"Punch harder El. Harder," Gally instructed. I did as he asked.
I punched the dummy harder and harder. My knuckles screamed at me to stop but I didn't. Gally had built this dummy from sticks, straws, and a few potato sacks. He hovered beside me as I punched its head again and again. Left. Right. Left. Right.
As I laid another punch a vision slipped into my mind. Ben. His hands around my neck. Screaming into my face.
"It's your fault! I saw you!"
I punched harder.
Then I saw Minho. Face broken. Exhausted. He wasn't going to make it out of the maze. He was stuck. He was going to die.
I punched harder.
Thomas. Leaving my grasp. I thought, for the last time. I pictured him in the maze with the griever. Facing it down with that unnatural courage that rips me apart at the thought of what he will do next.
All sounds except the thump of my knuckles against the straw was gone.
Newt. Images flooded my brain that weren't even real. Or perhaps not yet. Screaming in pain. Sobbing over Thomas's body. A spear pierced through his heart. People taking him away from my grasp. His scream morphed into one of a child's. It was my fault. I caused this.
Gally. I saw his face. In shock and then enveloped in the dark. His wide icy blue eye gone dull. I felt his cold cheek underneath my palm. The scream of agony came from my own mouth. He's dead. It's my fault-
I felt relief under my knuckles as the head flew off the neck of the dummy and into the bushes afar. I take a step back, my mind returning to my body. Gally looked out to the bushes as I sunk to my knees.
"Woah. Nice one that was really good-" he turned back and as he looked down at me on the ground, and noticed my face wet from fat, hot tears streaming down my face, his face turned from pride to utter despair at the sight of me. In a heartbeat, he was kneeling beside me and clutching the sides of my face.
"Hey, hey what's the matter?" he asked, I looked up at him. His face was urgent and tense but the image of his cold, dead face flicked into my mind.
"I can't do this anymore Gal. I can't- I won't. Seeing the people I care about get hurt. It's too much. It's too-"
A wrecking sob shakes my body. Gally wraps his arms around me. As I lean into Gally's chest, I felt his heartbeat, felt his warmth. This feeling usually centring me. But not this time. I gasped for air as more and more waves of sobs wrecked my body. We sunk further and further to the ground until I was lying into his body.
Gally shushed me and gently stroked my hair, placing soft kisses on the top of my head as he held me tighter.
"It's gonna be okay,"