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With sweet nothings on his tongue, he felt it – a white-hot pain, fleeting, fading – and then he was slipping. Those words were wedged in his throat, words like thank you and goodbye and I always loved you, but dying.
Dying, dying, dying. . .
The images were formed from small lights, twinkling against a backdrop of nothing.
“Break your promise and I’ll never forgive you.”
Thomas was quiet for a long time, watching him, and it wasn’t the first time that Newt had wanted to do something about it – about those eyes and that gaze and the way he lingered. And he’d never get the chance, not now, not with that thing swelling in his chest, in his limbs and in his mind. But God, did he want to. He wanted to move forward, cup that face in his hands then kiss it. Kiss him – kiss Thomas – and not just once or twice but so many more times.
And he could see it in his mind’s eye – the moment their lips would crash against one another in a fluid movement stemmed from pure impulse – and he hated himself for it, so he turned away and willed his thoughts to change.
Thomas followed after, a few steps behind.
The shank that clambered out of the Box was just like the others before him – all skin and bones and knobby knees, tear-tipped eyes and quivering lips. He asked the same questions, too; the where am Is and who are yous becoming almost overwhelming. And Newt knew he should’ve been annoyed by it, except he wasn’t, and that confused him about as much as the Glade did itself.
“What did I do – why’d they send me here?”
And Newt wished he could answer that – could answer everything – but he couldn’t and it sucked.
The words fell from his lips of their own accord.
“Don’t do it, Tommy! Don’t you bloody do it!”
But he did it – why wouldn’t he? – and the Doors closed in around Thomas, clinking together with a sound that left a hollow ache in Newt’s chest. For a moment it was like Newt was out there with him, surrounded by darkness, panic pressing down on him, then he blinked and it was gone and his fists were hammering against the Doors but they didn’t make a dent.
Thomas was the last one to say goodbye. He stood in the doorway, teetered, really, and waited until Minho and Jorge and Brenda were gone before he stumbled forward and his words blurred together. Then they were hugging – not unlike lovers – and there was a skip in Newt’s pulse, in his chest. Tommy, he thought, and his mouth might have formed those words against Thomas’s neck, my Tommy.
“Newt.” Thomas’s breath was a foreign feeling against Newt’s skin, and it made his stomach twist and turn. “Newt, we’ll come back for you. I promise.”
“Shuck it. You don’t owe me nothin’, Tommy.”
“But –“
“Thomas.”
Newt wanted to hold Thomas, to let his hands linger, to let his lips trace the curve of Thomas’s jawline, but with that Thomas pulled away and he had the audacity to look hurt. He went to speak, but Newt cut him off because he didn’t want to hear his protests. Except he did, a whole lot, and he hated that. “Just remember that buggin’ letter, all right? Now get goin’.”
“Newt, there’s something –“
“Stop.” Newt didn’t want to want to hear that voice, or those words, or feel that ache in his chest. He didn’t want to want Thomas, period. And maybe it was the monster in his head talking now – that thing in his brain, in his body, in his veins – because he’d never spoken to Tommy, his Tommy, with such an edge to his voice before. “I don’t want to bloody hear it. I’m a Crank, Tommy, and your words ain’t gonna change that. All you need to worry about is your own shuck hide, good that?”
Thomas stared at him. Then, slowly, “Yeah. Good that.”
Thank you. . .
Newt could see the pain etched in Thomas’s features, and the sight of it sent waves of pain over him, too.
He launched himself forward, scrambled to hold Thomas up. His fingers clung tight around Thomas’s shoulders, as if digging his nails into skin could possibly keep him conscious. Keep him alive. “What were you doing!” There was an anger in Newt’s voice that was alien to him, and a panic squeezing around his heart much too familiar. Newt fumbled for Thomas’s hand and held onto it. “How could you be so bloody stupid!”
Thomas was struggling to keep his eyes open. “No… Newt… you don’t understand…”
“Shut up! Don’t waste your energy!”
Tommy went to speak again but stopped. And then his fingers squeezed down on Newt’s hand and he was gone.
They were staring at each other. Ares or whatever his shuck name was and Tommy were staring at each other, long and hard, like they might make out any second now, and Newt hated it. Heat boiled up in his cheeks and he found his voice, calling out –
“Why’re you guys looking at each other like you just fell in love?”
Thomas didn’t even look at him. “He can do it, too.”
Somebody asked the question Newt was wondering – do what? – then Minho’s voice answered. "What do you think? He’s a freak like Thomas. They can talk in each other’s heads.”
Of bloody course, Newt thought, and he hoped his face didn’t show it. “Serious?”
Newt didn’t move for a long time after that – he stood, forehead pressed up against the Doors, watching, waiting. If he stood there long enough, maybe he could keep Thomas safe. Maybe the Creators would take mercy on him – on them – and time would speed up. So he stood there, waiting, waiting, waiting, and he wanted to scream, now more than ever, because he’d lost Alby and Minho and Thomas – Tommy! – all in one day.
Chuck tried waiting, too, but fell asleep some time before light touched the sky. Newt didn’t leave his spot until then, when he realised the stiffness settled in his joints and the fatigue that had taken hold of both of them. He nudged the kid, said his name a couple of times, then waited until Chuck stirred. “Come on,” he said. “Go to the Homestead – it’ll be warmer.”
Whatever fight in Chuck there had once been was gone now, Newt thought, because he nodded and mumbled, “Good that.”
It was an hour after Chuck had left that the darkness lifted, and the familiar thrum of the Doors opening sounded. Newt jumped to his feet, yelled out for the others, and didn’t wait before slipping through the crack and stepping into the Maze. Thoughts from another time flickered through his mind, slow at first then fast, too fast, and he wanted to run – not back to the Glade, but away. Anywhere.
Then the crunch of footsteps came from ahead and behind, and his eyes fixed on the figures in front of him – slim and tall and confident. “Tommy,” he mumbled, stepping forward. “What happened?” He wanted to throw his arms around Thomas, hold him and never let go, but his mouth had a mind of its own in these situations. “How in the bloody –“
“We’ll tell you later.” Thomas’s face was a mass of scratches and mud stains; his eyes were fixed on the throng of vines along the walls. The sight of him here – of him alive – made Newt’s chest ache. “We have to save Alby.”
And the ache just got worse.
Newt watched the rise and fall of Thomas’s chest, watched the way he scrunched up his face and curled himself into a ball. And, if Newt was being entirely honest with himself, he found it almost a little cute. Almost. A little. He’d never admit it aloud, of course, and so he settled with saying, “Glad to see you still know how to take a nap.”
Tommy shifted, wiped the sleep away from his eyes. When he spoke, he sounded about as cute as he had looked. Which wasn’t a lot. Definitely wasn’t a lot. “How long’s it been?”
It took everything in Newt to look away.
Immune.
The rat-faced shank threw that word around a lot, and it was starting to get on Newt’s nerves. “Just bloody get on with it,” he snapped, because his head was throbbing and he just wanted to know what the shuck was going on already. “We all figured we had the buggin’ disease anyway. You’re not breaking our hearts.”
“Yeah.” This was from one of the girls – Newt couldn’t be bothered looking at who. “Cut the drama and tell us already.”
Rat Man nodded, rambled on some more about tests and klunk like that, and then –
“The following people are not immune.” No pause. No hesitation. No sense of sympathy or sadness. “Newt.”
Newt had been expecting it – why wouldn’t he? – and so he would not react. He would not cry, or crumble, because he was above that. He was. But Tommy was falling over, shaking, staring at the ground, and it was enough to make something in Newt’s chest snap. Words caught in his throat and a few moments passed before he found his voice, and when he did there was a clipped tone to it that he didn’t like.
“Tommy, slim yourself.”
Thomas looked at him, eyes wide and so like how they’d been when he first crawled out of the Box. And it hurt. “Slim myself?” He sounded incredulous. “That old shank just said you’re not immune to the Flare. How can you –“
“I’m not worried about the bloody Flare, man,” Newt said, but, God, was he worried. Worried about himself, about the others, about what would happen. He forced his lips into a smile he hoped was reassuring, because he didn’t want to see Tommy like that, couldn’t stand to. “I never thought I’d still be alive at this buggin’ point – and living hasn’t exactly been so great anyway.”
Thomas smiled, but it was probably just as empty as Newt’s.
The light flickered, faded, then flared again.
Newt dithered his way through the crowd, looking at everyone’s titles and numbers and forcing his brain to make room for all of them. In a whir of A-sevens and A-tens and black ink, he found himself there. In front of him – in front of Thomas. Tommy, he thought, and a moment after he said, “What does mine say?”
He hadn’t let anyone else check – Thomas was the only one he wanted to have look. Newt turned around and waited, feeling Tommy’s fingers brush against bare skin as they fumbled about. “You’re subject A-five.” If he’d leaned a little forward his lips would be on Newt’s neck, and it was that thought and those that ensued that made Newt turn back around. “And they call you the Glue.”
Newt stared at him. “The Glue?”
He was very aware of the way Thomas’s hands had lingered around his shirt. Tommy let go and stepped back. “Yeah. Probably because you’re kind of the glue that holds us all together. I don’t know. Read mine.”
Newt’s tongue weighed like lead. “I already did,” he said, and he hated that he wasn’t sure of how to tell Thomas – his Tommy – what the smear of black ink on the back of his neck said about his fate.
“Well?”
“You’re Subject A-two.” He looked at the floor.
“And?”
Pause. “It doesn’t call you anything. It just says… ‘To be killed by Group B.’”
Chuck crumbled, a red mark on his chest where the knife struck. Then Thomas howled.
Newt wasn’t sure what was happening, registered only a blur of brown and black and then a grunt sounded from ahead and Gally was on his back, with a slim figure – Tommy? – on top of him, raining punches and yells and threats down on him. When Newt blinked he could only see blood: Gally’s blood, Chuck’s blood, Thomas’s blood, his own. The metallic taste was in his mouth, settling on his tongue, and something in his brain clicked and forced him forward.
He followed Minho’s lead and they grabbed hold of Thomas’s shoulders and pulled. Thomas kept hitting thin air, screaming to be left alone, eyes still fixed on Gally’s still body, and it hurt a whole lot to see him like that. To see him so broken and beaten and bloodthirsty.
Then, just as soon as it had happened, it was gone.
There’d been a boy, Newt remembered that much.
He’d had brown hair and brown eyes and pasty skin and long limbs. He’d had a nice smile – a crooked, toothy one that was almost never without meaning. He’d been Newt’s, hadn’t he? It seemed likely; the thought of him and that grin and that figure was enough to make Newt’s heart twist and his stomach do flip-flops. They’d once held hands and hugged, like the lovers they must have been. Or might have been – he wasn’t sure.
He wondered when the boy with no name would come back to him.
The lights blinked and time sped up. Fast, came a voice. His voice. So fast. . .
Thomas stumbled out from another room, his face cut and bloody and bruised. A white-hot anger flared in Newt’s chest and he wanted to hit something or someone, but he forced it down and threw himself forward. His arms had a mind of their own – they moved upward by inches, ready to wrap around Tommy’s shoulders and pull him close. And he almost let them, but Minho and Frypan and Thomas’s new girlfriend were all staring, so he caught himself and settled with smiling.
“Glad you’re not bloody dead, Tommy,” he heard himself say. “I’m really, really glad.”
“C’mon out, Crank. We know you’re in there.”
Newt’s chest tightened and something in his mind clicked. Thomas, he thought, because he knew who the boy was now and he knew who his friends were and could remember everything that had happened – the Glade, the Trials, WICKED. Everything was coming back to him in flashes, followed by voices. And he knew those voices. He knew them. Minho and Alby then Chuck and Frypan. Then Thomas.
“Tommy,” he breathed. Then, louder, because he’d never said it so that anyone could hear, “My Tommy.”
He fumbled in drawers and underneath chairs until he found a black marker and paper. The words wrote themselves in a tiny scrawl, and Newt watched as if from another body.
They got inside somehow. They’re taking me to live with the other Cranks.
It’s for the best. Thanks for being my friends.
Goodbye.
Goodbye. . .
Even in the darkness, Newt recognised them. Recognised him.
“I told you bloody shanks to get lost!” His voice was raw, and he realised that he had scarcely used it in the past few days. Thomas and Minho and that girl kept coming forward, though, and he couldn’t stand to see them or hear their voices or feel that ache in his body that was probably his heartbeat.
“We need to talk to you,” said Minho.
“Don’t come any closer.” He couldn’t remember deciding to talk, but the words tumbled from his lips before he realised it. “Those thugs brought me here for a reason. They thought I was a bloody Immune holed up in that shuck Berg. Imagine their surprise when they could tell I had the Flare eating my brain. Said they were doing their civic duty when they dumped me in this rat hole.”
Minho shut up then. But Thomas spoke, and something inside of Newt flipped. “Why do you think we’re here, Newt? I’m sorry you had to stay back and got caught. I’m sorry they brought you here. But we can break you out—it doesn’t look like anyone gives a klunk who comes or goes.”
Newt stared at him, fingers edging around the trigger of his Launcher – he didn’t want to shoot, didn’t want to hurt them, but he hoped he could scare them off. Thomas trained his eyes on it and Minho said, “Woah, there. Slim it nice and calm. There’s no need to point a shuck Launcher at my face while we talk. Where’d you get that thing, anyway?”
“I stole it,” said Newt. He added, because he needed them to leave and scaring them was the only way he knew how, “Took it from a guard who made me… unhappy.” He looked at Tommy, his Tommy, and wanted to hit him, now more than ever. Although maybe he wanted to kiss him – sometimes, the line between the two movements blurred into one and he couldn’t tell the difference. “I’m not… well.
“Honestly, I appreciate you buggin’ shanks coming for me. I mean it. But this is where it bloody ends. This is when you turn around and walk back out that door and head for your Berg and fly away. Do you understand me?”
Minho answered him, his voice raised. “No, Newt, I don’t understand. We risked our necks to come to this place and you’re our friend and we’re taking you home. You wanna whine and cry while you go crazy, that’s fine. But you’re gonna do it with us, not with these shuck Cranks.”
That was when something ticked inside of him – something like anger, something that wasn’t his to feel but was that thing in his head’s. He leapt to his feet, clutched the Launcher tight, and his words tasted like venom on his tongue. “I am a Crank, Minho! I am a Crank! Why can’t you get that through your bloody head?” He could feel his body shaking. “If you had the Flare and knew what you were about to go through, would you want your friends to stand around and watch? Huh? Would you want that?”
No-one answered him – he hadn’t expected them to. He rounded on Thomas.
“And you, Tommy,” he said, “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here and asking me to leave with you. A lot of bloody nerve. The sight of you makes me sick.”
Tommy. . . my Tommy. . .
“Hey, Newt. It’s me, Thomas. You still remember me, right?”
Newt wanted to laugh – of course he bloody remembered him. Since those days in the Berg where his mind had slipped and he’d lost everything, he’d forced himself to remember. That smile, that laugh, that voice, that heat that entailed Tommy’s presence. And he hated it. Hated Thomas. Except he didn’t, and that was the worst part of it all.
“I bloody remember you, Tommy,” he said. “You just came to see me at the Palace, rubbed it in that you ignored my note. I can’t go completely crazy in a few days.” There were times when he thought he had, undoubtedly, but then he focused on something – that smile, that laugh, that voice – and he knew otherwise.
“Then why are you here?” Thomas’s tone was gentle. “Why are you with… them?”
Newt looked at the others – his friends, he supposed – then back at Tommy. “It comes and goes, man. I can’t explain it. Sometimes I can’t control myself, barely know what I’m doing. But usually it’s just like an itch in my brain, throwing everything off-kilter just enough to bother me – make me angry.”
“You seem fine right now.”
“Yeah, well. The only reason I’m with these wackers from the Palace is because I don’t know what else to do. They’re fighting, but they’re also a group.” His chest ached. “You find yourself alone, you don’t have a bloody chance.”
“Newt, come with me this time, right now. We can take you somewhere safer, somewhere better to…”
Newt let out a curt laugh in response. “Get out of here, Tommy. Get away.”
“Just come with me. I’ll tie you up if it makes you feel better.”
The anger was back – the anger that didn’t belong in Newt’s body, flowing through his veins. “Just shut up, you shuck traitor! Didn’t you read my note? You can’t do one last, lousy thing for me? Gotta be the hero, like always? I hate you! I always hated you!” The lies left a bitter taste on his tongue.
“Newt…”
“It was all your fault! You could’ve stopped them when the first Creators died. You could’ve figured out a way. But no! You had to keep it going, try to save the world, be the hero. And you came to the Maze and never stopped. All you care about is yourself! Admit it! Gotta be the one people remember, the one people worship! We should’ve thrown you down the Box hole!”
Thomas turned and yelled something toward the van behind him. When he looked at Newt again, his face was drained of colour. “Newt, stop. Just listen to me. I know you’re okay in there. Enough to hear me out.”
“I hate you, Tommy! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! After all I did for you, after all the freaking klunk I went through in the bloody Maze, you can’t do the one and only thing I’ve ever asked you to do! I can’t even look at your ugly shuck face!” Lies.
The world dimmed.
Thomas stumbled backwards. “Newt, you need to stop. They’re going to shoot you. Just stop and listen to me! Get in the van, let me tie you up. Give me a chance!”
Newt choked out a scream and threw his body forward; an arc of lightning from the van shot past, crackled in Newt’s ears but still missed. He slammed against Thomas, pinned him to the ground with what strength remained in his limbs. A part of his mind hated to see Tommy like that, and yet another urged him onward, wanting to know what Tommy’s blood felt like on his lips…
He sucked in a quick breath and willed the temptation away.
“I should rip your eyes out,” he growled. “Teach you a lesson in stupidity. Why’d you come over here? You expected a bloody hug? Huh? A nice sit-down to talk about the good times in the Glade?”
Thomas’s eyes were fixed on him, as if soaking up everything there was to see. He shook his head.
“You wanna know why I have this limp, Tommy? Did I ever tell you? No, I don’t think I did.”
“What happened?” Tommy’s hand edged toward the gun around his waist.
“I tried to kill myself in the Maze. Climbed halfway up one of those bloody walls and jumped right off.” His chest heaved and his mind flickered to that day – the sensation of falling, slipping, of feeling free at last; the pain that flared upon landing; the taste of blood and dirt that lingered in his mouth for days on end. “Alby found me and dragged me back to the Glade right before the Doors closed. I hated the place, Tommy. I hated every second of every day. And it was all… your… fault!”
He twisted his body around and grabbed hold of Thomas’s hand, slipped his fingers around them until he was holding the gun, too. He gave Thomas the strength needed to keep the weapon steady, and a part of him registered that this was the last thing he’d ever be able to give Thomas. He’d never be able to give the boy the world, like he’d always promised himself. Nothing.
“Now make amends!” His voice was rough and clipped, and he wasn’t sure which side of him was talking anymore. “Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No-one else. Now do it!”
Thomas struggled, but Newt wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t let go. “I can’t, Newt, I can’t.”
“Make amends! Repent for what you did!” Newt was conscious of his body trembling, and, God, was he desperate. He didn’t want to yell anymore. He wanted to be gone. “Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery.”
“Newt, maybe we can –“
“Shut up!” Newt wanted to hate Thomas. Hate his hair, his eyes, his pasty skin, his long limbs; hate his smile, his laugh, his voice. But he couldn’t, and it hurt. “Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!”
“I can’t.”
“Do it!”
“I can’t!”
“Kill me or I’ll kill you.” More lies. “Kill me! Do it!”
“Newt…”
“Do it before I become one of them!”
“I…”
“KILL ME!” He drew in a quick breath, let his voice soften. “Please, Tommy.” My Tommy. “Please.”
I always loved you. . .
And then it was dark.