61 Leo

"Why are you awake?"

After that meeting, I could never speak again. It was almost as if she couldn't see us, or hear us. Ella is slipping away. After Clint put her to bed, people started to talk. Of course, I couldn't stop them. I can't stop much.

The thought made me so nauseous I couldn't eat dinner. Although, I've been skipping meals a lot lately. I almost feel like I am wasting away.

"After that?" I respond, curling up against the door. My voice is quiet, the sounds drowning in my throat. "How could I sleep?"

"Clint explained to them her hallucinations," Newt sat down next to me. "How it's hysteria, and not as though she actually remembers anything. No one is going to banish her."

I hope not. The thought haunts me. I don't know if she remembers anything or not. Although I am at least a bit desensitized to threat of banishment, it hangs over my head. It isn't likely this will get Ella banished, nor is it likely she will die from this pain.

My fears with Michelle and Dawn are founded though. They are in danger.

"Did you talk to Clint?"

There is about three feet between myself and Newt. The space feels to wide. I glance over at him, noticing he is looking back. His face grimaces, since he knows the answer.

"No," I tell him quickly. "But he'll definitely listen now."

"Why?"

Should I just openly tell Newt I'm planning on blackmailing Clint? I can't risk it, since Newt could tell Ella. I couldn't get her banished. It's not that I don't trust Newt, or I mean, I guess I don't. I don't trust anyone when someone's life is on the line.

"If there is some fight going on, he'll want to put a stop to it." I am lying through my teeth, and I can't tell if Newt knows. "So, I mean, he might approve it quicker."

Newt shrugs. "If you say so."

We share a silence. It's comfortable, being on the wooden floor in the cold, with him. There is something about sharing the way we breathe. Our chests rise and fall together. Newt and I find a pace which we share. Everything about us seems to fit together.

Which kind of sucks, since I'm mangled and broken.

"Do you think Dawn and Minho are going to stay apart?" I ask, since I highly doubt it.

He laughs a bit, smiling. I can't help but join him. The grin fills my cheeks and my skin, although it burns my lips. It seems wrong, but with him it feels right. He makes it seem like all the problems of the world are jokes. "No way are they going to separate."

"They might," I suggest, although I know they won't.

He shakes his head, chuckling. It is infectious. Here we are, sitting on the floor in the dark, with only a candle on the stairs lighting the air, laughing at our friends doing dangerous things. Or at least, I'm trying.

"No, they won't." He bites his lips as he fully turns his body towards me. "Minho has never once listened to me."

"Really?" Now I'm curious. I still let my head rest against the wall, my back pressed against it.

"Here," he gets up, running out of the room. I find myself standing up, looking after him. I take a step forward but hear him call out after me. "Just wait."

He darts up the stairs, and I can hear his feet moving around up above me. They are quiet for a few seconds, before they become booming, running down the stairs he finds himself next to me. He nearly knocked the candle over on his way down.

"Here," Newt hands me one of the two glasses he has in his hands. They are filled with brown, which is what I assume to be Gally's drink.

"Seriously?" I ask, holding up the liquid. "You want to get shucked-faced at two am?"

"Three am," he corrects, glancing at his watch, "and if I am going to tell this story, we both need to be a little shucked."

He raises it to his lips, and I follow suit. I pound down the liquid, almost choking on its strong taste. I cough as soon as I am done, looking up at him as I wipe the dribble on my lips.

"That was nuts."

"That was the strongest stuff," he tells me. "Any more and trust me, you won't be getting up before lunch."

Noted.

He sits down on the floor, dropping the glass next to him. I do the same, although I do it more carefully than him. Normally, Newt and I don't hang out. I mean, we talk casually and chat I guess, but we don't have fun like this. Not this late, not this shucked, and not without the weight of some impending doom, and even though we are talking about Minho and Dawn's relationship, the conversation feels so lighthearted. So, unnatural. I'm not sure how to breathe in this clean air.

"Where was I?" He asks, since I guess he was distracted.

"Minho never listens to you..." I offer and he looks up.

"Oh right," Newt begins, a smile creeping up on his face. "When we first got here, I told Minho not to go in the Deadheads. Told him we didn't know what was in there. Thought it could be as dangerous as the Maze, but did he listen? No."

"What happened?" I ask.

He chuckles, leaning forward towards me as he does so. "Poison ivy."

"You're kidding," I didn't know we had that. "Seriously?"

He nods up and down, laughing as he speaks. "It was so funny, Lee. He was scratching for a week. We had to clear the whole forest 'cause of him. It was before any medical supplies had been sent up too. Poor shank. Right from the get go, I knew he'd be trouble."

They've been here for a long time. Half of them have been here some odd two years, and I know Newt is one of them. Most of the Keepers are, actually. I wonder how exactly they all went and got their order. The whole system seems a bit complicated.

"He used to sneak into the kitchen after running and steal food." Newt nods at the door. "I knew bloody better, but did he listen to me? Never. The slinthead didn't realise Fry had caught on. Before the week was over Min got salmonella."

"I didn't think Fry was that hardcore," I remarked.

Newt squints at me. "You never get between him and his Kitchen, let me tell you. Minho didn't rat on him, since Min was the one stealing food anyway. Both of them would've been thrown in the Slammer."

"Why bother telling Dawn and Minho to stay apart then?"

"I thought Dawn would've listened to you?"

I roll my eyes at his naivete. "Please, nobody tells her what to do. She climbs the shucking Walls if you turn your back. You saw her run into that Maze."

"Good that," Newt voice calms, before he laughs again. It's not ridiculously hard, but enough that it surprises me.

"What's so funny?" I can't help but feel myself giggling along. Like I said, his amusement is highly contagious. I can't tell if it is him or the drink that makes me smile.

"I was just thinking about the shucking mess we've gotten into," he shakes his head back and forth. "I mean, you and I haven't done anything wrong. As far as I can tell from you, anyway."

I raise my hands up in defense, as if to show him my hands are clean. It's something I do naturally, without really comprehending the meaning. Newt, at least, seems to get it.

"I take a bit of pride in that," he begins, "because if I bloody wanted, you could bet I'd be tearing it up."

"You, a bad boy?" I shake my head, playfully rolling my eyes. "No way."

"Ah, you underestimate me Greenie," he doesn't normally call me that, but for some reason it makes me feel as if we are the kind of people who can play around with each other. "I could mess things up if I wanted."

I can't help but keep shaking my head. "No way, you care about the rules too much."

"I'd say the same about you," he remarks, "but you and I both are covering up two huge scandals right now. Banishable sandals."

I laugh, but don't have it in my heart to correct him. Scandals, not sandals. He just looks at me funny before continuing. "With the whole, fighting thing and romance thing. Two of Alby's biggest rules."

I guess he's right. Neither him and I give a shuck about the rules. Or, maybe we do, but we care about our friends more. "That might help explain why we are both drinking stolen drink."

"Gally will never notice," he tells me, "and if he does, he has a million other people he'll blame first. I guarantee, you and I are the last Gladers he'd accuse of that."

"Good that."

"My point is, you and I care more about other people than the rules." He tells me. "I mean, do I think Minho and Dawn shouldn't be together? No, not really. Do I think it's shucking dangerous, and they should stop? Yes."

I almost agree. Though I know Minho is good for her, part of me still wants her to not be with him. A part that I don't like. I'm not the person who thinks like that, or feels like that. It's just stupid, and unnecessary. I'm trying to be happy though, so I don't want to think about that.

"It's the whole banishing thing that makes me nervous," I tell him. "Like, as shucking stupid as it is, I think Michelle should be allowed to punch any shank she wants-"

"Why?" He asks, carefully.

"Because as far as I know, all of them so far have deserved it." I tell Newt, carefully.

"Good that," he nods. "I was right happy when you first got here and she socked Gally in the face."

I wish I had seen that. I was a bit preoccupied though, all with running for my life.

"I'm sorry she pushed you into the Box." When we first got here, Newt had helped me up. That all feels like so long ago, even though it wasn't even three weeks ago. "You didn't deserve that."

He shrugs, "I don't know. Maybe I did. I was staring a bit at you."

I can't tell if he means all of us, or just me. The thoughts swims in my skull, and I can't help the heat that warms my cheeks.

"Still," I try to speak, but I'm a bit flabbergasted. "You didn't deserve that."

He shrugs, leaning back against the wall. It's so very late, and I am so very tired, but I don't want to leave. I really like just being with Newt. In a way that makes me feel like I'm committing a betrayal, but I don't know what kind.

"Yeah, I guess not." He leans back again, and we are close. Really close. Closer than friends are normally at hours this late in the night. The moment has stilled, and I can feel my chest and his chest rising in sync.

If I wanted to, I could... I don't know.

In one sharp breath, I don't know if it is he or me who pulls away first, but he scoots backwards and I turn my head away.

"It's getting..."

"What time..."

We both stop talking, our words eating at each other in the echoing silence. This time, it's uncomfortable and it tears itself apart.

"I have to be up early for the announcement," when I glance up past my hair, I realise he is talking more to himself then me. Talking himself off the edge of a cliff, as the silence rings. For a few seconds, he doesn't move. We sit feet apart, the space only growing with time. Newt may be here with me, but he is alone.

He picks up his glass off the ground, leaving mine, as he scurries away.

When he walks up the stairs, I realise I am alone too.

~~~~~~

This chapter is so good and great and I swear I have nothing evil planned soon.

Actually, this book has been so tame. Only one person has died so far, and none have been brutally murdered. Soon, though, soon that might happen.

I'll see you soon, in Dawn and an Inquistion