Ella 16

"You're not going to sneak off again, are you?" The crowd around us has quieted, while the rain continues to rap down on the roof. It is steady, and firm. Despite the nature of the Scorch, the room feels cold.

I shake my head back and forth, leaning against the wall next to her. She holds a metal water bottle against the back of her head. There is an eruption of colour across her face, but she chooses to focus on the grey cut. The grey doesn't mix well with her blonde hair. She and the smoke don't belong together.

"Sonya," the word is soft against my lips. Almost so much so that I forget it's been assigned to her. Not a real name. Prettier than mine though.

She glances over at me out of the corner of her eyes, before looking back down. She stares into her lap, shaking her head back and forth. I follow her movements, diverting my gaze. Every time I look at her, she flinches.

"Ella?" Sonya counters.

It's just nice to be with her again.

My hands quake, before I look up at her. There are so many words to tell her and now I can't figure out an order to string them out in. They stumble and fall over my lips, slipping in my mouth as they try to escape.

She sighs, lowering the water bottle. The metal echoes as it touches the ground, and I wince at the sound. No one turns to look.

"It's about Emil, isn't it?" She doesn't seem content to answer me. She sticks her hands out and begins to pick at the dry skin peeling off her hands. In defeat, she drops them immediately. "You want to know how he died."

Yes, and also no. The truth isn't something I want. I need it like air. When I think about forgetting, my throat closes in on itself and I start shaking. Ignorance is almost like drowning.

Sonya leans her head against my shoulder. Her neck tenses for a second, but then she learns to relax it. My whole body is as stiff as a board. "You remind me of him. Weird behaviour and all."

He was much kinder than me. I am to resilient.

"He was sick," she tells me. It's an echo of words I've heard Leo use to describe me. They tell me that she didn't know him. She was like his Zart. "Emil killed himself."

"She's pretty," he smiles, his eyes darting across the lunchroom. They land on her.

She really is. I mean, like, the whole room couldn't take their eyes off her if they tried pretty. Beautiful like nothing I've ever seen pretty. Beautiful like in the movies, where you see her and then everything slows down. Where our mundane days could feel energetic.

"Yeah, I guess," I pay more attention to my food than her, which is quite the change over the last few weeks.

"You're lucky," he offers, gesturing to her. "My bunkmate is a big dumb teenager. At least she looks like someone you could talk to."

That's where he's wrong. She's so pretty that I couldn't talk to her even if I wanted. That's the way things are around here.

"Does he suck that much?" I ask, looking back up.

"Big time," he rolls his eyes. "I don't think I'll live through another night with him."

"I didn't know he was upset," her cheeks are flushed pink, as she stares at her hands. The red lines, imprints from her bindings, still wrap around her wrists. They ensnare her and hold her in a false prison. Eli should've been there. He would've stopped it. I know him.

It's in his nature to save.

"I would've stopped him if I had known," she seems swallowed in her own grief. She doesn't know Eli. In fact, she never even knew his real name, assigned or otherwise.

"I did," when I speak, she snaps her head up and starts wincing. I lean over, looking at her. She is holding the back of her head again, wincing. Her hand lifts off her hair, only for a brief second, and I notice the blood staining her hand.

I reach up for her fingers, but she backs away. Carefully, she looks at her palms and notices the colour. She mumbles to herself, reaching down on the ground and picking up her bandana. Tying it around her head isn't going to fix the problem, but I can't figure out a way to articulate that into words she could understand.

"Why don't you come eat lunch with us?" Her voice is quiet and kind. It slips through the dark over to me. In this lack of light, it is hard to tell that she is so far away. It feels as if she is breathing into my ear. I like having her this close. "The other girls aren't so bad."

I turn around, shuffling until my back faces hers. I want to tell her its because Eli needs me, and it is. But, it's also because I need an absence of those girls. The longer this goes on, the less likely it seems I will be joining their group.

"I'm fine." She rushes through the words, not convincing me, nor herself. Fine does not equate bleeding. In fact, bleeding indicates that there is a problem at the surface level. Hers seems to run even deeper.

"How well did you know him?" I ask.

Eli and I sit together. His head rests against my shoulder, as we wait outside the room. Result day, or something like that. Clearing us to join the others, or something like that. Something that makes my stomach twist and shout.

We're older now, I think. His hair is turning browner. He needs to lean down, his legs stretch out behind him, to lean against me this way. It doesn't feel as naturally anymore. We are growing into different people. Different goals.

"I don't get why you are so insistent on joining the girls." He laments, shuffling beside me. "You are always the one to go against everything they say. Why are you so keen to obey?"

I roll my eyes glaring down at him. He seems to sense my gesture. It's a connection the two of us have begun to share.

He picks at the denim of his pants. "I mean, I know it would be hard. But you always have a way of Emily-ing things."

"Emily-ing?" I demand.

"Making a big show of doing something impossible, just to piss somebody else off," he shrugs. "You seem to do it at least three times a day."

"He didn't speak much," Sonya tells me. "Emil was nice, but silent. It was impossible to get to know him."

I can't be here. In this room, with the pitter-patter of rain falling around us. In this blue light that he would never get to see. Eli should be here. I don't know where he could have gone. He must be here somewhere. Deep within my thoughts, he is alive.

I turn to face her, staring straight into her face. Her eyes are light blue, and concerned, and ones that are different from those I met years ago. Eyes that have seen death. Eyes that do not recognize me.

"Don't you want to know why we are where we are?" I ask. "Not the physicality. The motive."

She looks out at the ceiling, staring up at the cracking white plaster. As if she expects that the solution lies within the spiderweb above us. Unfortunately, we are too tangled to get out. I don't have the full story. I can't comprehend.

"I know the motive," she tells me. "They say it's a cure."

"I meant why this context," I can't explain it, and I'm getting frustrated. She places a hand on mine, but I shrug her off.

"Why does it matter?" She asks, shaking her head. "Knowing why WICKED chose to put us in the Scorch isn't going to get us out of here."

I don't care to know why we are in the Scorch. Separation matters. It was because Eli and I were different. We tricked them, and we bypassed, and then we rebelled. One of our ideas, our combined efforts. We pulled it over their eyes.

"I don't care about the Scorch. Why him?" I meant. What's the motive for his death?

She doesn't seem to like to dwell on this, shifting away. "He was sick, El."

"It can't be just that," my voice is a harsh whisper, and I only notice because she flinches.

"He was sick," she reaffirms, her eyes blinking rapidly. "He would always say and do crazy things. He would just keep mumbling to himself over and over again."

"What would he say?" I hiss.

She pauses, her eyes flickering over me. As if, for the first time, realising I am here. "Romantic Authors."

The world goes silent. I get up, without a word, running away. I don't know where I end up, except that the room is dark, and silent, and the idea turns in my head.

Romantic authors.

Lottie, Shelia, Jane, Emily.

Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelley, Jane Austin, Emily Dickinson.

Romantic authors.

Leo, Don, Michael, Eli.

Leonardo Da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael.

Renaissance artists.

If Eli and I had really picked our own coalitions, we would not show any connection between us. A romantic author, an inventor, a scholar, maybe an explorer. If we had rebelled, there would be no similarities.

Yet, we were all named after the same people.