| chapter 28: six words |

LISA

I groaned and lay the marker down on the table. My hands were hurting like crazy. Next to me Teresa grinned. 'Tired?' 

I looked at her and smirked. 'You wish.' 

She smirked back and shook her head. 

When I actually got to know her she turned out to be a lot like me, and I liked her for it. 

Suddenly the door opened Newt, Dawn and Thomas walked in. I raised my eyebrows. Thomas was the only one who looked excited. Newt had an angry frown on his face and Dawn looked like she could break down any moment. I didn't even dare to ask what happened.

'Come here and check this out,' Teresa said. I gestured at the piece of paper that lay before us on the table. Dawn and Thomas walked towards us. 

'I'll get down on my knees and kiss your bloody feet if you can figure it out,' Newt said. 

I snickered. 'I'd like to see that.' He just ignored me.

Teresa took a step backwards so Thomas and Dawn could see the paper. 'No doubt this is right,' She said. 'Just don't have a clue what it means.' I bent over to take a look at it again. We had written down the six words. Which we got after we had puzzled the whole day. But to me they were nothing but a waste of time.

Six words.

FLOAT. CATCH. BLEED. DEATH. STIFF. PUSH.

That was it, just those words.

'That's all? Are you sure they're in the right order?' Thomas asked. 

'The Maze has been repeating those words for months-we finally quit when that became clear. Each time, after the word PUSH, it goes a full week without showing any letter at all, and then it starts over again with FLOAT. So we figured that's the first word, and that's the order,' I explained. 

Thomas folded his arms. While Dawn was still staring at the words, a frown on her face.

'Cheerful, don't ya think?' Newt said. 

'Yeah,' Thomas replied with a frustraded sigh. 'We need to get Minho down here-maybe he knows something we don't. If we just had more clues-' Suddenly he stopped speaking and grabbed the table firmly with his hands. 

I frowned and Dawn gave him a worried glare.

'Tommy?' Newt asked, a look of concern creasing his forehead. 'What's wrong with you? Your face just went white as a ghost.' 

Thomas shook his head. 'Oh...nothing, sorry. My eyes are hurting-I think I need some sleep.' He rubbed his temples as he said so. 

Dawn looked at me and I shrugged, though both of us knew there was more to this than Thomas was letting on.

'Well,' Newt said, reaching out to squeeze Thomas shoulder. 'You spent all bloody night out in the Maze-go take a nap.' 

Thomas looked at all of us before nodding and leaving the weapon room.

Dawn sighed. 'Well, guess Minho was right. We're really shucked then.' 

I looked at her. 'Where is your positive energy?' I asked, surprised. 

Dawn looked at me and shook her head. Then she left the room as well.

'Dawn!' I yelled but she didn't answer. I looked at Newt who stared with a weird expression on his face at the stairs. 'Newt? What's wrong with her?' 

He looked at me, a sudden anger crossing his features. 'How should I know?' He yelled, making me jump in surprise. 

'You don't have to shucking yell at me, shank. I know you have something to do with Dawn's weird behaviour. I mean, look at yourself, you're acting just as weird.' I didn't give him time to respond, leaving him to figure it out himself and instead I made my way after Dawn.

I left the room just in time to see her disappear around the corner. 'Dawn!' I yelled again but she didn't stop. A sigh escaped my lips. 

She went into her room and closed the door. Something told me she didn't want to talk. Well, shuck that. 'Dawn, what the klunk is wrong with you,' I said, entering the room.

She was sitting on the bed, putting the arrows in a line on the matras. 'What do you want, Lisa?' She asked, and sounded just as tired as she looked. 

'Same as you,' I replied. 

Dawn raised her eyebrows. 

'Answers,' I explained.

She rubbed her forehead. 'Lisa, I'm not in the mood.'

'You never are,' I snapped, getting tired of her strange behaviour. 'What's going on with you and Newt? Why do you suddenly know how to handle a bow? And why do you keep things from me?!' I yelled the last sentence, showing her how I tired I actually was of all this klunk.

She flashed an angry glare at me. 'I don't know what's going on with me and Newt! I don't know why I can handle a bow! And I'm really sorry I didn't feel like telling you I wanted to kill myself!'

I threw my hands in the air with frustration. 'At least tell me what you feel! Tell me what happened! That would be a really good start!' I raised my voice, talking louder and louder. She was really getting on my nerves right now.

'Since when do you care about other people!' Dawn shouted back at me.

My heart stuttered in my chest. 'What do you mean?' I asked, my voice softer now.

She put her hands on her hips. 'You may be a Med-Jack but all you care about is yourself! You didn't care about Teresa in the elevator! You don't take any advice from Minho and you even pretend to hate him. Shuck-your first intuition when you heard the walls didn't close, was to hide yourself!'

I took a shaky breath. 'Of course I care about others. Maybe I just have a weird way of showing it! I cared about Teresa but I was too busy with trying to remember something, with trying to know where I was! I don't care about Minho 'cause I barely know him but I have taken his advice! I cared about you going through the Changing, those days were the worst of being here!' 

She blinked, confused and her hand left her hip.

I raised my head, and gave her a stern glare. Right now, she could go to hell. 'That's right, you're really good in thinking that you are such a wonderful person and that all you do is caring about others. While actually all you do is trying to find yourself back, through others. Maybe you should see what others do for you instead of trying to find yourself.'

I saw hurt crossing her face but I didn't care. Right now I just didn't care. Putting her down made me feel so much relief. I shook my head, turned around and leaving the room. Not feeling a single piece of remorse. I slammed the door behind me, storming down the stairs, only to ran straight into a broad chest. I groaned and rubbed my noise.

'Evening, chick,' A deep voice spoke. 

I sighed. 'Minho.'

He smirked at me, crossing his arms over his chest. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. 'Have you taken a look at the code words yet?' I asked him. 

He nodded, a frown appearing on his face. 'Actually I have, and you know what?' 

I narrowed at him.

'It made me wanna shucking punch something.'

A small smirk appeared on my face. 'Good, because I happen to be in an agressive mood.'

He grinned and took my arm, pulling me along to the punching room..

It didn't take long before we were back to punching each other, dodging each others blows whiel sweat crawled down my back. I was getting much better at this, faster and my punches were definitely getting stronger. I almost hit him right in his face but he was faster and moved away at the last second. We both took a step backwards, breathing heavily.

'It's getting hot in here,' I mumbled.

Minho threw me a smirk. 'Yeah, I get that a lot.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Is that the best you got?'

His smirk grew wider and in one smooth movement he took off his shirt. 

A scoff left my lips. 'Yeah, I should've seen that coming.' I sighed and shrugged then. 'Fine, you play dirty then I get to play dirty as well.' And I took off my shirt as well. Lucky for me I was wearing my sport bra. I guessed I would need it, as it seemed like I would be running a lot the coming days.

'Fine,' Minho said, rolling his head and taking a defensive stand.

'Fine,' I answered, raising my fists.

Then he lashed out, I rolled down, jumped up and was about to punch him in the shoulder. But he was faster and caught my fist in his hand. I groaned and kicked him against his knee. He let go. I threw another punch his way and quickly turned in a small circle to stop him from catching my arm again. He raised his arm to protect his face from being hit.

I lifted my leg to kick him but he was faster and caught my leg. I had only a second to look at him with surprise before he threw me on the ground. I let out a small yelp but wasn't about to give up this easily. And so I kicked him against his legs, taking him down with me.

What I hadn't counted on, though, was him falling right on top of me.

His face was only a few inches away from mine. I could feel his breath on my cheeks and my heart started beating faster. His lips were close to mine, his eyes twinkling with amusement as he waited for my next move.

I pushed him away and got back on my feet. Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I turned my eyes to Minho, feeling totally dazed. Minho, on the other hand, seemed very alert. His face was like that of a deer caught in headlights, as though being so close had startled him.

We just stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

'I'm sorry-' 'I can't-' We spoke at the same time.

I coughed. 'You first,' He said, gesturing at me, all his confidence seemed to have disappeared. 

'I can't do this,' I whispered. Then I took my shirt from the floor, pulled it over my head and walked out of the room.

I had no idea what just happened, all I knew was a part of me actually enjoyed it and that was what scared the hell out of me.