Minho roared like an angry lion. The hot tingling sensation died instantly. And it was replaced by white hot anger. I reached up and snatched the knife off the bedside table while Minho climbed off me and spun towards the door.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with everyone?!" Minho yelled. 

"I...I heard yelling...she was yelling stop....ummm..." stuttered Thomas. 

"You need to leave." I snarled. "I can't see straight so I have no problems if this hits you!"

He spun around and fled as I threw the knife. It sunk into the door frame. Minho was standing with his chest heaving and his hands clenched in fists, every muscle was coiled. 

"I'm going to kill him." 

"I've been saying that for the last two days, glad you agree..." Then muttered to myself, "only after you've been cock blocked." 

Minho slowly turned towards me, he had lost some of the anger. He looked back at the knife in the door. 

"Are you serious when you said you can't see straight?" 

"No. I'm dizzy, but I can still hit a bullseye." I shrugged, then winced, the stitches pulled., "Shucken stitches." 

Minho sunk down onto the bed beside me. His head in his hands with a frustrated growl. 

"This never used to be an issue." He grumbled. 

"Yeah...it's 'cause I'm the only girl. And their all teenage boys. Know how many boys I've had to literally fight off when I'm in the shucken shower?" 

"Is that why Winston or Newt are standing outside the door?" 

"Duh."

"Why don't you ask me?" 

I raised an eyebrow, "Do you think you could handle that?"

"Handle what..?" He asked innocently, a sly smirk appeared on his face. 

"And that's why I ask Newt or Winston." I rolled my eyes. 

Once we were both dressed we made our way slowly to the Fry's kitchen, it was already past breakfast, but because I was on bed rest I was the exception. The sun was bright and hurt my head, I had to squint. I pulled the hood of my sweater up so it shaded my face. Walking was okay, unless I had to walk down hill or stairs. My world would spin randomly, but the sickening throb wasn't as bad. I held food down. 

"It's nice to see you up and about, Jessie." 

"Thanks Fry." I gave him a small nod. 

"This your nurse maid?" 

I grinned as Minho sputtered, in mock shock. 

"Well considering he's got a day off and I can't remember the last time he had a day off...I'd say he's pretty whipped." Frypan chuckled as he handed me a plate of food.

I snorted, and turned slowly to look at Minho who was smirking and had his arms folded. His dark eyes sparkled with amusement. He looked at me and his smirk grew. 

"I don't mind." 

Frypan roared with laughter. I was glad my face was covered by the shadow of the hood, I felt my face heating up. Once he was back under control, he tried to talk.

"Man. Never did I see this comin' the Lady of the Night got the cold stone broody boy whipped like a little love sick puppy." 

"Never underestimate the power of seduction, Fry." I grinned, and winked, and walked away to go eat. Frypan howled with laughter again. Minho slid onto the bench in front of me. It was nice and quiet in the dinning area, everyone was off working. The constant banging if hammers was hurting my head, but it was manageable. I heard footsteps behind me. 

"Baby Shank it's never going to work." I said, not even bothering to look up or around. Minho looked up and smirked. 

"Ahh man!" Chuck pouted. He plopped down on the bench beside me. "Even with a shuck concussion you're better then all these shanks." 

"That, we can agree on." I nodded, "So what can I do for you?" 

"Nothin'." He shrugged. "Just wanted to come say hey." 

"Well hey." 

His eyes were nervously flicking up at Minho. He kept fidgeting nervously under Minho's intense gauze. I threw apiece of a toast at Minho. 

"Stop scaring Baby Shank!" I chastised. 

"Hey!" Chuck protested, his chubby fists on his hips, "I'm not a baby!" 

"And I ain't scaring him. I'm just looking." Minho protested. 

"Chuck have you ever actually talked to Min?" 

Chuck shook his head. 

"No? You just like to try get all the juicy details from me and every other idiot out there?" I gestured to the Glade. 

Chuck grinned sheepishly. Minho threw his head back and laughed. 

"Oh little Baby Shank...that would make your eyeballs fall out and you would never sleep again." Minho grinned evilly. 

"Don't give him any more ideas! He's already worse then some of the guys here! And he swears just as bad as we do!" 

"Well if he hangs out with you and Dug... I don't doubt that." Minho raised an eyebrow and pointed at me.

"True. I ain't a very good influence." I gave the guys a twisted smile.

"But you still haven't taught me to throw knives." Chuck pouted. 

"One thing at a time. You still gotta learn to drink a jar without spitting it out." I chuckled. 

We lapsed into a comfortable silence, only for a few seconds and then Chuck was off of on another one of his long rants, this time it was about a dream, something to do with a ketchup bottle and a banana, and a clown. I stopped listening. Instead I was gauzing at Minho. He was enthralled with the dream Chuck was describing. 

I watched as his eyes lit up, and how they formed little crescent moons when he smiled wide. Dimples showed on his cheeks when he smiled with his teeth. I watch his little mannerisms; chewing his cheek and pulling his eyebrows together when he was thinking. When he had a fork or utensil in his hand and he wasn't using it he tapped it on the plate or table. He always kept his eyes on whoever was talking. When he laughed he threw his head back, and it usually came straight from his gut, when he was really laughing, he would hold his chest and really throw his head back. 

He must have felt my eyes on him, because his eyes flicked to me, and lingered. He slowly looked down at my lips and back up to my eyes. My stomach fluttered, thinking back to this morning, or last night. I felt heat rise in my face. I bit my lip to keep from smiling like an idiot. Minho subtly raised an eyebrow and then flicked his eyes down to my lips and then the shuck face winked at me. I just about melted into the table. 

"Hellloooooo?" 

I snapped my eyes away and looked around at Chuck, who was looking at me with a smug smirk and his arms crossed. 

"You done drooling over McDreamy?" 

"Did...did you just call me McDreamy?" Minho asked, a huge smirk growing on his face. 

"Yeah. Yeah I did. Got a problem with it?" Chuck challenged.

"Actually no. I quite like it." 

"Of course you shucken do." I muttered. 

"Well, I was asking you a question, but you two were too busy undressing each other with your eyes." Chuck rolled his eyes. 

"I see what you mean now Jess. He's been hanging out with Dug."

"Actually I got that from Newt and Winston." 

"Of shucken course you did."  I grumbled, "I need to have a few words with those two!" I slowly and unsteadily got to my feet. 

"Where are you going?" Minho asked. 

"To have a few words with two people who are way too involved in my personal life." I huffed. 

"No knives."

"I left them in the room."

"No hitting."

"Why not?" I whined. 

"Because their your friends." 

"Lame excuse." 

"Be nice."

"Nice is not a word in my vocabulary." 

Minho rolled his eyes. He got up and took our dishes to the Kitchen, and I slowly went to go talk to Newt and Winston. Minho said he needed to go talk to Gally about something. And said he would come find me. 

•×•

Newt, Winston, Chuck and myself were sitting under a tree in the shade. I had to lay down, my head was spinning, but I didn't want to be inside. The fresh air felt nice. 

"Okay so what exactly happened?" Newt asked again. 

I groaned. I threw an arm over my face, I could fell it heating up, not because I was embarrassed, but because my stomach would backflip and my heart fluttered when I thought about it. 

"We have baby Shank here, and I can't give you details." I avoided the question. 

"Oh come on. I've heard some pretty raunchy things around here."  Chuck threw his hands up into the air. "Did he walk in on you two doing it?" He asked bluntly. 

"What? NO! Chuck!" I yelped, I flung my arm off my face. I was completely shocked he would say it so bluntly.

"Well then it wasn't that bad!" 

"We never got to it, cuz the stupid shucken Greenie!" I muttered. 

"Why did he do it?" Winston asked.

"He's an idiot. That's why." I grumbled again, placing my arm back over my face. 

"Well he came tearing out of the buggen' homestead real fast." Newt chuckled. "The bloody fool." 

"He literally busted through the door. Claiming I was yelling for help." I grumbled. 

"Well...were you?"

"Shuck no! What would I need help from?"  I peeked under my arm and Winston, he had a knowing look on his face. I threw a stick at him. "Get your nasty ass mind out of the gutter...we were fully clothed thank you." 

"Uh huh." He smirked and rolled his eyes. 

"Shuck sakes you guys are awful."

"Oh come ON, JayJay." Winston cried, "This is the most exciting thing to happen since Dug fell into the cow pie pile."  

I snorted at the mental image. 

"Chuck!" Frypan yelled across the Glade, "I need ya Kid!" 

Chuck got up groaning and slouched away. The guys were quiet for a moment watching him walk away. I kept an arm over my face. 

"It's true, though Jess." Newt nodded, "I've know Minho for as long as I can buggen' remember... and I've never seen him bloody care this much, show this much emotion or worry this much."  

He paused, and I felt his hand pull my arm away. I squinted up at him. I saw his shaggy blond hair and big brown eyes looking down at me. 

"Jess, I know you don't see it, I know you're not the buggen' lovey dovey couple, but you have had a real bloody impact on the shank. I was worried about him. I really was. He's my best friend...he helped me through some rough times...I know the shank keeps things bottled up, I thought something awful was gonna happen." 

I slowly pushed up and sat up, I sat cross legged and leaned on my elbows. 

"He said he had it planned..." I whispered. 

The guys were quiet. 

"I know." Newt said quietly. "He told me." 

I hung my head, again I blame the concussion because words were coming out of my mouth faster than my brain could process. "I...I've tried...more than once." 

"Inside the Maze?" Winston asked quietly. 

I shook my head, "That wasn't intentional. If you can believe it." I hung my head again. I needed to lay down, my head was spinning. I lay down, but Winston pulled my head onto his lap, and started to absent mindedly play with my hair. 

"No, first time was in my first Maze. It was early on, after the first changing. Sonya pretty much tackled me, slapped the knife away...Harriet had to help hold me down. Sonya helped me through it after. She was my rock..my sister...She saved my life." 

"And the second time?" 

I took a shuddering breath, I could feel the sting of tears, a few of them leaked out. The guys were quiet, waiting for me to go on. They were patient. Winston's hands playing with my hair was calming. 

"After the Greenie's fire." I whispered. 

"Wait...like 2 days ago?" Winston gasped, his hand froze in my hair. I could feel his eyes on me. I could picture his shocked expression. I just nodded. 

"In...in the map room." 

"Why? Why Jess?" 

I slowly sat back up. 

"There are things I gotta explain first." 

I paused a tear leaked down my cheek. It was now or never. Minho kept saying I needed to trust. And I knew Winston and Newt would keep my secrets, they had proven to be guys I could depend on. And that thought alone shook me to my core. I was trusting someone other than myself. I was trusting someone other than Sonya, and even she wasn't fully in on everything. I took a slow shuddering breath. I was taking a sledge hammer to my walls, at least with these two. I was smashing the walls down down dust, opening the gates wide and letting them see the broken black messy monster that was huddled in fear inside my soul. 

 And I slowly explained it all. They sat quiet, eyes wide and mouths clamped shut. At one point Winston took hold of my hand, and held it tight. I told them my memories, they didn't seem overly shocked, I guess they were smarter than I gave them credit for...or i was just in denial that I could keep that hidden. I also, with tears streaming down my face told them about the teddy bear and Chuck. 

"Wholly shit." Winston whispered. 

"And then...in the map room... I took your advice Newt, and I wrote instead of the knife-"

"I'm really buggen' proud of you Jessie!" He said quietly, his warm brown eyes were full of tears. 

I gave him a small sad smile. 

"I wrote...and I got scared. I realized I'm not...I'm not just reliant on him, I don't just trust him-"

"You love him." Winston whispered. 

I nodded, "Yes." my voice was barely above a whisper. 

"So you realized you loved him...and then tried to kill yourself?" 

"Yes. Newt...you should understand depression and anxiety." I said it a little more harshly than I intended. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a steading breath. 

"After everything I've told you....I still feel like a monster, like I don't deserve any of this, I still struggle with accepting who I am, what I am. I don't want to feel like this but I do. And it's going to take a long time to change. So yeah, at the moment I didn't feel like i deserved it. I should get to have love or give it away when I have no concept of love, when all I've done is rip families apart, when all I've done is kill." 

"But JayJay...you said you had no control over it....and Like Minho asked...are monsters born or created? You obviously weren't born a human killing weapon. You said they trained you, and you fought against it...so deep down, the real you is fighting to be free." Winston said gently, squeezing my hand. 

"I'm trying. I've opened up to you two. You two know more than Sonya and I was with her for two and a half years. But I can't change everything in a few weeks. I still freak out when Minho and I get to close to crossing that line, and I love him." 

"We know Love." Newt said with a smile. 

"And we are all proud of you Jess." A deep voice said behind me. 

I jumped and yelped. The one time I didn't hear some one coming behind me. I was too focused on talking with Winston and Newt, I didn't realize Minho had walked up and had squatted down. I grabbed my head when I whipped around. I had to clamp my eyes shut. My world was spinning and I whimpered. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't want to interrupt." He pulled me closer, holding my throbbing head. "I'm so proud of you for opening up." He whispered. 

"Three people with loaded guns." 

"Three people who love you and want what's best for you." Minho corrected, "I think it's time for you to go have a nap." 

I just nodded. I opened my eyes and looked at Newt and Winston. They were looking at me with shinning eyes and small smiles, there was no pity. 

"Please don't say anything to Chuck."

"Not our buggen' story to tell or our place to say." Newt said gently. "Go have a rest Love." 

I nodded slowly. Minho helped me up and guided me back to our room. He lay down with me, and I was asleep in a few minutes with his hand buried in my hair and his other hand rubbing my back.