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Newt suddenly twisted around and grabbed Thomas by the hand holding the gun. He yanked it toward himself, forcing it up until the end of the pistol was pressed against his own forehead. "Now make amends! 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 tried to pull his hand away, but Newt was too strong. "I can't, Newt, I can't."
"Make amends! Repent for what you did!" The words tore out of him, his whole body trembling. Then his voice dropped to an urgent, harsh whisper. "Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery."
The words horrified Thomas. "Newt, maybe we can—"
"Shut up! Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!"
"I can't."
"Do it!"
"I can't!" How could Newt ask him to do something like this? How could he possibly kill one of his best friends?
"Kill me or I'll kill you. Kill me! Do it!"
"Newt..."
"Do it before I become one of them!"
"I..."
"KILL ME!" And then Newt's eyes cleared, as if he'd gained one last trembling gasp of sanity, and his voice softened. "Please, Tommy. Please."
Thomas jerked the gun away from Newt's head, his heart feeling like it had been wrenched out. "I can't, Newt," he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes. He took a deep breath. He had to tell him, had to tell Newt, even if he was in some half-crazed, beyond-angry state. "Because I—I love you."
There was silence as they looked at each other in dead silence, Thomas's warm brown eyes desperately looking into Newt's.
"You didn't-shucking—" Newt struggled to climb off Thomas. "Thomas, you slinthead!"
Thomas flinched at Newt's outburst. "Newt," he said, reaching out to the boy.
"No! Get away from me!" Newt shrieked, jerking away. "You don't mean it! No one does! You don't mean it!"
"I do!" Thomas replied, standing up, his eyes stinging. " God , I just love you so much it hurts sometimes... I can't live without you, Newt. Please, please come back with me."
Newt stared at him.
Thomas waited for a reaction. Screaming, hitting, a verbal assailment, anything.
The blond's eyes cleared for a second as if he never were a Crank, staring at him with those wide, warm eyes-the eyes of the boy Thomas had fallen in love with-before he crumpled to the floor like an abandoned marionette, unconscious.
To say that Thomas was panicked and confused was an understatement.
"Newt?" he asked, leaping to his feet as he prodded his best friend. "Answer me, please!"
Thomas's mind spun, his heart pounding wildly. What was going on?
He slid his fingers under Newt's torn shirt collar to see if he had a pulse, his mind numbly screaming no, no, no! There was a wave of relief flooding through his body as he found a faint heartbeat but why did Newt suddenly black out?
There was a squeal of something metal grinding on the pavement.
Was it... was it Jorge? What was going on? Where were the others? Where were the other Cranks? Where was everyone?
There was a large vehicle in the alley way, now unmoving. The word WICKED in squat letters was plastered on the side.
The door opened, and people dressed in white started trickling out.
Thomas could only watch as rolls of horror started uncurling in his stomach as several WICKED workers swarmed around him.
He tried to open his mouth, but it felt like it was glued together. He felt numb all over, like someone had him on pause but the world kept rolling anyway.
He watched as white-clad people moved to pick up Newt's unconscious body in numb shock, the sound of his heartbeat ringing dully in his head.
Something only clicked when they started dragging Newt away.
"No!" he screamed, his voice sounding rough and scratchy, springing into action. "No! You can't take him!"
They hardly paid him any mind.
He scrambled forward, tripping over his own feet. "No! Don't touch him!"
Thomas felt someone grab him from behind and stick something sharp in his neck. Next thing he knew, the world in front of him started spiralling into darkness.
***
Thomas tried to open his eyes, but the light was too bright and it hurt them.
"Newt," he croaked out, the first thing that came to mind. "Where is he?"
"Alive," sneered a voice, a voice Thomas absolutely hated.
His eyes flew open, ignoring the burn in them at the sudden brightness. "You," Thomas snarled, struggling to sit up. "What did you do with him?"
Where even was he? From his best guess from a brief sweep around the sterile-white room, he was at some sort of WICKED medical facility.
Janson sat on a plush chair by the hospital bed Thomas was on, his hands folded neatly in his lap. "He's perfectly fine," he replied. He smiled, showing Thomas his crooked teeth.
"Fine!" Thomas shouted, his voice hoarse and cracking. His hands curled into fists. "Perfectly fine! Newt's... Newt's a Crank, and you say he's fine! He's going slowly insane and it's all your fault!"
"Now, Thomas," Janson said in a tone Thomas guessed was supposed to be comforting. "I would like you to calm yourself down, don't want to drug you again."
There was nothing Thomas wanted to do more than strangle the smugness off the man's face at that moment. He threw off the covers.
"Where's Newt?" Thomas's voice was low and threatening.
"I assure you, your friend is perfectly fine," he repeated.
There was anger, indescribable anger bubbling inside Thomas. "Why should I believe anything you say?" Thomas challenged.
Janson sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I would show you, but it's too early for that."
"Early? Early? Why?" Thomas demanded, a sick feeling of desperation and rage clawing at his stomach. "Answer me! Where is Newt? "
He tried to stand, but a sudden rush of dizziness and nausea forced him back onto the bed. "Answer me, you shucking piece of—"
"I'll take it from here, Janson." A calm, smooth woman's voice cut Thomas off.
Thomas closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath, trying to reign in all the emotions swirling inside him.
There was a sound of confident heels on linoleum, almost echoing in the now silent room.
Click, click, click, click.
"I must say," said Ava Paige airily, "we thank you for your willing cooperation for our newest variable. We weren't sure how effective it would be for our data, but once again, Thomas, you have out-proven yourself."
There was only one thing on Thomas's mind, only one thing he truly cared about at that moment. "Where. Is. Newt."
She gave him a smile that Thomas was not too sure was genuine. "You'll see when you need to. First of all, we need to record some more... information. First-hand, preferably."
She walked over to a chair beside Janson's, settling into it. She idly crossed her legs. "I would like you to talk about your relationship with Subject A5."
"Newt," Thomas grit out, "his name is Newt."
"Newt," said Paige, smiling once again. "Of course. Could you perhaps explain to me what sort of relationship you hold with Newt?"
Thomas's stomach twisted as he registered what she was saying. "What?"
Janson turned to Paige. "Like I told you, he isn't really the brightest bulb of—"
"Please be quiet, or I will have to ask you to leave this room."
Leave, Thomas thought. Both of you, leave.
"Thomas," said Paige, "you need to start talking. How about this, once we're finished, I'll let you see him. Does that sound fair?"
Thomas almost didn't realize himself nodding.
"Fantastic. Well, then, could you tell us when you started feeling something... a different sort of pull toward him?"
The words hit Thomas in the chest and it suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. "H–how did you...?"
Thomas wished he could erase the creepy grin Janson had sent his way from his memory.
"We can track your killzone patterns, Thomas," said Paige calmly. "We've inserted a chip in everyone's head—yours included—and so we could analyze your brain activity. We've found some interesting things in your mind... things we wouldn't have thought as a variable.
"We would've never considered love as a variable."
Thomas felt dizzy and could feel a blinding anger shoot up his spine. How could they have found out? How could they have invaded his privacy in such a way? Thomas had never felt more violated in his life.
"You had no right! It's none of your business," Thomas growled.
"Oh, but it is. We've found a weakness in one of subjects; we could hardly not study it, don't you think? It's interesting, we never would've imagined it. But our data doesn't lie.
"Did know that your brain releases a certain type of chemical if you're in love? At first we had assumed it was for subject A1, the girl Teresa, but we've noticed that your heart rate started only increasing around him— "
"Shut up! Shut up!" Thomas covered his ears, turning away from them, from Paige's neutral expression and Janson's penetrating gaze, feeling tears well up in his eyes. He didn't need to have a reminder of who he had fallen in love, didn't need his personal, intimate thoughts spoken out loud. "Haven't you taken enough from me? You've taken Alby, Chuck, my family, my memories, and all those other Gladers that did nothing to you... Just leave me alone !"
"Thomas..." came Paige's voice softly. Thomas did not look up. There was sound of sighing. "We'll let you see Newt now."
There was a quiet rustle of cloth and scraping of chairs against the floor.
In a couple of moments, the door clicked shut. Thomas looked up to see no one in the room.
Despite his wobbly legs and the twitch of anger still running through his veins, he tried to stand up again.
To his relief, he found that he could without stumbling.
On the bed stand was a notepad with something scrawled on it.
Room 25.
It must be the room Newt's in, Thomas thought. And so without hesitation, he left the hospital room into the hallway.
***
The hallways and room numbers were complicated. The hallways were too bright, and the numbers seemed all out of order. Only after a couple minutes of wandering, Thomas finally found room 25.
It was when Thomas was about to open the door, his hand closed around the doorknob the cold fingers of dread gripped his throat.
Could he stand seeing Newt as a Crank again?
Janson had said that Newt was perfectly fine, but there wasn't any reason for him to believe him. What if this was just another variable, just another sick experiment?
Thomas let out a shaky breath, trying to think of what to say, how to react when he finally saw Newt. His mind came up with a blank.
Without any more thinking, Thomas opened the door.
Newt was sitting on the side of the bed, looking down. At the sound of door opening, he looked up, face lighting up at the sight of Thomas.
"Tommy..." Newt breathed. "I'm so sorry, I—I didn't mean what I said before, it was just—I couldn't do anything about it, I couldn't control it—"
"Newt," Thomas said, cutting him off gently. "I... how long do you have left? B–before you—you—"
Newt drew in a breath. "I really don't know how to tell you this, Tommy."
"Just say it."
Thomas could hear his heart, thumping in his chest. He search the blond's face, trying to memorize every feature of him, trying to take to take in as much as Newt as he could before he lost him. Before Newt became permanently insane.
"I don't have the Flare."
There was a silence settling in the room as Thomas stared, trying to comprehend what had just said.
Newt tried a tentative smile. "Tommy... I—I don't have the bloody Flare."
"How?" Thomas blurted out. "The list, you were on it, and you were acting like a Crank and—"
"WICKED's doing," Newt sighed. "It's a lot to take in, I know. The nurse tried to explain to me what happen. Threw me into a buggin' loop."
Thomas looked into Newt's eyes. "Are you... are you serious? You don't have the Flare? I still don't understand."
Newt nervously ran a hand through his already tousled hair. He looked down, biting his lip. "I don't know how to explain it myself, so I guess I'll just say what the nurse told me. Um... so apparently me being a Crank was another variable, another experiment... for you? You know the chip that WICKED put in our heads to track our killzones... there's more to it than that. They can control your actions if they want."
Thomas nodded at this. He had been through it in the Scorch. It was a terrifying experience he did not want to relive.
"I've... been under their control. The nurse took the chip out, now, saying the bloody experiment was over, now, but they had made me act like a Crank for a shucking experiment, and there was nothing I could do to stop them, even when I wanted to—"
Thomas sucked in a breath. "You've been under their control? Since when?"
"I swear, I couldn't do anything—"
"Newt, since when ?"
"Since the beginning of the Scorch."
At his response, Thomas whipped around, turning away from Newt, his whole body trembling with fury.
"Tommy..."
"So was it all fake?" Thomas asked, still not turning around. "What-what we had? All those nights, talking. All those times I thought you understood , was it just WICKED, messing with me again?"
Thomas knew he shouldn't be taking his anger on WICKED out on Newt. It wasn't his fault, at all. But all he could feel at the moment was a blind rage coursing through him, threatening to take over.
"No! I swear that was me! I swear, I meant everything I said to you! I'm back, Tommy, I'm normal. I'm okay. I'm immune, just like you. I'm not going to turn into a Crank, ever."
Thomas closed his eyes, trying to take a breath. "I've... said things to you, Newt. Personal things. And you've said them back. And I just-hearing that you were under WICKED's control in entire time—"
"Not the entire time," Newt whispered from behind him. "I was me, most of the time. It was just random, sporadic bursts of me acting crazy Crank-like, I promise you, it was me when we spoke."
Thomas had a hard time swallowing or breathing. "I meant what I said to you, Newt. Earlier. In the alley."
"Tommy..." The raw pain in Newt's voice made him turn around.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"
Newt's hands cupped Thomas's face, their lips brushing. Their kiss was gentle and short, but after they parted, both of them were staring at each other.
"I'll always stand with you, Tommy," Newt said. "Always. I'll be here for you. And I'm bloody well not going to leave you."
Thomas gave him a small smile. He pulled the older boy into a hug, wrapping his arms around the blond's neck. "I love you, Newt."
"I love you too, Tommy."