Chapter 21

Skylar's POV

I stared into the eyes of Newt with a somewhat hard to pull off blank expression on my face as I waited for his explanation. He seemed clueless at first before he finally caught on and asked for the other boys in the room to leave to give us some privacy.

"Where should I start?" He asked as he sat on my hospital bed. I thought for a moment before I finally decided on a suitable answer "Where did you disappear to?" I asked

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before he answered me, looking deeply into my eyes as he did so.

"The day you couldn't find me was the anniversary of my arrival in the Glade. I have been counting the days of me being here since day one and that day marked three years in this place. Every year I spend that day alone to just think and I guess I just didn't think to tell you." he said

"But why all the secrecy?" I asked immediately after he had finished talking.

"I didn't know how you would take it I guess so I just didn't tell you and then pushed you away when you tried getting more answers."

I nodded my head and told Newt to give me a brief summary of everything that had happened in the Glade while I was in another coma and once he had finished I was shocked. There was another girl in the Glade. A girl who seemed to be out to cause this place hell.

Newt told me about what she did to Alby and me and when he told me about the injections she had done to us it made me think back to the pain I had felt when I was in the coma. It hadn't been like the last comma I was in, there were no memories just pain all over my body starting in my heart and slowly spreading all over my body. There hadn't been a minute where I could hear anything around me and I was just faced with a dark blackness.

I subconsciously lifted a hand to the left side of my chest and felt a sharp stinging there so I unbuttoned by top and ignored Newt for the moment as he blushed a deep red. I looked down and just above where my bra began was a green dot which was mixed with a tint of red from my blood. I ran my thumb over where the injection had clearly been stabbed into my chest and felt the same stinging but it was gone in an instant.

"I know what happened to me." I said suddenly which caused Newt's eyes to snap back from the puncture on my chest, or just my chest in general - hormonal boy.

"I was stung by a griever while I was sleeping but it got my heart. That Teresa girl you talked about injected me and Alby with some sort of serum to it which cured is both from the griever venom." I said as I stared at the wall behind Newt.

"How do you know?" He asked quietly as I buttoned up my top again .

"I just remember. Its weird like I just got flashes of images of what had happened but they weren't my own. I cant explain it but it was ... different." I said

After that Minho came to visit me but I didn't talk to him much and spent a lot of the day with Chuck and Jeff in my hospital room. When Minho walked in I barely said two words to him before I turned my attention to Chuck as he told me stories about what I had missed when I was out. I was angry at Minho for how selfish he was but Newt told me he was slowly starting to forgive him so I tried to do the same.

For the rest of the day I spent time with my friends but wasn't allowed to leave my hospital room which got really annoying and I was only allowed twenty minutes out of the homestead to shower and use the toilet. Newt accompanied me to both though I didn't allow him inside the shower cabin or the toilet (obviously) so I was forced to hear him pacing back and forth next to the door while I showered.

I was told I had to remain in the homestead under the careful watch of all of the Med-jacks and Newt until they were all sure I was fully healed and okay because they all worried about the injection I had had three days ago. Despite my protests I couldn't make them see sense that the injection had saved my life so in the end I gave up.

Newt and I decided to take a walk around the Glade for a while after I had whined so much about being cooped up in a small room all day so eventually he took me out. We didn't do much and he wouldn't let me climb into trees but we talked a lot more and I found out that while I was showering, Alby had woken up from his own Griever induced coma.

Nobody was allowed to see him but Alby had requested to see Thomas almost immediately after waking up and then started strangling himself so Minho had to step in and save his life. That was a first since the last time him and Alby had been together Minho had ditched him to save his own life.

"-and now Minho is making him a runner." Newt finished off and I sighed, I had missed a lot again while I was in another coma.

So Thomas would be a runner, I guess that's cool although he hadn't wanted to go into the maze in the first place which confused me. I had also been told that Gally was the one who pushed him in and had confessed about it in a gathering which I also found confusing because he had been defending me while he confessed. I thought he hated me. People are so confusing sometimes.

"And what's my punishment?" I asked suddenly, wanting to know what the other boys had decided about another one of my breech of the rules.

"You don't have one. You might have ran into the maze but you ran in to save our leaders life and for that we have decided you shouldn't be punished." He said but somehow I knew that if it wasn't for the fact that I was a girl that I would have been thrown into the slammer. I would have argued about this but I suddenly grew too tired to care and crumbled into Newt and he skilfully caught me.

"I'm sleepy." I murmured with my eyes already closed but I fought to keep them open so I could see Newt's beautiful face.

"Sleep angel, I'll be here in the morning." He whispered in a voice so sweet and soft I had a hard time imagining him ever being the boy that jumped off of the wall two years ago. I slowly brought my hand up and let my index finger trace his jaw line before cupping his cheek completely and bringing his lips down to mine for a sweet kiss. He pulled away after a few moments and lifted me into his arms, the cold night air brushing against my skin as he carried me back into the homestead but by the time he had placed me on my hospital bed, I was already asleep.

The next morning I was greeted with the sounds of Newt's snoring coming from a chair next to the bed and for a few minutes I just watched him sleep peacefully. I brushed the hair out of his eyes as his soft snored filled the room and then slowly crawled out of the bed and walked down the stairs. It was barely morning but Frypan and the runners where already up and preparing for the day so I was able to get breakfast easily without queuing up.

It was just after I had handed Frypan my empty plate when the doors to the maze made their horrible grinding noise as they opened and the sound made me think of Davis and if he was alive. I doubted it since I hadn't seen him while I was in there and the grievers probably got to him the day he ran in but I was curious.

The runners where all lined up at the entrance of the maze as they waited for the doors to fully open and I took notice that standing among them was Thomas, I guess his training started sooner than I thought it would have.

I watched every boy as they ran into the maze in a trance like state until Newt's booming voice snapped me out of it. He screamed my name so loud I was sure the creators would have heard it even if they didn't have the beetle blade camera's everywhere.

I spun around quickly, just in time to see Newt charging into the kitchen while he shouted my name continuously like a mad man. I stood still with my arms crossed over my chest as I waited for him to reappear but when he did he ran straight past me as his eyes darted from place to place quickly.

He stopped running a few steps in front of me and scanned the nearby area so I took the moment to clear my throat and his head snapped towards me. Upon seeing my face again he let out a breathy sigh before charging at me and tackling me into a huge bear hug. His arms snaked around my waist as he easily picked me up and spun me around while I dug my fingers into his shoulders to keep myself from falling.

I let out a small giggle as he spun us both around and leaned down to peck his lips when he stopped but he had other ideas and instead of a short innocent kiss like I had planned he deepened it by putting his hand to the back of my neck and pulling me impossibly closer to him.

I let out a moan as his toung slipped into my mouth and felt his grip on my waist tighten as I wrapped my legs around his torso. We both fought for dominance over the kiss but I eventually gave in and let him take control while I ran my hands through his surprisingly soft hair. I gently tugged at his hair and earned a groan out of him which made me smile into the kiss.

Soon, too soon, our kiss was interrupted by a very disgusted Chuck as he started yelling loudly,

"They're eating each other! Shucking hell we're turning into cannibals. I'm never going to un-see this!"

I blushed furiously as some of the nearby boys doing their jobs turned to look at us and Newt chuckled at my beet red face. He gently set my feet back on the ground and took hold of my hand instead, interlacing our fingers together and swinging them next to us.

"You worried me. I thought something had happened to you." He mumbled as I turned to look into his eyes. I grabbed hold of his other hand and interlaced our fingers like the other hand and smiled up at him.

"I just got you back and I'm not letting go that easily." I whispered into his ear as I pulled him closer to my height.

Before he could reply I sprinted off into the deadheads and let the trees zoom past me as I ran. I knew how much Newt worried about my safety but I felt as good as ever and wanted to prove it. I ran to the tree Newt had usually found me in and climbed up its branches but settled in a low hanging one so as not to give him too big of a heart attack.

In a matter of minute Newt was standing in front of me scowling up at me while I dangled my legs beneath me and batted my eyelashes innocently. "Come down Sky." He ordered but I shook my head and stood up on the branch. I reached up to grab onto the next one up but his hand caught my ankle before I could pull myself off.

I tried shaking his grip off of me but it didn't work and in the process made me lose my balance on the branch so I fell off. For the second time since being in the Glade for almost four months I felt myself letting gravity pull me down and waited for the harsh impact of my back hitting the ground but again it didn't come.

Once again I landed in the safe arms of Newt who held me close to his body and cradled me as if I would break at any moment.

"You should really be more careful angel." He whispered in my ear which made shivers run up my spine.

I shrugged in response as I thought about why he wasn't angry like I thought he would be. I stared into his gorgeous brown eyes as neither of us said a thing. Our faces where extremely close together so just the smallest movement would cause our lips to brush together and I waited for Newt to close the distance but he didn't.

Just as I was about to close the distance myself his arms let me fall to the ground so I fell on my bum but instead of helping me up he straddled my waist and started tickling me furiously. I couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled in my throat as I tried to push him off of me but he had the upper hand.

"Stop... oh god Newt... you're ... killing ... me" I breathed out between hysterical laughing fits.

Suddenly his hands stopped tickling me and he stared straight into my eyes while I tried to regain my breath and wriggle out of his iron tight grip. And then he said the words that had the breathing pattern I had just regained go to a complete standstill.

"I love you."