Chapter Thirty-Six
Thomas struggled to meet Minho's gaze, suddenly completely unwilling to lift his eyes from Newt. Newt was beginning to fidget in his sleep again and Thomas wondered whether it was because he could hear them. Maybe not understand because of the state he was in, but perhaps he could hear that there were voices.
Or maybe he was already starting to lose ground to the venom.
Thomas wanted to be sick, as if the act would rid him of the suffocating terror. When he did look at Minho he felt his energy fading as though the boy's gaze was burning it up. He was just as he had been five minutes previously. He looked at Thomas with those dark blue eyes and his unreadable expression.
Thomas wondered suddenly what Minho thought of him, of them. Of this year's Gladers. It didn't matter, did it? Not for their survival. But he found that part of him was stupidly curious anyway. He shouldn't care whether Minho thought what he was doing was brave or stupid. He shouldn't care what Minho would do if their roles were reversed. He had to focus on the danger he was in. On the danger Newt was going to be forced to put him in.
"You're not going to, are you?"
Aris's voice was as soft as it always was, but there wasn't a tremble in it even as he hesitantly voiced the chilling question that was looping in Thomas's own head like a mantra. He looked up at Thomas with his round green eyes and Thomas felt a stinging in the back of his throat because there was simply no way Aris was the fourteen years that Thomas had pegged him for on the Training Days. He looked up at Thomas with the frightened gaze of a child who looked barely eleven.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have been sent up. It made everything worse knowing what shouldn't have happened had happened and that he could do nothing to prevent anything. He felt entirely useless, small and insignificant as he looked down at the little boy who was seeking reassurance that Thomas wouldn't, couldn't, kill Newt.
The unbidden thought that he had been avoiding - one of many - sprang to the forefront of his mind as he looked helplessly down at Aris's fragile expression.
He wasn't going to be able to kill Aris if the situation called for it.
He had to get Newt out. He couldn't save them all. And knowing he wouldn't be able to hurt the kid only made it ten times worse because it meant knowing someone else was going to have to do it.
And Thomas couldn't let that happen either.
He swallowed hard as he felt the tears filling his eyes.
"No, he's not."
Minho answered for him and Thomas looked up. He was giving Thomas his heavy, calculating gaze again and Thomas felt himself beginning to buckle under the weight of it. Minho was right.
Thomas didn't have Ella's strength. He couldn't display the mercy she had.
He looked back down at Newt's pained face apologetically, shame welling hot and upsetting in his abdomen.
"You should go." he finally forced out, around the fear closing his throat.
"We should."
Minho's words landed hard on his skin even though he knew they were right. He couldn't free Newt of the dreadful torture to come and he couldn't let anyone else do it. The very best that he could do was let them go so that he didn't put them in any more danger than he could help.
"But… But i don't want to."
Aris's voice made Thomas tense, he found he had no wall that he could put up, no defence against the younger boy's concern. He shook his head.
"You have to. You'll get- You'll get hurt when the Careers come looking."
His voice was firm even though he felt shaky and weak. Aris's voice turned pleading.
"No! But-"
"I don't think he's going, Thomas." Minho commented, his tone as in decipherable as always.
In the Glade such a thing would have infuriated Thomas, his curiosity would have driven him mad until he could puzzle out the nuances, learn when Minho was being sarcastic and when he was serious because everything the boy said seemed a perpetual combination of the two. Had he always been that way? Or was it his way of dealing with the Games? If they had grown up in a district together would Minho have had less defences erected between him and the world?
"He has to. I can't make you take him. I can't even really ask you to, but…"
He turned his gaze on the stoic older boy and couldn't find the words. He wanted them to stay so badly. He couldn't bear the thought of being alone when Newt went through what was coming. The thought made his chest feel cold and tight. But that was the Hunger Games, wasn't it? In the end you were on your own. He'd known that his whole life.
And yet some part of him rebelled still, refused to believe that was all they were to amount to.
Wishful thinking.
He wouldn't be alone. He had Newt. He'd promised himself he'd get the blonde through this and he had to have confidence that he could do it. But he'd grown so used to the presence of Minho, of Aris. It was stupid and it was self-destructive and it was going to cause him pain and soon but he couldn't deny it.
"I-"
He didn't have words. He felt woefully inept and useless and he just wanted Newt to come back to him. He looked down at him. They had entered this just the two of them and Thomas would see it end that way. He had to.
"We're going."
Minho's words were clipped, decided. Firm. And as much as Thomas wanted them to stay he felt relief. His shoulders sagged.
"Good."
"Come on."
Thomas was adjusting his grip on Newt's unconscious form when Minho took him from him. He started, panic sizzling through him like a gust of cold air in summer. Minho lifted him with little effort, one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees. Thomas watched in confusion as Minho turned towards the shore.
"Move your asses, shanks."
He followed automatically, feeling Aris's bewildered glances and unable to answer them. Minho led them to the shoreline by the trees, and Thomas stumbled as the water level dropped, his legs weak with exhaustion and the cold, his skin clammy and the sole of one foot throbbing tiredly as the lake bed gave way to the sandy dirt. He tripped on the sand and fell, his reflexes far to sluggish to catch him.
Something sharp jabbed at his ribs and he flinched, rolling away and tangling in something. He reached for the ground, trying to right himself as his body tried to find some form of balance. The water had changed his equilibrium and land had to be relearned. There was something taught under his fingers and the feeling shivered up his arm in a familiar manner.
His bow.
He stumbled over their things on the beach. He'd forgotten all about them, presumed they'd been taken by the shadowy figures and in the panic of Newt's sting he'd forgotten to worry about things like water and food and weapons. As if in answer to the discovery his stomach rumbled.
"Aris?" He peered through the darkness for the boy. "Aris, our shoes."
"They're here." The kid's voice was warm and pleased, relieved.
Thomas allowed himself a smile as he found his shoes, sitting neatly next to Newt's just like they'd been left. He rolled his socks onto his numb feet, deciding that one of his heels had a gash in it that didn't like being touched. He gathered their packs and his quiver, weighing himself down and yet feeling lighter than he had for hours. He found Newt's jacket, and he clung to it as if it could make the upcoming process easier.
Okay.
Okay breathe.
He didn't have the energy left to argue when he discovered Minho's plan. He just took Newt back from him and let him get on with it, trying to hide the fact that he was secretly pleased underneath all the worry that piled up inside him.
Minho, being the shank that he so clearly was, had elected not to go anywhere. Aris grinned when he thought Thomas couldn't see, climbing his chosen tree for the night with a vigour he hadn't shown since…. Well Thomas couldn't remember. A day in the Arena felt like a week. Hours blurred and stretched like elastic and he could feel the air tense and threatening to snap at any given moment.
He gave Aris the sleeping bag and the big pack and the rope. Minho didn't take his own tree. Without any sort of explanation he followed Aris up the trunk, muttering under his breath things that sounded an awful lot like "Hurry up shuckface." and "Some time today would be nice."
And Thomas… Thomas scouted the thick brush that wound between two very closely growing trees, finding a spot that seemed semi-sheltered to lay Newt down. They'd be utterly screwed if anyone came along but it was the very best he could do. It wasn't like he could drag him unconscious into the high branches where they'd be safer.
He didn't want to think about the fact that when the screaming and the thrashing started Newt would be in danger of knocking them both from their perch. Newt was already tossing and turning, albeit in small and tired movements. His skin was hot to the touch and his voice whimpered and murmured in ways that wrenched at Thomas's heart. Thomas did his best to pour water from their water bottle down his throat, thankful that Newt simply let him.
He put the pack on despite how uncomfortable it would be to sleep. If they were discovered they might need to move fast and…
No.
Don't think about right now.
Focus on Newt.
Get him through the night.
He settled on his side behind the whimpering blonde, curling an arm around Newt's slim waist and tucking the other under his neck, clutching his bow. He pulled him close, the heat rolling from him warding off the icy night air. And despite how that felt he wished it wasn't so.
He pressed a worried kiss to the back of Newt's neck and closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. It might have been wishful thinking, because Newt wasn't supposed to be alert by now, but Thomas was almost certain that Newt pressed closer to him for comfort. He stroked the damp blonde hair and whispered soothing sounds against Newt's skin.
Thomas slid into an uneasy limbo. Not quite awake and yet not fully asleep he was plagued by shadows and frightening unseen monsters, far away voices screaming and shrieking. An uneasy and slimy feeling slithered around his insides, giving him goosebumps and the making the hair the back of his neck stand to attention.