Author's note~ Short again; the next few will be longer.
"Stop struggling, I'm not going to hurt you. Listen closely. The choices you make now determine whether I live of die."
Panic flew through Newt as soon as that arm closed around him; he fought desperately to get free. Fear sweat slicked his skin, his breath trembled. He couldn't break free. In his panic, the shouts of the other gladers seemed faint and indistinct, as if they were far away. Dragging at the arm around his neck, fighting to push away from the warm rigid body behind him, he heard the man's softly spoken words but failed to understand them. A large hand clapped over one of his. Still squirming and struggling, his breath coming in terrified gasps, the boy didn't understand what the hand was doing for a moment.
-tap- Pause.
-tap- Pause.
When Newt froze for a second, the newly familiar message distracting him, the man hissed in his ear again.
"Stop squirming around kid, unless you want to kill me. I'm not going to hurt you. Calm down."
The arm around his throat, while still firm, gentled a bit. Newt, stunned into stillness at the words, tried to slow his breathing.
"Greenie...what the...shucking slinthead!...grabbing me like that...why the fu-"
"Shut up and listen, would you? I can't talk any louder than this, and I could really desperately use a hand getting out of this goddamn metal crate." The man croaked quietly. "Can you tell your friends to calm the hell down, and shut up a bit?" The noise from the other boys suddenly same back to the foreground, and the shouts were almost deafening.
"Newt!"
"What the hell? What does he want?"
"Freaking Shank!"
"We'll get you out Newt!"
"You hurt him, and we'll bolt you back in place and let you rot!" Alby's voice threatened darkly among the other questions and exclamations.
Frazzled, confused, and still riding the kick of adrenaline that had surged into him when he was grabbed, Newt yelled up to the frantic boys surrounding the box.
"Oi! SHUT UP A MINUTE!"
The silence crashed down as though someone had suddenly shut the entire crowd behind a door.
"Let them know I'm not going to hurt you. Please."
"He says...he says he's not going to hurt me. Slim it a sec, okay?"
The small sea of faces stared, incredulous and disbelieving.
"Thank you. I'm going to let you go now."
As good as his word, the arm confining the boy disappeared. Newt scrambled away, stopping a good four or five feet away from the man, facing him. The man rolled his eyes at the boy, picking up the knife from where he'd laid it beside him. Without trying to communicate, the man pulled the bandages at the front of his throat out far enough to slide the hunting knife beneath the linen and quickly sliced through them, peeling them back from his skin carefully. Fully visible in the late afternoon sunlight, a thin glinting silver wire ran tightly around his throat. The boys gasped as one. Small dribbles of smeared blood, dry and fresh, clearly showed where the wire had cut into his flesh. He then turned the knife and held it by the blade, tossing it handle first towards Newt. It landed with an echoing clang beside the boy. Newt picked up the knife.
"Jeff was right. You're still tagged in place," Newt said, his words far calmer than he truly felt as he approached the man again. "You only grabbed me to get to the knife, so you could show us how to help you." Within reach of the man once more, he held a hand out to the man, offering it. "If you let me check where the wire connects to, I can cut it at the anchor point-"
The man shook his head slightly, speaking too softly to hear, one hand at his throat. Newt gingerly leaned forward, trying to hear the scratchy words.
"No, can't cut it-with a knife.- Do you -have wire -cutters? -Shears? Heavy- scissors? I need- something that -will snip it -not -hack through it.-Pulling on it- slice my-throat"
It seemed to be getting more difficult for the man to speak. His breath came in quick gasping pants. Newt straightened quickly, looking up at the rest of the gladers.
"Scissors, shears, wire cutters. Anything like that. Now!"
Half a dozen boys broke away from the group, darting back to camp to see what they could find. Taking a chance, Newt kneeled next to the man. He heard the thump of boots landing behind him, and felt a large hand grip his shoulder, hard.
"You okay Newt?"
"Right as rain, Alby. Bloody shank startled me, but I'm fine. No harm done."
Alby looked at the man tersely, his anger only partially eased by Newt's placating words. "We have rules here, greenie. You never harm another glader. You're on seriously thin ice, here, grabbing Newt like that."
"Only-way." The man gasped.
Minutes ticked by, feeling like hours as the two boys and the prone man waited in tense silence. After what felt like an eternity, a voice was heard from up above.
"Pruning shears! Only thing we've got!"
"Toss them here." Alby commanded. He caught the shears easily, looking at the man suspiciously. The man held out his hand. Ignoring it for the moment, Alby looked right at his friend.
"Newt?"
"Yeah. Go ahead."
Slapping the shears into the man's hand, Alby grabbed a handful of Newt's shirt and dragged him backwards a few steps, just in case. The man reached behind his head with both hands, closing his eyes as he felt around. The muscles in his arms trembled as he fumbled for the wire. His fumbling movements stopped suddenly, he didn't even breathe. Everyone else watched with hushed expectancy. They heard a loud click. Eyes still closed tightly, the man slowly straightened up from the wall for the first time.
Still holding his breath, the man slid the narrowest point of the shears beneath the wire at the back of his neck. A fresh trickle of blood dribbled down his front as he worked the blade under the garrote. With a sharp squeeze and another loud click, the man cut the wire choker open. Dropping the shears, he took one end of the wire in each hand and slowly, delicately peeled it away from his skin. As he finally removed it from the front of his throat, he took a deep, shuddering breath; his first full breath in two full days. It sounded like a roar in the piercing silence.
Lifting a hand to his unencumbered throat, the man hung his head and just breathed, visibly overwhelmed by his freedom. Feeling that the danger had passed, Newt extracted himself from Alby's restraining grip and went to stand next to the man, reaching out to touch his shoulder lightly.
"Thank you. Thank you. " The man rasped, his voice gravelly but clear. He looked up at the boy. "Thank you."
"Told you greenie," Newt smirked, trying to lighten the seriousness of the whole situation, "We're here to help you. You're a pretty sad sight at the moment, to be honest. Still sure your name ain't Mary?"
The man gave a weak, grinding laugh at the bad joke, quickly dissolving into a coughing fit. Spying the water bottle that Newt had left him the first morning, he uncapped it and took a big mouthful, swishing vigorously to rinse the blood from his lips out of his mouth and spitting it out, then quickly draining the rest of the bottle. Clearing his throat, he looked right at Newt.
"The name, kid, is Adrian. And I believe there is a guy by the name of Jeff who owes me a drink."
A bit or relieved laughter rippled through the boys. One or two had obviously been indulging during their meal; in a heartbeat someone had passed a mason jar half full of pale amber liquid to Alby. He held it out to the man, a mildly challenging look on his face. The man took it, sniffed it once, then tipped it back and drained it in one long swallow, letting out a long satisfied sigh.
Newt snorted. Alby clapped a hand on Adrian's back.
"Let's get the hell out of this box. Welcome to the Glade, Adrian."
"Absolutely." Adrian agreed. He tucked his left leg underneath him and pushed up, eager to stand on his own two feet. His right leg buckled beneath him and he stumbled, barely managing to grab the wall and stop himself from crumpling into a heap. In his haste to get out he had seriously misjudged how weak he really was; two days with no food or water compounded with blood loss had sapped his strength. He felt dizzy, lightheaded. He trembled from the effort of holding himself upright on his good leg, the throbbing beneath the bandage on his right thigh beating like a drum inside his head.
"I...might need a bit of help." He admitted.
Author's note ~ Ready or not, Gladers, here he comes.
~Ruby