Chapter 24
Its been a week and now it was the day that Teresa would be let out of the slammer so she could begin living like any other glader. I had hoped my insecurities about her wanting Newt would have died down by this time but evidently they haven't which I know is stupid considering she only called him hot but it was still a new thing for me to be worried about a girl taking Newt. I was used to worrying about the creators or grievers or memories from my past life but Teresa was an all new territory for me to handle.
As I lay in bed with Newt's arm wrapped over my stomach I wondered if things would change with a new girl around. I wondered if people would act different and go back to trying to impress the girl like they had with me.
I didn't plan on getting up at any time soon but when I heard the sound of boys running around frantically near the homestead and gladers shouting, I knew I would have to get up.
I shook Newt awake and told him to get dressed while I climbed out of the bed so that I could pull on my boots and then ran down the stairs so I could see what everybody was fussing about.
For once I didn't need to ask anybody what the problem was because one glance towards the sky told me all I needed to know.
It was no surprise that people were panicking since the usually blue sky that was lit up with the sun and decorated with clouds, was now dark with no life to its grey colour.
I stood in the doorway of the homestead with my mouth agape as I took in the unfamiliar sight while the other gladers were shouting at each other, begging one another for answers that nobody would be able to give.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" Newt asked from besides me as he made his appearance.
"No idea." I muttered under my breath before I started pacing around the Glade as I tried to find somebody I could talk to like Alby or Minho.
I found Alby in the gathering room with a bunch of other gladers surrounding him and Minho who looked like he was as clueless as anybody else.
"For the last shucking time, I don't know what is happening to this place." Alby shouted over everybody else's voices but it didn't make them quiet down, in fact it had the opposite effect.
"What's going to happen?"
"What are we gonna do?"
"Why is this happening?"
"What are you going to do?"
People where shouting their questions at a blank faced Alby who just stood on a chair and listened to everybody's questions without making an attempt to answer them.
Almost on instinct I wanted to quiet the boys down so that we could have a civilised conversation so I did the one thing I knew would shut them all up.
I screamed.
The piercing noise that left my mouth seemed to bounce off of every wall and echo continuously until every glader was silent. When I had everybody's attention on me, I stopped my screaming and looked at each boy expectantly. Nobody moved.
"Well at least I shut you all up." I muttered under my breath but I knew everybody has heard me because of how deadly silent the room was.
"Alright then, would somebody please explain to me why the hell you are all in here when near to none of you are keepers?" I asked the room but nobody met my gaze.
"Well?" I pressed and a boy I couldn't remember the name of slowly raised his hand.
"We just want answers Skylar. None of us know what's going on." He said
"And you really think those two do?" I asked signalling to Minho and Alby who were still standing on chairs and watching me.
"Did it ever occur to any of you that both of these guys know as much as you do? Yes Alby might be the shucking leader but that doesn't mean he knows why every shucking thing happens here." I said
Everyone remained silent.
"And why do you guys think you have a right to know more than the others out there? Who told you that you had a 'right' to more information?" I asked but nobody answered
"Should I remind you all that Alby was stung by a griever less than two weeks ago. Do you really think that screaming at him for answers he clearly doesn't have, is going to help him?" I said and I could see the guilty faces on some of the boys faces.
God I felt like a mother disciplining children.
"Leave." I muttered and pointed to the door.
Newt kicked and held it open while the boys immediately fled from the room which left an annoyed looking Alby who was glaring at every boy as they walked out of the door, and a relieved Minho. After every boy had left the room Alby and Minho jumped off of the chairs and Newt closed the door behind the last person. The four of us each pulled a chair from around the room so that we could all talk without someone over hearing us.
"What are we going to do?" Minho said as soon as we were all sat in a tight square with Newt next to me, Minho opposite him and Alby directly in front of me.
"We should ask the girl if she knows anything." I said and they all turned to look at me
"I'm not trying to accuse her of anything I just think its strange how this is happening the day she is getting released and since we know the creators are watching us, what reason do we have to suggest they haven't done this on purpose?" I questioned
I realised I had asked a lot of rhetorical question in the last five minutes at that point and had to resist rolling my eyes at my own weirdness.
"We should ask Thomas too, she might have told him something." Newt piped in
Alby nodded his head and told us not to answer anybody's questions since we didn't know what was happening and didn't want the Glade to go into an even more panicked state.
We all walked out of the gathering room almost straight after that, Newt and Alby went to go and find Thomas while Minho and I decided to go find Teresa to see if she would tell us anything.
We found her sitting underneath the tree I liked to climb, pulling dead grass out of the ground and staring into space. I decided to sit opposite her so I wouldn't seem too patronising while Minho chose to stand behind me with his arms crossed, being the perfect picture of intimidating.
"What do you know about all of this?" Minho said as he waved his arms around to signify what was happening to the Glade. There was no beating around the bush with this guy.
"What do you mean?" Teresa asked but I could see in her eyes that she knew what we were talking about and knew why we were talking to her.
"Do you know what is happening?" Minho asked again while I decided to remain silent as my head was aching from the scream I had let shatter every boys eardrums and the lecture I had given them all.
"Nope. All I know is that five people have came up to me today and called me some weird names then blamed me for what is going on here. You guys sure know how to make a girl feel welcome." She muttered the last part under her breath but I still heard it.
"Sorry, I know this is a lot to handle and everything but it just seems weird that this is all happening after you arrived. Not to mention the fact that the first impression you made on all of us wasn't the best." I said
"I get why you guys don't trust me. I just don't see how its so hard to believe that what I did to you and the leader guy was for your own good. I don't understand why I did it but I knew I had to." She said
"I believe you, its just these guys have a hard time accepting change," I said and she laughed slightly "just tell us if you remember anything or think of something that might have caused this." I stood and started brushing the dirt off of my pants.
"WICKED is good." she said suddenly as me and Minho started walking away from her.
She pulled up the sleeve of her long sleeved top up so that we could see one of her pale arms and it had faded black writing on it.
"I wrote this before I ran into the leaders room to inject him with that thing that day. My memories started fading but I thought that was important so I wrote it down." she said
WICKED is good
The black scruffy writing was hard to make out because of how faded it had become but that didn't stop me from seeing the clear message that was written there.
"Thank you for telling us." I said but she had started staring into space again so me and Minho walked away
I noticed Newt was talking to Thomas by the gardens but nobody else was near them and Alby wasn't anywhere around. Minho walked a head of me so he could go talk to some of his runner friends but I remained close to the deadheads as I watched Newt talking to Thomas even though I couldn't hear what they were saying.
After three minutes of standing next to a tree I climbed up it instead and watched the entire Glade as people continued running around but none looked like they were doing their jobs. My eyes landed on the large openings which led to the maze and kept the grievers at bay at night and I wondered if I would ever risk my life for one of the boys again after experiencing first hand what the maze was like at night.
After some contemplation I realised I would. The boys in the glade where like my brothers and since I wouldn't be able to have my blood brother with me again, I wanted to make sure the ones I had now where always safe. I would always chose to sacrifice myself if it meant they would be alright.
Newt had finished his conversation with Thomas in the time that I came to the realisation that I thought of the boys as my family and by the time I realised this, he was already headed over towards the tree that I was sat in.
Just as he reached the trunk I jumped down from the branch I was perched in so that I landed directly behind it although he seemed to expect it because he didn't flinch back like he did the first time when I had scared the klunk out of him.
"Did Thomas say anything?" I asked immediately, hoping for a better answer than what I got from Teresa because what she told us wasn't all that helpful.
"Nothing about why the sky's grey but he let something slip about him and Teresa being able to talk to each other in their heads or something like that." Newt told me
"Didn't he say that while I was in my second coma though, that was how you all found out her name wasn't it?" I asked and he nodded his head
"Didn't sound like he was making it up either." he said
"What are we gonna do Newt? Things are changing, I know it." I whispered
"I don't know but I'm going to keep you save Sky. No matter what." He vowed as he pulled me to him and crushed me against his chest.
I let Newt hold me for a while until he finally let go but kept an arm around my shoulders as we walked towards the kitchen for lunch. Nobody knew what time of day it was because the sun was not up to give us a sense of how long it had been since morning broke. The sky was still the same dull colour of grey and hadn't shown any sign of darkening which made me think that it would remain that way for a while now. I didn't think it would start darkening for night fall either.
There were a few other boys who were also eating their lunch and I could hear Frypan busy in the kitchen because of how quiet everyone was. As he handed me my food I let Newt walk ahead to get a table while I talked with the Glades best cook.
"Is anybody else working?" I asked him
"Everyone's too busy panicking and running around like fools to get any work done." He said
"What're you planning on doing?" I asked but he just shrugged his shoulders and started handing food out to the people who were queuing up behind me so I said goodbye and walked to the table Newt was sitting at so I could eat my food.
"Nobody's doing their work." I said as I sat down with Newt but he was too busy eating at his lunch to reply so instead of trying to make a conversation, I decided to just eat in silence.
I decided to actually do my own job after lunch so while the other gladers where running around and panicking, I went to the homestead to help Clint and Jeff and Newt went to help Alby try to get things back in order.
It turned out that the Med-Jacks needed my help when I got to the homestead because while the gladers where panicking they were also injuring themselves a lot.
One boy fell over in the gardens and onto a knife that got a nasty slice of his leg. Another boy ran into a tree and someone else was knocked over and got a concussion.
Since the line up for people to be treated got extremely big extremely quickly the boys and I had to divide the injured boys up so we could treat them all.
It took over three hours before boys stopped entering the homestead to get treated and that was only because Alby had given some speech to everyone about pulling their klunk together since it wasn't helping anyone.
After that the injuries stopped occurring almost immediately so Clint, Jeff and I all got to have a break.
After dinner I went up to my room straight away and was followed by Newt. We both got ready for bed then climbed under the scratchy sheets and tried calling for sleep but it didn't come easily to me.
I lay awake for hours thinking of possible reasons for the sky's sudden darkness but couldn't come up with any and apparently Newt was doing the same.
We were both lying on our backs until he rolled over and wrapped his arm around my waist so he could pull me closer to him.
"Sleep love, we'll figure it all out in the morning." He whispered in my ear.
I relaxed into his arms and let sleep take me away but before my consciousness was fully faded I could hear the sudden screeching of the grievers behind the walls as they screamed and shook every gladers soul.
