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“Minho.”
The voice was quiet, but firm—instantly recognizable before he even turned around to see who it was.
Minho turned to face him. The Glade’s second-in-command stood at the edge of the Runner’s Camp, just barely in the light of their fire. “Walk with me?” He said it more than asked. His eyes were mirrors of the flames, glowing like embers in the dark. From the look on his face, something was clearly bothering the younger boy.
Then again something was bothering all of them, wasn’t there?
Ben’s banishment—no, execution—still hung too heavily over all of them, still too fresh. No one resented the leaders for it; it had to be done. But that didn’t make the situation any better.
Some runners looked back and forth between the blond and their Keeper, but Minho didn’t need to be told twice. He stood up from where he sat huddled close to the fire and nodded to the other runners. Then he followed Newt without another word.
The blond gave him the once-over when he was close enough. His brown eyes softened around the edges, losing a bit of their uncharacteristic hardness, and he looked at the runner with concern. “Are you all right?” He asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
Minho heaved a deep sigh and shrugged. “I just lost a runner, Newt. You think anybody’d be all right after that?”
Newt only stared at him in the face of his petulance and Minho shook his head. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
The blond wisely kept his mouth and just kept on walking deeper into the forest. They walked side by side in silence after that. The trees were getting thicker, the branches above them blocking out the moonlight, but having lived in the Glade as long as they had, their eyes were well adjusted to the dark and they had no trouble seeing.
So Minho watched Newt from the corner of his eye. The younger boy had his head down; his brows were drawn together and his eyes were troubled. His lips were a thin straight line and the fingers around his walking stick were white at the knuckles from the tightness of his grip. He only ever used the walking stick when he was more tired or on the edge than usual. Minho hadn’t seen him like this since the Dark Days.
Whatever was bothering Newt clearly couldn’t wait until Minho got over Ben.
And whatever was bothering Newt clearly had something to do with him.
For a second, Minho’s surprised it wasn’t Alby seeking him out. Then again, Newt was the one who was better with his words. Not that he had anything good to say tonight.
What happened? What went wrong? Where were you when Ben got stung?
Newt would ask those questions as if Minho hadn’t been asking himself that over and over since he got back. He’d expect answers Minho didn’t have.
The silence stretched out between them and it was starting to grate on Minho’s nerves.
Finally, Newt stopped. Minho looked around and realized they were at the edge of the Glade. The West Wall was tall and forbidding just a few feet in front of them, the grey stone and metal towering over them both. This close to it, they couldn’t even see the top; it was too high. Minho looked at it critically like he could find a way over it, even though he already knew there wasn’t one. He shook his head.
“What the shuck are we doing here, Newt?” He turned to face the younger Glader with his arms crossed over his chest.
Newt peered at him through his blond fringe and Minho waited for him to let the ax fall. He didn’t have to wait long.
“I didn’t bring you here to talk about Ben,” Newt finally said, and the runner was hit with a mix of surprise and relief. “What happened out there,” the blond continued. “No one could’ve stopped it. No one could have known a Griever would attack in daylight. It wasn’t your fault, Minho. I need you to believe that.” He looked Minho for acknowledgement and the runner nodded mutely.
"But I need to talk to you about Alby.”
Again, Minho was surprised. He felt no relief this time, though. The issue with Ben was immediately put to the side for the meantime as his mind went over the more urgent matter of his and Alby’s plan. He uncrossed his arms and scratched the back of his head. “So he told you.”
Newt scoffed. “He didn’t have to. I know him like the back of my own bloody hand. And I’m not daft; it didn’t take too long to figure it out.” Newt took a deep breath as if to steel himself, then he leveled the runner with an icy glare. “You’re taking Alby to the Maze with you tomorrow.”
Minho’s palms immediately shot up in front of himself in the universal gesture of don’t-shucking-kill-me-we’re-supposed-to-be-friends. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea!” It really wasn’t. He’d even tried to talk Alby out of it. Hell, he was hoping to take a day off from running the Maze after what happened with Ben, but Alby wouldn’t be put off. He ran his conversation with Alby over again in his mind. He had wondered even then why Newt wasn’t with them. Alby didn’t make decisions without Newt. “Look,” he said, trying to explain. “We talked about it, all right? Alby and me. We tried to think of who else to send out there, but there’s no one.”
Newt didn’t look impressed, but Minho went on anyway. “Think about it. You know if he didn’t have to be the Leader, he’d be a runner. He’s just as fast as I am, Newt. None of the other runners are.”
He immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say when Newt seemed to stiffen before he turned away. Then Minho remembered. Newt had been faster than both of them. He had been the fastest runner there ever was. If it wasn’t for his limp, he’d be the one running the Maze tomorrow. He’d have been the one running the Maze everyday.
“You won’t be running the Maze with just any runner,” Newt said then. His grip on his walking stick tightened. “You’ll be running with Alby. Minho, he hasn’t been in the Maze in over a year. He hasn’t run in over a year.”
“You don’t think he can do it?”
Newt didn’t answer him and Minho sighed and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, trying a different approach. “Newt, he needs to see it himself—whatever it is,” he said, uncharacteristically gentle. “There’s no talking him out of it.”
Newt seemed to wipe at something on his face before he whirled around to face the runner. “I shucking know that; don’t you think I bloody tried?” He closed his eyes as if to rein himself. “I’m not asking you to try and talk him out of it,” he said, calmer now.
“Then what—”
“I’m asking you to bring him back,” the younger boy said. “Back here to the Glade. No matter what happens out there, you bloody bring him back, Minho.” His eyes took an even harder glint to them. “Do you understand?”
A gust of wind blew past them then, shaking the tree branches. The temperature dropped, but it was the look in Newt’s eyes that made Minho shiver. He shook his head and put his hands on his hips. “I can’t make you that promise, slinthead,” he said gravely. “You know I can’t.”
No promises. They couldn’t make promises when it came to the Maze.
“The Glade can’t survive without him, Minho,” Newt argued. “It’ll fall apart bit by bit until there’s nothing left. And who’s going to hold us together?”
“Newt, you’re second-in-command—”
“I’m not bloody good enough, all right?!” Newt shouted and Minho understood why they had to get away from the others, why they had to come all the way here. Newt’s eyes blazed hotly, his hands clenched tightly into fists. This was a side of Newt no other Glader should see—the side that only he, Alby, and Gally knew about—volatile and quick to anger with all that pent-up rage and anguish coming to the fore.
“Hey,” Minho said softly. “Hey, calm down, all right? Take it easy.” He reached out and slowly put his hands on Newt’s shoulders. He half-expected the blond to lash out with his walking stick, and when he didn’t, Minho slowly walked him backwards toward the wall until he had Newt pressed back into it. Minho needed this bit of control over the situation, as little as it was, if only to make sure Newt didn’t bolt and run off into the darkness before they could properly talk about this.
“What the shuck’s the matter with you?” He asked. Newt was coiled tight as a spring and he refused to meet Minho’s eyes. It made Minho angry for some reason. “Where do you get off saying that kind of klunk, huh?”
Unbidden images came to mind: blood, bone, and tears, his and Gally’s horrified faces, and Alby, stunned into a month-long silence after Newt climbed the wall, let go, and then screamed at them to leave him to die when they found him.
Newt stared at him blankly without answering him, like he was remembering those things himself and Minho shook him roughly to snap him out of it.
The blond gasped and grabbed his wrist with one hand.
“M-Minho, what—”
“Listen to me, Shuckface,” Minho said fiercely and Newt’s eyes widened. “Alby chose you for a reason and we all let him. Know what that means? It means you are good enough. You have to be.”
“I’m not—”
“Shut. Up.” He grabbed a fistful of the blond’s shirt and held him fast when Newt struggled. Now was not the time for Newt to lose his head. He and Alby were running the Maze tomorrow; anything could happen. Gally was riled up in a way none of them have ever seen before, and now Newt was all but falling apart right in front of his face. They needed to get it together. “Get your shucking head out of your klunk ass, Newt. You falling apart is the last thing anyone needs right now. If you need someone to say it then I’ll say it: the Glade doesn’t need just Alby. We need you, too, you dumb shank.”
He let go of Newt then, and the blond fell back a few steps before coming up against the wall again. His back hit it hard and he cursed.
Minho immediately caught him as he started to slide down. He held the blond at arm’s length again and looked into his eyes. “Keep it together, Newt,” he said grimly. “For us. For the Glade. And for Alby. He’s counting on you. We all are.”
Newt started to shake in his hold and Minho thought he had started crying, but when Newt looked up to face him the runner could see this wasn’t the case. Newt was laughing quietly, mirthlessly—it was a horrible sound.
“You misunderstand me,” Newt said, barely above a whisper. Then he swallowed and looked at Minho with new conviction in his eyes. “I can be whatever the Glade needs me to be. I can be a Builder, a Slicer, even a Medjack. All right? I can be a bloody Runner again if I have to. I will be whatever you lot need me to be for as long as I can. I promise you that.” He looked at Minho earnestly, and the runner believed him. Then he took a shuddering breath and pressed his palms to his face. “But I’m no good without Alby, Minho. I…I need him.” He looked up at the runner imploringly. “I wouldn’t know what to do without him.”
Minho frowned. “But you just said—”
“I’m not talking about what I would bloody do with the Glade and the other boys.” Newt whispered then he swallowed. “Don’t make me say it, Minho.”
He glared at the runner, and it hit Minho like the weight of the doors closing. Newt’s earlier words rang in his head.
The Glade can’t survive without him, Minho. It’ll fall apart bit by bit until there’s nothing left.
Newt didn’t really mean the Glade. Newt meant himself.
Minho’s breath left him like he’d just been punched. Suddenly Minho understood and it all made sense—all the things he saw between his two friends that he had never thought to give any more meaning to: how Alby and Newt were always together, how their Leader never outwardly favored Newt but treated him differently in a way that no other Glader seemed to notice or mind, and how they never let the other out of their sight when things got tough in the Glade. He’d seen them the few times it wasn’t him running the Maze and the runner who was in it was taking too long to come back out: his two friends standing at the edge of the Glade, staring out into the labyrinth with their hands holding on to the back of the other’s shirt like they were keeping each other from running into the Maze to look for whoever was out there.
It was never one without the other. But tomorrow, it would be.
“Shuck,” he blurted out before he could stop himself, and Newt visibly flinched.
“I-I shouldn’t have said—” Newt stammered and started to free himself from Minho’s hold, but the runner made him stay put.
“No, it’s fine,” Minho said, shaking his head in disbelief. The light in Newt’s eyes seemed to shimmer and Minho wondered how hard it must have been for his friends to have kept this hidden and secret from everyone else in the Glade for so long. “It’s fine. I get it.” Satisfied Newt wouldn’t run away, he dropped back onto his haunches and sat next to the blond with his back against the wall. He imagined it then—the look on Newt’s face if Minho made it back from the Maze alone, if he walked through those doors without Alby, if those doors closed while Alby was still on the other side of them. “That’s a hell of a lot of pressure to put on someone, Newt.”
Newt laughed miserably and wiped at his eyes, which had started to mist over.
Minho reached over and put an arm around Newt’s shoulders, pulling him close and nudging the side of the blond’s head with his in affectionate gesture between friends. “I can’t make you that promise, Newt,” he said again and the younger Glader took another shuddering breath, but Minho pressed on. “I can’t promise you we’ll both come out of the Maze tomorrow. Shuck, I can’t promise you I’ll come out of the Maze tomorrow. I can’t promise you anything.”
“I know,” Newt whispered. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m not being bloody fair, am I? You’ve left people in the Maze before…” He said it quietly as if it would hurt Minho less if he did. It didn’t, but Minho didn’t say a word. Newt sniffed and wiped at his nose, which had gone red and then he swallowed hard before speaking again. “Will you…will you at least try a little harder to bloody make sure he gets back then? You’ll try, yeah?”
And there it was. Underneath it all, that was all Newt was asking for: for Minho to try a little harder to make sure Alby got through the Maze in one piece. Minho snorted. As if he needed to be told. As if he didn’t try his best in everything he did in the Maze everyday. He imagined again Newt living in the Glade without Alby. It really was unthinkable. He was quiet for so long that Newt started to pull away again, but Minho tightened the grip he had around the other boy. “Yeah, shuckface. I can do that,” he said finally. “I can do that…you lovesick slinthead.”
“Oh, bloody hell,” Newt huffed. He pulled away and glared at him petulantly, and suddenly Minho was looking at the teenage boy the blond could have been if they hadn’t been forced to grow up too fast. And he laughed.
He laughed because Newt was pouting like a child as if he wasn’t bleeding out of the heart he’d worn on his sleeve. He laughed because Newt was done begging and had decided to fit all the loose bits in him back into place again. He laughed because life here was insane and he didn’t know what else to do, and because it made Newt start snickering beside him.
When Minho was done he leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at the cloudless, starless sky. The blond followed suit and the both of them sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, their minds blessedly unoccupied, and their hearts just a little bit lighter.
Time passed slowly. Minho thought about the Maze. Newt thought about Alby.
There wasn’t much left to say.
“We should head back,” Minho said after a while.
Newt nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we should.” He got back on his feet quicker than Minho did and he offered him a hand, which the runner took.
They walked back out of the woods together in silence, but just as they reached the Homestead where Newt and Alby usually slept, Minho reached out and took hold of Newt’s arm.
“Hey,” he started and while Newt’s face gave nothing away, Minho could feel how the muscles under his fingers tensed. They stared at each other for a few seconds then Minho gave Newt’s arm a reassuring squeeze and he smirked. “Tell that shuckface, Frypan, I want steak and potatoes for dinner tomorrow, yeah? We’ll be starving when we get back.”
Newt blinked at him in surprise before he chuckled. “Steak and potatoes, he says.” They were Alby’s favorite. Newt shook his head before he looked at Minho again, grinning. “You got it, shank.”
“Perfect,” Minho said, grinning in turn. He clapped Newt on his shoulder and gave him a playful shove toward the Homestead. “Now get in there, you dumb shuck. Alby’s waiting.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Newt muttered, rolling his eyes, but he was smiling. He pulled the Homestead’s door open and was about to step inside when he stopped at the threshold and looked back at the runner. “Minho,” he called, and the runner raised an eyebrow. “I… Thank you. Truly.”
Minho’s coughed then looked away. “Don’t thank me just yet.”
He looked back at the blond and they stared at each other meaningfully. “Well, if it’s all the bloody same to you, I rather I thank you now,” Newt said with a small sad smile.
Minho returned it before he looked at Newt gravely and lowered his voice. “You remember our number one rule?” he asked. He didn’t doubt for a minute that Newt would be hovering on the edge of the Glade all day tomorrow and he needed to make something clear.
The blond’s smile faltered and his brows drew together before comprehension dawned on his face at the same time all the color seemed to leave it. “Yeah. Of course.”
Minho nodded. “No matter what happens tomorrow, you don’t forget our number one rule.”
Uncertainty shone in Newt’s eyes then but he nodded anyway. “I won’t.”
Just then Minho heard Alby’s voice come from inside the Homestead, probably calling for Newt and asking what he was doing standing at the doorway for so long. Newt ducked his head in and quietly answered him. When he whipped his head back out again, Minho waved him off.
“We’re done here,” Minho called and Newt nodded. The runner smirked. “Get in there, slinthead,” he teased, making the blond flush.
“Slim it, you big lug,” was the annoyed retort, but Newt grinned at him. Inside the Homestead, Alby called for Newt again and the blond gave Minho a meaningful nod, his eyes shining in the dim light, before he turned and closed the door behind him.
Minho stared at the closed door for a few seconds before he turned and swiftly made his way back to his own camp to sleep. He wished he could sleep for a whole week. His mind was reeling, his thought flying like shards of glass. His shoulders sagged now that the gravity of the situation settled firmly over him. He was tired—bone-weary. And Newt had gone and added to his problems.
No. Not a problem. A responsibility. An immense responsibility that Minho hadn’t even thought of when Alby first signed up for it earlier. Now he couldn’t imagine not seeing it through, couldn’t imagine what would happen if he failed.
Really, the things Minho did for his friends.
No matter what happens out there, you bloody bring him back, Minho.
Minho slumped down on his hammock as soon as he made it back to camp. He only had six hours left to sleep. Behind the walls, he heard the Maze creak and groan ominously.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
END