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“Just stop the freaking van!”
Lawrence slammed on the breaks as Thomas scrambled to his feet and went for the door. He started to open it when Lawrence grabbed his shirt from behind and yanked him backwards.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man yelled at him.
Thomas wouldn’t let anything stop him now. He yanked the gun out of his pants and pointed it at Lawrence. “Let go of me. Let go of me!”
Lawrence did, throwing his hands up in the air. “Whoa, kid. Calm down! What is wrong with you?”
Thomas backed away from him. “I saw my friend out there- I want to see if he’s okay. If any trouble starts, I’ll run back to the van. Just be ready to get us out of here when I do.”
“You think that thing out there is still your friend?” the pilot asked coldly. “Those Cranks are way past the Gone. Can’t you see that? Your friend is nothing but an animal now. Worse than an animal.”
“Then it’ll be a shirt goodbye, won’t it,” Thomas answered. He opened the door, then backed out onto the street. “Cover me if I need it. I have to do this.”
“I’m gonna kick your butt before we get on that Berg, I can promise you that,” Lawrence growled. “Hurry. If those Cranks by the garbage heap head this way, we start firing. I don’t care if your mummy and uncle Frank are out there.”
“Good that.” Thomas turned away from them, slipping the pistol back into his jeans. He walked slowly towards his friend, who stood alone, far away from the pack of Cranks still working on their pile of refuse. For the moment they seemed satisfied with that- they didn’t seem interested in him,
Thomas walked half the distance to Newt, then stopped. The worst part about his friend was the wildness in his eyes. Madness lurked behind them, two festering pools of sickness. How had it happened so quickly?
***
“Hey, Newt. It’s me, Thomas. You still remember me, right?”
A sudden clarity filled Newt’s eyes then, almost making Thomas step back in surprise.
“I bloody remember you, Tommy. You just came to see me at the Palace, rubbed it in that you ignored my note. I can’t go completely crazy in a few days.”
Those words hurt Thomas’s heart even more than the pitiful sight of his friend. “Then why are you here? Why are you with… Them?”
Newt looked at the Cranks, then back at Thomas. “It comes and goes, man. I can’t explain it. Sometimes I can’t control myself, barely know what I’m doing. But usually it’s just like an itch inside my brain, throwing everything off-kilter just enough to bother me- make me angry.”
“You seem fine now.”
“Yeah, well. The only reason I’m with these wackos from the Palace is because I don’t know what else to do. They’re fighting, but they’re also a group. You find yourself alone, you don’t have a bloody chance.”
“Newt, come with me this time, right now. We can take you somewhere safer, somewhere better to…”
Newt laughed, and when he did his head twitched strangely a couple of times. “Get out of here, Tommy. Get away.”
“Just come with me,” Thomas begged. “I’ll tie you up if it makes you feel better.”
Newt’s face suddenly hardened into anger and his words shot out in rage. “Just shut up, you shuck traitor! Didn’t you read my note? You can’t do one last, lousy thing for me? Gotta be the hero, like always? I hate you! I always hated you!”
He doesn’t mean it, Thomas told himself firmly. They were just words. “Newt…”
“It was all your fault! You could’ve stopped them when the first Creators died. You could’ve figured out a way. But no! You had to keep it going, try to save the world, be the hero. And you came to the Maze and never stopped. All you care about is yourself! Admit it! Gotta be the one people remember, the one people worship! We should’ve thrown you down the box hole!”
***
Newt’s face had coloured to a deep red, and spit flew from his mouth as he yelled. He started taking lumbering steps forward, his hands balled into fists.
“I’m gonna blast him!” Lawrence yelled from the van. “Get out of the way!”
Thomas turned. “Don’t! It’s just me and him! Don’t do anything!” He faced Newt again. “Newt, stop. Just listen to me. I know you’re okay in there. Enough to hear me out.”
“I hate you, Tommy!” He was only a few feet away and Thomas took a step backwards, his hurt over Newt turning to fear. “I hate you I hate you I hate you! After all I did for you, all the freaking klunk I went through in the bloody Maze, you can’t do the one and only thing I’ve ever asked you to do! I can’t even look at your ugly shuck face!”
Thomas took two more steps back. “Newt, you need to stop. They’re going to shoot you. Just stop and listen to me! Get in the van, let me tie you up. Give me a chance!” He couldn’t kill his friend. He just couldn’t.
Newt screamed and rushed forward. An arc of Launcher lightning shot from the van, skidding and crackling across the pavement, but it missed him. Thomas had frozen in place and Newt tackled him to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. He struggled to fill up his lungs as his old friend climbed on top of him and pinned him down.
“I should rip your eyes out,” Newt said, spraying Thomas with spit. “Teach you a lesson in stupidity. Why’d you come over here? You expected a bloody hug? Huh? A nice sit-down to talk about the good times in the Glade?”
Thomas shook his head, gripped by terror, very slowly reaching for his gun with his free hand.
“You wanna know why I have this limp, Tommy? Did I ever tell you? No, I don’t think I did.”
“What happened?” Thomas asked, stalling for time. He slipped his fingers around the weapon.
“I tried to kill myself in the Maze. Climbed halfway up one of those bloody walls and jumped right off. Alby found me and dragged me back to the Glade right before the Doors closed. I hated the place, Tommy. I hated every second of every day. And it was all…your…FAULT!”
Newt suddenly twisted around and grabbed Thomas by the hand holding the gun. He yanked it towards himself, forcing it up until the end of the pistol was pressed against his own forehead. “Now make amends! Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No one else! Now do it!”
Thomas tried to pull his hand away, but Newt was too strong. “I can’t, Newt, I can’t.”
“Make amends! Repent for what you did!” The words tore out of him, his whole body trembling. Then his voice dropped to an urgent, harsh whisper. “Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery.”
The words horrified Thomas. “Newt, maybe we can-“
“Shut up! Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!”
“I can’t.”
“Do it!”
“I can’t!” How could Newt ask him to do something like this? How could he possibly kill one of his best friends?
“Kill me or I’ll kill you. Kill me! Do it!”
“Newt…”
“Do it before I become one of them!”
“I…”
“KILL ME!” And then Newt’s eyes cleared, as if he’d gained one last trembling grasp of sanity, and his voice softened.
“Please, Tommy. Please?”
Thomas wrapped his fingers around his gun tightly and stared into Newt’s eyes. Was he really going to do this?
A sickening crunch answered his question. Lawrence stood fifty yards away with a smoking pistol. Thomas looked back to Newt and his friend had a grim look of triumph on his face, but when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out.
***
“No, no, no, no!” Thomas panted heavily as he peeled Newt off of him and laid his body out flat. His friend was shaking and his eyes rolled back, but still alive.
“Lawrence,” Thomas’s voice had a sense of malice in it. “Didn’t I tell you to not interfere?”
“He’s still breathing though. According to your conversation, you were about to shoot him in the head. Now think that over.” He turned away and Thomas knelt down beside Newt. A futile war bubbled up in his mind. What was he going to do now? Newt had asked, no. Newt had begged Thomas to let him die, to kill him.
Now he had the opportunity to do just that. He could shoot Newt with a fatal blow and end his suffering now. Could Thomas do that?
No. “I’m a coward. You’re right Newt. A shuck faced coward.” Thomas was unaware of the tears streaming down his face as he carefully picked up his friend’s body. Lawrence had shot Newt in the side, near his stomach. Crimson blood poured out of the wound and Thomas pressed the spot tightly as he stumbled towards the van.
If they were lucky, there was a possibility that nothing vital had been hit. “Help me out here!” He yelled once he had made it to the door. The Berg pilot lady who was sat in shotgun looked up in surprise. “Uhm, Lawrence are we actually bringing that thing?”
“He’s not a thing, he’s my friend!” Thomas shouted, all his anger and frustration building up.
Lawrence seized Newts arms and helped Thomas haul him into the backseats. “We need Thomas and he’s a stupid bastard so yes, the Crank comes with us. The pilot didn’t look at all pleased but she grabbed some rags and handed them to Thomas once they had settled in. “For the bleeding.”
The van shot off and Thomas winced as he held Newt steady. His friend’s eyes were sealed shut and his mouth was gaping open, letting in short bursts of breath. It was going to be okay, that’s what Thomas told himself at least.
No one spoke for the entire journey. Lawrence was focused on the road, the pilot was strategising mentally and Thomas had all his attention on Newt, silently and pathetically pleading with a higher power to help him stay alive.
Yet, the entire time, Thomas was shaking and second guessing his choices. He had technically betrayed Newt by attempting to keep him alive. Thomas was no better than Teresa. Some of Newt’s words rung out in Thomas’s head. “I trusted you!”
“You shouldn’t have trusted me, I’m so sorry.” he mumbled, but the others didn’t say a word.