TWENTY SEVEN
「playing
dangerous」
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

WHEN SYLVIA WOKE, it was with Minho's arm slung over her waist lazily. His breath hot against her shoulder blades, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. She hated how much she didn't hate this. She hated the fact that his arms around her brought her a sort of comfort. His skin against hers. His breath on her back. She hated that she didn't want to get up.

Sylvia lifted her wrist wearily, blinking to try and get her sleep laden eyes to focus on the watch. It was late into the evening now, almost eight o'clock. They needed to prepare for the Grievers. But she didn't want to get up.

She was sure that was the most sleep she had gotten in weeks, without waking from nightmares or other causes (i.e. ghosts). She sighed, and carefully picked up Minho's arm, removing it from around her. She wanted to be gone before he woke. He stirred and Sylvia stilled. She held her breath for a moment, waited for Minho to settle back down, and then attempted to crawl over him to leave the bed.

Before she could fully exit, an arm wrapped roughly around her, throwing her back onto the bed. The breath left her lungs as a hand pressed against her sternum to keep her down. Minho's eyes were wild above her, other hand hovering over her throat, before his expression cleared. He quickly retracted his hands from her. Sylvia stared at him with widened eyes, heart racing against her ribs.

"Sorry..." He muttered, looking ashamed and apologetic. He explained lamely, "Nightmare."

Sylvia didn't know what to say. She sat up slowly, fingers brushing over her sternum. She glanced at him. Minho looked so...distraught. It was like electric shock seeing him that way. She understood the nightmares. "Try not to strangle me next time."

"Next time?" He smirked almost sheepishly. She punched his arm. Hard.

The both of them headed to the kitchen to see what Frypan had cooked up for the evening. They were greeted with tomato soup, biscuits, and a raise of the eyebrows from Frypan, considering they were eating together.

   They had found Newt sitting at one of the tables, looking dejectedly out of the small windows. When they sat down, he'd informed them that the rest of the Runners came back uninjured. Sylvia let out a small breath of relief. He'd also told them they had assigned a boy named Winston as the new Keeper of the Slicers, though Sylvia doubted they would really need one anymore. This whole place was falling apart.

Once they were done with their meals, Sylvia wandered through the Homestead, finding that the Builders had boarded up some of the smashed windows and holes in the wall. The job was done messily, but they did what they could. She found herself stopping to look at Cole's paintings once again.

The one of the ocean Cole had drawn for Nick was particularly hurtful. Before he died, he had told her, "When we get out of here, I want to see the ocean." Nick had been looking out of the window to his room, book in hand, at the rest of the Gladers all wandering around in the evening hours of the Glade.

"It sounds impossible, a body of water that big. Don't you think?" He had asked her, glancing at her with that curious look of his. "I dreamt about it a couple times."

"What was the dream about?" She had questioned him.

"All the other times, it was like a memory. From when I was younger." Nick had explained. "I was holding someone's hand, walking down the beach. And I could just see the big expanse of ocean. I remember seeing a boat in the distance."

   He had paused and dog eared a page with his fingers, closing the book he was holding. "When I dreamt about it last night, it was all of us together. All of the Gladers, all by the ocean." He had said. "When we get out of this place I'm taking you and me, and all the rest of the boys to the ocean."

"That's where we'll go." He said, except it wasn't in the memory, but in real time. His voice reaching her deaf ear. Slowly, hesitantly, she turned her head. Nick was standing beside her, form a bit hazy. He bumped her shoulder with his. "Now, you have to do it for me. Take them all to the ocean, Syl."

"I will." She whispered, voice barely there.

"Good that." Nick smiled softly. He looked as if he were about to go, but hesitated. He looked at her. "I know you won't like it, but I want you to trust them, Syl. Trust Newt and Minho, and even Thomas. That boy...he's our answer."

He squeezed her shoulder, his hand frigid, and all Sylvia could do was look at him with wide eyes. She couldn't ask what he meant, or ask where he's been. She couldn't ask if he was going to come back. All she could do was watch as he walked away, and faded around the corner. Her body felt frozen to the spot, ice running through her veins.

Nick.

NIGHT HAD COME, and Sylvia couldn't get her mind off of the occurrence. Nick. After all this time, Nick had finally shown himself. Even as the Gladers around her huddled in blankets, trying to forget the whirring and clicking getting closer with each minute, she could only think about Nick.

There was no point in sleeping, since she had practically slept the whole day, so Sylvia sat. She studied the Gladers around her. Newt and Alby had decided that everyone would rotate rooms every night. Sylvia didn't know how that would help them at all, but compiled. She was with the same people as she was that first night, but they were now in the Homestead's lounge room. A couple of them had taken the couch, piled up on one another with blankets around their sleeping forms. Sylvia had sat near one of the corners of the room, her back to the wall. Cole brought a blanket for them to share and he sat beside her.

Eventually the boy fell asleep, his cheek pressed to Sylvia's arm. She leant her head back against the wall, eyes boring into the ceiling, just wishing everything would go back to normal. Wishing the sky would come back, and the walls would close, and she could bicker and argue with everyone like she used to.

The distant scraping of metal against wood sounded somewhere outside the Homestead and everyone in the room tensed. Cole was still sleeping against her, and she cupped a hand over his blond hair, against his ear so the sounds wouldn't disturb him. Sylvia's muscles felt taut with anticipation of the attack. Most of the boys in the room looked to her, watching for her reaction to see how they should act. She kept her features a stony neutral.

Her efforts were for naught when a booming explosion of ripping wood and broken glass thundered from somewhere upstairs, shaking the whole house. Several screams sounded as Cole jerked awake, Sylvia's hand falling from his head. She held a finger to her lips, telling the boys in the room to stay quiet. She moved so that she was in a crouching position, turning her head so that her right ear was facing the direction all the noise was coming from.

"It's got Dave!" someone yelled, the voice high-pitched with terror.

Sylvia nearly jumped as a terrible crash sounded a few doors down, accompanied by screams and the splintering of wood, like some iron-jawed monster was eating the entire stairwell. A second later came another explosion of ripping wood: the front door. The Griever had come right through the house and was now leaving.

More commotion sounded, yells more than screams of terror. Sylvia whispered for all the boys to stay put as she slithered over to the door. She peeked it open only a crack and looked out. She caught a fraction of the scene: Thomas bolting out of the Homestead's front door and disappearing out of sight.

Sylvia almost shouted an expletive of curses right there. Stupid boy, she thought. But Nick had told her to trust him. She cursed the Greenie, then Nick, then herself, and haphazardly slipped out of the room. As she made it to the busted front door, she saw Thomas being stung by at least three Grievers. Newt stood to her left, watching with Sylvia could only describe as boiling anger and worry.

As soon as the Grievers retreated back into the Maze, Sylvia and Newt bounded out of the Homestead. The Greenie looked at them dazedly and then collapsed. Behind her, she was faintly aware of Chuck, Teresa, Minho, and a couple others following them out.

When they reached him, Newt grabbed under Thomas's arms and shouted to Sylvia, "Get his legs!"

She obliged, and grabbed the boy's legs. His clothes were torn in a couple places over his body, blood seeping into his shirt. Sylvia and Newt lifted him and hauled him back into the Homestead, down the hall, past Cole's paintings, and into the lounge room. A couple of the boys gasped as they set Thomas down on the couch. All the while, Newt was yelling at anyone he saw, ordering them to get the Grief serum and bandages and 'someone find those shuck Med-jacks!'

Finally, he got around to scolding Thomas, who was somehow still conscious."What were you doing!" Newt yelled in his face. "How could you be so bloody stupid!"

Thomas tried to speak, his words slurred. "No...Newt...you don't understand...."

"Shut up!" Newt shouted. "Don't waste your energy!"

Clint finally arrived in the room, tearing at the boy's clothes to check his injuries. He jammed a capsule of the Grief serum into Thomas's arm and the boy's groans of pain lessened a bit. His eyes were glazed over and rolling around in his head, trying to look at everyone in the room.

He spoke again, and Sylvia was barely able to make out his words. "Don't worry," he whispered. "I did it on purpose...."

Then he fainted.

"Fucking idiot!" Sylvia hissed, glaring daggers into the unconscious boy.

WELL INTO THE next day, Thomas was tied to a bed in the Med-jack room, going through the Changing. Sylvia was still reeling at how stupid he was. What was he trying to do? Get himself killed? She could do that for him easily. She decided that when he woke, she would fulfill his death wish and kill him herself.

She didn't know what it was about him, but she had started to like Thomas. She wasn't sure if she trusted him yet, and she wouldn't call him a friend, but she could certainly say that he was important. Whatever was happening to the Glade, he was a part of it. They needed him alive. Nick even said that he was 'the answer.'

Also, Minho seemed to get along with him well. She was trying to trust Minho now, since they were 'friends.' Or at least trying to be. She was still trying to forgive him for holding her back from saving George. She was still trying to erase the image she'd had in her head of him for the past two years, trying to create a new one to see him better. Her mind had been so clouded by rage and hate that she was sure she had distorted him in her head from who he actually was.

Yes, he was stubborn and arrogant and a bit self indulgent, but she found that he was also kind. He cared about the people around him, and was loyal to those he loved. When Newt had hurt himself, Minho had been right by his side throughout his whole recovery, encouraging him.

A month or so ago, when they had been in the Map Room together, studying the maps, Minho had suddenly gotten up from the table and bent down in one of the corners of the room. He scooped something up in his palms and she had walked over to him, curious as to what he was doing. She was ready to scold him for wasting time when he had shown her the baby mouse he was holding in his hands.

She had asked him, "Is it alive?"

"Yes," Minho had said, "If you put him to your skin, you can feel his warmth."

And then he had held the mouse up near her face, eyes watching her. When she didn't move away, he pressed the mouse against her cheek gently. She remembered feeling its short fur brushing against her, the warmth against her cheek, and the roughened skin of Minho's fingers pressing to her skin. She had looked at Minho and noticed the light playing over his eyes, his gaze on the slow breaths of the mouse instead of her. Sylvia had tried to forget the memory, because it had clashed with her perception of him at the time.

She found that she knew him a lot better now. Minho was caring—always watching her or Newt or Thomas silently, tracking their movements. Watching for her giveaways. He had told her that her tell was in her hands. She was always doing something with them; playing with the twine bracelet at her wrist, clenching her hand around the scar in her palm, rubbing a finger against the tip of her nose.

She tried her best not to think about him.

But it was hard when he was staring right at her. She turned her head to look at him. They had wound up in the same room, one that was upstairs. She was sitting next to Minho on the bed, Cole's head in her lap. Cole was curled up next to her, thin blanket over his body, one of her hands resting on his shoulder and the other in his hair. His chest rose and fell softly with sleep.

Minho was close to her, their shoulders almost touching. He leaned close and whispered, "Tell me what I look like."

Sylvia raised a brow at him, lips quirking. They didn't have mirrors in the Glade, so none of them knew what they looked like.

"You look like a slinthead."

Minho rolled his eyes at her and smiled a little, "I'm being serious."

"Yeah, well I am too." She said, voice teasingly low as to not wake the others.

"Seriously, tell me what I look like and I'll tell you." He tried, giving his best pleading look.

"Fine." Sylvia conceded. She studied him. "You have...black hair and thick eyebrows. Your eyes are a really dark brown, almost black. Thin, flat nose. Strong jaw. You have a small birthmark right here," she pressed her index finger against his cheekbone, where the birthmark was. He watched her as she did. She brushed her finger along his face, and pressed her thumb to where the soft craters formed when he smiled, "And dimples."

He was silent for a moment. She removed her hand from his face. Minho's lip twitched, "I sound handsome."

"Of all the things you could say," she rolled her eyes and turned her head away from him.

His fingers grabbed her chin, tilting her face back towards him and he whispered. "It's your turn."

  Sylvia didn't say anything, simply watched him as he examined her features, tilting her head softly from side to side. He started, hand straying from her chin to pull a piece of hair between his fingers.

   "Long brown hair." He brushed his thumb against her brow, "A scar running through your right eyebrow. Brown eyes. Hazel." Sylvia felt her heartbeat pick up with each word. "Pointed nose. Defined jaw." His thumb traced her jaw. He smiled, dimples forming. "Pretty smile."

Sylvia scoffed and turned her face away from him, pushing away his hand. "Now you're just messing with me."

"I'm not messing with you," he vowed sarcastically, still smiling. He whispered in her good ear. "You really do have a nice smile."

She jerked her head away from Minho and glared at him. He grinned at her, eyes turning into crescents and showing off those goddamn dimples.

She said, "Shut up."

"Come on, sunshine." He teased. "You like it when I compliment you. That's why you always tell me to shut up when I do."

"I do not like it." Sylvia huffed indignantly.

He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Then why are your ears so red?"

She smacked his hand away. "They are not."

"Oh, yes they are."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

we're nearing so close to the end of part one already!! ☹️