❝hoping that you like, that you like how you're living❞

IT WAS ONCE AGAIN TIME FOR THE GREENIE BONFIRE. Iris was happy for a break after the events of the day. She had had a weird amount of injuries to fix, and then, there was the whole Gally and Thomas thing. She had been thinking a lot about what Jem had said to her, trying not to let it get to her head. The way he said it was scary, though, like he had been aching to inform her of that.

She shook it off though, and she was now drowning her worries in whatever the hell Gally put in her cup. It tasted nasty, but it did the job. She noticed the new kid sitting alone on a log, and she decided to reintroduce herself because they only spoke for about a minute.

"Hey, what's up, Greenie?" she greeted with a smile as she sat down next to him and handed him a drink.

He looked over at her, and he seemed almost scared. Most of the people that he had come across that day just said 'Hey, Greenie' and then smacked him upside the head for no reason. He thought it was some kind of tradition until Alby told him that it wasn't. He raised his eyebrows at her because he had a question that had yet to be answered, and she seemed friendly enough to answer it. "Why does everyone keep calling me that?"

"It's what we call new people. We won't call you that forever," she assured him with a smile. She furrowed her eyebrows when she realized that she did not know his name. It was kind of rare to not remember within hours of being there. "Do you still not remember your name?"

"No. It's like it's on the tip of my tongue," he groaned, running a hand through his hair.

"I know," she sighed, remembering vividly when she first came up in the Box and couldn't remember her name. It was agonizingly frustrating, and it made her want to bang her head against a tree until she died. "It'll come to you sooner or later, but until then, you're the Greenie."

He nodded slowly before looking over and being slightly intimidated when he noticed the guy that pushed him over earlier and his friend staring him down. Gally was angry at him because of his 'gut feeling,' and Jem was doing the thing that he did to everyone talking to Iris. "Why is Gally and that guy looking at me like that?"

"Just ignore them," she answered, waving them off and trying to get him to not worry about it. "They're just mean to everyone that's new."

"But I didn't do anything," Thomas defended.

"They know that," she sighed with a nod, glancing over at the guys that refused to just stop staring. She said the next part loud enough so that they could hear and looked directly at them so that they knew that she was talking about them. "They're just slintheads."

She got up to go talk to Minho for a bit while Newt showed the new guy around the groups of people. Iris was almost back to her seat when there was some grunting and yelling behind her. She whipped around just in time to watch Gally and Jem, who he was fighting, almost topple the Greenie over.

The fighters got back up, and the Keeper of the Builders turned to the new boy with a questioning expression. "What do you say, Greenie? Want to see what you're made of?"

"Greenie! Greenie! Greenie!" the crowd began chanting, desperate for someone to beat Gally for once that was not his Slicer best friend.

Iris rolled her eyes before walking alongside Minho to the circle that was beginning to form around the two. She looked between the two guys preparing to fight, and she wondered how the kid would do. Gally was a lot bigger than everyone, but Jem was the only one that could beat him because he was quick and agile She muttered, "This is going to end horribly for someone."

"It always does," Minho replied, moving to stand next to her and watch

"All right, the rules are simple, Greenie," Gally informed him, rolling up his sleeves as the crowd quieted down a bit so they could hear what they were saying. "I try to push you out of the circle. You try to last more than five seconds. Ready?"

He did not even wait a second for the Greenie to prepare before running towards him and shoving him to the edge of the circle. Zart and some others grabbed him and pushed him back inside, but Gally used the momentum from that to throw him into the dirt behind him.

The Keeper just smiled as he got up slowly. "Come on, Greenie. We're not done yet. Show us what you got."

"Stop calling me Greenie," he grunted out as laughter echoed throughout the group of boys around them.

"Stop calling you that? What do you wanna be called? Shank? What do you think, boys? Does he look like a Shank?" Gally questioned, and everyone yelled out positive answers. The Greenie then lunged toward him. They fought for a second before he was thrown to the ground once again, and Iris winced. "Come on! You know what? I think I've settled on Shank."

He ran into Gally again, and the girl finally yelled out, "Let's go, Greenie!" He voice distracted Gally for a split second which was just long enough for the boy in the blue shirt to throw him into the dirt. Everyone gasped in shock.

"Not bad for a Greenie, huh?" he asked, but then the Keeper swept his foot under him, causing him to fall to the ground next to him. He hit his head on the ground hard and groaned as Gally got up.

"Thomas. Hey," the Greenie exclaimed as he scrambled to his feet. He looked around in amazement and chuckled, "Thomas! I remember my name. I'm Thomas!"

After a second, they all smiled and shouted, "Thomas!" They approached the new member of their group and embraced him all together, giving him drinks and pats on the back.

"Good job, Thomas," Gally told him, shaking his hand, which shocked all of them, especially Jem since all he had been able to talk about was how much he hated the boy.

Their moment was interrupted by a screeching in the distance.

Their heads whipped toward the Maze as the all too familiar and unpleasant sound met their ears once again. Thomas questioned after a couple seconds, "What the hell was that?"

"That, my friend, was a Griever," Jem responded with a sigh. He, as well as a lot of other people, had not even flinched or turned around because they were so used to the sounds happening every single night for the past three nights.

Iris was sitting and staring at the fire when she heard someone approaching her. She furrowed her eyebrows when she saw that it was Jem and that he did not have an evil smile on his face. He had two drinks in his hand, and he handed one of them to her. She took it, but she was still extremely confused. "What's this for?"

"To say sorry from earlier," he answered with a shrug, and she was really suspicious because he seemed genuine, which was even scarier than if he was trying to trick her or something.

She eyed him, searching his face for any sign of lying before bringing the cup to her nose and smelling it, wondering if he poisoned it or something. She was really trying to figure out what his scheme was. "How many of these have you had?"

"Two. Why?" he questioned. The truth was that he did not actually have a scheme. He genuinely wanted to say sorry, and it was terrifying. He had never once actually wanted to apologize in his life. Well, his life that he could remember, and yet, there he was, saying sorry to the girl he hated.

She responded, "You must be really drunk if you're apologizing to me."

"I'll take it back, then," he replied, and he reached over to grab the drink from her hand jokingly. "I'm sure someone else wants it."

"Nope. Too late," she told him, and she wretched the container from his grasp and brought it to her lips. She prayed that it was not poison before pouring the entire thing into her mouth, taking huge gulps as she chugged it.

He was honestly concerned, but by the time he could tell her to stop, she had already downed the whole cup, placed it on the ground, and wiped her mouth. He stared at her in disbelief, wondering what the reasoning behind all of that was. "Slow down there."

"It's been a long week. Why are you doing this again?" she questioned, not wanting to talk about her long week. She was still trying to figure out what he was trying to get her to do. Maybe he wanted something. Maybe he had lost a bet to Gally.

"I'm tired of fighting all the time," he answered with a shrug. She was not convinced because that was not the best reason when he could've stopped the fighting years ago. However, he turned to her, and something happened in his eyes that made her breath hitch. Finally, he said, "Ask me to dance."

She was positive that she must have heard him wrong. Her heart began to beat a little faster, but she smiled to play it off, acting like he was joking because he probably was. "I thought you didn't dance."

"Ask me anyway."