❝i am sick of the chase❞

IRIS WAS BANDAGING UP ONE OF THE BUILDERS AGAIN. However, she was not doing the best job because she could not stop thinking about the previous night, her chest pressed up against Jem's as he breathed in her ear. Him laughing at something she said, him spinning her around before his hands landed on her waist once again, his—

"Ow!" Greg exclaimed when she accidentally poked his wound because she was not paying attention. They were sitting by the gardens because he had been building one of the new plant beds. Newt watched intently to make sure that everything went okay, and he glanced at the girl in concern after that.

"Sorry," she winced, feeling really bad and hyperfocusing on helping him. He had hammered a nail into his hand, and she had to remove it and bandage it before it bled too much. She tucked the bandage in and secured it before wiping her hands oof on her pants and looking up. "Okay, don't do anything too extreme with that hand for the next couple of days, and come see me if you think it's getting infected."

He nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Iris."

"Anytime," she confirmed with a smile, and she turned around to look at Newt as she sat down on the ground next to him to watch him while he planted. It was so peaceful in the gardens, and she understood why he enjoyed it. There was another reason he was working in the gardens, but they did not discuss that reason.

She raised her eyebrows at him, knowing that he would probably have news on Thomas and how he was doing with figuring out a job. "Hey, how's the Greenie doing?"

"I'm not sure. Haven't seen him in a while," the blonde boy answered, and he seemed to realize that that was a problem once he said it out loud. They looked around and saw Alby talking to Gally, and Chuck was in the garden with them, which meant that the kid was off on his own. "I think he went wandering off somewhere."

She was also confused because usually, their leader was really strict on scheduling nad making sure that the Greenie did all of the jobs that he could in one day. Why was he being so lax about it? "Alby's usually pretty good about keeping them trying out all the jobs."

"I don't know. Maybe he is doing something, but I haven't seen him," Newt informed her, but their question was soon answered when they heard yelling.

Both of their heads whipped around to see Thomas running down a hill, and Ben was right on his heels. Iris gasped when the Runner tackled the Greenie, and she and Newt, as well as a lot of other people, sprung to their feet and sprinted over to where Ben was attacking him. Newt brought his shovel and was ready to swing as he ran.

"Hey!" Newt yelled to them, causing the blonde boy on top to look up. Then, he swung the shovel in his hand at his head, knocking him off the Greenie. "Hold him down. Calm down. What are you doing?"

"Calm down, Ben," Gally ordered as Jem and Winston rushed to help them hold down his legs. The Slicers watched as he writhed under their fingers, and furrowed her eyebrows. He was not like this.

Frypan kneeled next to them and asked the crowd, Thomas specifically since he was the one fighting with him, "Yo, what the hell happened?"

"He just attacked me!" the blue shirt boy exclaimed, panting as Alby made his way through the crowd to see what all the commotion was about. He also needed to decide what they were going to do about him.

"All right, lift his shirt," he ordered as Ben cried out pleas for him to stop. That only made him even more suspicious of what was under it. "Lift his shirt." They did as they were told, and they were all shocked with what they saw.

A Griever sting.

Gally furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at Iris since she was the doctor. "He's been stung. In the middle of the day?" That made him the first person to be stung during the day time, which was starting to freak them out because no one had ever been stung during the day.

"Help me, please. Please. Please, just help," Ben sobbed out, looking around the circle for someone, anyone to help him. No one knew what to do because he was a trusted member of the community. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Put him in the Pit," Alby demanded, refusing to look at the boy since they all knew what was going to happen to him, what always happened to stung people that attacked others. "Everybody, help. Take him to the Pit."

Iris, Jem, and Winston backed up a bit and allowed Gally and Newt to drag Ben to the Pit despite the boy's desperate protests. She sighed and glanced at her friend with a grim look on her face, knowing what was bound to happen soon. "Time for the Gathering."

《 ✢ 》

IRIS WAS NOT IN THE MOOD FOR A GATHERING TO DECIDE BEN'S FATE. She had known him for a year, and there was no way that she was deciding whether or not he lived or died. So, she was sitting in a chair, staring at the unconscious boy on the table, and trying to figure out the best way to approach saving him.

If she could find a way to fix the sting, then they might not have to Banish him since he was not in his right mind when he hurt Thomas. If not, she could at least make him better and give him his best possible chance of surviving in the Maze. He was a Runner, and he knew every twist and turn almost as well as Minho.

She finally decided to start by cleaning the wound. She had given him a sedative so that he would be unconscious and not attack her, but she still treaded carefully. She was so focused that she didn't even notice someone come in, and she jumped when she noticed Jem standing there, leering. "What are you doing here?"

"I think the better question is what are you doing here?" he asked because the rest of the Keepers were discussing in the Gathering Hall to talk about the punishment for Ben, well, except for her. He raised his eyebrows. "Shouldn't you be at the Keepers meeting?"

"I told Jeff and Clint to go instead of me," she answered. She trusted them enough to not say anything too drastic and to use their best judgement when voting. She did not want to influence their vote, but she prayed that they let Ben stay. He was annoying sometimes, but so was everyone. There was not a person in that Glade that she did not hate at some point.

He raised his eyebrows, his hands in his pockets as he made his way over to the table and looked down at the guy as she rubbed some ointments over the sting and the clearly infected area. "What's the point of being Keeper if you don't do your Keeper duties?"

"I do my Keeper duties. I just would rather be here and trying to help a friend instead of deciding whether or not he should be sent off to die," she snapped, and he stood a slight step back. If he was being honest, she scared the Kline out of him sometimes. She shook her head and looked down at the wound that was now covered in a bunch of green stuff. She shrugged, "I guess it's just the Med-jack in me."

"You know what they're going to decide. There's no point in trying to save him," he pointed out. He had broken one of their rules, and whether he was stung or not, the rules were what kept everything in order, kept people from dying. It kept them safe, and being in the Glade with someone who was out of his mind was not safe for anyone.

She knew that Jem was right, but she hated the thought of Ben being sent out into the Maze with her doing nothing to try and help him. She needed to do the best she could, and she was fine if that was all in vain. "This sting is torturing him, Jem. The least I can do if make sure he's as fit as he can be to fight when they throw him in the Maze."

"No one has survived a night in the Maze," he reminded her, like she didn't know that, like she hadn't lost a dozen friends to the Grievers and other perils of the Maze at night. She knew that no one has survived a night, and he knew that she knew that.

"Can you stop being so shucking pessimistic?" she groaned because he was being extremely distracting while she tried to help Ben. If he was not going to assist her in anyway, then she needed him to leave. "Either help or get the hell out of my Hut."

He clapped his hands together, showing that he was there to do whatever she wanted him to do. He had come in there to check on her in the first place, though he would never admit that, and if this was going to stop her from killing herself of stress, then he would be there. "How can I help?"

"Go over there and get me some bandages," she ordered, surprised that he did not just turn around and walk out. She nodded over to a cabinet, but he had been there enough times to know how she organized her supplies. She had a really organized system, and she kind of freaked out whenever it was not in order.

He saluted her and smiled, and it was weirdly attractive to Iris. She shook it off, but she froze when he responded. "Yes, ma'am." She had to take a few deep breaths and remind herself that he was just being nice.

"I didn't know you had any manners," she commented with a breathy laugh, not letting him know that he got to her.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," he added with a smirk, moving the stand next to her as he looked down at boy on the table and realized that he had no clue how to huge a bandage effectively. "Now, how do I do this?"

"You hold that here, and I'm gonna wrap it," she answered, and she grabbed his wrist and placed it where she needed him to hold it. She did not remove her grasp, and he took a few deep breaths as she wrapped. After a moment, he stopped looking at Ben, and his gaze shifted to her.

His eyes scanned over her arms and her hair over to her face. Her tongue was out because she always did that when she was focused, and her eyebrows were knitted together tightly. ONce she was done, she realized that she was still holding his wrist and that their arms were touching. Jem licked his lips, and he swore that his heart stopped when she inched ever so slightly closer to him. He whispered, "Now what?"

She did not say anything because for some reason, she could not breath or speak or move at all. Their faces were less than an inch apart, and she swore that that distance was closing. She did not remember wanting to move, but her body did it anyway.

She tilted her head up slightly as he tilted his and leaned down. She felt his breath fan across her lips before she felt his on hers. It was just a brush, hesitant, but it made her weak in the knees. All of a sudden, she remembered where she was and who she was with, and she pulled away.

"Now, we, uh, we wait," she responded, not daring to look him in the eye. He coughed awkwardly and just nodded quickly even though she was looking the other way. "I should go see if anyone needs help."