The Maze Runner: The Death Cure ~ Newt

15: Letter

"We have come a long way together," Vince began. "So many have sacrificed so much to make this place possible. Your friends, your family."

He was staring at everyone their little community had to offer, gathered before the great bonfire. Anna watched her father proudly, even prouder than she had been two days earlier, when he had announced his intention to adopt Anna as his daughter before the whole community.

Vince lifted his mug. "So here's to the ones who couldn't be here, here's to the friends we lost, the ones we loved."

Anna felt the eyes of her friends around her swing to her, but she wasn't paying attention. She was staring at the sky. Staring at the stars. The same constellations were out as the ones she had looked at with Newt a few months ago. He had told her stories about them.

"Those people were bloody brilliant," he had said to her. "They put themselves up there. Never to be forgotten. No one's goin' to dare forgettin' them."

Anna had twisted to look at him. "Well, you're not up there and I'll never forget you," she had said adamantly.

Newt smiled and handed her another caramel candy. "Then we'll put each other up there, then," he said. "See what WICKED starts thinkin' about us, then."

Anna thought she had run out of tears in the last several days. But new ones fell down her face at the memory. She took the image of Newt's smile, his face, his seriousness, his grit, and folded it into a golden ball. She placed it up in the sky.

She could have sworn a star winked back at her.

"This place is for you," Vince declared. "But this?" he pointed to a large rock that stuck out of the beach, almost perfectly rectangular. He had directed the camp to be built around it. No one knew why. "This is for them."

Everyone watched as he placed a few tools at the foot of the rock. "So in your own time, in your own way, come make your peace," he said.

It all made sense now.

"Welcome to the Safe Haven!" Vince shouted.

Cheers and hoots and hollers all rose up around the beach, surrounding the area in a shield of freedom.

Hugs and memories and joy were shared, tossed from one person to another, shared among everyone evenly.

Vince directed everyone to the bonfire, allowed everyone to place a piece of wood onto the flames, and as the fire ate into the branches, their painful memories turned to embers that floated away into the night.

Anna found herself sitting on a set of steps with her pillar, Thomas and Minho, content just to see everyone happy and safe.

"This is going to be a good home for us," Minho said with conviction.

"Yeah," Thomas said softly.

Anna nodded. Then she saw what Minho was wearing.

He noticed her staring.

"Is that..." she couldn't finish the sentence.

"Mm hm," Minho said.

It was Newt's coat. His red one from the Right Arm's parking structure just outside of the Last City. They had saved it, and Minho was wearing it.

"We didn't save his body," Minho said quietly. "We couldn't bear it."

Anna nodded numbly. She thought she would be angry, but she wasn't. She didn't want Newt's body to be buried how they left him: sick and broken and covered with the black veins of the Flare. She wanted to remember him how he was, not how he ended up. There was no body to pay respects to, but Anna was doing that in her own way. She would be doing it almost every day for the rest of her life. For a love that had been official for less than a year, it had been unspoken for years. It was more painful, Anna knew. All she had been thinking for the past few days was what if they had kissed earlier, told each other what they felt the moment they began to feel it, what if, what if, what if.