The Maze Runner ✖ Unbroken {Newt}

✖Winston✖

"What does that mean?" I ask loudly.

"Grievers," Newt replies, "That's what we call the creatures that live in the maze. Usually they just come out at night when the maze doors protect us from them."

"You can't deny it! Things are changing!" Gally interjects.

Newt finally takes his eyes off me. "I can't. But it's no one's bloody fault."

Ben's painful yells interrupt the discussion.
"Get him to the med-jacks. Everyone else, go back to work!" Gally commands.

I help carrying Ben into one of the wooden houses even though some of the boys look at me in a strange way. Just that I'm a girl doesn't mean that I can't help.

The med-jack - I think his name is Clint - takes Ben to one of the wooden tables and fixes him to it. He thanks me and the other Glader who helped carrying him inside and I walk out, looking for someone to give me some answers to my countless questions.

I grab the shoulder of the next boy who passes my way.
"Hey, excuse me" I start. Wait. I know his face. He's one of the keepers who left the day before during dinner.
"I'm the girl who arrived yesterday. Jeanne."

"I'm Winston." He says with a gentle smile and shakes my hand. "But actually, we're not supposed to talk to you."

"Was that because everyone thought I beat up Ben? It was just defence; turns out he's been stung. I need someone to explain this whole Griever-sting-stung-thing to me..."
"I could do that" he offers, "It's just that I have work to do, I'm a slicer. So if you don't mind getting your questions answered next to dead animals, follow me."

He grins and starts walking towards one of the wooden buildings.

"I don't mind" I murmur with a shy smile and do as he said.
He easily gets a conversation going and soon, I start liking him.

"Let me help you somehow" I say after we entered the slicer house.
"Sure. You can skin those dead rabbits for the soup this evening."

"...If you tell me how to do it, of course. I don't think I've skinned a rabbit before" I reply with a laugh.
He shows me how to slice it open, how to pull the skin off and where to put the blood-soaked ovaries.

I feel comfortable in his presence, I mean as comfortable as you can feel surrounded by dead animals and their guts.
His hands move fast and his eyebrows are all wrinkled when he pulls a concentrated face.

"You'll need a knife" He tells me after he's finished.
"Already got one" I reply and point to the blade on my belt.
"That's badass, but a bit big for skinning a rabbit, isn't it?" Winston hands me a smaller knife and we skin dead rabbits, side by side.

"What happens when someone gets stung by a Griever?" I ask silently a while later.
His smile fades and he answers:

"It's called the Changing. You go crazy, loose your mind, but you also kinda get some memories back.
Shucking painful. Some say they'd rather die than get stung."

I pull the fur off my rabbit. "Why can't we do something about those Grievers? Why can't we fight them?"

Winston looks at me to see if I'm serious and I am.
"No one's ever survived meeting one, we don't even know what we'd be fighting. We just try to live peacefully along these creatures."

"Peacefully?!?" I repeat.
"This isn't peaceful! They stung Ben, he's in pain, he's not even himself anymore and you try to live peacefully along these creatures?"

He gently eases my grip around the knife with which I had been stabbing the rabbit violently.

"I'm sorry" I murmur, not sure if I'm talking to the rabbit or about my statement.
"It's okay, I see your point. You're right." The loud sound of ringing bells interrupts him.

"Lunch time."

We wash the blood off our hands before walking to Frypan's kitchen.

"Joanna!" Newt runs towards me and it's the first time I notice that he has a limp, though he's trying not to show it. I wonder what happened there.

"I was bloody worried about you! Where have you been?"
"It's alright, I was with Winston. Helped him in the slicery." I answer as he reaches me, slightly blushing because I didn't expect him to notice that I was gone.
He sighs and gives Winston a thankful look.

Did he think I'd get lost?