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ılı.lıllıılı.ıllı ᴺᵒʷ ᵖˡᵃʸᶦⁿᵍ;( NAVIGATING twenty one pilots )
Night swallowed the earth in its darkness, the desert growing very cold, very quickly. The fire's glow flickered weakly, and the group of Gladers huddled close to it as if proximity alone could make them whole again.
Nobody spoke. The silence pressed on Madylin's ears until her pulse seemed to fill the emptiness, a steady, guilty drumbeat. She sat with her knees drawn tight, the cast on her arm awkward against her ribs. Her fingers twitched, restless, nails digging at the skin near her thumb. She didn't feel the sting—only registered it when she saw the crescent of blood growing beneath the nail, black in the orange light.
She couldn't stop seeing Winston's eyes at the end. Not rage, not fear. Relief, and something like longing. Madylin didn't know if she deserved it.
She didn't look up until Thomas sat down beside her, shoulders so close they almost touched. He said nothing for a minute. The fire popped; a burst of sparks bit at her ankles.
"You're bleeding," Thomas said quietly.
Madylin glanced down at her hand, then away. "Doesn't matter."
Thomas's hand hovered for a moment before he placed it over hers, careful, steady, pinning her thumb so she'd stop picking. His skin was dry and cold, but the weight of it was grounding.
He didn't pull away. "You did the right thing," he whispered.
She swallowed, staring at the fire. "It doesn't feel like it." The words sounded thin, childish, and she hated them.
He squeezed her hand, not too hard. "He wasn't going to make it. We all knew that. You were just the one who..." He trailed off, and Madylin finished the sentence in her head: who had the stomach for it.
She blinked, and a single hot tear cut a line down her cheek before she wiped it away with her sleeve.
Across the fire, Minho watched them. His jaw was working side to side, lips pressed in a flat line. "I thought we were supposed to be immune," he said. His voice wasn't angry. It was defeated.
" Not all of us," Teresa replied. She had her knees pulled in tight, arms crossed over her chest. She glanced at Madylin, then quickly looked away. "I guess."
