Just like the Griever's Hole, the dead men hung by hooks, the Rat Man, the Cranks and the brick walls, Minho had hopes that Frankie's death was just another illusion. As much as he tried to distance himself from disappointment, this was one thing he...
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"FRAN— FRANCES— ALTHOUGH she would bloody flip if anyone ever call her that," Newt paused and cracked a half-grin, letting some of the Gladers' chuckles to fill the little void, "was actually the person in our minds when we first created the word 'slinthead'.
"She's strongheaded, snappish, stupid, but there are no words that can picture how amazing she actually is. Maybe she doesn't open up to a lot of people, but she cares about everyone. She does... I'm sorry. She did."
Minho sat alone at the very far back of the field with his eyes glued to the darker blue nothingness called sky. He had drunk six glasses of Gally's concoction and hoped he would drown in them, but he didn't. He was still here, alive and breathing.
Unlike her.
"True, she wasn't a Keeper. Her being in the Council was actually because she was forced to, but she was undoubtedly the most important person in the Glade. I don't need to list it all one by one —y'all were here."
He wasted his breaths for hours, trying to convince Clint and Jeff to abandon the comatosed girl and try reviving his girlfriend instead. The Keeper of Med-Jacks had declared her dead and moved on to the next stage of grief by busying himself and giving him no time to just sit, thought, ponder or reminisce.
Alby and Gally were surprisingly the ones who had the initiative to carry her body into the Deadheads and let her acquaintances paid some respect along the way.
It was an unspoken regulation. To bury the dead as soon as possible.
"This is hard. We're now just a bunch of boys desperate to get out of this shucking Maze —Us and that girl who conveniently came when Frankie died. Nearly three years we have fought and lived with our lives on the line here. And now, with two of our best Gladers dead within a short span of time—"
There were some debates on putting her next to George, in another see-through coffin or the spot by Nick's.
Minho and Newt finally stepped in after she was placed in one of the empty graves. The four Councilmen took the shovels and slowly buried her six-feet under themselves.
"I know about desperation. I know about giving up, or voices, or monsters in my own head."
As if he could feel the pressure of soil hitting against her body, filling in her nostrils and the curves of her pale lips, his chest tightened and his breaths shortened.
This was it. She was truly dead. Or he had killed her by burying her alive.
"But to anyone who's giving up, I'm gonna quote what Frankie said to me when I was on wits end."
Minho still felt like he was dreaming. Like he was locked in a jail of nightmare, unable to wake up where he usually was —next door to the girl he loved.
For the first time in three years, he felt thoroughly, completely, totally... exhausted.
"Not an option."
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