Quiet is Violent {Newt | The Maze Runner}

7. Actions or Words

“So,” and there was an awkward pause as Thomas narrowed his eyes after Tasha disappeared into the forest. She seemed cheerier that morning than he had seen her previously. Newt raised an eyebrow at Thomas, crossed his arms and shifted his weight, favouring his injured leg. Zart, from where he was digging up weeds from the edge of the vine, looked up and sighed as Thomas unsuccessfully, well, no-one was quite sure what he tried to do. Zart walked over, slapping Thomas’s hands away from the vine, handing the Greenie a shovel, stabbing the ground in an absent-minded manner.

“So, what?” Newt asked, ignoring the Keeper of the Track Hoes. Thomas shifted nervously and went back to his work, half-heartedly spearing the dirt in front of him.

“What is up with you two?” He asked, the whole sentence spilling out, as if he didn’t mean it to. He snapped his mouth shut, refusing to look at anything but the ground. The thought had been plaguing him ever since his first afternoon, Tasha and Newt always side-by-side, how relaxed they always looked around each other, the casual way Newt joked with her where others would be oddly distant. He chanced a look up. Newt surveyed Thomas with an evaluative stare, a low hum of consideration in his throat. He didn’t look angry or even displeased, just thoughtful.

“She’s the fastest runner we have.” He said, his gaze slipping from Thomas to the forest. Thomas frowned at the rather cryptic response, his mind full of questions. “Ran just like you did, her first day here. Straight through that forest,” Newt gestured over to the Deadheads where Tasha had disappeared, chuckling to himself, a low, warm sound, “face first into a wall.” He’s caught in a swirl of memories, the wind rushing by him as he ran, the exasperation he felt at Tasha as she kept trying to run, the implicit trust she bestowed upon him upon their first meeting.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Thomas snapped; it was the first time someone had really addressed any of his questions and although he was rather disappointed that the first real answers he received were about this girl, he was thirsty for any information about Runners. he took a deep breath, and continued. “How did she become a runner? I thought people couldn’t just become Runners.”

“It was a time before Keepers and second-in-commands-” pain flashed across Newt’s face, and he rubbed his injured leg subconsciously, “Alby was the only real authority we had and he… he said alright.” Thomas processed what Newt had said, before he squinted at the blonde, who was looking off into the woods, eyes glazed over, lost in his memories. Newt shook himself out of it and looked directly back at Thomas. “Look, it’s complicated. We’re complicated.” He sighed, but his voice was fond and there was a small smile on his lips, “But I trust her.”

“And she trusts you.” Thomas finished, slowly. Newt nodded, once. Zart snorted from where he was crouching in the dirt, smirking up at Newt.

“If that’s true, if there’s nothing going on there,” Zart clicked his tongue, thoughtfully and shrugged, “don’t go around telling the others. They all keep away because they think you’ve got dibs.” He raised his eyebrows at Newt who rolled his eyes, the warm tones of his voice quickly melting into his usual skepticism.

“Tasha could kick your ass any day of the week.” Newt told him, as Thomas swayed from one foot to the other, leaning his hands against his shovel.

“There’s that I guess.” Zart shrugged. Newt laughed, grinning, seemingly unperturbed by Zart’s statements.

“How long… how long has she been here?” Thomas broke through the surface of his own thoughts to voice his own pressing question. Zart and Newt talked as if-

“Two years.” Newt smirked at the Greenie, “Minho, the Keeper of the Runners,” he explained “is the only other one who’s lasted that long and kept at it.” He cleared his throat, his face falling. “Running, that is.”