Error | The Maze Runner / Newt ? ?

{1.1}

I could hear the slow thump of his heart every time it beat, filling me with a strange, sudden realization that Newt was a human like me and everyone else in the room. My fingers danced over his ribs until I could squeeze his free hand with mine. I love you.

I was sure of it then. I was sure of it when he had picked me up off of the sand last night, when he had carried me to this building despite the fact that he barely had the strength to do so. My skin crawled with it, the intense feeling for him, and my nerves yearned for his constant touch. I was in love with his heart. The way he laughed and how his eyes crinkled at the corners when he did so. His smile and the look in his eyes when they gazed into mine. His kindness and his limp that he never told me about.

"Who—" I couldn't finish the question. The words caught in my throat like a forbidden sentence and I shuddered at the fact that I even had to ask it. The sound of my voice was fuzzy because my working ear was pressed to Newt's chest.

"Jack, Stan, Tim, and Harvey, to name a few," Thomas replied sadly. My heart gave an unpleasant jolt that nearly detached it from my arteries. Harvey had helped me stand last night when I had fallen. Now he was dead. I'd never get a chance to thank him for thinking of me before himself.

Newt took his hand out of my hair and pointed at the sunlight peeking through one of the broken windows on the wall across from us. "Least it's over. We better start thinking about what we're gonna do next."

"See," Minho said with a slight grin. "You're just as heartless as me. And you're right."

Thomas nodded and stretched his arms over his head. "Yeah, we better figure things out before we have a bunch of those crazies show up. But I'm telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food."

"Food?"

Even with my bad ear turned toward the source, I still heard it- partially because it echoed through the place. It came from above and was completely foreign to me. When I looked up, a face was staring down from the shredded remains of the third floor. I could hardly see his face, but I did make out wrinkled, dark skin and greying hair that curled around his head.

"Who're you?" Minho shouted up at him. Apparently he did have the remaining strength to open his eyes, because they were widened at the sight of the unexpected visitor.

I let out a small gasp as the man literally jumped over the railing and fell down toward us. Minho let out a shriek and scrambled out of the way toward Thomas. Then, at the last second before his legs would have been crushed, the man tucked into a roll and sprang to his feet.

"My name is Jorge," the man replied with the hint of a Spanish accent, arms outstretched. "And I'm the Crank who rules this place."

I blinked in utter shock and slowly got to my feet, grunting at the pain that followed. Newt followed, as did the other Gladers who had definitely woken up by then. Theo was holding the man under a calculating stare. He had obviously detected the accent Jorge had.

"You people forget how to talk?" Jorge asked with a smile. "Or you just scared of the Cranks? Scared we'll pull you to the ground and eat your eyeballs out? Mmm, tasty. I love a good eyeball when the grub's runnin' short. Tastes like undercooked eggs."

"What the shuck," I mumbled under my breath, wondering if my lack of hearing was playing tricks on me. It was strange that everything was now half the volume it usually was.

Minho had been the only one not to stand, but he now seemed wide awake and the grimace had disappeared. "You admit you're a Crank? That you're freaking crazy?"