Tears of Gold

🎶All eyes on me in the center of the ring just like the circus🎶

"So..." I say in a desperate attempt to break the silence in the room. "Nice weather out there, huh?"

"Shut up." Winston snaps from his bed, running his hands over his face. He shoots me an exhausted glare before rolling his eyes.

"Someone's on their period." I mutter in a sing-song voice. Once again, Winston shoots me a glare.

"Fine, sorry. Just trying to diffuse the tension." I put my hands in the air.

"What's going on with you?" Newt asks suddenly, running a hand over his face.

"I'm sorry?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Leave it, Newt." Minho mutters from his bunk. I look up at him, narrowing my eyes. He doesn't make eye contact.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" I ask, folding my arms across my chest.

"You." Newt says, gesturing towards me. "Why are you acting like nothing happened? I mean, you hardly even seem fazed by anything."

"I said to just leave it, Newt. She doesn't wanna talk about it, so just leave her alone. Let her pretend like everything's okay."

"Everything is okay." Minho scoffs, rolling his eyes. "Got something to say?" I snap. Minho shakes his head in response. "Really, because the scoff I just heard suggested otherwise. So go on. Talk. You love doing that."

Minho shrugs. "I don't know, maybe it's the fact that your boyfriend is dead and you don't even seem to care. Maybe you making jokes and being sarcastic is just a little bit of a shock to everyone."

I stare up at Minho, who's finally looking me in the eyes. He doesn't say anything else. Everyone in the room is completely quiet, their attention on the two of us. 

"Fuck you." I snap, looking away. The Runner doesn't look away though. Instead, he hops down from his bunk and walks over to me.

"That's it? That's all I get?" Minho asks. I don't respond. "Hit me, yell at me, punch me, damn it! Anything! I don't even fuckin' care anymore! But don't act like everything's okay when it isn't! Don't act like you don't fucking hate me! Don't act like you don't miss him every second of every fuckin' day, because we all know that you do!"

I shoot to my feet and shove Minho backwards, causing him to stumble, but not fall. Newt, Winston, and Frypan all immediately jump up, Newt holding me back from Minho before I can land a single solid punch. Frypan stands in between us with his arms held out while Winston helps Minho regain his balance.

"Don't you dare talk about my fucking feelings like you have a clue about what's going on! Don't you dare stand there and have the audacity to look me in the eyes after days of not being able to just to tell me how I should be acting and feeling! You did this to me! To him! This is all your fuckin' fault!"

I fight against Newt's arms, but his grip around my torso is too strong. I writhe and kick and scream, but Newt keeps a firm grip. No matter how hard I try to get away, he always pulls me back.

"Let me go! Let me go!" I scream, trying to get away from Newt, but the boy holds me back, trying desperately to calm me down. "It's his fault! Let me go! Please-!"

My voice catches in my throat as a wave of tears fills my eyes, spilling over before I can stop it. I slowly stop fighting against Newt, eventually just falling back into him. I begin to sink slowly to the floor, my body shaking with sobs. He follows me, now hugging me close to his body rather than trying to restrain me.

"His fault-" I choke out, my entire body shaking and racking with sobs. Newt shushes me and whispers comforting things to me, but all I can think about is that night. The memories flash through my mind like a bad slideshow, flashing in and out of my mind quickly. 

"It's okay." Newt whispers, clutching me even closer to his body. "It's okay. You're gonna be okay."

🪐🪐🪐

I'm sitting alone on my bed, my arms wrapped around my knees as I stare at the wall in front of me blankly. The room is silent. No one dares to speak after what happened. 

I can feel the boys' eyes on me constantly, but I ignore them. I'm too far lost in my own mind and memories to care. I've been sucked into a world filled with Gally and blood and death, an inky darkness in my mind forcing me to relive that moment.

I remember watching him slowly slip away from me; hearing his breaths grow fainter and watching the life in his blue eyes that I loved so much fade away. The blood on my knees mixed with the blood pooling around his body. In that moment, we were forever intertwined, our souls tied together by an invisible string. 

When I was dragged away, a part of me was left behind. I'll never get it back again. It died with him in that cold, dark room that night. That must be why I feel so hollow and empty right now as I stare at the wall in front of me in the silence of the room.

A loud clanging is what brings me out of my own, dark mind. I jump, taking a second to remember where I am due to how lost I was only moments before. I see Thomas scrambling out from beneath one of the beds, causing me to jump up and rush over to the rest of the group, everyone already crowding around the boy.

"Thomas!" Minho shouts.

"We gotta go." Thomas says, his voice shaking as he makes a beeline for the door. "We gotta go. We gotta go right now!"

"What's going on?" Newt asks.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"What do you mean, 'we gotta go'?"

"Thomas, stop!" I shout as the boy tries to open the door. "Tell us what's wrong!"

"They're coming." He says, turning around and heading towards his bed. "Come on, we gotta go. Come on! They're coming for us!"

"They? Who's they?" I ask, following the boy around as he runs frantically around the room.

"Paige. She's still alive."

"Thomas, what happened?" I try to ask, but he doesn't listen, his mind too occupied on pulling the sheets off his bed.

"Aris, what happened?!" Frypan shouts, walking towards the boy. Aris looks shocked to his core, standing still in the center of the room with his eyes wide in horror and trained on the ground.

"Thomas, can you just calm down and talk to us?" Newt demand.

"She's still alive."

"Who's she?! Teresa?!" Frypan shouts.

"Ava! Ava!" Thomas shouts back, tying one of the sheets to his bed to the door handle. 

"Ava?" Newt asks, furrowing his eyebrows. "Will you just turn around and talk to us?!"

"It's WICKED!" Thomas finally screams in frustration, whipping around to face us. We all stare at him in shock. "It's still WICKED. It's always been WICKED." He grabs his mattress and drags it towards the door. He presses it up against with door with a grunt, leaning against the mattress. 

Newt walks up to him and presses a hand against the mattress close to Thomas's head.

"Thomas..." He starts. The brunette looks back at him, fear in his eyes. "What did you see?" He demands calmly.

"She's coming for us." Thomas finally says after a beat of silence, his voice shaking. "Tomorrow. She's coming for us tomorrow. That's why we have to go right now."

Thomas and Aris make eye contact before their gazes shift over to me. They look back at each other, worry and fear filling their faces.

"What?" I ask. "Why are you two looking at me like that?" They both look at me again, followed by everyone else in the room. Their attention is all on me. I feel like a fucking circus animal with their eyes trained on me like this. "Thomas?" I ask, my voice shaking. He looks at me, his brown eyes piercing into my gray ones. 

"She wants you, Venus." He says after a moment. "She's coming for us, but she wants you."