Only Herself to Blame...

Chapter 17 - The Blame

It had been two weeks since Zak arrived, and he hadn't talked to me since the night he had arrived.

I didn't feel akward around him like I used to, becasue I had moved on. I was over him.

I was sat on the grass with Jai. We hadn't really got the chance of being alone becasue of our jobs.

Jai had asked Minho to be a runner, but Minho said he had to wait a couple of months becasue it would look like I was influenceing him, as we had arrived in the box together and I was good friends with Minho. Therefore, Jai had become a Med-Jack in training.

This meant that he was always in the infirmary and the only time we were with eachother was at dinner, but Newt, Alby, Minho, Corby and Ben sat with us too.

"So, we are finally alone and we have nothing to talk about!" Jai said, stretching his long legs out on the grass.

I laughed. I had built up a whole lot of questions to ask him, and now I either didn't know where to start, or they seemed irrelevant.

"How's the Med-Jack work coming?"I started.

"It's actually really good. I'm quite good at it!" He said. "How's the Runner work coming?"

"It's actually really good. I'm quite good at it!" I replied.

We laughed, and for a while we couldn't stop. We weren't laughing at anything in particular, but it felt good. It felt like years of worry and greif had been lifted away. I wondered why I hasn't spent more time with Jai. We had been here for over three months and we had hardly said a word to eachother.

Once we had controlled ourselves, I decided to tell him the one thing that had been bugging me. It only felt right to tell him, as he was part of my life before the Glade, too.

"Jai?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you gotten any memories back?"

"None. Have you?"

"Well...yeah. The first one was when I touched you. I blacked out and remembered us. We were running away from a few people and we had to escape through a door. We managed it just in time and we ran through this huge building until we found the exit. There was a bunch of Cranks at the door and we told them to terrorise the people inside. They listened."

"Cranks?" Jai asked.

"Yeah. The sun scortched the world. There is this disease called the Flare which affects the brain. The people who catch it are called Cranks."

"Whoa. Okay." Jai said. He sounded slightly disturbed.

"I had another one, too. We were running again and a man was chasing us. We camped out in a building, but he found us. He said that they were ready for you and Corby was waiting for me."

"Wait. Corby? This Corby?"

"Yeah. The three of us were really close friends." I continued. "Anyway, the scene then changed and you were unconcious in the box. I was screaming and I didn't want you to go, so I inserted myself with the Memory Serum and got into the lift with you. I turned and told Corby that it would be okay and that I would see him again. This is all my fault. I was the one that took the guys around the place. I had to lead the Gladers to the lift when it was their time. They hated me."

"Don't be stupid Zoe. How can it your fault?" He asked.

"I dunno. I just feel like I could have prevented the guys from being took into the box. I could have told them to run for it and I would turn a blind eye." I muttered.

"Zoe, stop it. It isn't your fault. Stop thinking like that." He said sternly.

I sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. Thanks."

"Come on. Catch me if you can." He jumped up and ran.

I ran after him and for the rest of the evening we played stupid kids games like Tag and Cat & Mouse. We even got a total of 17 Gladers playing, before it got too dark for us to see eachother anymore.

When I got into my bed, I shut out all sounds of Minho. I closed my eyes and thought. Thought about life in the Glade. Thought about the boy who I had liked, ever since I got out of the Box 2 months ago...