Eternal Madness || The Death Cure || Minho

05 - You Know I Care

The room became deadly silent after the announcement was made, only the humming of machines was heard. Thomas and I immediately made eye contact because we already knew our fates. I had the Flare and he was immune. I had told him not to tell anyone, but now it seems that keeping it a secret was no longer an option.

"For an experiment to provide accurate results," Rat Man explained. "One needs an a control group. We did our best to keep the virus from you as long as we could. But it's airborne and highly contagious."

He paused. That tiny moment of quietness seemed like an eternity because of what he was about to reveal.

"Just bloody get on with it," Newt said. "We all figured we had the buggin' disease anyway. You're not breaking our hearts."

I began picking at my fingernails nervously. It wasn't like I was afraid of him telling me I have the Flare again. I was actually scared of what Minho would do. When Rat Man tells him that I'm practically sentenced to death then he might lose it. Unless he had the Flare too.

Rat Man cleared his throat. "Okay, then. Most of you are immune and have helped us gather invaluable data. Only two of you are considered Candidates now, but we'll go into that later. Let's get to the list. The following people are not immune. Newt, Anne..."

Newt. My best friend. He had the Flare. He was going to go crazy, just like me. I couldn't imagine how he felt because after what happened in the Maze, when he tried to kill himself, this was now taking away his second chance at living.

I looked up from the floor to see Minho staring at me. I could tell he was trying to convince himself that what he had just heard wasn't true, but we all knew it was.

"Why aren't you freaked out by this?" he asked suddenly. "You look so shucking calm right now."

I sighed. "He told me earlier."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to know because I was scared by how you would react. 'Cause if he had said you had the Flare I don't think I would be able to handle it. I'm barely keeping it together knowing Newt has it too."

The dark haired boy wouldn't take his eyes off the tiled floor. I wondered if I had made a huge mistake not telling him right away. He looked so disappointed in me. Maybe he thought me remembering would automatically change everything back to the way it was. When everything seemed so simple and when it was just him and me against the world. But after everything, I'm not as close to him as I wanted to believe.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I can't take back what I did, or what I didn't do, but we're going to have to move on. I'm sorry, Minho.  You know I care about you, right? So this shouldn't change that."

Minho remained silent as he took in my words. But he didn't answer. That made my chest tighten up because he usually had so much to say about everything. He always had the last word.

"I wanted to get that out of the way," Rat Man said. "Mainly so I could tell you myself and remind you that the whole point of this operation has been to build toward a cure. Most of you not immune are in the early stages of the Flare, and I have every confidence that you'll be taken care of before it goes too far. But the Trials requires your participation."

Rat Man then went on to explain the process that led up to getting our memories back. It didn't matter to me because we already decided that we weren't getting them back. We were fine with not knowing. Ignorance is bliss at this point.

"Give me just a few moments to make sure the medical teams are ready. You can take time to make your decisions," he said before exiting the room.

Minho left my side and went over to Thomas and Teresa without saying a word to me. I felt like I messed up with him. But I still couldn't see why he was so upset over this little thing. He should be glad I remember him, remember the memories we share. But no. He's now acting like he should of when I didn't know him.