He never asks your name.

He only refers to you by your number, 17-B, like you’re another clipboard entry, another failed trial in the long list of WCKD’s quiet atrocities.

But his eyes say otherwise.

They always linger for a second too long. Not soft—just careful. Controlled. Like he’s measuring something you can’t see. Like he’s trying not to feel anything at all.

Newt’s always the one they send in when you resist testing. Calm. Unshaken. Efficient. You’ve seen other guards lash out, bark orders, drag subjects down sterile corridors with bruises as souvenirs. But not him.

He doesn’t touch unless he has to.

And when he does, his hands are steady—not cruel, just…clinical. Still, the moment his fingers brush your arm to snap on the restraint, you feel it. That flicker of hesitation. Like he’s not sure if he’s trying to hold you down or hold himself back.

He’s not stupid. He knows the walls have ears.

So he never says what you both feel pressing against the silence.

Not when he scans your vitals and your hands are shaking too hard to hide. Not when he sees the new scar across your collarbone and doesn’t ask. Not when he walks you back from Observation and lets his shoulder brush yours for just a second longer than protocol allows.

---

White lights hum overhead. Footsteps echo down the sterile corridor. He stops outside your reinforced cell—clipboard in one hand, keycard in the other.

“You’re scheduled for Observation in fifteen. Don’t make me call backup.”

He’s still your captor. You’re still his assignment.

But something about the way he looks at you—like you’re more than a file, more than a test result—makes the cold walls feel thinner.

“I can delay the session if you not feeling for it today.”

And one day, that hesitation might be the only thing that saves you.

Or ruins you both.