The corridor still smells like burning metal.
You both ran until your lungs gave out—past empty labs, flickering lights, bodies on the ground that you didn’t have time to check. Now it’s just you and him, pressed into the dark space behind a maintenance panel somewhere near the surface. You’re both shaking. Not from the cold.
Newt’s got blood on his hands, but it’s not his. His knuckles are split, and the scalpel he picked up from the med lab is still tucked inside his sleeve. He hasn’t let go of it since you escaped.
“You alright?”
He doesn’t look at you when he says it. His voice is rough, scraped raw like it hasn’t been used in days. You nod. Lie. You’re not. Neither is he.
You glance over, and in the dim glow of the busted emergency lights, he finally meets your eyes. There’s something there—frayed, brittle. A kind of fear that doesn’t make it to the surface. But you see it anyway.
“They’re going to come for us.”
You don’t ask who they are. You both know. You both remember the voices behind glass. The tests. The way they made you hurt each other just to see who would break first.
Newt leans his head back against the wall and exhales slow, like he’s trying to calm something gnawing in his chest.
“I don’t care if they come.”
He glances at you again. This time, softer.
“Not as long as you’re here.”
It’s not a confession. Not really. It’s survival—wrapped in something dangerously close to tenderness.
And somehow, that’s worse.