The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner Book 2) (55)
CHAPTER
55
It
took every ounce of Thomas’s willpower not to stop and turn toward her. What?
Why didn’t you tell me about him back in the Maze? As if he needed another
reason to dislike either of them.
“Why’d
you guys stop talking?” Aris suddenly asked. “You yappin’ about me in those
pretty little heads of yours?” Impossibly, he didn’t seem the least bit
sinister at all anymore. It was almost as if everything that had happened back
in the dead forest had been a creation of Thomas’s imagination.
Thomas
let out a heavy breath that had been building in his lungs. “I can’t believe
this. You two’ve been—” He stopped, realizing that maybe he wasn’t so surprised
after all. He’d seen Aris in the splotchy memories of his most recent
dream. He was a part of this, whatever this was. And the way they’d
acted toward each other in that brief recall seemed to say they were on the
same side. Used to be, anyway.
“Shuck
it,” Thomas finally said. “Just keep talking.”
“All
right,” Teresa said. “There’s a lot of stuff to explain, so from now on just
keep quiet and listen. Got it?”
Thomas’s
legs were starting to burn from their steady pace on the slope. “Okay, but …
how do you know when you’re talking to me and when you’re talking to him? How
does that work?”
“It
just does. That’s like me asking how you know when you’re telling your right
leg to move and when you’re telling your left leg to move. I just … know. It’s
built into my brain somehow.”
“We’ve
done it, too, man,” Aris said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Of
course I remember,” Thomas muttered, annoyed and frustrated on so many levels.
If only he could have everything back—every last memory—he knew the pieces
would fall into place and he could just move forward. He couldn’t fathom why
WICKED felt it was so important to keep their minds clean of memory. And why
the occasional leakage lately? Was that on purpose or an accident? A lingering
effect of the Changing?
Too
many questions. Too many shuck questions, all without answers. “All right,” he
finally said. “I’ll keep my mouth and brain shut. Keep going.”
“We
can talk about Aris and me later. I don’t even remember what we spoke about—I
lost almost everything when I woke up. Our comas had to be part of the
Variables, so maybe we could communicate just so we wouldn’t go crazy. I mean,
we were part of setting it all up, right?”
“Setting
it all up?” Thomas asked. “I don’t—”
Teresa
reached forward and swatted him on the back. “Thought you were gonna be quiet?”
“Yeah,”
Thomas grumbled.
“Anyway,
these people came into my room dressed in those creepy outfits and my telepathy
with you cut off. I was scared and only half awake. Part of me thought it was
just a bad nightmare. Then the next thing I knew, they put something over my
mouth that smelled horrible and then I passed out. When I woke up I was lying
in a bed in a different room and a bunch of people were sitting in chairs on
the opposite side of this weird glass wall. I couldn’t see it until I touched
it—almost like a force field or something.”
“Yeah,”
Thomas said. “We had something like that, too.”
“So
then they started talking to me. That’s when they told me this whole plan of
what Aris and I had to do to you—and they expected me to tell him. By, you
know, speaking in his mind, even though he was now with your group. Our group.
Group A. They took me from my room and sent me to be with Group B; then they
told us about the mission to the safe haven, about having the Flare. We were
scared, confused, but we had no choice. We went through these underground
tunnels until we got to the mountains—we avoided the city altogether. When you
and I met in that little building, and then everything that happened from the
time we came down to you in the valley with all those weapons—all of that was
planned.”
Thomas
thought about the sketchy memories he’d had in his dreams. Something told him
he’d known that a scenario like this might need to happen before he ever went
to the Glade and the Maze. He had a hundred questions to ask Teresa, but
decided to hold back for a little while longer.
They
turned at another switchback; then Teresa continued. “I only know two things
for sure. One, they said that if I did anything against their plan they’d kill
you. Said they ‘had other options,’ whatever that means. The second thing I
know is that the reason for all this was that you had to truly and absolutely
feel betrayed. The whole purpose of what we did to you was to ensure that that
happened.”
Again
Thomas thought of the memories. He and Teresa had both used the word patterns
right before he left her. What did it mean?
“So?”
Teresa asked after they’d walked in silence for a while.
“So
… what?” Thomas replied.
“So
what do you think?”
“That’s
it? That’s your whole explanation? I’m supposed to feel all happy now?”
“Tom,
I couldn’t take any chances. I was convinced they’d kill you unless I went
along. No matter what, in the end you had to feel like I’d completely betrayed
you. That’s why I put so much into it. But why this was all so important? I
have no idea.”
Thomas
realized suddenly that all this information had started another headache.
“Well, you sure were good at it. What about in that building? When you kissed
me? And … why did Aris need to be involved in all this?”
Teresa
grabbed his arm and made him stop and turn to face her. “They had everything
calculated. All for the Variables. I don’t know how it all fits
together.”
Thomas
slowly shook his head. “Well, none of this crap makes any sense to me. And
excuse me for feeling a little ticked off.”
“Did
it work?”
“Huh?”
“For
some reason they wanted you betrayed, and it worked. Right?”
Thomas
paused, looked into her blue eyes for a long time. “Yeah. It did.”
“I’m
sorry for what I did. But you’re alive, and so am I. And so is Aris.”
“Yeah,”
he repeated. He really didn’t feel like talking to her anymore.
“WICKED
got what they want, and I got what I want.” Teresa looked at Aris, who’d kept
walking for a while and now stood down on the next level of the path. “Aris,
turn around, face the valley.”
“What?”
he replied. He looked confused. “Why?”
“Just
do it.” She didn’t have the mean streak in her voice anymore, hadn’t since the
gas chamber, but if anything, that made Thomas even more suspicious. What was
she up to now?
Aris
sighed and rolled his eyes, but did what she said, turning his back to them.
Teresa
didn’t hesitate. She wrapped her arms around Thomas’s neck, pulling him in. He
didn’t have enough will to resist.
They
kissed, but nothing stirred inside Thomas. He felt nothing.
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