"In other words," Harriet said,"you want us to risk our lives because of this brilliant deduction."
"Don't you see? Killing me has no point. Maybe it's a test for you, I don't know. But I do know that I can help you if I'm alive, not if I'm dead."
"Or," Harriet replied, "we're being tested to see if we have the guts to kill our competitors' leader. Isn't that the whole point? See which group succeeds? Weed out the weak and leave the strong?"
"I haven't even been the leader—Minho has." Thomas shook his head adamantly. "No, think about this. How are you showing any strength by killing me? I'm way outnumbered and you have all these weapons. How does that prove who's stronger?"
"Then what does it have to do with?" a girl from the back called out.
Thomas paused, choosing his words carefully. "I think it's a test to see if you'll think for yourself, change plans, make rational decisions. And the more of us there are, the better odds we have of making it to the safe haven. Killing me makes no sense, does no one any good. You’ve proven any power you needed to by capturing me. Show them you won't blindly take it all the way."
He stopped, relaxed back against the tree. He couldn't think of anything else. It was up to them now. He'd given it his best shot.
"Interesting stuff," Sonya said. "Sounds a lot like something a person who's desperate not to die would say."
Thomas shrugged. "I really feel like it's the truth. I think that if you kill me, you'll have failed the real test WICKED is throwing at you."
"Yeah, I bet you think that," Harriet said. She stood up. "Look, to be honest, we've been thinking the same types of things. But we wanted to see what you had to say. Sun should be down soon, and I'm sure Teresa will be back any minute. We'll talk about it when she gets here."
Thomas spoke up quickly, worried that Teresa wouldn't be swayed.
"No! I mean, she's the one who seems the most gung ho about killing me." He said this even though deep down he hoped he didn't mean it. As badly as she'd treated him, surely she wasn't serious about taking it all the way to murder. "I think you guys should make the decision."
"Calm down," Harriet said, a half-smile on her face. "If we decide not to kill you, there's nothing she can freaking do about it. But if we . . ." She stopped, a strange look flashing across her face. Was she worried she'd said too much? "We'll figure it out."
Thomas tried not to show his relief. He might have appealed to their pride a little bit, but he tried not to let his hopes get too high.
Thomas watched as the girls gathered their belongings and packed them into backpacks— Where'd they get those? he wondered—readying for the night's journey, to wherever that might be. Murmurs and whispers of conversation floated through the air as people kept glancing his way, obviously discussing what he'd said.
The darkness grew deeper and deeper, and Teresa finally appeared from the direction they'd come in earlier that day. She noticed right away that something was different, probably by the way everyone kept looking between her and Thomas.
"What?" she asked, the same hard look on her face she'd worn since the day before.
It was Harriet who answered. "We need to talk."
Teresa looked confused, but went to the far side of the recess in the cliff with the rest of the group. Furious whispers immediately filled the air, but Thomas couldn't make out a word anybody said. His stomach clenched in anticipation of the verdict.
From where he stood he could see that the conversation had started to get passionate, and Teresa looked as riled up as anyone. He watched her expression intensify as she tried to make some point. It seemed like it was her against the rest of them, which made Thomas very nervous.
Finally, just as nightfall was almost complete, Teresa turned, stomped from the group of girls, and started walking away from the camp, heading north. She had her spear slung over one shoulder, a backpack over the other. Thomas watched her go until she disappeared between the narrow walls of the Pass.
He glanced back at the group, many of whom looked relieved, and Harriet came walking over. Without saying a word, she knelt down and untied the rope securing him to the tree.
"Well?" Thomas finally asked. "Did you guys decide anything?" Harriet didn't answer until she'd completely freed him; then she sat back, on her heels and looked at him, her dark eyes reflecting the faint light of the stars and moon. "It's your lucky day. We decided not to kill your puny butt after all. It can't be a coincidence that we've all been thinking the same things deep down."
Thomas didn't feel the expected rush of relief. In that moment he realized that he'd known that was what they would decide all along.
"But I tell you what," Harriet said as she stood up, holding a hand out to help him do the same. "Teresa does not like you. I'd watch my back around her if I were you."
Thomas let Harriet pull him up, confusion and hurt warring for dominance inside him.
Teresa really did want him dead.
CHAPTER 49
Thomas was quiet as he ate with Group B and prepared to leave. Soon they started making their way through the dark pass of the mountains, heading for the safe haven that was supposed to wait on the other side. It felt odd to suddenly be friendly with these people after what they'd done to him, but they acted like nothing unusual had ever happened. They treated him like, well, like one of the girls.
But he did keep his distance a little, hanging toward the back, wondering if he could fully trust their change of heart about him. What was he supposed to do? Even if Harriet and the others let him leave, should he try to find his own group, Minho and Newt and everyone else? He desperately wanted to be with his friends and Brenda again. But he knew time was running out, and he had no food or water to make it on his own. He had to hope they'd find their own way to the safe haven.
So he kept walking, staying close to Group B but not too close.
A couple of hours went by, nothing but tall cliffs of stone and the crunching of dirt and rock under his feet to keep him company. It felt good to move again, to stretch his legs and muscles. The deadline was fast approaching, though. And who knew what obstacle might spring up next? Or had the girls planned something else for him? He thought a lot about the dreams he'd been having, but still couldn't put enough together to truly understand what was going on.
Harriet drifted back until the two of them were walking side by side.
"Sorry we dragged you through the desert in a bag," she said. He couldn't see her face in the dimming light very well, but he imagined a smirk there.
"Oh, no problem, it felt good to take a load off for a while." Thomas knew he had to play the part, show some humor. He couldn't trust the girls completely yet, but he had no other options.
She laughed, a sound that put him at ease a bit. "Yeah, well, the man from WICKED gave us very specific instructions about you. But it was Teresa who got all obsessed about it. Almost like killing you was her idea."
This dug at Thomas, but he finally had a chance to learn some things and he wasn't going to let that go. "Did the guy have a white suit and kind of look like a rat turned human?"
"Yeah," she said without hesitating. "Same guy who talked to your group?"
Thomas nodded. "What were the . . . specific instructions he gave you?"
"Well, most of our trip has been through underground tunnels. That's why you didn't see us in the desert. The first thing we were supposed to do was that weird thing where you and Teresa spoke in that building on the south side of the city. Remember?"
Thomas's stomach fell. She'd been with her group at that point? "Uh, yeah, I remember."
"Well, you've probably figured it out, but all of that was an act. Kind of a prepper to give you some false security. She even told us they somehow . . . controlled her long enough to make her kiss you. Is that true?"
Thomas stopped walking, bent down and put his hands on his knees. Something had sucked the breath right out of him. That was it. He'd officially and completely lost any trace of doubt. Teresa had turned ag
ainst him. Or maybe she had never really been on his side.
"I know this sucks," Harriet said softly. "It seems like you used to feel really close to her."
Thomas stood up again, slowly sucked in a long breath."I . . . just. . . I had hoped it was the other way around. That they were forcing her to try to hurt us, that she broke away long enough to ... to kiss me."
Harriet put a hand on his arm. "Ever since she joined us, she's made you out to be a monster who did something really awful to her, only she'd never tell us what it was. But I gotta tell ya—you're not anything like how she described you. That's probably the real reason we changed our minds."
Thomas closed his eyes and tried to calm his heart. Then he shook it off and started walking again. "Okay, tell me the rest. I need to hear it. All of it."
Harriet got in stride with him. "Everything else about the instructions to kill you had to do with catching you in the desert like we did and bringing you back here. We were even told to keep you in the bag until we got out of Group A's sight. Then . . . well, then the big day was supposed to be the day after tomorrow. There's supposed to be a place built into the mountain on the north side. A special place to . . . kill you."
Thomas wanted to stop again but kept his feet moving. "A place? What does that mean?"
"I don't know. He just told us we'd know what to do when we got there." She paused, then snapped her fingers as if she'd just thought of something. "I bet that's where she went earlier."
"Why? How close are we to the other side?"
"No idea, actually."
They fell into silence and kept walking.
***
It took longer than Thomas would've thought. They were in the middle of the second night of marching when shouts up ahead announced that they'd reached the end of the Pass. Thomas, who'd stayed at the back of the group, broke into a run to catch up; he desperately wanted to see what lay on the north side of the range. One way or another, his fate waited there.
The group of girls had clustered in a wide swath of broken rock that fanned out from the narrow canyon of the Pass before dropping in a steep slope to the bottom of the mountain far below. The three-quarter moon shone down on the valley in front of them, making it look dark purple and eerie. And very flat. With nothing for miles and miles but sparse, dead land.
Absolutely nothing.
No sign of anything that could be a safe haven. And they were supposed to be within a few miles of it.
"Maybe we just can't see it." Thomas didn't know who said it, but he knew every person there understood exactly why she did. Trying to hold on to hope.
"Yeah," Harriet added, sounding upbeat. "It might just be another entrance to one of their underground tunnels. I'm sure it's there."
"How many more miles do you think we have left?" Sonya asked.
"Can't be more than ten, based on where we started and how far the man said we had to go," Harriet answered. "Probably more like seven or eight. I thought we'd come out over here and we'd see a nice big building with a smiley face on it."
Thomas had been searching the darkness the whole time, but he couldn't see anything, either. Just a sea of black stretching to the horizon, where it seemed like a curtain of stars had been pulled down. And no sign of Teresa anywhere.
"Well," Sonya announced. "Not much choice but to keep heading north. We should've known better than to expect something easy. Maybe we can make it to the bottom of the mountain by sunrise. Sleep on flat ground."
The others agreed with her and were just about to set off down a barely visible footpath leading from the fan of rock when Thomas spoke up. "Where's Teresa?"
Harriet looked back at him, the moonlight bathing her face in a pale luminescence. "At this point, I don't really care. If she's a big enough girl to go runnin' around when she doesn't get her way, she's big enough to catch up and find us when she gets over it. Come on."
They started off, heading down the switchback-laden path, the loose soil and rock crunching underfoot. Thomas couldn't help but take a look behind him, searching the mountain face and the narrow entrance to the Pass for signs of Teresa. He was so confused about everything, but still had a strange urge to see her. He gazed across the dark slopes, but saw only dim shadows and reflections of the moonlight's glow.
He turned and started walking, almost relieved he hadn't spotted her.
The group made their way down the mountain, crisscrossing back and forth on the trail in silence. Thomas lingered in the back again, surprised at how blank his mind felt. How numb. He had absolutely no idea where his friends were, no idea what dangers might be waiting for him.
After an hour or so of traveling, his legs starting to burn from the awkward downhill walk, the group came across a pocket of dead trees that arrowed up the mountain in a big swath. It almost looked as if at one time a waterfall might have irrigated to the odd formation of trees. Though if it had, the last drop had long since surrendered to the Scorch.
Thomas, still last in line, was just passing the far side of the trees when a voice spoke his name, startling him so much he almost tripped. He turned sharply to see Teresa step out from behind a thick knot of white wood, spear gripped in her right hand, her face hidden in shadow. The others must not have heard, because they kept walking.
"Teresa," he whispered. "What. . ." He didn't even know what to say.
"Tom, we need to talk," she responded, almost sounding like the girl he thought he knew. "Don't worry about them, just come with me." She gestured to the trees behind her with a quick jerk of her head.
He looked back to the girls of Group B, still heading away from him, then turned to face Teresa again. "Maybe we should—"
"Just come on. The act is over." She turned away without waiting for a response and stepped into the lifeless forest.
Thomas thought hard for two whole seconds, his mind spinning in confusion, instinct screaming at him not to do it. But he followed her.
CHAPTER 50
The trees might have been dead, but their branches still pulled on Thomas's clothes and scratched at his skin. The wood shone white in the moonlight, and the streaks and pools of shadow across the ground gave the whole place a haunted feel. Teresa kept walking in silence, floating up the mountainside like an apparition.
Finally, he found the courage to speak. "Where're we going? And you really expect me to believe all that was an act? Why didn't you stop when everybody else agreed not to kill me?"
But her reply was strange. Barely turning her head, she asked, "You've met Aris, right?" She didn't break stride, just kept moving.
Thomas stopped for a second, completely taken aback. "Aris? How do you even know about him? What's he got to do with this?" He hurried to catch up with her again, curious but dreading the answer for some reason.
She didn't respond right away, picking her way through a particularly tight pack of branches; one flew back and smacked him in the face after she let it fly. Once through, she finally stopped and turned to him, right where a shaft of moonlight illuminated her face. She looked unhappy.
"I happen to know Aris very well," she said in a tight voice. "Much better than you're going to like. Not only was he a big part of my life before the Maze, he and I can speak in our minds, just like you and I used to do. Even when I was in the Glade, we communicated all the time. And we knew they'd eventually put us back together."
Thomas searched for a response. What she'd said was so unexpected he thought it must be a joke. Another trick by WICKED.
She waited, arms folded, as if she enjoyed seeing him struggle to speak.
"You're lying," he finally said. "That's all you do is lie. I don't understand why, or what's going on, but—"
"Oh, come on, Tom," she said. "How could you possibly be so stupid? After all that's happened to you, how could anything surprise you anymore? Everything about us was part of some ridiculous test. And it's over. Aris and I are going to do what we were told to do, and life goes on. WICKED's all that matters now. That's it."
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"What are you talking about?" He couldn't have felt any emptier.
Teresa looked past him, over his shoulder. He heard the snap of breaking twigs on the ground, and somehow he held on to his dignity enough to not turn around to see who had snuck up on him.
"Tom,"Teresa said. "Aris is right behind you, and he has a very big knife. Try anything and he'll slice your neck. You’re coming with us and you're gonna do exactly what we tell you. Understand?"
Thomas stared at her, hoping the rage he felt inside showed clearly on his face. He'd never felt so angry in his life—what he could remember of it.
"Say hi, Aris," she said. And then, the worst thing yet—she smiled.
"Hi, Tommy," the boy said from behind. It was definitely him, just not as friendly as before. "Such a thrill to be with you again." The point of his knife just touched Thomas's back.
Thomas remained silent.
"Well," Teresa said. "At least you're acting like a grown-up about this. Just keep following me—we're almost there."
"Where are we going?" Thomas asked in a steely voice.
"You'll find out soon enough." She turned and started walking through the trees again, using her spear like a staff.
Thomas hurried to follow before Aris got the satisfaction of pushing him. The trees got thicker and closer together, and the moonlight flitted away. Darkness pressed in, sucking light and life right out of him.
They reached a cave, the thick copse of trees serving as a tight wall at its entrance. Thomas didn't have any warning—one minute they were picking their way through prickly branches, the next they were in a tall, narrow hole in the side of the mountain. A dull light source shone from deep inside, a sickly green rectangle that made Teresa look like a zombie when she moved to the side for the other two to enter.
Aris stepped around him, his blade aimed like a gun at Thomas's chest as he backed to the wall opposite Teresa and leaned against it. Thomas could do nothing but look back and forth between them. Two people who every instinct had told him were his friends. Until now.
THE SCORCH TRIALS tmr-2 Page 24