Thomas stepped to the side and leaned against the wall as the other Gladers and Aris came out of the small dorm room. A hushed sense of awe spread across the group as one by one, each person noticed the missing dead. As for Thomas, he once again felt a numbness, like he just might be done feeling surprised at anything.
"You're right," Minho said to Newt. "We were in there with the door closed for, what, twenty minutes? No way anyone could've moved all those bodies that quickly. Plus, this place is locked from the inside."
"Not to mention getting rid of the smell," Thomas added.
Minho nodded.
"Well, you shanks are right smart," Frypan said through a huff. "But take a look around. They're gone. So whatever you think, somehow they got rid of them."
Thomas didn't feel like arguing about it―or even talking about it. So the dead bodies were gone. They'd seen stranger stuff.
"Hey," Winston said. "Those crazy people quit screaming and yelling."
Thomas put his weight back on his feet, listened. Silence. "I thought we just couldn't hear them from Aris's room. But you're right―they stopped."
Soon everyone was running for the larger dorm room on the far side of the common area. Thomas followed, intensely curious to look out the windows and see the world outside. Before, with the Cranks screaming and pressing their faces against the iron bars, he'd been too horrified to get a good view.
"No way!" Minho yelled from up ahead, then, without further explanation, disappeared inside the room.
As Thomas moved in that direction, he noticed that every boy hesitated a second, wide-eyed at the threshold of the door, then went ahead and entered the dorm. He waited as each Glader and then Aris funneled their way inside, then followed.
He felt the same shock he'd sensed from the other boys. As a whole, the room looked much like it had when they'd walked out of it earlier. But there was one monumental difference: at each window, without exception, a red brick wall had been erected just outside the iron bars, completely blocking every inch of open space. The only light in the room came from the panels on the ceiling.
"Even if they were quick with those bodies," Newt said, "I'm pretty sure they didn't have time to bloody throw up some brick walls. What's going on here?"
Thomas watched as Minho walked over to one of the windows and reached through the bars, pressing his hand against the red bricks. "Solid," he said, then slapped at it.
"It doesn't even look fresh," Thomas murmured, stepping up to one himself to get a feel. Hard and cool. "The mortar's dry. Somehow they've tricked us, that's all."
"Tricked us?" Frypan asked. "How?"
Thomas shrugged, that numbness returning. Still wishing desperately that he could talk to Teresa. "I don't know. Remember the Cliff? We jumped into thin air and went through an invisible hole. Who knows what these people can do."
The next half hour passed in a haze. Thomas wandered about, as did everyone else, inspecting the brick walls, looking for signs of anything else that had changed. Several things had, each one just as strange as the next. All the beds in the Gladers' dorm room were made, and there was no sign of the grungy clothes they'd all worn before changing into the pajamas provided the night before. The dressers had been rearranged, though the difference was subtle and some people disagreed that they'd been moved at all. Either way, each one had been stocked with fresh clothes and shoes, and new digital watches for each boy.
But the biggest change of all―discovered by Minho―was the sign outside the room where they'd found Aris. Instead of saying Teresa Agnes, Group A, Subject A1, The Betrayer, it now said:
Aris Jones, Group B, Subject B1
The Partner
Everyone observed the new plaque, then wandered away, but Thomas found himself standing in front of it, unable to remove his eyes. To Thomas it felt like the new label made it official―Teresa had been taken from him, replaced by Aris. None of it made sense, and none of it mattered anymore. He went back to the boys' dorm, found the cot he'd slept on during the night―or at least, the one he thought he'd slept on―and lay down, putting the pillow over his head, as if that would make everyone else go away.
What had happened to her? What had happened to them? Where were they? What were they supposed to do? And the tattoos ...
Turning his head to the side, then his whole body, he squeezed his eyes shut and folded his arms tightly, pulling his legs up until he lay in the fetal position. Then, determined to keep trying until he heard back from her, he called out with his thoughts.
Teresa? A pause. Teresa? A longer pause. Teresa! He shouted it mentally, his whole body tensing with the effort. Teresa! Where are you? Please answer me! Why aren't you trying to contact me? Ter―
Get out of my head!
The words exploded inside his mind, so vivid and so strangely audible within his skull that he felt lances of pain behind his eyes and in his ears. He sat up in bed, then stood. It was her. It was definitely her.
Teresa? He pressed the first two fingers of both hands against his temples. Teresa?
Whoever you are, get out of my shuck head!
Thomas stumbled backward until he sat down once again on the bed. His eyes were closed as he concentrated. Teresa, what are you talking about? It's me. Thomas. Where are you?
Shut up! It was her, he had no doubt, but her mental voice was full of fear and anger. Just shut up! I don't know who you are! Leave me alone!
But, Thomas began, completely at a loss. Teresa, what's wrong?
She paused before answering, as if collecting her thoughts, and when she finally spoke again, Thomas sensed an almost disturbing calm in her.
Leave me alone, or I'll hunt you down and cut your throat. I swear it.
And then she was gone. Despite her warning, he tried calling for her again, but the same emptiness he'd felt since that morning returned, her presence having vanished.
Thomas fell back on the bed, something horrible burning through his body. He quickly buried his head in the pillow again and cried for the first time since Chuck had been killed. But the words from the label outside her door―The Betrayer―kept popping up in his mind. Each time, he pushed them away.
Amazingly, no one bothered him or asked him what was wrong. His stifled sobs finally faded into an occasional hitched breath, and eventually he fell asleep. Once again, he dreamed.
He's a little older this time, probably seven or eight. A very bright light hovers above his head like magic.
People in strange green suits and funny glasses keep peeking at him, their heads momentarily blocking the brilliance that shines down. He can see their eyes but nothing else. Their mouths and noses are covered by masks. Thomas is somehow both himself at that age and yet, as before, observing as an outsider. But he feels the boy's fear.People are talking, voices muted and dull. Some are men, some are women, but he can't tell which is which or who is who.
He can't understand much of it at all.
Only glimpses. Fragments of conversation. All of it terrifying.
"We'll have to cut deeper with him and the girl."
"Can their brains handle this?"
"This is so amazing, you know? The Flare is rooted inside him."
"He might die."
"Or worse. He might live."
He hears one last thing, finally something that doesn't make him shiver in disgust or fright.
"Or he and the others might save us. Save us all."
CHAPTER 9
When he woke up, his head felt like several chunks of ice had been hammered through his ears and into his brain. Wincing, he reached up to rub his eyes and was hit by a wave of nausea that sent the room tilting around him. Then he remembered the terrible things Teresa had said, then the short dream, and misery engulfed him. Who had those people been? Was it real? What had they meant when they'd said those awful things about his brain?
"Glad to see you still know how to take a nap."
Thomas peeked through a squint and saw Newt standing next to his bed, staring down at him.
"How long's it been?" Thomas asked, forcing thoughts of Teresa and the dream―memory?―into a dark corner of his mind to agonize over later.
Newt looked at his watch. "Couple hours. When people noticed you lie down, it actually kind of relaxed everyone. Not much we can do but sit and wait for something new to happen. There's no way out of this place."
Thomas tried not to groan as he scooted himself into a sitting position, his back against the wall at the head of his bed. "Do we even have any food?"
"No. But I'm pretty sure these people wouldn't go through all this trouble to bring us here, trick us or whatever they've done, just to let us buggin' starve to death. Something will happen. Reminds me of when they sent the first group of us to the Glade. The initial group of me and Alby and Minho and some others. The original Gladers." He said that last part with a not-so-subtle burst of sarcasm.
Thomas was intrigued, surprised he'd never before dug into what that had been like. "How does this remind you of that?"
Newt's gaze was focused on the brick wall outside the closest window. "We all woke up in the middle of the day, lying on the ground around the doors to the Box. It was closed. Our memories had been wiped, just like yours when you came. You'd be surprised at how quickly we pulled ourselves together and quit panicking. There were about thirty of us. Obviously, we had no bloody clue what had happened, how we'd gotten there, what we were supposed to do. And we were terrified, disoriented. But since we were all in the same crappy situation, we organized ourselves and figured out the place. Had the full farm running within days, everybody with their own job."
Thomas was relieved that the pain in his skull had diminished. And he was intrigued to hear about the start of the Glade―the scattered pieces of the puzzle brought back by the Changing weren't nearly enough to form solid memories. "Did the Creators have everything in place already? Crops, animals, all that?"
Newt nodded, still staring at the bricked-up window. "Yeah, but it took a ton of work to get it going nice and smooth. A lot of trial and error before we accomplished anything."
"So ... how does this remind you of that?" Thomas asked again.
Finally, Newt looked at him. "I guess back then we all just had a sense that there was obviously a purpose to us having been sent there. If someone had wanted to kill us, why wouldn't they have just killed us? Why would they send us to a huge place with a house and a barn and animals? And because we had no other choice, we accepted it and started working and exploring."
"But we're already done exploring here," Thomas countered. "No animals, no food, no Maze."
"Yeah, but come on. It's the same concept. We're obviously here for a buggin' purpose. We'll figure it out eventually."
"If we don't starve first."
Newt pointed at the bathroom. "We've got plenty of water, so it'll be at least a few days before we drop dead. Something will happen."
Deep down Thomas believed it, too, and was only arguing to solidify it in his own mind. "But what about all those dead people we saw? Maybe they rescued us for real, got killed, and now we're screwed. Maybe we were supposed to do something, but now it's all been messed up and we've been left here to die."
Newt burst out laughing. "You're one depressing piece of klunk, slinthead. Nah, with all those corpses magically disappearing and the brick walls, I'd say this is something more like the Maze. Weird and impossible to explain. The latest and greatest mystery. Maybe our next test, who knows. Whatever's going on, we'll have a chance, just like we did in the bloody Maze. I guarantee it."
"Yeah," Thomas murmured, wondering if he should share what he'd dreamed about. Deciding to save it for later, he said, "Hope you're right. As long as no Grievers suddenly show up, we'll be good."
Newt was already shaking his head by the time Thomas finished. "Please, man. Careful what you buggin' wish for. Maybe they'll send something worse."
The image of Teresa popped into Thomas's mind just then, and he lost all desire to talk. "Who's the cheerful one now?" he forced himself to say.
"You got me," Newt replied, then stood up. "Guess I'll go bug somebody else till the excitement begins, which better be bloody soon. I'm hungry."
"Careful what you wish for."
"Good that."
Newt walked away, and Thomas scooted down to lie on his back, staring at the bottom of the bunk above him. He closed his eyes after a while, but when he saw Teresa's face in the darkness of his thoughts, he opened them right up again. If he was going to get through this, he'd have to try to forget about her for now.
Hunger.
It's like an animal trapped inside you, Thomas thought. After three full days of not eating, it felt like a vicious, gnawing, dull-clawed animal was trying to burrow its way out of his stomach. He felt it every second of every minute of every hour. He drank water as often as possible from the sinks in the bathroom, but it did nothing to drive the beast away. If anything, it felt like he was making the thing stronger so it could inflict more misery within.
The others felt it, too, even if most of them kept their complaints to themselves. Thomas watched as they walked around, heads hung low, jaws slack, as if every step burned a thousand calories. People licked their lips a lot. They grabbed at their stomachs, pushed on them, as if trying to calm that gnawing beast. Unless they were going to the bathroom to use it or to get a drink, the Gladers didn't move at all. Like Thomas, they just lay there on the bunk beds, limp. Skin pale, eyes sunken.
Thomas felt all this like a festering disease, and seeing the others only made it worse, a stark reminder that this wasn't something he could just ignore. That it was real, and death waited just around the corner.