The words numbed Thomas's brain; he had no idea what to think. Was she being sarcastic?
She released him and stood back up. "Okay, let's get out of here. Make sure you hit as many rocks as you can along the way."
His captors started walking, dragging him along behind them. He felt the rough ground below him as he was dragged across it, the big sack providing absolutely no protection. It hurt. He arched his back, putting all his weight on his feet, letting his shoes bear the brunt of the impacts. But he knew his strength couldn't hold out forever.
Teresa walked right beside him as they pulled his body along. He could just make her out through the burlap.
Then Minho started yelling, his voice already fading with distance, the sound of being dragged against the dirt making it that much harder to hear. What Thomas did hear, however, gave him little hope. Between garbled unflattering names, Thomas heard the words "we'll find you" and "time is right" and "weapons."
Teresa slammed her fist into Thomas's stomach again, shutting Minho up.
And across the desert they went, Thomas bouncing over the dirt like a sack of old clothes.
Thomas imagined horrible things as they went along. His legs were weakening every second, and he knew he'd have to lower his body to the ground soon. He pictured the bleeding wounds, the permanent scars.
But maybe it wouldn't matter. They planned on killing him anyway.
Teresa had said to trust her. And even though he had a hard time doing it, he was trying to believe her. Could all the stuff she'd done to him since reappearing with the weapons and Group B really be an act? If it wasn't, why would she keep whispering to him to trust her?
His mind turned it all over in circles until he couldn't concentrate anymore. His body was being rubbed raw, and he knew he needed to figure out how to prevent every inch of skin from being scratched off.
The mountains saved him.
When they started going up the steep slope, it obviously became difficult for the girls to drag his body the way they'd done across flat ground. They tried pulling him in quick jerks―slipping and letting him slide several feet back down, then hauling him back up only to let him slip again. Teresa finally said it'd probably be easier to carry him by the shoulders and ankles. And that they should do it in shifts.
An idea hit Thomas then that was so obvious he thought surely he'd missed something. "Why don't you just let me walk!" he called through the burlap, his voice muffled and cracking from thirst. "I mean, you do have weapons. What am I gonna do?"
Teresa kicked him in the side. "Shut up, Thomas. We're not idiots. We're waiting until your Glader buddies can't see us anymore."
He'd done his best to stifle his groan when her foot crashed into his rib cage. "Huh? Why?"
"Because that's what we were told to do. Now shut up!"
"Why'd you tell him that?" one of the other girls whispered harshly.
"What does it matter?" Teresa responded, not even trying to hide what she was saying. "We're gonna kill him anyway. Who cares if he knows what we were told to do?"
Told to do, Thomas thought. By WICKED.
A different girl spoke up. "Well, I can barely see them now. Once we reach that crevice up there, we'll be out of sight, and they'll never find us after that. Even if they do follow."
"All right, then," Teresa said. "Let's just get him that far."
Hands were soon gripping Thomas on all sides, lifting him into the air. From what he could see through the sack, Teresa and three of her new friends were carrying him. They picked their way through boulders and around dead trees, going up and up and up. He heard their heavy breaths, smelled their sweat, hated them more with each jolting step. Even Teresa. He tried one last time to reach her mind, to salvage his trust in her, but she wasn't there.
The trudge up the mountain went on for maybe an hour―with stops here and there for girls to switch off carrying duties―and it had been at least twice that long since they'd left the Gladers. The sun was reaching a point where it would become dangerous, the heat stifling. But then they rounded a massive wall, the ground leveling a bit, and entered shade. The cooler air was a relief.
"All right," Teresa said. "Drop him."
Without ceremony, they did what she said and he slammed into the ground with a heavy grunt. It knocked the wind out of him, and he lay there gasping for air as they started untying the ropes. By the time he caught his breath, the bag had been taken off.
He blinked, looking up at Teresa and her friends. They all had their weapons pointed at him, which just seemed ridiculous.
From somewhere he found a trace of courage. "You guys must think a lot of me, twenty of you with knives and machetes, me with nothing. I feel so special."
Teresa reared back with her spear.
"Wait!" Thomas cried, and she stopped. He held his hands up in deference, slowly got to his feet. "Look, I'm not gonna try anything. Just take me wherever we're going and then I'll let you kill me like a good boy. I don't have any shuck thing to live for anyway."
He looked directly at Teresa when he said this, tried to put as much spite into his words as possible. He still held on to a little hope that somehow this would end up making sense, but either way, after how he'd been treated, he wasn't in such a hot mood.
"Come on," Teresa said. "I'm sick of this. Let's get to the inside of the Pass so we can sleep the day off. Tonight we'll start heading through."
The girl with dark skin who'd helped put him in the sack spoke next. "And what about this guy we've been hauling around for the last few hours?"
"Don't worry, we'll kill him," Teresa replied. "We'll kill him just the way they told us to. It's his punishment for what he did to me."
CHAPTER 46
Thomas couldn't figure out what Teresa meant by her last statement. What had he done to her? But his mind went numb as they walked and walked and walked, apparently heading back to Group B's camp. A steady climb uphill, the effort burning his legs. A sheer cliff to their left kept them in the shade as they hiked, but everything was still red and brown and hot. Dry. Dusty. The girls gave him a few sips of water, but he was sure that every drop evaporated before it hit his stomach.
They reached a large indentation in the east wall just as the noon sun broke out overhead, a golden ball of fire bent on burning them to ashes. The shallow cave went about forty feet into the mountain face; it was obvious that this was their camp, and it looked like they'd been there for a day or two. Blankets strewn about, the remains of a fire, some trash piled on the edge. Only three people were there when they arrived―girls just like the others―which meant they'd felt they needed almost everyone to kidnap Thomas.
With the bows and arrows, the knives and machetes? It seemed almost silly. A few of them would've done just as well.
Along the way, Thomas had learned some things. The dark-skinned girl's name was Harriet, and the one who was always with her, with the reddish blond hair and white, white skin, was named Sonya. Though he couldn't tell for certain, he guessed that those two had mostly been in charge until Teresa had arrived. They acted with some authority, but always deferred to her in the end.
"Okay," Teresa said. "Let's tie him to that ugly tree." She pointed at the bone-white skeleton of an oak, its roots still clinging to the rocky soil even though it had to have been dead for years and years. "And we might as well feed him so he doesn't moan and groan all day and keep us awake."
Laying it on a little thick, isn't she? Thomas thought. Whatever her true intentions, her words had started to get a little ridiculous. And he couldn't deny it anymore―he was really starting to hate her, no matter what she'd said in the beginning.
He didn't fight as they tied his torso to the trunk, leaving his hands free. Once they had him good and secure they gave him a few granola bars and a bottle of water. No one spoke to him or met his gaze. And strangely, if he wasn't mistaken, he noticed that everyone looked a little guilty. He started eating, and as he did he carefully took in everything around him. His thoughts wandered all over the place as the rest of them began settling in to sleep out the remaining daylight. Something wasn't right about all this.
Teresa's display certainly didn't seem like an act. It never had. Was it possible that she was doing the exact opposite of what she'd told him―making him think he should trust her when her real plan had been and was to―
With a jolt he remembered the tag outside her door back in the dorm. The Betrayer. He'd completely forgotten about it until that moment. Things started to make more sense.
WICKED was the boss, here. They were the groups' only hope of surviving. If they'd really told her to kill him, would she do it? To save herself? And what was that line she'd spit out about his having done something to her? Could they even be manipulating her thoughts? Making her not like him anymore?
Then there was his tattoo and the signs in the city. The tattoo had warned him; the signs had told him he was the real leader. The label next to Teresa's door had been another warning.
Still―he had no weapons and he was tied to a tree. Group B outnumbered him by more than twenty and they all had weapons. Real easy.
Sighing, he finished up his food and felt a little better physically. And though he didn't quite know how everything added up, he had a new confidence that he was closer to understanding. And that he couldn't quit.
Harriet and Sonya had pallets laid out nearby; they kept sneaking looks at him as they readied for sleep. Again Thomas noticed those odd expressions of shame or guilt. He saw it as an opportunity to fight for his life with words.
"You guys don't really wanna kill me, do you?" He asked it in a tone that said he'd caught them in a lie. "Have you ever even killed anyone before?"
Harriet gave him a harsh glare, stopping just before she laid her head down on a wad of blankets. She propped herself up on her elbow. "Based on what Teresa told us, we escaped our Maze three days faster than your group did. Lost fewer people and killed more Grievers to do it. I think knocking off one little insignificant teenage boy won't be too tough."
"Think of the guilt you'll feel." He could only hope the thought would dig at them.
"We'll get over it." She stuck her tongue out at him―actually stuck her tongue out!―then put her head down and closed her eyes.
Sonya sat cross-legged, looking about as far from sleep as humanly possible. "We don't have a choice. WICKED said that was our only task. If we don't do it, they won't let us in at the safe haven. We'll die out here in the Scorch."
Thomas shrugged. "Hey, I understand. Sacrifice me to save yourselves. Very noble."
She stared at him for a long time; he had to fight not to drop his gaze. She finally looked away and lay down with her back to him.
Teresa walked over, her face twisted in annoyance. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing," mumbled Harriet. "Tell him to shut up."
"Shut up," Teresa said.
Thomas huffed a sarcastic laugh. "What're you gonna do, kill me if I don't?"
She didn't say anything, just kept looking at him, her face blank.
"Why do you hate me all of a sudden?" he asked. "What did I do to you?"
Sonya and Harriet both had turned to listen, looking back and forth between Thomas and Teresa.
"You know what you did," Teresa finally said. "So does everyone here―I told them all about it. But even still, I wouldn't have sunk to your level and tried to kill you. We're only doing that because we have no choice. Sorry. Life's tough."
Did something just flash in her eyes? Thomas wondered. What was she trying to tell him? "What are you talking about, sink to my level? I'd never kill a friend to save my own butt. Never."
"Me neither. Which is why I'm glad we're not friends." She started to turn away.
"So what'd I do to you?" Thomas asked quickly. "Sorry, I'm kind of havin' a memory lapse―ya know, we have those a lot around here. Remind me."
She twisted back around and glared at him with fiery eyes. "Don't insult me. Don't you dare sit there and act like nothing happened. Now shut up or I'll give you another bruise on that pretty face of yours."
She stomped away, and Thomas kept silent. He shifted until he was somewhat comfortable, his head leaning back on the dead wood of the tree. Everything about his current situation stank, but he was determined to figure it out and survive.
Eventually he slept.
CHAPTER 47
Thomas slept fitfully for a few hours, tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard rock. He finally fell into a deep slumber, and then came the dream.
Thomas is fifteen. He doesn't know how he knows this. Something to do with the timing of the memory. Is it a memory?
He and Teresa are standing in front of a massive bank of screens, each one showing various images from the Glade and the Maze. Some of the views are moving, and he knows why. These camera shots are coming from beetle blades, and every once in a while they have to change position. When they do, it's like looking through the eyes of a rat.
"I can't believe they're all dead," Teresa says.
Thomas is confused. Once again he doesn't quite understand what's happening. He's inside this boy who's supposed to be him, but he doesn't know what Teresa's talking about. Obviously not the Gladers―on one screen he can see Minho and Newt walking toward the forest; on another, Gally sitting on a bench. Then Alby yelling at someone Thomas doesn't recognize.