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 against 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."
"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.
"Well, we're here," Teresa said, looking at Aris.
He didn't take his eyes off Thomas. "Yep, we're here, all right. You're serious about him talking the others into sparing him? What is he, some kind of superpsychologist?"
"It kind of helped, actually. Made it easier to get him here." Teresa threw a condescending glance toward Thomas, then crossed the cave to Aris. As Thomas watched, she stood on her toes to kiss Aris on the cheek and grinned. "I'm so glad we're finally back together."
Aris smiled. He shot Thomas a look of warning, then risked looking away long enough to tilt his head toward Teresa. And kiss her on the lips.
Thomas tore his eyes away and closed them. Her pleas for him to trust her, her quick whisper to hang in there―it had all been to get him here. To bring him more easily to this point.
So that she could fulfill some evil purpose concocted by WICKED.
"Get it over with," he finally said, not daring to open his eyes again. He didn't want to know what they were doing, why they were quiet. But he wanted them to think he'd given up. "Just get it over with."
When they didn't answer, he couldn't help but take a peek. They were whispering to each other, stealing kisses between words. Something like burning oil filled his stomach.
He looked away again, focusing on the odd source of light in the back of the cave. A large rectangle of pale green, set into the dark stone, pulsed with an ethereal glow. It was as tall as an average man, maybe four feet wide. Stains streaked across its dull surface―a grimy window to something that looked like radioactive sludge, glowing and dangerous.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teresa step away from Aris, their lovefest evidently over. He looked at her, wondering if his eyes showed just how much she had crushed him.
"Tom," she said. "If it helps, I'm really sorry I hurt you. I did what I had to do back in the Maze, and being all buddy-buddy seemed like my best shot at getting the memories we needed to figure out that code and escape. And I didn't have much choice here in the Scorch. All we had to do was get you here to pass the Trials. And it's either you or us."
Teresa paused for a second, and there was a strange glint in her eye. "Aris is my best friend, Tom," she said calmly, evenly.
And that was what finally made Thomas crack. "I ... don't ... care!" he screamed, though nothing could've been further from the truth.
"I'm just saying. If you care about me, then you should understand why I'd be willing to do whatever it takes to make it through this and keep him safe. Wouldn't you have done the same for me?"