you made it back to civilization. Why do you think I was so thrilled to see you alive!”
Thomas felt a stirring of familiar anger. “How can you possibly expect me to believe that? You probably knew exactly what Rat Man tried to tell me-that they needed me, that I’m the so-called Final Candidate.”
Teresa slouched. “You think I’m the most evil person to ever walk the earth, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer her, though. “If you had just gotten your memories back like you were supposed to, you’d see that I’m the same Teresa I’ve always been. I did what I did in the Scorch to save you, and I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.”
Thomas was having a hard time staying angry-she didn’t seem to be acting. “How can I believe you, Teresa? How?”
She looked up at him, and her eyes were glassy. “I swear to you, I don’t know everything about the Final Candidate-that stuff was developed after we went to the Maze, so I have no memories of that. But what I did learn was that WICKED doesn’t intend to stop the Trials until they get their blueprint. They’re preparing to start another round, Thomas. WICKED is gathering more Immunes to begin testing if the Trials didn’t work. And I can’t do it again. I left to find you. That’s it.”
Thomas didn’t respond. A part of him wanted to believe. Desperately.
“I’m so sorry,” Teresa said through a sigh. She looked away and ran her hand through her hair. She waited several seconds before she looked at him again. “All I can tell you is that I’m torn up inside. Ripped apart. I did believe that a cure could happen, and I knew they needed you to do it. It’s different now. Even with my memories back I can’t think the same way I did before. I can see now that things will never end.”
She stopped talking, but Thomas had nothing to say. He searched Teresa’s face and saw a pain unlike any he’d ever seen before. She was telling the truth.
She didn’t wait for him to speak before she continued. “So I made a deal with myself. I’d do whatever it took to make up for my mistakes. I wanted to save my friends first, and then other Immunes, if possible. And look what a great job I did.”
Thomas searched for words. “Well, we haven’t done much better, have we?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Were you hoping to stop them?”
“We’re about to be sold back to WICKED, so what does it matter?”
She didn’t answer right away. Thomas would’ve given anything to be inside her head-and not in the old way. For a brief moment he felt sad, knowing they’d shared countless hours together that he no longer had any memory of. They’d been best friends once.
She finally said, “If somehow we could do something, I hope that you’d find a way to trust me again. And I know we can convince Aris and the others to help us. They feel the same way I do.”
Thomas knew he had to be careful. It was strange that she only agreed with him about WICKED now that she’d gotten her memories back.
“We’ll see what happens,” he finally said
She frowned deeply. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”
“We’ll see what happens,” he repeated. Then he stood up and walked away, hating the look of hurt on her face. And hating himself for caring after everything she’d done to him.
CHAPTER 45
Thomas found Minho sitting with Brenda and Jorge when he returned, and Minho didn’t seem happy to see him. He gave Thomas a nasty look. “So what did that shuck traitor have to say?”
Thomas sat down beside him. Several strangers had gathered closer, and he could tell they were listening in.
“Well?” Minho pushed.
“She said that the reason they escaped was because they found out WICKED plans to start all over again if they have to. That they were rounding up Immunes-just like Gally told us. She swears that somehow they were led to believe that we’d already broken out-and that they looked for us.” Thomas paused-he knew Minho wouldn’t like the next part. “And she’d help us if she can.”
Minho just shook his head. “You’re a slinthead. You shouldn’t have talked to her.”
“Thanks.” Thomas rubbed his face. Minho was right.
“Hate to barge in here, muchachos,” Jorge said. “You can talk all day about this crap, but it means diddly unless we can get ourselves out of this nice little place. No matter who’s on whose side.”
Just then the door to the room opened and three of their captors walked in with big sacks stuffed full of something. A fourth followed, armed with a Launcher and a pistol. He swept the room, looking for trouble, and the others started passing out what was inside the bags-bread and bottles of water.
“How do we always get into these messes?” Minho asked. “At least we used to be able to blame everything on WICKED.”
“Yeah, well, we still can,” Thomas murmured.
Minho grinned. “Good. Those shuck-faces.”
An uneasy silence settled on the room as the kidnappers moved around. People began to eat. Thomas realized that they’d have to whisper if they wanted to keep talking.
Minho nudged Thomas. “Only one of them has a weapon,” he whispered. “And he doesn’t look so bad. I bet I could take him.”
“Maybe,” Thomas answered under his breath. “But don’t do anything stupid-he’s got a gun as well as a Launcher. And trust me, you don’t want to get shot by either.”
“Yeah, well, you trust me this time.” Minho gave Thomas a wink, to which Thomas could only sigh. The odds were not good that what was about to happen would go unnoticed.
The kidnappers approached Thomas and Minho and stopped at their little group. Thomas took a roll and a bottle of water, but when the man tried to hand some bread to Minho, he swatted it away.
“Why would I take anything from you? It’s probably poisoned.”
“You wanna go hungry, fine by me,” the guy replied, moving on.
He had nearly passed them when Minho suddenly leaped to his feet and tackled the man holding the Launcher. Thomas flinched as it slipped out of the guy’s grip and discharged, sending a grenade up toward the ceiling, where it crashed in a display of lightning. The kidnapper was still on the ground when Minho started punching him, struggling to grab the man’s pistol with his free hand.
For a moment, everyone froze. But then movement exploded all at once before Thomas could react. The three other guards dropped their bags to go after Minho, but before they could take a step they had six people on them, throwing them to the ground. Jorge helped Minho drag the guard to the floor and was stomping the man’s arm until he finally let go of the pistol he’d pulled from his belt; Minho kicked it across the floor, and a woman picked it up. Thomas saw that Brenda had grabbed the Launcher.
“Stop!” she shouted, aiming the weapon at the kidnappers.
Minho stood up, and as he stepped away from the man on the ground, Thomas could see that the guy’s face was covered in blood. People were already dragging the other three guards over to lie next to their partner, lining them up so that all four were on their backs in a row.
It had all happened so fast, Thomas hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor, but he immediately got to work.
“We have to get them to talk,” he said. “We have to hurry before backup comes.”
“We should just shoot them in the head!” a man called out. “Shoot them and get out of here.” A few others shouted their agreement.
Thomas realized that the group had turned into a mob. If he wanted information he had to work fast-before things fell apart. He stood and made his way over to the woman with the gun and convinced her to hand it to him; then he turned and knelt beside the man who’d given him the bread.
Thomas put the gun to the guy’s temple. “I’m going to count to three. You either start telling what WICKED plans to do with us and where you were going to meet them or I’ll pull the trigger. One.”
The man didn’t hesitate. “WICKED? We got nothing to do with
