Disclaimer:

Me watching TMR:

Me: Here come dat boi

Minho: [runs in from the Maze and passes Thomas]

Me: O SHIT WADDUP

-✼-

That night, I kept trying to catch Teresa's eye. Was what she said real or just a trick from that stupid thing in my head? That question popped up in my mind aggressively every time she refused to meet my gaze for even a second.

I hung around Thomas when I could, but Flo had somehow been able to convince Teresa that keeping us around each other was a bad idea. Maybe she thought we would conspire a plan to break out of there while they were sleeping. In a way, Flo reminded me a lot of Gally in the sense that she never stopped being suspicious of me.

I was given my very own wad of blankets to use as a makeshift bed and pillow. The ground was hard and uncomfortable; every single stone seemed to dig into my spine. The girls wouldn't let me sleep near Thomas. Instead, I was placed all the way on the other side of the cave with about twenty of the sleeping girls between us. Needless to say, it was impossible for me to get to him without stepping on someone.

It was difficult to fall asleep, but when I finally did, I was met with a memory— this time of Teresa and I in school together when we were little. Then, as the years passed, she was in less and less of my classes as she became smarter and was needed in the labs more often. I found myself feeling more and more lonely with each passing day that I didn't hear from either her or Thomas.

My slumber was disturbed by a voice in my head. "Dylan. Dylan, wake up."

I opened my eyes to reveal Teresa's figure above me. She was barely visible in the darkness of the cave, but I could see concern and what looked like alarm on her face. A pinch hit my heart when I realized that she was back to normal. Her eyes were devoid of their hate and her features returned to their natural softness.

"Teresa?" I whispered in confusion, sitting up and placing my hands behind me for support. She put a finger over her lips; I was instantly reminded of how often she did that when she snuck me into the Box.

"You have to be quiet," she mumbled. "In fact, this is easier."

It took me a second to realize that the second sentence had come from inside of my head and that her lips hadn't moved. I focused on replying back, using the same technique as I did to speak to that robot.

"Why can you talk in my head now?" I asked.

"W.I.C.K.E.D allowed us to, but only for a little while," she answered. It was so weird to hear her voice but to watch her stare blankly at me without moving her mouth. "As soon as we don't need it anymore, it'll be severed. But listen carefully. You need to know that they made a mistake. You aren't supposed to be here. It might...tamper with the results they need. You'll be returned to your group as soon as possible. But hear me out, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

"You have to trust me. Trust that I know what I'm doing, even if things get really bad and I don't seem myself. I don't want to do this. I wish W.I.C.K.E.D would have picked someone else rather than me. I'll understand if you hate me after this. But just know that if I don't...they'll kill him." Her eyes brimmed with tears. "They'll kill Thomas."

I reached over and squeezed her hand lightly. "I trust you."

"Good. Now go back to sleep and pretend this never happened."

Except when I did wake up, I wasn't sure if it had happened at all. Teresa was back to her cold-hearted act that made me fear for Thomas. If she had said they'd kill him if she didn't do "this," then was Group B really planning to kill him at all?

I was given more than enough time to ponder that as we trekked through the passage between the mountains, where the safe haven was supposed to be on the other side. They had stopped abusing Thomas and let him walk on his own. Unfortunately, they didn't trust me enough to let us walk together. I shuffled along, filled with anger and Flo at my side. Apparently Teresa trusted her not to let me out of her sight.

"Hello? Are you deaf?"

I snapped out of my daze to find Flo glaring at me harshly. I merely let the comment bounce off of me and replied, "Yeah, in my left ear. Or maybe I just didn't feel like listening."

Her eyes blazed with anger as her jaw ticked. "Listen, stick. You've got real spunk to be speaking like that to a girl who's going to kill your brother."

I met her gaze with a challenging raise of my eyebrows. "Do it, I dare you."

"Oh, I will."

I was filled to the brim with enough rage that I felt like I would explode and beat the crap out of her. My fists clenched at my sides when I thought about it. The fact that she gloated about being able to kill Thomas was churning my stomach until I was sure I'd lose it if I didn't escape her watchful gaze sometime soon.

Luckily, my saving grace came in the form of Sonya. She grabbed my arm without a word, then began pulling me back inch by inch, all the while pushing a girl who looked short enough to be me ahead of us. Flo was too busy smirking to notice the silent retreat. Maybe her fatal flaw was her pride.

I released a breath once we were in the back of the crowd and I could walk freely without having her breathe down my neck. Thomas was waiting when I ran to him and latched my arms around his torso in a quick hug. His face was battered and scratched from them dragging him around yesterday. He even winced when I hugged him.

"How are you feeling?" I asked quietly just before we continued walking as to not get too far behind the others. "Looked like they roughed you up quite a bit."

Thomas scoffed. "Think that's an understatement. I might not have kids."

"Maybe that's a good thing," I shot back with a laugh at his dumb exaggeration.

He rolled his eyes with a small smile tugging at his chapped lips. "I really missed your sarcasm. It's been a while since you insulted me." His voice dropped a few sound levels when he spoke. "But hey, listen. Harriet told me Teresa has been with Group B since I saw her in that house."

I felt shock inflate me like a balloon. She'd been with them that long? I never would have guessed.

"Anything else?" I asked in the same quiet voice.

"Said she told everyone I did something to her that was real bad," he responded. "Bad enough where she'd be...uh..eager to kill me, but she never said what it was. But get this: she was controlled at the house when she kissed me—"

Immediately, his hand slapped over my mouth to stifle the scream of surprise that automatically came out of me. I pushed it away and hissed, "She kissed you?"

"Yes." Thomas was annoyed now. "Anyway, she was controlled to do that. Harriet described it as a way to give me 'false security.' Dylan, has she ever been on our side?"

I thought back to the way she had talked to me last night. She had let down her guard completely and revealed that kindness I had grown to miss. That girl was the same one who asked to be my friend when I was eight, the same one who jeopardized her position of leadership to send me up to the Glade with my brother, and the same one whom I had grown to call a friend once more. But he didn't have the memories I did. He didn't know that she could be trusted.

"Of course she has," I dismissed with a wave of my hand. "You just have wavering faith in her."

"I do not."

"Yes, you do."

"Do not."

"Do too."

-/-

It took us two days to reach the end of the Pass, during which nothing happened except endless walking and quick breaks throughout our trip. It was almost uncanny for it to be so peaceful. If I had been with the other group, we probably would have encountered five Cranks by then. Were they purposely trying to make it harder for us because we had escaped our Maze later than Group B?

Flo had dragged me back to her about ten minutes after my conversation with Thomas ended, then tied a cloth to the loops of my jeans so I couldn't walk too far away from her. The only time she let me go was during breaks, where I talked to Sonya and Harriet to pass information between my brother and I.

As soon as the first person announced we had made it, we clustered at the edge of a steep dropoff made of broken rock from the mountain. The moon bathed us in a faint white glow from where it half-hid behind the valley. My eyebrows pinched in confusion upon noticing nothing for miles upon miles except sand.

"Maybe we just can't see it," a girl piped up hopefully to my right.

"Yeah," Harriet agreed in an optimistic tone. "It might just be another entrance to the underground tunnels. I'm sure it's there."

"How many 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 replied. "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."

Harriet would definitely make fast friends with Minho. I could almost hear him saying those exact words when they'd get here as well.

"Well," Sonya sighed. "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."

While others piped up their agreements, I felt a tug in my mind as if someone was beckoning me away. I turned but saw nobody behind me. The only thing there was a large boulder that had broken off of the mountain, a looming shadow in the lack of light. And then, just as I was about to turn back around, I saw a movement from beside it.

"Come here," Teresa's voice ordered in my mind. "Quickly, before you're seen."

I glanced back at the girls, who were too busy discussing their plans to notice me sneaking away. Even Flo had let go of my makeshift leash in the meantime. As quickly and as quietly as possible, I snuck away from them and crept toward where I had seen the movement.

"We have to go," she said, still talking in my head. "Now."

"Where?" I asked as Teresa pulled me along down the side of the slope, hopping awkwardly to avoid making too much noise.

"Your escort," she replied. "I can't take you the whole way. Someone else will."

Confusion swarmed in me. I had expected to at least be able to say goodbye to Thomas, or an announcement that I was leaving so the others wouldn't be so alarmed when they couldn't find me later. Would Flo care? Probably not. Would Sonya?

My feet stumbled on loose rocks as I ran after Teresa in an effort to stay as far ahead of the group as possible. About three minutes later, she grabbed my arm again and tugged me into a tiny cave in the side of the mountain. It was pitch black- so black that I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed. Panic seized my chest. Why did she bring me here of all places?

"Did you get her?" a male's voice asked. I couldn't see him, but he sounded familiar.

"Yeah," Teresa replied breathlessly. "You're late."

"I know," he sighed, "but sneaking away was harder than I thought."

I doubled over in shock once it registered who the owner of the voice was. My voice came out in a defeated whisper when I asked, "Aris?"

"Nice to see ya again," he greeted, sounding not at all like the quiet, clueless boy I had come to know in our short trip. His voice was harder and more matter-of-fact. What the hell was he doing here? Was he the one taking me?

"Where's the escort?" Teresa asked in a hushed voice, making me realize that he wasn't the one who'd be leading me away.

"Relax," Aris shrugged off her question. "He should be here soon."

After about five seconds of painful, stifling silence, I couldn't hold back any longer. Questions fired out the second I opened my mouth. "What is going on? Where are the others? Why aren't you with them?"

"I wish I could explain in detail, but like I said before, they need this to go according to plan," Teresa responded, sounding almost frantic. It spiked my fear even further that she couldn't tell me what was happening. I guess Thomas and I had that in common- we always needed to know what was going on.

The quiet felt like a blanket smothering me from all angles. It compressed my chest until my breath came out in short, shallow pants. The thudding of my heart in my ears was the only sound I could hear. I was afraid for myself, afraid for Thomas, and afraid for Group A. It bothered me that I had absolutely no control of the situation. That fact picked and prodded at my brain until I was almost ready to start hitting the side of my head. I was literally in the dark.

Then, we heard footsteps outside of the cave and a person's head poked inside. "Hello?"

Aris let out a sigh of relief. "Finally. Took you long enough. We're behind schedule because of you."

The man obscured in shadows didn't reply.

Teresa's hands went to my shoulders. "This is your escort. Follow him to the Berg. Listen to everything he says, okay? He won't hurt you. Our connection will be severed from this point on."

I nodded even though she couldn't see me, pulling her in for a two-second hug before letting her go. She and Aris disappeared into the night quicker than I could blink.

"Come with me, and quickly," the man said in a noticeable Japanese accent. "We must stay ahead of the others."

I sighed and stepped out of the cave, blinking as things settled back into focus. When I turned toward my escort, I felt as if all of the wind had been knocked from my chest. He was tall, with black hair pulled back into a ponytail behind his thin head. I recognized his papery thin skin and the weapons loaded around his belt.

"You may recognize me," he said. "My name is Maseo, and I work for W.I.C.K.E.D."

gif is thomas when he was walking

-----

!!!!!! we're so close to the end !!!!!

questions:

-were you expecting maseo to be her escort? if not, who did you think it would be?

-where will the berg take her? to W.I.C.K.E.D? back to group a to finish the trials?

-can you guess who will make a guest appearance next chapter? (hint: think of maseo)

-can you believe the book is almost over?? I CANT WTF

the next chapter i post will be the last one.

ever.

(in this book at least)

-kristyn