The room became deadly silent after the announcement was made, only the humming of machines was heard. Thomas and I immediately made eye contact because we already knew our fates. I had the Flare and he was immune. I had told him not to tell anyone, but now it seems that keeping it a secret was no longer an option.

"For an experiment to provide accurate results," Rat Man explained. "One needs an a control group. We did our best to keep the virus from you as long as we could. But it's airborne and highly contagious."

He paused. That tiny moment of quietness seemed like an eternity because of what he was about to reveal.

"Just bloody get on with it," Newt said. "We all figured we had the buggin' disease anyway. You're not breaking our hearts."

I began picking at my fingernails nervously. It wasn't like I was afraid of him telling me I have the Flare again. I was actually scared of what Minho would do. When Rat Man tells him that I'm practically sentenced to death then he might lose it. Unless he had the Flare too.

Rat Man cleared his throat. "Okay, then. Most of you are immune and have helped us gather invaluable data. Only two of you are considered Candidates now, but we'll go into that later. Let's get to the list. The following people are not immune. Newt, Anne..."

Newt. My best friend. He had the Flare. He was going to go crazy, just like me. I couldn't imagine how he felt because after what happened in the Maze, when he tried to kill himself, this was now taking away his second chance at living.

I looked up from the floor to see Minho staring at me. I could tell he was trying to convince himself that what he had just heard wasn't true, but we all knew it was.

"Why aren't you freaked out by this?" he asked suddenly. "You look so shucking calm right now."

I sighed. "He told me earlier."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to know because I was scared by how you would react. 'Cause if he had said you had the Flare I don't think I would be able to handle it. I'm barely keeping it together knowing Newt has it too."

The dark haired boy wouldn't take his eyes off the tiled floor. I wondered if I had made a huge mistake not telling him right away. He looked so disappointed in me. Maybe he thought me remembering would automatically change everything back to the way it was. When everything seemed so simple and when it was just him and me against the world. But after everything, I'm not as close to him as I wanted to believe.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I can't take back what I did, or what I didn't do, but we're going to have to move on. I'm sorry, Minho.  You know I care about you, right? So this shouldn't change that."

Minho remained silent as he took in my words. But he didn't answer. That made my chest tighten up because he usually had so much to say about everything. He always had the last word.

"I wanted to get that out of the way," Rat Man said. "Mainly so I could tell you myself and remind you that the whole point of this operation has been to build toward a cure. Most of you not immune are in the early stages of the Flare, and I have every confidence that you'll be taken care of before it goes too far. But the Trials requires your participation."

Rat Man then went on to explain the process that led up to getting our memories back. It didn't matter to me because we already decided that we weren't getting them back. We were fine with not knowing. Ignorance is bliss at this point.

"Give me just a few moments to make sure the medical teams are ready. You can take time to make your decisions," he said before exiting the room.

Minho left my side and went over to Thomas and Teresa without saying a word to me. I felt like I messed up with him. But I still couldn't see why he was so upset over this little thing. He should be glad I remember him, remember the memories we share. But no. He's now acting like he should of when I didn't know him.

"Annie, you okay?"

I forced a smile on my face before looking up at my friend. "Mhm, completely okay.  Besides the whole going crazy thing, I'm okay."

Newt chuckled a little bit but it seemed as forced as my smile. I could tell he definitely wasn't okay. He didn't need this, he didn't deserve this. He's been through so much already. He doesn't need another reason to die.

"So," I began, "we still not goin' along with this right? No one changed their mind last minute?"

The blond shook his head. "As far as I know. I know I'm not going through with their bloody plan, whatever it is."

"Should we go talk to everyone else? To see what they think."

"Might as well."

The two of us walked up behind Thomas, Minho, and Teresa. Frypan stood next to us a few seconds later and I could just feel the awkwardness between us. I knew Frypan was trying to hold in anything he wanted to say 'bout us being Cranks.

"Well I never trusted you anyway," Minho said, shaking his head slowly. "And certainly not them. I'm with Thomas."

"What about Aris?" Newt interrupted. "Didn't you say he was with you guys before you came to the Maze what does he think?"

Minho was avoiding looking at me. It couldn't be anymore obvious. I continued to stare at him regardless of what he was doing because I wasn't going to take that. We had to be more mature about the situation and not ignore each other like a bunch of 6 year olds.

"I'll go ask him," Teresa said, interrupting my one man staring contest.

"I hate that chick," Minho growled, clearly agitated.

"Come on," Frypan said, "she's not that bad."

Although Teresa has lied and deceived all of us, I had to agree with Frypan. She said she had to do it or they would kill, Thomas. If they had threatened to kill Minho, I probably would have done the same. Plus, we were apparently friends before all of this happened. So I still have some of those feelings for her still inside of me.

Minho rolled his eyes. "If she's doing it, I'm not."

"Me neither," Newt agreed. "And I'm not the one who supposedly has the bloody Flare, so I have more stake in it than anybody. But I'm not falling for one more trick."

"Let's just hear what she says," Thomas added. "Here she comes."

"He sounded even more sure than us. They're all for it," the blue eyed girl informed us.

"Well that settles it for me," Minho answered. "If Aris and Teresa are for it, I'm against it."

"Don't be such a baby, Minho," I groaned, getting tired of his hissy fit. "There are valid reasons to get our memories back, so don't act like she's trying to drag you into something absolutely horrible." I glanced over at Teresa who had a smile smile on her face. "I don't agree with some of the stuff she's done, but has it really hurt any of us? No, it hasn't. So get over it and stop acting like she's the wicked witch of the west."

"But she worked for WICKED, she still thinks they're the good guys!" Minho protested.

"I worked for WICKED, so did Thomas. She has her option, you have yours. End of discussion."

I could have been more nice about things, but the way he's been acting toward Teresa, toward me, it wasn't going to go unnoticed.

Newt spoke up, "Can we stop bloody arguing and make a decision here?"

"I'm still not doing it," Minho stated. He wouldn't even look in my general direction now. Was it such a big deal to him that I stood up for my friend? He would have done the same thing for Thomas.

Newt, Frypan, Thomas, I agreed with Minho despite our arguments. Teresa walked away, especially sad because Thomas and I didn't take her side like she expected.

Thomas ran his eyes over the four of us as a small grin fell over his face. We were some of the best friends he's ever had. I couldn't imagine how he felt when we all agreed to go along with him.

"We'll stick around, play along and act nice," Thomas whispered. "But as soon as we get a chance, we're going to fight our way out of this place."

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Sorry it's taken me so long to update, been super, super, super busy. Hopefully I can update sooner from now on.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

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