For the next two weeks, Sara's life was a monotonous routine. 

The only joy she found was when she got to be around the other kids. That had been the highlight of every day for her. And when she wasn't spending time with them, she was in her room getting to know Rebecca a little more.

Janson would occasionally pay a brief visit to her. He observed the way in which Rebecca got along with the girl, so he was more than relieved about not having to bear with the responsibility anymore. His visits became less frequent as a result.

Rebecca possessed an incredible ability to keep the girl's mind off the loss of her family, which had everyone at the building quite impressed. She had learned to understand her almost as good as a mother would. She had taught her so much in such a short amount of time. It wasn't always the case, but the woman tried hard. And Sara knew this too.

It was no surprise Sara had quickly become attached to Rebecca, and likewise, Rebecca developed a dear appreciation for the girl. Sara even assumed the right to call her 'Becca,' which the woman heartily accepted.

Janson blindly relied on Rebecca to verify that Sara would go unnoticed among the children. As usual, Rebecca was on top of everything, assigning her a number as if she were a subject issued to be sent up to the Maze of Group B.

Her alias was Subject B17 'The Remedy.'

As Sara was busy weaving a bracelet to distract herself, she once again felt a burning gaze from someone across the room, diagonally behind her, to be exact. Undeniably, it was that same blond boy from before.

Sara couldn't take it anymore. She slammed her hand on the table and headed in his direction with dramatic, angry strides. She opened her mouth to call him out, the venomous words ready to spill out of her mouth...

Harriet and Sonya interrupted her imagined scenario as they sat down at the table with her, their presence making the cartoonish bubble of her imagination fade away.

"What are you doing?" asked Sonya as she took a glimpse at the crafty object in her hands.

"Just making a bracelet," Sara replied, her fingers continuing the task nonstop.

"For who?" asked Harriet.

"My mom... when I find her," said Sara, her voice saddening. 

There was a slight pause as Harriet and Sonya shared a gloomy look.

"You must miss her a lot," added Sonya. "We've all definitely been there. A lot of us don't know what happened to some of our loved ones, and for those that we do know... they're just gone." 

Harriet patted her friend in the back sympathetically. 

"She misses her dog," she said.

"Aw, you had a dog?" Sara asked, and Sonya nodded sadly.

"I don't know what happened to him before we were brought here," Sonya told her.

Sara felt that odd sensation once again and turned to look behind her shoulder at the boy to verify if he was still looking. When her curious eyes met his scowling face, she quickly turned back around. This was certainly surpassing some creepy-level boundaries.

"What is it?" Harriet peered over her shoulder to look behind her.

Sara pointed at him discreetly. "Do any of you know who that is?"

"Oh that's my brother Newt," Sonya spoke up. Sara's eyes widened.

"Your brother..." she repeated in disbelief, an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah." She sighed before proceeding to tell Sara about their story. "He's been like that since we got here. They say we should feel better after a while. Not him, though. I don't think he'll ever feel better, whatever that's supposed to mean in these times. But at least we're trying to be happy. That's all we can do for now." She sighed again, looking at her brother with sadness.

Sara was intrigued. "Well, yeah, he looks so... sad. I don't think there's a kid that looks sadder than him in here," she said, feeling sorry for him.

Sonya scoffed. "Newt does this to himself. He only hangs around his new friends, and he doesn't even spend time with me."

"Maybe he needs more time," Sara suggested.

Sonya shook her head in frustration. "But that's the thing. Just before mom and dad were gone, he promised that he'd take care of me. But he hasn't talked to me. And you know how long we've been here? Since Newt was seven. It's been six years."

As soon as Sonya mentioned how long they'd been in headquarters, things began to click a little more in Sara's brain, or maybe she was even further confused. Children around that age were taken that day her neighborhood was attacked, and if Sonya and her brother were taken under the same circumstances and yet they'd heard nothing about their families for that long, something was really off.

"I always thought it's 'cause he's scared to remember our family," Sonya continued. "So, I guess he doesn't want to be close to me 'cause I wanna talk about what actually happened." She looked down at her lap in sorrow.

Sara reached out to place her hand on Sonya's forearm. "I'm sorry. I know how you feel. And I'm sorry about your brother too."

Sonya gave her a sad smile. "What about you? How did you end up here?"

She had asked so nicely but Sara didn't want to share. The wound was still too fresh to talk about it. "I'll tell you the story later. I don't think it's good to talk too much about sad stuff or we're gonna end up like your brother," she stated with a straight face.

"You're right," Sonya chuckled.

Sara furrowed her eyebrows suddenly. It hadn't occurred to her until then.

"Just one more thing." Sonya looked up and nodded for her to ask. "So, if you and Newt are brother and sister, why don't you have an accent like his?" The accent was so lovely in Newt's voice, so why wouldn't Sonya have it too? It would sound so nice on her.

"Well, my family's from England." Sonya smiled sadly. "We moved here when me and Newt were much younger. In England, they didn't like it when people left the country, but my family wanted a better life. When we came to America, my parents tried to teach us how to talk the way people here do—I don't know why. I never really had a British accent. I was too small to talk much, and I grew up here, not in England. I wish I did—Newt's lucky. He was supposed to learn to hide his accent, but he couldn't do it."

He couldn't do it. That was hard to believe. As a kid, his brain should be able to absorb anything and adapt to anything just as easily. Sara was convinced that it was just a matter of choice. He chose to keep his accent. Maybe because it was the closest thing to his family—but that left Sonya out of the story, which didn't make sense. He didn't even want to be near her, which meant he also would've wanted to forget everything that tied him back to the parents he lost. He was contradicting himself.

"Wow, that seems.... really tough, I'm sorry." Sara didn't know what else to say.

Before she could think of anything else, she noticed the presence of a blonde, middle-aged woman through the window of the room. She was dressed in all white and was carrying a touchscreen in her hand. A brown-haired boy and a pale, jet-black-haired girl accompanied her, one on either side of her.

Janson stopped dead on his tracks at the sight of the woman.

"Dr. Ava Paige!" he boomed in surprise; a hint of nervousness laced in his voice. "I wasn't expecting to see you today, but it's always a pleasure. Is everything alright?"

"No, Janson. Last minute change of plans. I came to make a quick overview of all the subjects you have at the moment... and something else I need to discuss with you," the woman responded.

"And what would that be?" he curiously asked as he glanced down at the children standing beside her.

"Thomas and Teresa. They are priceless," she began as she presented the children to him. "I brought them over to help you in the monitoring process of the Subjects once they all get sent up. Trust me, they'll both follow your exact indications. They know what they're doing. Use them to your advantage."

To Janson, it was quite strange that the chancellor was handing two children over to him that were not meant to be sent up. In fact, he didn't know how they could possibly be useful in the whole experiment. He had been so preoccupied with hiding Sara from her, but there she was, loading him up with two more kids to aid in WICKED's experimental purposes.

He raised his eyebrows with curiosity, suddenly realizing something. "Are these the children who created..."

Sara couldn't hear anything else because he lowered his voice to a whisper, and she hadn't mastered the whole lip-reading thing. But she watched the chancellor nod at him in response.

'Sent up.'

Everyone kept repeating that, and Sara was tired of the incessant mind games that led to nowhere. She felt like they were always teasing her, doing it on purpose just so she could entertain herself with some puzzle without solution.

She watched as her uncle led the chancellor into the room where all the children were reunited so that Thomas and Teresa could join them as Paige made her inspection of all the Subjects.

Her eyes moved from one child to the next, checking their number and assigned group. For a moment, Janson smiled, feeling a wave of relief sweep over him as she skimmed past Sara. His smile faltered almost instantly as soon as her eyes jerked back to take a closer look at Sara's number, then back at her touchscreen.

"What is this? Why is she not yet registered in the system? Janson, you promised me it'd be sorted out by the time of my visit," she snapped at him.

"Dr. Paige," he began as he wore his signature smirk on his face, "as far as I know, you were scheduled to visit tomorrow. I just so happened to have registered almost all of the Subjects."

"That's no excuse." She looked indignant. "I could come in when you least expect it. It doesn't take much time to register them. If you feared you wouldn't have enough time, you should've gotten them in all at once rather than waiting a few days to complete a simple task."

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Paige. I assure you this will not be repeated. I'll get them all into the system," he promised.

She gave him a satisfactory nod, then proceeded to review some specifications regarding the additional tests the children would have to undergo before the actual experiment. 

They exited the room for the sake of confidentiality, but Sara's curiosity was going overboard at that point.

Sara isolated herself from the other girls as they were busy talking to one another. They hadn't noticed when she stood up from the table and leaned on the frame of the open doorway.

Trying to make sense of Paige and Janson's conversation was impossible as she could only observe the restless movement of their lips again. That annoyed her. She was always wondering about the kind of business her uncle was involved in, but obtained no answers.

Who was this woman? What about the kids she brought with her?

Things continued to change constantly, and Sara was always left to wonder what everything meant at the end of the day. She had plenty of time to ponder over these things every night as she lay in bed, but she never found an adequate explanation.

She was disgusted with the only truth she knew since the day her life changed forever: that nothing made any sense.

She'd have to force some answers out of someone somehow. And fast.

But who?