ALMOST EVERYTHING IN THE ROOM WAS MADE OUT OF METAL. In fact, it was everything except the thin mattresses on the bunk beds. It was a large contrast from the Glade and the Scorch, but Iris had gotten used to it in the six months that she had been in the custody of WCKD. They had moved buildings, but the room layout was the same.

The only bright side thing about any of it was that she got to share a room with Minho. It was part of WCKD's whole 'we're not evil' thing, despite the fact that they were locked in the rooms for the majority of the day. Most of the other people trapped were in rooms with seven others, but the two Gladers got their room to themselves.

"I've never been more bored in my entire shucking life," Minho announced as he lay on his back with his head in his hand. They had another two hours before they were let out for socializing time, and they had run out of things to talk about.

Iris nodded in agreement. She never thought that she would miss the days at the last facility, but there, they had an assortment of board games and puzzles in their room. Here, they had absolutely nothing. Plus, Aris, Sonya, and Harriet had been with them then. During the transfer, their train car had been lost, as WCKD said, but they knew that meant they were rescued. "Yeah, at least at the other place they had games."

"I miss kicking your ass in Sorry," Minho replied with a sigh.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes because that was not what happened. He had lost almost every single game they played, but when he did win, he bragged for hours afterwards. "You won, like, twice and then flipped the table when you lost."

"Ugh, I hate being locked in here," he groaned, choosing not to comment on her pointing out how bad yet competitive he was at board games. They literally had nothing to talk about other than how bored they were. "Neither of us are interesting enough for this. Why did we have to get transferred anyway?"

"I don't know. This is headquarters or something," she answered. They had only been there a day, and it wasn't like WCKD or Janson told them anything. They knew pretty much nothing about the building they were in, just that they were in some big city.

They had been doing absolutely nothing at the last place other than puzzling and playing games in a practical playroom with everyone else while doctors observed them creepily, making notes on everything. After a while, you learned to tune them out. "Are they actually going to do something here or just keep dilly dallying?"

"Whatever they do, I hope they don't get their Cure," Iris said bitterly. She would rather die than give them what they want, no matter what happened.

Minho seemed like he was about to agree, but he made a face, thinking about hoe useful having a Cure would be and how it would kind of end everything. "To be fair, the Cure would be pretty helpful."

"Whose side are you on?" the blonde girl questioned. Of course, the Cure would be helpful, but he didn't need to point that out when it literally aided their enemies.

They fell into silence for a moment, but Minho broke it after a few seconds. "Have you talked to him since the switch?"

Wow. He must be insanely bored if he was bringing that up. They had not spoken about either of the traitors in a while, and he knew that it upset her. It did not bring him joy either, talking about it. He must be eager for some action of yelling or something if he wanted to talk about that.

"I haven't talked to him in weeks," she answered dryly, acting like it didn't affect her. It didn't, really. She had gotten over it for the most part, at least that was what she told herself every minute of every day. When she saw him in the corridor or in the cafeteria, she tried her hardest to feel nothing. "No sense in changing it now."

There was another pause. "He definitely misses you."

"Yeah, well, he turned us in. He lost the right to miss me," she snapped, and she took a second to try and calm down, remembering that it didn't affect her. She then thought about why Minho was even saying that. He didn't like him either. They might not have trash talked him as much as they did Teresa, but he was still a traitor. "And why do you want me to talk to him? I thought you'd be mad too."

"I am mad, and I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that I bet he misses you," Minho explained, and Iris was so confused. She had never witnessed him being so reasonable.

She just scoffed once again. "Serves him right."

《 ✢ 》

IRIS COULD FEEL THE STEAM FROM HER BOILING BLOOD COMING OUT OF HER EARS. She had never been so angry with someone in her entire life. She was standing back in the room that she had slept in that night after they got out of the Maze, the night that Jem had snuck through the vents to come check in on her. It was the same room, same people, but completely different circumstances.

He was standing in front of her, wincing every time that she yelled at him. It was strange because she had screamed at him about a hundred times back in the Glade, but this was different for multiple reasons. For one, he actually cared this time. He hated that she was mad at him. Second, he hadn't just said a snide comment. He had betrayed her.

"I trusted you, Jem! We all did. How could you do that?" she screamed. It felt like they had had the conversation a dozen times, and it just kept circling back to the same thing, the same question.

"You have to understand, Iris," he begged. He had been pleading with her for an hour, praying that she could understand where he was coming from in the slightest. If she heard everything that Teresa had told him, she would've done the same thing, he knew she would've. "They promised me that we'd all be safe, that you'd be safe."

She scoffed because a promise from WCKD meant absolutely nothing to her. "And you just believed them?"

"Ava won't break her promise," he insisted, but he knew how ridiculous that sounded to her. It was the same Ava that just came down and had her men shoot at her and her friends. He did not know why he expected her to believe him.

"You don't know that," Iris exclaimed, throwing her arms up. WCKD were the people that put them in the freaking Maze to study them like rats. How could he side with them over the people he was in there with? "You've known her for a couple days? You've known me for years."

He repeated for the umpteenth time. "I was protecting you!"

"I don't need your protection! A few months ago, you didn't give a damn whether I lived or died," she sneered, recalling the point in the Glade when they would both be praying for each other's downfall. How much could have changed in that time?

"I always gave a damn," he replied, and she was shocked by that. He ran a hand through his hair, stressed and panicking. "You were annoying, but you were my family. All of you were!"

How could she trust anything that came out of his mouth after what he did? Turning your friends in to the people that wanted to experiment on them wasn't exactly what she would call 'showing love.' "If we meant so much to you, why did you betray us?"

"I didn't! I did what I thought was right. You have to believe that, please," he responded, and he was close to getting down on his knees and just begging for forgiveness from her. He couldn't stand the idea of her being mad at him.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you trust me?" she asked, her voice breaking. This was more dejected, more sad than angry. "Maybe I would've understood." She sighed before revealing, "Jem, out there in the Scorch, I would've shucking died for you. I would've done anything. If you had told me... maybe things would be different."

His eyes were soft and pleading, and he reached up, his thumb brushing her cheek before she moved her head away from him. "Iris..."

"Don't touch me. And don't try to talk to me," she ordered. She did not want anything to do with him. If she was going to be poked and prodded and tortured because of what he did, she was not going to watch him while it happened.

She saw his heart break in his eyes as he scanned hers for any sign of anything other than anger and betrayal. "Iris, please."

"You need to stay away from me. You are a coward," she told him, and Jem felt like he couldn't breathe. He had never felt like that before, and it was the worst feeling in his entire life. The way that she looked at him in that moment made him want to hang himself right there, but all he did was nod slightly and leave the room, leaving her staring at the empty space where he once was.