IRIS GROANED AS SHE WOKE UP SOMEWHERE STRANGE. She furrowed her eyebrows when she felt grass around her, tickling her face and arms. It was a large contrast form the uncomfortable mattresses that she had been waking up in for the past six months, so, for a moment, she just basked in the sun, something she hadn't felt in a while.

But then she realized what was happening, and she shot up into a sitting position. She looked around, and she was surrounded by a field, not unlike the Glade. She climbed to her feet quickly, her fight or flight kicking in as she examined her surroundings, dread creeping up in her chest when she saw the structures in the corner, exactly like the ones they had had in the Maze.

"No, no, no, no," she muttered. There was no way that WCKD put her back in the Glade, right? They weren't that evil. They couldn't be. She spun in a circle, confirming what she was praying wasn't true.

She was back.

"Minho! Minho! Someone! Hello!" she began screaming, and she sprinted across the field and toward the buildings, desperately searching for any signs of life or anyone that she knew. Minho had to be there as well. He just had to. She searched the Homestead, but it was empty. She kept shouting and begging for someone to answer her as she ran around, when all of a sudden, she collided with someone. Her eyes shot up as they grabbed ahold of her arms, and her breathing calmed slightly when she saw who it was.

Jem.

She just began spluttering, completely forgetting everything that he had done for a second because they had more important things to worry about. "Jem, I'm back. We're back. They put us back."

"Hey, hey. It's okay," he assured her, and his hands slid up to her neck in an attempt to calm her down. She was frantic, but he just kept telling her, "It's gonna be okay."

"They put us back in the Maze," she repeated, making sure he understood what was happening. He was too calm for all of this. They were back in the same hellscape that they spent three years of their lives in. They were back.

His hands slid back down to her arms, just nodding in response. "It's okay. I'm gonna get you out. I'll get you out."

He grabbed her hand and began dragging her in the other direction. She ran with him, and in hindsight, she would wonder why she had so much blind trust in him at that moment. They were running to the open stone doors that led directly into the Maze. They knew how to get out, and they just needed to pray that the code was the same and everything.

Just as they crossed the threshold of the Maze, everything changed. Iris's surroundings dissolved, and she felt Jem's grip on her hand disappear. She looked around and realized that she was back in the Scorch. The hot sun was beating down on her hotter than ever, and her feet sunk slightly in the sand.

"Jem," she panted out, but he was nowhere to be seen. She was all alone in the middle of the desert, or so she thought until she looked up and noticed a huge crowd of people walking over a dune and toward her. Wait, no, not people.

Cranks.

Her eyes widened when she realized, and she began sprinting in the opposite direction. She had no clue where she was going because all she could see was sand, but she knew that she had to get the hell out of there. In the distance, she saw someone lying on the ground. Once she reached them, she kneeled down beside them, ready to wake them up.

She gasped when she saw their face. It was Winston, a bullet hole in his head and blood dripping from his mouth. Her hand flew to her mouth in terror, and tears had never formed in her eyes quicker. She knew that he was dead, but seeing it made it ten times worse. "No, no, no. Winston."

All of a sudden, he came to life, and she felt his veiny hand wrap around her forearm. She shrieked and flew backwards when he tried to bite her, and she wrenched herself out of his grip and went on running again as he joined the army of Cranks chasing her. That was impossible. He shot himself in the head. How had he come back? How had she found him?

She screamed once again when she felt the sand and ground disappear from under her, and she dropped. She landed in a dark room, slamming into the floor. She groaned as she stood up, realizing that she was in a tank about five feet by five feet. She furrowed her eyebrows at the glass around her before looking up to see that there was a ceiling to the tank and wherever she had dropped from had disappeared.

And then it began filling with water.

There was a pipe in one of the walls that seemingly came from nowhere, and it was spewing water out of it quickly. If it kept at the speed that it was at, she would be completely underwater in about a minute. She was panicking, looking around for something, anything, that she could do. She began banging on the glass, but it wasn't budging. She then took off her jacket and tried to use it to stuff the pipe, but it was no use. The water was up to her waist at that point, and she was running out of time.

She had to think. There had to be a way to get out of there, but she was too frantic to think clearly. She was floating at that point, the water inches away from the top. She took her final breath before allowing herself to sink under the surface. She then braced herself against one wall and just began continuously slamming her feet into the other one.

Her eyes widened when she saw it crack, and she was starting to get light headed as she kicked harder than she ever had before. She was almost out of hair when she kicked it one final time, and all of the water went flowing out of the hole she had created. She went out with it, and she kneeled on her hands and knees, coughing and spluttering as she tried to catch her breath.

Once she was done gasping, she slowly climbed to her feet to see that she was in a tunnel of some sort. The lights were flashing, and everything looked disgusting. That was not what she was worried about, though, because at the end of the hallway, there was a single Crank. It was moving toward her at a slow pace, meaning it should not be difficult to kill. She felt a sudden weight in her belt, and her hand flew to it, feeling the outline of a gun against her thigh.

She pulled it out, pointing it directly as the Crank as he came into the light so that she could get a good look at his face, and what she saw immediately made her freeze.

It was Minho.

"Minho!" she shouted, and her breath grew shaky when she saw the black veins running up and down his arms and across his face, just like Winston had looked. There was black blood dripping from his mouth and nose, and his eyes were completely black.

He continued to move toward her, and he was getting fairly close at about ten yards away. She kept the gun on him, racking her brain for something, anything else that she could do. However, it seemed that her fate was inevitable.

She was going to have to kill Minho.

《 ✢ 》

"LET HER OUT," JEM ORDERED FROM BEHIND THE WINDOW. He was standing in the room adjacent to where Iris was hooked up to about a thousand different things. They were putting her through a simulation so that they could harvest her blood while she responded to different environments and situations. It was all going good until about an hour in when she started sobbing.

She began shaking, and something in the simulation was freaking her out too much. The machines around her began beeping, indicating extremely high stress, dangerous levels even. He hated seeing her like that, and he reached a point where he could bear it no longer. When no one listened to him, Jem began banging on the glass. "Let her out! Stop it! She's clearly not okay."

"Jem, we have to see how she responds to a variety of stimuli. She'll be okay," Teresa informed him. She was standing next to him, although she did not seem as pained as he was. However, he was not taking her word for it. He moved toward the door, scanning his key card to open it. Teresa lunged toward him, trying to stop him. "Jem—"

"I said, turn it off," he demanded as he stormed inside, and when the doctors and scientists just looked at him, he decided to do it himself. He dove toward the controls for everything holding her up, and he began flipping switches.

There was a lot of yelling and people grabbing at him, but he was determined. He was getting her out of that simulation because clearly, whatever they were doing to her was cruel. He just hoped that whatever he was doing was helping.

Finally, the machine released her, and she dropped onto the ground, almost faceplanting. She caught herself just in time, waking up as the fall happened, but she immediately lowered herself back down to the ground. She couldn't even comprehend the chaos happening around her. Her body was just so weak, and she was so tired. She rolled onto her back, slowly opening her eyes when she felt someone touching her face, removing wires from her head.

Jem was kneeling over her, trying to get her to respond to him. "Iris, can you hear me? Iris."

She just groaned in response, realizing that he must have been the one to disconnect her. If it had been a doctor, it would have been much more graceful. She would have pulled away if she had the energy to do it, but all she could do was thank God that he pulled her out before she had to do anything. It felt so real, and she always forgot everything when they put her under like that.

He watched as they lifted her up and wheeled her off, back to her room, and he sighed. He knew that Ava and Janson would not be pleased with how he reacted, but it just physically pained him to watch her go through that and not do anything about it.

Speaking of the devils, both adults came running into the room, and Teresa entered behind them. She must have gone and gotten them the second Jem stepped into the room. He looked up apologetically, waiting for someone to start screaming at him. Janson looked like he wanted to, but Ava placed a hand on the man's chest, stopping him. She then turned to Jem and beckoned him, "Come. We have a meeting with the sponsors."