THE NERVE LEVEL WAS HIGH AMONGST THE GLADERS AND THEIR NEW ACQUAINTANCES. Even though Jorge had assured them that Thomas and Brenda would be fine and that he knew that Brenda would find a way out, none of them really truly believed him. Besides, the guy hung them from their ankles, so he and Brenda could be random people that wanted to take them out into the middle of the desert and kill them.

They were walking through the sand, and Jorge informed them that they were heading to the Right Arm and that the two that they had left behind would catch up with them because Brenda knew where they were going. They were mostly moving in silence, and Alex was walking alongside Newt in the back, kind of away from everyone else. When she saw his nervous and worried expression, she spoke up. She tried to sound as sure of herself as she possibly could when she told him, "Hey, they made it out. We'll find him."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that..." he trailed off for a moment like he was trying to find the right words so that he did not directly insult his friend that he had already kind of abandoned. "Tommy likes to get himself into dangerous situations, you know? It's like he's got a death wish."

"He follows his instincts," she responded with a shrug, trying to make it sound as good as possible. It was true. Thomas always did seem to follow his gut feelings about things, and he was usually, emphasis on usually, correct about them. His instincts had saved hem countless times.

He shook his head with a sigh. "Sometimes instincts can be wrong."

"Well, they've worked pretty well for him so far," she pointed out, remembering all of the times that Thomas had saved them from dying because he knew deep down that something was not right or too good to be true.

"Yeah, I guess...with WICKED, and the Maze, and Gal—" he cut himself off as he tried to calm his nerves, realizing what he just said. He was praying that the girl had not heard it or had not known what he was going to say, but she did. Her face fell for a second, but she pulled a composed look back onto her face and hoped that he did not see it. He winced, "Sorry."

She shook her head quickly, letting him know that she was fine and that she was not mad at him. Sure, Gally had been Stung when he shot Chuck, but all of the moments leading up to that had just been him trying to keep everyone in the same place and stop all of the change even if they all died because of it. "No, it's okay. He was right about him too."

"He was a good guy, Alex. He did what he thought was right," he breathed out because he had lived in the Maze with Gally for three years. Even though the guy was an asshole sometimes, he really cared about the Gladers and their home, even if he did not always show it.

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know."

"So, what's the deal with that Nick shank?" the blonde boy questioned, changing the subject and gesturing to the boy a couple of yards ahead of them and out of earshot. "I'm not gonna lie. The other day, when he talked to you before we got chased by those bloody Cranks, I thought you were gonna punch him or hit him with that bat. I think he did too."

"Is that what you think of me, Newt? You think I'm just some girl that slaps random people whenever they talk to me?" she questioned, and she put her hand on her heart, playfully offended by the boy's comment.

He laughed slightly, "Yeah, kind of." He laughed even louder when she elbowed him in the stomach.

《 ✢ 》

THEY FOUND THOMAS AND BRENDA FINALLY. Apparently, the guy that Jorge was trying to find, the one that would lead them to the Right Arm, owned this little club in the city. They had gone inside because someone had told them that they saw two teenagers go in there, and they found Thomas lying unconscious on the ground. He had clearly taken one of the drinks that they offered at the entrance, but he did not seem like he was having a good time.

Alex was on a couch in this secret hideout place with Brenda, and they were watching Jorge beat up Marcus when Thomas stirred. Teresa smiled when he woke up. She was the first to know because she had been sitting there and staring at the boy for the last hour or two. She grinned down at him. "We have to stop meeting like this."

"Ugh, that's gross," Alex muttered sarcastically, referring to the way that two of her friends were looking at each other, almost as if they were in love or something. The curly-haired girl hoped not because the Maze and the Scorch were both awful places to have a love. She had witnessed it firsthand.

Minho, who was standing and crouching down beside Teresa, looked at his tired and dazed friend. He patted Thomas on the shoulder and told him, "Welcome back, you ugly shank."

"I suggest that you talk! You son of a bitch!" Jorge yelled before slapping the man tied to the chair once again. Marcus had blood dripping down his cheek from his eye, and Thomas sat up so that he could see what the hell was happening.

The man groaned after the contact. "Damn it! I'm sorry... you're going to have to leave my house."

"Oh, this is so much fun to watch," Alex mumbled, and Brenda looked over at her with a smile. It had been a while since the curly-haired girl had seen someone get beat up really good.

Newt raised his eyebrows at Thomas when he walked over to them and stood with his arms crossed like he had not just woken up from being drunk and drugged as hell and hallucinating. The blonde boy muttered, "Looks like you've been having fun."

"Listen. I don't enjoy hurting you," Jorge told the man, but from the way it looked when Alex was watching him, he really really loved hurting the guy. There seemed to be some pent-up frustration between the two. "Okay? Where is the Right Arm, Marcus?"

"Wait, this is Marcus?" Thomas questioned, looking between all of them in shock.

Marcus chuckled a little but before he responded, mostly talking to the man that was beating him up. He did not seemed very phased by the fact that he was getting his ass kicked, though. "The kid catches on quick. Are you the brains of the operation?"

"Yeah, this is our resident genius," Alex confirmed with a smile, and Thomas sighed at her sarcasm.

Because they were kind of in a rush on their run from WICKED, Jorge wasted no time in talking over her and demanding from the man, "I know you know where they're hiding. So you tell me, and I'll make you a deal. You can come with us."

"I burned that bridge a long time ago," Marcus informed him, shaking his head. Again, he seemed pretty confident for a guy tied to a chair in a room full of people that could totally beat him up easily. "Besides, I made my own deal. You're the one who taught me, never miss an opportunity."

"What's he talking about?" Newt questioned because Jorge had frozen for a second. That was not a good sign and not a good way to show the random people that he had picked up that he might not be as trustworthy as they thought. Well, they never really thought that he was all that trustworthy in the first place.

"I'm talking about supply and demand," Marcus answered before Jorge could, and he had a really smug smile on his face. "WICKED wants all the Immunes they can get. I help provide that for them. So I lure the kids in...they get drunk, they have a good time. And then, later, WICKED comes in...they separate the wheat from the chaff."

The man standing above him stopped. "I changed my mind, hermano. I do enjoy hurting you." He kicked over the chair so that Marcus went crashing to the ground, and then he stood over him and pointed a gun straight at his forehead. "Talk! Talk!"

"Okay! Jesus! But I'm not making any promises. These guys like to move around. They have an outpost in the mountains. But it's a long way away. You got half of WICKED on your ass. You're never gonna make it. Not on foot," Marcus explained to them, spitting out some blood that had been in his mouth from getting punched in the face.

Jorge exhaled for a second before his eyes lit up like he had just remembered something extremely important, and he whipped around to face Marcus as his lips twisted into a kind of creepy smile. "Where's Bertha?"

"Not Bertha."