ALEX HAD FINALLY FALLEN ASLEEP, BUT SHE WAS WOKEN UP BY CLANGING. She jolted awake, sitting up, and her head slammed against the bottom of the bunk above her. She focused back on the noise, and sprung out of bed when she realized that it was coming from under it. She scanned the room frantically for a weapon and lunged for a small table, but she realized that it was nailed to the floor. She decided that her best bet was just her fists, and she hoped that whatever it was was not armed. The grate under her bed that led to vents went clattering to the ground, and a hand appeared from under the bed. A person pulled themselves out from under it, and she sighed in relief when she saw who it was.

"Thomas, what the hell are you doing?" she questioned, dropping her hands and slapping her thighs with them.

"Thomas, I'm gonna go," a voice called from in the vents. Alex was confused because she had never heard that voice before, but Thomas did not seem to be alarmed by it. "You think you can find your way back?"

The boy in front of her, that was now standing up, leaned his head down to give whoever his friend was a thumbs up. Alex was so confused as she heard sounds, indicating that the person was crawling away. "Who was that?"

"One of the kids that was in the Maze with all girls," he answered, waving it off like it was no big deal.

She was wondering why the hell he woke her up for something that was no big deal. She had actually been getting some good sleep. She asked, "What were you two doing?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow with the rest of the group," he answered, making it sound like it was something that would take forever to explain, and he only wanted to explain it once. That was probably the case. Either that or the fact that he might've wanted to talk to someone else like Newt or Minho before he spoke to the whole group for some reason.

"Oh..." she muttered, looking down at the ground. She was now really confused as to why he woke her up if something urgent hadn't just happened. She did not mean to be rude, but she also wanted him to understand that she needed at least some sleep that night. "What do you want, Thomas?"

He responded to her with a shrug, like he was holding something back from what he was saying. "I just wanted to check to see how you were doing. We haven't seen you that much, and you were pretty quiet at dinner."

"I wonder why," she murmured sarcastically with a small eyeroll. The person that she had loved most had been murdered by someone else that she loved. She also felt awful for feeling bad about Gally's death because of the fact that he had killed Chuck, even though he had been stung.

He sighed, knowing what she meant without her having to say it gladly. He nodded behind him in the general direction to where his room was located, she assumed. She wondered how he knew that this was her room. She decided that it was best not to question it. "They're worried about you, the guys."

"Well, you can tell them that I'm fine, and I'll see them tomorrow. Goodnight, Thomas," She replied, swiftly shutting down the conversation so that she could go back to wallowing and sleeping and being sad.

"Goodnight." He nodded to her before grabbing the side of the bed to swing himself back down so that just his shoulders and head were visible. "Hey, Alex?"

She called back to him,curious as to what this one last thing was because his tone made it sound kind of important. "Yeah?"

"Never mind. Good night."

《 ✢ 》

"I WANNA KNOW WHAT'S THROUGH THAT DOOR," THOMAS INFORMED THEM. He had just gotten through explaining what he and the vent boy saw the previous night. They had apparently spied on whoever had taken them in and saw them bringing what looked like bodies into a room.

Newt sighed at him, rolling his eyes as Janson called out more names to take to whatever the hell the farm was. Thomas seemed convinced that they were being sent to die. "Now, we've been over this. You said they were covered up, so you don't know what you saw. It could've been anything under there."

"I know exactly what I saw. They were bodies. Aris said they bring in a new batch every night," the other boy told him, causing them all to furrow their eyebrows at the new name.

"Who the hell is Aris?" asked Minho, and Thomas responded by lifting his hand up and pointing over to the loner boy that they saw earlier. Alex finally pieced together the part about the boy in the all girls Maze and the guy taht had been pointed out to them yesterday. Minho looked back over at Thomas with a 'seriously?' expression. "Well, I'm sold."

Janson finished up, handing his clipboard to one of his little guard friends. "And last but not least, David. Thank you for your attention. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

"Okay, until we know anything for certain, we should just keep our heads down and try not to draw any attention to ourselves, all right? What is he doing?" the blonde boy questioned because as soon as he said the first part, Thomas had jumped up out of his chair. He started walking onward the double doors that everyone had just walked out of.

Frypan replied, "I think he's drawing attention to himself."

"Hang on. You weren't called. This is a restricted area, kid," one of the guards at the door told Thomas with a sneer. Pretty much everyone that Aleex had met there had been overly polite, and then, there was this guy.

Thomas tried to push through them, but they just held him back. Alex wondered what he planned to get when he thought of this idea because he really shocked her sometimes "I just wanna see my friend. Can you let me through?"

"Get your ass back in that chair," the guard ordered, and Thomas turned around for just a split second before he whipped back around and tried to shove through the guys. Alex and the rest of the Gladers ran over to them to back him up if he needed if, and when Janson showed up, they held him back.

"What's happening here? Thomas? I thought we could trust each other. You know we're all on the same team here," Janson reminded them, but he said it in such a way that made Alex uncomfortable. He nodded to the guards when he got no response. "Get them to their bunks."

Apparently, the guards don't care about the girl's privacy or just did not want to do the extra work because they just threw Alex in the room with all of the guys. Minho whipped around to face Thomas when the door closed and locked behind them. "What the hell was that about?"

"You didn't really think they were just gonna let you through?" Alex asked with raised eyebrows.

"Nah, of course I didn't. I'm gonna find out what's on the other side of that door." He whipped out a key card, and they realized that he must have stolen it from the guard. Newt rolled his eyes when he saw it. "Newt, they're hiding something. Okay? These people are not who they say they are."

The blonde boy shook his head before jogging his friend's memory about what happened in the Glade. "No, Thomas, you don't know that! The only thing that we do know is that they helped rescue us from WICKED. They gave us new clothes. They gave us food. They gave us a proper bed. Some of us haven't had that in a long time. Some of us a lot longer than others."

"Hey, Thomas," called a voice, and they all whipped around as the grate on the vent clattered to the ground, remindedding Alex of the previous night. Aris stuck his head out from under the bed. "You got it, didn't you?"

The boy he was speaking to nodded and climbed under the bed with him. "Yeah. Let's go." He looked back at the Gladers one more time. All right, look, maybe you guys are right. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But I got to find out for sure. Just cover for me. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Hey, how are you doing?" Minho asked Alex as they waited for Thomas to get back. She was sitting on a bunk bed, and he was sitting on the one adjacent to hers so that they were facing each other.

She shrugged, banging her head against the wall lightly as she spoke. Her arm was killing her, and she had a huge headache. The banging was not helping at all, and she had no idea why she was doing it. "Everyone climbing through the vents is a little unsettling, but—"

"Not that. The other thing," he interrupted her.

"Oh. The other thing," she muttered. She had known what he was talking about when he first said it. She had just hoped that maybe he would let it slide so that she did not have to talk about it. "I'm...still here."

He sighed and shot her an apologetic look. She knew that he was sorry and that he just did what he could to save all of them, but it still hurt. "I'm really sorry, Alex."

"You did what you had to do," she told him, letting him know that she understood. Who knows what would've happened if he hadn't speared Gally? He might have shot even more people, and then Chuck would have died in vain. She just had to keep telling herself that or she would never be able to believe it.

He did not fall for her ruse, and he knew that it actually hurt a lot. He kind of wished that she would scream at him or hit him or something because holding the pain in was not helping her at all.His eyes held pity and sadness as he informed her, "You can still be upset about it."

"You know what, Minho? I'd really rather not talk about this," she spoke up, straightening her body and stopping the banging of her head on the wall.

"I get it," he responded, and he respected her wishes of not talking about it, but he still wanted to take her mind off of everything that was happening. So, he just changed the subject. "So, the food's pretty great, huh?"

She smiled at the new topic because she had not been able to make fun of any of her friends for a while now. She was happy to lighten the food, even if it was just for a moment. "Yeah, a real change from Frypan's—" Said boy cut her off quickly.

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Alex."