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"Hey, Clint," Newt said, sounding comfortable, like he'd stopped by to visit many times before. "She surviving?"
"Yeah," Clint answered. "She's doing fine, though she talks in her sleep all the time. We think she'll come out of it soon."
Thomas felt his hackles rise. For some reason, he'd never really considered the possibility that the girl might wake up and be okay. That she might talk to people. He had no idea why that suddenly made him so nervous.
"Have you been writin' down every word she says?" Newt asked. Clint nodded. "Most of it's impossible to understand. But yeah, when we can."
Newt pointed at a notepad on the nightstand. "Give me an example."
"Well, the same thing she said when we pulled her out of the Box, about things changing. Other stuff about the Creators and how 'it all has to end.' And, uh . . ." Clint looked at Thomas as if he didn't want to continue in his company.
"It's okay—he can hear whatever I hear," Newt assured him.
"Well ... I can't make it all out, but . . ." Clint looked at Thomas again. "She keeps saying his name over and over."
Thomas almost fell down at this. Would the references to him never end? How did he know this girl? It was like a maddening itch inside his skull that wouldn't go away.
"Thanks, Clint," Newt said in what sounded to Thomas like an obvious dismissal. "Get us a report of all that, okay?"
"Will do." The Med-jack nodded at both of them and left the room.
"Pull up a chair," Newt said as he sat on the edge of the bed. Thomas, relieved that Newt still hadn't erupted into accusations, grabbed the one from the desk and placed it right next to where the girl's head lay; he sat down, leaning forward to look at her face.
"Anything ring a bell?" Newt asked. "Anything at all?"
Thomas didn't respond, kept looking, willing his mind to break down the memory barrier and seek out this girl from his past. He thought back to those brief moments when she'd opened her eyes right after being pulled out of the Box.
They'd been blue, richer in color than the eyes of any other person he could remember seeing before. He tried to picture those eyes on her now as he looked at her slumbering face, melding the two images in his mind. Her black hair, her perfect white skin, her full lips. ... As he stared at her, he realized once more how truly beautiful she was.
Stronger recognition briefly tickled the back of his mind—a flutter of wings in a dark corner, unseen but there all the same. It lasted only an instant before vanishing into the abyss of his other captured memories. But he had felt something.
"I do know her," he whispered, leaning back in his chair. It felt good to finally admit it out loud.
Newt stood up. "What? Who is she?"
"No idea. But something clicked—I know her from somewhere." Thomas rubbed his eyes, frustrated that he couldn't solidify the link.
"Well, keep bloody thinking—don't lose it. Concentrate."
"I'm trying, so shut up." Thomas closed his eyes, searched the darkness of his thoughts, seeking her face in that emptiness. Who was she? The irony of the question struck him—he didn't even know who he was.
He leaned forward in his chair and took a deep breath, then looked at Newt, shaking his head in surrender. "I just don't—"
Teresa.
Thomas jolted up from the chair, knocked it backward, spun in a circle, searching. He had heard . . .
"What's wrong?" Newt asked. "Did ya remember somethin'?"
Thomas ignored him, looked around the room in confusion, knowing he'd heard a voice, then back at the girl.
"I . . ." He sat back down, leaned forward, staring at the girl's face. "Newt, did you just say something before I stood up?"
"No."
Of course not. "Oh. I just thought I heard something ... I don't know. Maybe it was in my head. Did . . . she say anything?"
"Her?" Newt asked, his eyes lit up. "No. Why? What did you hear?"
Thomas was scared to admit it. "I ... I swear I heard a name. Teresa.
"Teresa? No, I didn't hear that. Must've sprung loose from your bloody memory blocks! That's her name, Tommy. Teresa. Has to be."
Thomas felt . . . odd—an uncomfortable feeling, like something supernatural had just occurred. "It was ... I swear I heard it. But in my mind, man. I can't explain it."
Thomas.
This time he jumped from the chair and scrambled as far from the bed as possible, knocking over the lamp on the table; it landed with the crash of broken glass. A voice. A girl's voice. Whispery, sweet, confident. He'd heard it. He knew he'd heard it.
"What's bloody wrong with you?" Newt asked.
Thomas's heart was racing. He felt the thumps in his skull. Acid boiled in his stomach. "She's . . . she's freakin' talking to me. In my head. She just said my name!"
"What?"
"I swear!" The world spun around him, pressed in, crushing his mind. "I'm . . . hearing her voice in my head—or something ... it's not really a voice. . . ."
"Tommy, sit your butt down. What are you bloody talking about?'
"Newt, I'm serious. It's . . . not really a voice . . . but it is!'
Tom, we're the last ones. It'll end soon. It has to.
The words echoed in his mind, touched his eardrums—he could hear them. Yet they didn't sound like they were coming from the room, from outside his body. They were literally, in every way, inside his mind.
Tom, don't freak out on me.
He put his hands up to his ears, squeezed his eyes shut. It was too strange; he couldn't bring his rational mind to accept what was happening.
My memory's fading already, Tom. I won't remember much when I wake up. We can pass the Trials. It has to end. They sent me as a trigger.
Thomas couldn't take it anymore. Ignoring Newt's questions, he stumbled to the door and yanked it open, stepped into the hall, ran. Down the stairs, out the front door, he ran. But it did nothing to shut her up.
Everything is going to change, she said.
He wanted to scream, run until he could run no more. He made it to the East Door and sprinted through it, out of the Glade. Kept going, through corridor after corridor, deep into the heart of the Maze, rules or no rules. But he still couldn't escape the voice.
It was you and me, Tom. We did this to them. To us.
CHAPTER 29
Thomas didn't stop until the voice had gone for good.
It shocked him when he realized he'd been ru
He had to get back.
But he didn't know if he could face her again. The voice in his head. The strange things she'd said.
He had no choice. Denying the truth would solve nothing. And as had—as weird—as the invasion of his mind had been, it beat another date with the Grievers any day.
As he ran toward the Glade, he learned a lot about himself. Without meaning to or realizing it, he'd pictured in his mind his exact route through the Maze as he escaped the voice. Not once did he falter on his return, turning left and right and ru