The Scorch Trials

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She smiled, a sweet smile that shone through the grime on her face, and Thomas unexpectedly longed for that moment they’d had in the darkness together. Almost as quickly as his thought formed, though, it was gone. Brenda handed him one of the backpacks, then reached into hers and pulled out a flashlight, clicked it on. The beam shot through the dust as she shone it this way and that, finally aiming it down the long tu

“Shall we?” she asked.

“We shall,” Thomas muttered. He still felt sick about his friends, and he wondered if he was doing the right thing sticking with Brenda.

But when she started walking, he followed.

CHAPTER 31

The Underneath was a dank, miserable place. Thomas almost preferred the utter darkness to being able to see what was around him. The walls and floors were dull gray, nothing more than painted concrete, streaks of water trickling down the sides here and there. They passed a door every few dozen feet, but most of them were locked when he tried them. Dust coated the long-dark light fixtures on the ceiling, at least half of them busted, jagged glass screwed into rusty holes.

All in all, the place had the feel of a haunted tomb. The Underneath was as good a name as any. He wondered what the underground structure had been built for in the first place. Walkways and offices for who knew what kinds of jobs? Paths between buildings on rainy days? Emergency routes? Escape routes for things like massive sun flares and attacks from crazy people?

They didn’t talk much as he followed Brenda through tu

“I’m assuming you know where we’re going,” he said to her when they set off again. Everything they passed looked exactly the same to him. Drab and dark. Dusty, where it wasn’t wet. The tu

She suddenly stopped and whirled on him, shining the light on her face from below. “Boo,” she whispered.

Thomas jumped, then pushed her away. “Cut that crap,” he yelled. He felt like an idiot-his heart had just about exploded from fright. “Makes you look like a…”

She let the flashlight fall to her side, but her eyes remained locked on his. “Look like a what?”

“Nothing.”

“A Crank?”

The word cut to Thomas’s heart. He didn’t want to think of her that way. “Well… yeah,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

She turned from him and started walking again, her light shining forward. “I am a Crank, Thomas. Got the Flare, I’m a Crank. You are, too.”

He had to run a few steps to catch up with her. “Yeah, but you’re not full gone yet. And… me neither, right? We’ll get the cure before we go nuts.” The Rat Man had better have been telling the truth.

“Can’t wait. And yeah, by the way. I do know where we’re going. Thanks for checking.”

They kept going, turn after turn, long tu

Eventually they entered a large room with quite a few exits branching off to the left and right, more than he’d seen previously. It almost seemed like it could be a gathering place joined by tu

“Is this the center of the city or something?” he asked.

Brenda stopped to rest, sitting down on the ground with her back to the wall; Thomas joined her.

“More or less” she answered. “See? Already made it halfway to the other side of the city.”

Thomas liked the sound of that, but he hated to think of the others. Minho, Newt, all the Gladers. Where were they? He felt like such a shuck-face for not looking for them, seeing if they were in trouble. Could they have already made it safely outside of town?

A loud pop startled Thomas, like a glass bulb breaking.

Brenda immediately shone her light back in the direction from which they’d come, but the hallway disappeared in shadow, empty except for a few ugly streaks of water on the walls, black on gray.

“What was that?” Thomas whispered.

“An old light busting, I guess.” Her voice held no concern. She put her flashlight on the ground so it shone on the wall opposite them.

“Why would an old light just spontaneously break?”

“I don’t know. A rat?”

“I haven’t seen any rats. Plus, how would a rat walk on the ceiling?”

She gazed at him, a look of total mocking on her face. “You’re right. It must be a flying rat. We should get the hell out of here.”

A small, nervous laugh escaped before Thomas could stop it. “Hilarious.”

Another pop, this time followed by the tinkle of glass sprinkling on the floor. It had definitely come from behind them-Thomas was sure of it this time. Someone had to be following them. And it couldn’t be the Gladers-it sounded more like people trying to freak them out. Scare them.

Even Brenda couldn’t hide her reaction. Her eyes met his, and they were full of worry.

“Get up,” she whispered.

They both did it together, then quietly secured their packs. Brenda shone the light once again back the way they’d come. Nothing was there.

“Should we check it out?” she asked in a low voice. She was whispering, but in the silence of the tu

“Check it out?” Thomas thought that was the worst idea he’d heard in a long time. “No, we should get out of here, just like you said.”

“What, you wa

Thomas grabbed her hand holding the flashlight and made it point to the ground. Then he leaned closer to her so he could whisper in her ear. “It could totally be a trap. There wasn’t any glass on the ground back there-they had to have reached up and broken one of the old lights. Why would someone do that? It has to be someone trying to get us to go back there.”

She countered. “If they have enough people to attack, why would they bait us? That’s stupid. Why not just come in here and get it over with?”

Thomas thought about that. She had a point. “Well, it’s even more stupid to sit here and talk about it all day. What do we do?”

“Let’s just-” She had started to raise the flashlight as she spoke, but cut short her words, her eyes widening in terror.

Thomas whipped his head around to see the cause.

A man stood there, just on the edge of her flashlight’s range.

He was like an apparition-there was something unreal about him. He leaned to the right, his left foot and leg jiggling slightly, like he had a nervous tic. His left arm also twitched, the hand clenching and unclenching. He wore a dark suit that had probably once been nice, though now it was filthy and tattered. Water or something more foul soaked both knees of the pants.

But Thomas took all that in quickly. Most of his attention was drawn to the man’s head. Thomas couldn’t help but stare, mesmerized. It looked like hair had been ripped from his scalp, leaving bloody scabs in its place. His face was pallid and wet, with scars and sores everywhere. One eye was gone, a gummy red mass where it should have been. He also had no nose, and Thomas could actually see traces of the nasal passages in his skull underneath the terribly mangled skin.

And his mouth. Lips drawn back in a snarl, gleaming white teeth exposed, clenched tightly together. His good eye glared, somehow vicious in the way it darted between Brenda and Thomas.