Chariot | Group B → The Scorch Trials²

ii.twenty-one

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● [ ii . continued ]

Harriet shook Rogue awake hard enough that her teeth clicked together.

She came up fast, one hand already reaching for a knife that wasn't there. Her body felt leaden, the kind heavy that came from sleeping too long after not sleeping enough. The light was wrong... too bright, too high. Afternoon, then. She'd overslept badly. No wonder her head ached.

Harriet was crouched beside her, fingers still hooked in the shoulder of Rogue's shirt.

"Teresa's gone," she said. "Come on, get up."

That cut through the fog.

Rogue pushed herself upright, scrubbing a hand through her hair and tugging her jeans straight, trying to look less like she'd been dragged out of the dirt. Around them, the camp was already alive. Girls were moving, packs being nudged into place, weapons checked and rechecked. Thomas was still tied to the tree.

And down the slope, near the bone-white oak, bodies had gathered. She followed Harriet toward the others.

"You talked to him last night?" Rogue asked.

Harriet nodded. "We did."

"And?"

"Give it a minute. You'll hear for yourself."

That answer sat badly with her, but there wasn't time to press. The girls were already forming a loose circle around the tree. Rogue took her place among them, standing shoulder to shoulder with Sonya and Florence. Whatever had happened while she slept had changed something. She could feel it in the way no one joked, in how no one quite met Teresa's empty space.

Harriet stepped forward once everyone was still.

"All right," she said. "You talk first, then we will."

Thomas straightened as much as the ropes allowed. He cleared his throat, eyes flicking from face to face as if gauging how much mercy there might be left in them.

"All I know about your group is what I learned from Aris," he began. "And it seems like we all went through pretty much the same thing inside the Maze. But since we escaped, lots of things have been different. And I'm not sure what you know about WICKED—"

"Not much," Sonya cut in.

That earned a few murmurs of agreement. Rogue stayed quiet. Aside from scraps Gwen had let slip, WICKED was still mostly a shadow to them.

Thomas nodded and kept going. "Well, I've learned a lot about them. All of us are special in some way – we're being tested or something because they have plans for us."

He paused, waiting for a reaction that didn't come. Rogue folded her arms tighter, her head already starting to throb.

"A lot of the things they're doing to us don't make sense because they're just part of the trials – what WICKED calls the Variables," he said. "Seeing how we react in certain situations. I don't understand all of it, not even close, but I think this whole thing about killing me is just another layer. Or another lie. So... I think this is just another Variable to see what we'll all do."

Harriet tilted her head slightly. "In other words," she said, "you want us to risk our lives because of this brilliant deduction?"

"Dont you see?" Thomas said quickly. "Killing me has no point. Maybe it's a test for you, I don't know. But I do know that I can help you if I'm alive, but not if I'm dead."

"Or," Harriet replied evenly, "We're being tested to see if we have the guts to kill our competitors' leader. Isn't that the whole point? See which group succeeds? Weed out the weak and leave the strong?"