The Death Cure - James Dashner [77]
She stopped talking, but Thomas had nothing to say. He searched Teresa’s face and saw a pain unlike any he’d ever seen before. She was telling the truth.
She didn’t wait for him to speak before she continued. “So I made a deal with myself. I’d do whatever it took to make up for my mistakes. I wanted to save my friends first, and then other Immunes, if possible. And look what a great job I did.”
Thomas searched for words. “Well, we haven’t done much better, have we?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Were you hoping to stop them?”
“We’re about to be sold back to WICKED, so what does it matter?”
She didn’t answer right away. Thomas would’ve given anything to be inside her head—and not in the old way. For a brief moment he felt sad, knowing they’d shared countless hours together that he no longer had any memory of. They’d been best friends once.
She finally said, “If somehow we could do something, I hope that you’d find a way to trust me again. And I know we can convince Aris and the others to help us. They feel the same way I do.”
Thomas knew he had to be careful. It was strange that she only agreed with him about WICKED now that she’d gotten her memories back.
“We’ll see what happens,” he finally said
She frowned deeply. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”
“We’ll see what happens,” he repeated. Then he stood up and walked away, hating the look of hurt on her face. And hating himself for caring after everything she’d done to him.
CHAPTER 45
Thomas found Minho sitting with Brenda and Jorge when he returned, and Minho didn’t seem happy to see him. He gave Thomas a nasty look. “So what did that shuck traitor have to say?”
Thomas sat down beside him. Several strangers had gathered closer, and he could tell they were listening in.
“Well?” Minho pushed.
“She said that the reason they escaped was because they found out WICKED plans to start all over again if they have to. That they were rounding up Immunes—just like Gally told us. She swears that somehow they were led to believe that we’d already broken out—and that they looked for us.” Thomas paused—he knew Minho wouldn’t like the next part. “And she’d help us if she can.”
Minho just shook his head. “You’re a slinthead. You shouldn’t have talked to her.”
“Thanks.” Thomas rubbed his face. Minho was right.
“Hate to barge in here, muchachos,” Jorge said. “You can talk all day about this crap, but it means diddly unless we can get ourselves out of this nice little place. No matter who’s on whose side.”
Just then the door to the room opened and three of their captors walked in with big sacks stuffed full of something. A fourth followed, armed with a Launcher and a pistol. He swept the room, looking for trouble, and the others started passing out what was inside the bags—bread and bottles of water.
“How do we always get into these messes?” Minho asked. “At least we used to be able to blame everything on WICKED.”
“Yeah, well, we still can,” Thomas murmured.
Minho grinned. “Good. Those shuck-faces.”
An uneasy silence settled on the room as the kidnappers moved around. People began to eat. Thomas realized that they’d have to whisper if they wanted to keep talking.
Minho nudged Thomas. “Only one of them has a weapon,” he whispered. “And he doesn’t look so bad. I bet I could take him.”
“Maybe,” Thomas answered under his breath. “But don’t do anything stupid—he’s got a gun as well as a Launcher. And trust me, you don’t want to get shot by either.”
“Yeah, well, you trust me this time.” Minho gave Thomas a wink, to which Thomas could only sigh. The odds were not good that what was about to happen would go unnoticed.
The kidnappers approached Thomas and Minho and stopped at their little group. Thomas took a roll and a bottle of water, but when the man