The Scorch Trials - James Dashner [105]
“Yeah,” she said without hesitating. “Same guy who talked to your group?”
Thomas nodded. “What were the … specific instructions he gave you?”
“Well, most of our trip has been through underground tunnels. That’s why you didn’t see us in the desert. The first thing we were supposed to do was that weird thing where you and Teresa spoke in that building on the south side of the city. Remember?”
Thomas’s stomach fell. She’d been with her group at that point? “Uh, yeah, I remember.”
“Well, you’ve probably figured it out, but all of that was an act. Kind of a prepper to give you some false security. She even told us they somehow … controlled her long enough to make her kiss you. Is that true?”
Thomas stopped walking, bent down and put his hands on his knees. Something had sucked the breath right out of him. That was it. He’d officially and completely lost any trace of doubt. Teresa had turned against him. Or maybe she had never really been on his side.
“I know this sucks,” Harriet said softly. “It seems like you used to feel really close to her.”
Thomas stood up again, slowly sucked in a long breath. “I … just … I had hoped it was the other way around. That they were forcing her to try to hurt us, that she broke away long enough to … to kiss me.”
Harriet put a hand on his arm. “Ever since she joined us, she’s made you out to be a monster who did something really awful to her, only she’d never tell us what it was. But I gotta tell ya—you’re not anything like how she described you. That’s probably the real reason we changed our minds.”
Thomas closed his eyes and tried to calm his heart. Then he shook it off and started walking again. “Okay, tell me the rest. I need to hear it. All of it.”
Harriet got in stride with him. “Everything else about the instructions to kill you had to do with catching you in the desert like we did and bringing you back here. We were even told to keep you in the bag until we got out of Group A’s sight. Then … well, then the big day was supposed to be the day after tomorrow. There’s supposed to be a place built into the mountain on the north side. A special place to … kill you.”
Thomas wanted to stop again but kept his feet moving. “A place? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. He just told us we’d know what to do when we got there.” She paused, then snapped her fingers as if she’d just thought of something. “I bet that’s where she went earlier.”
“Why? How close are we to the other side?”
“No idea, actually.”
They fell into silence and kept walking.
* * *
It took longer than Thomas would’ve thought. They were in the middle of the second night of marching when shouts up ahead announced that they’d reached the end of the Pass. Thomas, who’d stayed at the back of the group, broke into a run to catch up; he desperately wanted to see what lay on the north side of the range. One way or another, his fate waited there.
The group of girls had clustered in a wide swath of broken rock that fanned out from the narrow canyon of the Pass before dropping in a steep slope to the bottom of the mountain far below. The three-quarter moon shone down on the valley in front of them, making it look dark purple and eerie. And very flat. With nothing for miles and miles but sparse, dead land.
Absolutely nothing.
No sign of anything that could be a safe haven. And they were supposed to be within a few miles of it.
“Maybe we just can’t see it.” Thomas didn’t know who said it, but he knew every person there understood exactly why she did. Trying to hold on to hope.
“Yeah,” Harriet added, sounding upbeat. “It might just be another entrance to one of their underground tunnels. I’m sure it’s there.”
“How many more miles do you think we have left?” Sonya asked.
“Can’t be more than ten, based on where we started and how far the man said we had to go,” Harriet answered. “Probably more like seven or eight. I thought we’d come out over here and