Thomas couldn’t look away until he saw what his friend was talking about. With a sudden surge of bravery, he leaned on the edge of the container and wiped off some condensation. The meaty mass pressed against the window had large, bulbous growths—several of them. They looked like tumors or gigantic blisters. And unless his eyes were tricking him, Thomas could swear the growths were where the glowing light was coming from.
Finally he stepped back and rubbed his eyes. He’d seen a lot of strange things in his life, but this took the cake.
“What…,” he said, drawing out his words, “in the world…is that?”
“No bloody idea,” Newt replied, refusing to look back. “Have we had enough yet?” Tendrils of mist cascaded up his shirt and parted around his head.
“Plenty,” Thomas agreed. “Let’s go.”
He’d had yet another peek behind the mysterious curtain of WICKED, and he didn’t like what he’d seen.
—
A somber mood hung between them as they made their way across the rest of the R&D room, the security tunnel Teresa had told them about, and then finally to a false wall behind a closet that led to the barracks of Group B. Every time Thomas thought he’d kind of gotten used to things around WICKED, he came across something like a glass container in which a hideous monster with glowing tumors grew like a fetus in a womb.
They obviously weren’t telling him everything. Of course they weren’t—he wasn’t a naïve idiot. But sometimes it seemed like they told him nothing, like they were playing him like everyone else. Like he was just another subject. Who knew what kind of horrors were in store for those sent to the two mazes. The Grievers, this thing growing in the R&D vat…
He sighed as Newt pressed against the wall and popped out a large panel. It revealed a small closet, mostly dark, with a door just a few feet away that led into the large barracks room. The door of the closet was ajar, and through the opening, Thomas could see bunk beds lined up along the walls.
“What if they freak out?” Thomas whispered. “I don’t want forty girls attacking me at once.”
“I thought you went for that sort of thing,” Newt whispered back. Thomas could barely see him, but he knew his friend was smiling.
Thomas shook his head and nudged Newt toward the opening, then followed him through to the other side of the closet. They peered through the door to Group B. The soft sighs of sleep were broken here and there by a sharp snore or the creaks of springs as bodies repositioned.
Thomas waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He was scanning the room of bunks when a figure suddenly appeared in front of him. He stifled a yelp and stumbled backward. The girl followed him into the shadows of the closet.
“What do you want?” she whispered fiercely. “Who are you?”
Thomas finally recovered. “Sorry to sneak in like this—we’re from Group A. We’re here so Newt can say goodbye to his sister before the Maze Trials begin.” He couldn’t see Newt’s face because of the darkness, but he imagined the boy laughing at him for being so startled.
“You could’ve given us a warning,” the girl replied, “before creeping in like kidnappers. What are your names? Well, your name, if he’s Newt. We know all about Newt. Sonya is one of my best friends.”
“I’m Thomas.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. Or annoyed. Her group had probably heard just as much about him and Teresa as his friends had about Aris and Rachel. WICKED seemed to have spread the word. “My name’s Miyoko. Let me get Sonya.”
She slipped off into the barracks room, a shadow among shadows.
“I hope they’re on our side,” Newt said. “That girl’d take down half of us, yeah?”
Thomas didn’t answer; the darkness of the closet suddenly felt menacing. He knew that WICKED had the subjects separated into groups of girls and boys for various reasons. It had to do with how they were going to run out the Variables later in the trials. But he also knew there was more going on, and he didn’t like it.
Miyoko reappeared, this time with another girl right next to her. She was a blur as she ran past Thomas, streaking through the door and straight at Newt. They embraced in an unstable hug, stumbling back in the dark little room.
“Here,” Miyoko said, gently pushing Thomas out of the way so she could swing the closet door closed. Then she turned on a light that seemed as bright as two suns. He squinted and held a hand up to his eyes, temporarily blinded.
Newt was crying, and Thomas didn’t need vision to know it. The boy sobbed, the sounds muffled by his sister’s neck or shoulder. As Thomas’s sight returned, he saw that both of them had tears streaming down their faces, and they were hugging each other fiercely. He didn’t know how long it had been since the last time they’d seen each other, or if they were able to communicate somehow. But his heart hurt watching them.
“Come on,” Miyoko said to Thomas, grabbing his arm. “Let’s give them some—”
“I hate them,” Newt said loudly through his sniffles. He pulled back from his sister and wiped his cheeks. “I hate every one of them! How can they do this? How can they steal us from our homes and keep us separate like this? It’s not right!” He yelled the last word, and Miyoko winced, eyeing the door.
“No, no, no,” Sonya said in a soothing tone. She put her hands on both sides of her brother’s face, looking straight into his eyes. “Don’t say that. You’re looking at it all wrong. We’ve got it better than ninety-nine percent of kids out there. They saved us, big brother. What are the odds we’d be alive if they’d left us out there?” She pulled Newt back into a hug.