So, this is Chapter 2! This is where stuff really gets wild. I won't be posting for a couple of weeks because revision and stuff, but I'll get Chapter 3 up as soon as I write it. Once again, swearing and spoilers, but enjoy!

Well that wasn't what I was expecting, for sure.

"Shit, you speak"

Conversation skills indeed.

We stared at each other. Her hazel eyes widened massively as she cocked her head to the side in confusion. She knew about before the maze? She knew about how we had even landed ourselves there? She remembered her parents?

"Uhhhh…."

My brain seemed like it had malfunctioned but this revelation was not something I had ever considered.

She buried her head in her palms and rubbed her face in frustration. I was incentivised to do the same. This conversation was a fucking disaster and she had only just mentioned the reason it had occurred.

"Sorry I didn't tell you already"

Sorry? Sorry? Why the hell was it being kept a secret?

"Wh-What?"

Great. This is going almost as well as the first time I was alone with Brenda.

"After the fight we were loaded onto a different train, a red one. It took us back to the facility by the mazes so that we could get our memories back. I'm guessing the plan was that after that, we were going to be taken by train to the WCKD headquarters and see how knowing about our old lives affected us."

Great, another way that WCKD hides their ruthlessness in a layer of semi-decency.

"What was the catch? There had to have been one because Minho told me nothing about anything before the maze"

He would have told me right? Or did everyone lose faith in me after I failed to save Newt?

That was the first time that I remembered what Newt used to talk to us about. How our lives before the maze don't matter anymore because whoever put us in there in the first place had managed to keep it a secret. We can't have been that important to the outside world if nobody missed us. What I had failed to realise is that I had subconsciously touched the letter hung around my neck. Sonya's eyes darted toward it.

"They didn't let the stronger ones get their memories back because it was too much of a risk. They didn't want their precious guinea pigs running off now that they had a life beyond the walls. I suppose I wasn't one of them."

Her eyes were still fixed on the necklace. She was leading up to something. She wanted to say it but she was too scared. Sonya had told me to accept the past, but she hadn't accepted hers yet.

"Sounds like something they would do. Experiment on the weak ones, torture the strong ones."

They didn't want to risk anything when the word was dying, but they had everything to lose if they didn't.

Sonya took a deep breath. She was procrastinating, something that I never had the time to do. It was always that we either had time for a precise plan in which I would barely control anything, or it was a mistake. It was a series of mistakes that had led to the death of my best friend. Shouting at Teresa, which meant that we ran into Janson, which alerted the whole building to our presence, which meant that we had to jump out of the window (nothing better than that to send the city into hunting mode), which meant that we had to hide, which meant we were further away from the Berg, which meant that Brenda couldn't run fast enough to save him and- he was gone.

I'm getting sentimental.

"Sonya, spit it out."

"Huh?"

"Tell me."

"I don't want to-"

"You've been hiding something, otherwise you wouldn't have come up to me. It's been long enough."

"You probably can't even help me-"

"Sonya shut up and fucking say it!"

How much interrogation was I going to have to put her through before I got an answer?

"Clearly there's a lot on your mind too"

She sounded like a mix between exasperation and nervousness. It's true - I'd zoned out more times during this than during one of Teresa's attempts of an excuse. She had a life, a family, and I didn't have a clue about mine.

"Get to the point Sonya."

"Fine. Do you remember when Harriet said that she wanted revenge on the people who took away our families?"

"I can think of about six people who said the same thing"

And the only one to break me with those words was Chuck.

"Well, it turns out that I have one. And they might be here."

Look around Sonya, about a hundred people would call you family.

"Really? What's that got to do with me?"

I was getting abrasive again. Patience isn't my most famous virtue.

"Well they were less of a family and more of a brother"

"A brother? So?"

"Thomas, when I was five, a bunch of WCKD soldiers burst into my living room and killed my parents. I'd think I'd remember a brother"

I looked up at her. I had expected there to be tears sliding down her face, but there was none. Sonya was tougher emotionally than I had anticipated. No wonder WCKD had wanted her, she barely flinched at the mention of her parents' deaths.

"What happened to him that could have landed him here- oh."

The same way that me and Sonya did. The only teenagers here are the ones who escaped the clutches of the maze.

Sonya nodded curtly. Her lip was quivering ever so slightly.

"Yeah, he was put into Group A, your maze"

"Wouldn't you be able to remember him then? If you knew about WCKD before the mazes?

"I never saw him after we got our new names. I think he snuck into our dormitory once but it was dark and he sure didn't mention his name"

Wow, the mysterious brother is so helpful.

"So you want me to think back to almost a year ago to somehow remember a random guy who I may have been acquaintances with?"

Seriously Sonya, how are you expecting I would be able to help?

"It sounds stupid when you put it like that, but you're my first port of call"

I may as well hear her out, it's the least I can do for being so cynical. No more wallowing in my sadness. As Newt once wrote "Look after everyone for me" and helping her is about the closest thing to looking after her or putting the memory of her stupid brother to rest, I guess.

"Right, what did he look like?"

Does? I shouldn't toss out the idea that he could be here.

"Err, blond hair like mine. Or probably brown since hair tends to darken in our family."

Most people here have brown hair and plenty of them have a similar skin tone to her. Thanks Sonya.

"And he definitely had brown eyes. I'm fairly certain that isn't supposed to change"

So brown hair, brown eyes and whitish skin? That's just… ugh.

"Look, appearance alone is not going to help. Is there anything more defining than characteristics shared by at least sixty percent of the people here?

The last time I received that intense of a glare, they were staring down the barrel of a gun and intent on killing me. Hopefully I would never go through that again. I've seen enough death - and caused enough death - for any person to handle. All I know about Sonya is that she has a very slim chance that I know of her brother and an even slimmer one that he's here, so she better have already started to come to terms with the fact that he vanished without a trace as soon as he exited her life. My heart couldn't help sinking at the thought.

"I do remember asking my brother why our parents and him spoke so strangely. I always found it weird that they would move here only years before the sun flares hit. I got a whole new collection of swear words out of it though."

I really hope she's talking about someone else. Anyone else. Shit.

"I think I know who it is. And you won't like the answer"