(A/N: This chapter gets incredibly dark in places. I feel like I should've put content warnings on other chapters, too, so I apologise if any triggered panic attacks or anything like that. This chapter references mental health, depression, death, suicide, injury details, and anxiety. This story is called "Worse Than We Thought" so I'm obviously putting a very dark edge onto the books, the books that could be quite dark at times anyway. Maybe you should stop reading by this point if this is sensitive stuff for you; things are most likely only going to continue to get worse!)

Chapter 11

Unconsciousness caused him to dream after an indiscernible amount of time and memories mixed with fears to create warped versions of what had already happened.


Teresa leaves the room and then he becomes aware of the scuffing of feet.

He's not alone in this dark room, but he can't see who's with him.

Hands grab his shoulders and spin him round in the chair he's tied to. He still can't see the person's face, but he feels their breath on his skin.

"I remember you!" Ben - it's definitely his voice - growls.

Thomas is confused; this never happened while he was in that room. He did remember being grabbed by the shoulders and the hissing voice in his ears, but it hadn't been Ben telling him he remembered him.

Suddenly, light filters through the room. He's still tied against the chair, but he's in the Glade now. The other boys are all running towards him and Ben is once more stood above him with the knife. Thomas spots Newt with a shovel in his hands. Alby is next to him, but then he stops and starts to choke himself; everyone else just stands around watching.

"You won't get away this time!" Ben screams, drawing the attention back to him with the knife in his hand.

He's right. The knife doesn't miss.

Thomas shoots up in, breathing heavily. He looks around for his friends and instead sees a man entering the room.

"Time for your medical exam, Thomas. The Doctors here are all very interested in you..."

A child's voice speaks: "Are they gonna hurt me like last time?"

The man doesn't reply, but starts off down a long white corridor.

It's a memory! It has to be!

But even as he realises this, everything starts to fall away and he finds himself all alone in the Scorch.

Out of the sand and dust, Teresa rises up. He tries to run to her, but invisible forces hold him back.

"Teresa!" he calls. "Teresa, you're alright! I was so worried!"

A gun appears in her hands and she aims it calmly at him.

"Teresa?"

"I'm a Crank. You're a Crank. We're all Cranks. The only way out is death."

She fires at him and then turns the gun on herself and everything fades just as a bang echoes across the desert.


The horrible dream ended, but Thomas didn't wake up. Not fully, anyway.

He could only force his eyelids slightly open. They registered the brightness and closed themselves. He couldn't stop a weak little groan going through him.

Someone was by his side instantly.

"It's alright, you're alright. I'm here, I'm not leaving."

His brain was working far too slowly to recognise the voice - it was only just managing to interpret the words being spoken!

Thomas groaned again and someone rubbed his hand affectionately, saying again, "It's alright, you're alright."

Thomas wondered if they were reassuring him or themselves.

Someone sat down on his other side, asking, "How is he?"

Again, his brain refused to recognise voices and connect them to faces.

He didn't really listen to the conversation that followed the question. He just wanted the pain to go away and for his brain to work normally. He wanted his friends. He wanted... his mother?! He didn't remember his mother. Did he? And yet, there was the smallest little feeling in the back of his mind, like one of his memories were trying to kick down the dam holding back everything from his past life. Before the Scorch, before the Maze, before WICKED.

Oh, how he craved for those memories!

But he wasn't to have them yet.

His mind sat itself back down in the midst of sleep and he didn't dream this time. Rather, he heard a voice speak into his head. Her voice. Teresa!

Thomas! she cried urgently for him.

Teresa?

Tom, don't speak, just listen. Something really bad is about to happen - something awful! And I'm so sorry: I can't stop it from happening. If there was another way around, we'd do that instead.

He asked who 'we' was and Teresa hesitated in her answer.

It doesn't matter right now, Tom. Just be prepared because something awful is about to happen and you're going to hate me for it! It's just an act, though. Please remember that: it's just an act! I don't really mean it, you'll be perfectly safe the whole time, trust in me to get us out of there, it's just an act, remember all that!

Teresa-

It will be alright, Tom!

And then she was gone, a void left in his mind, her missing, empty presence felt deeply. It was like she'd never even been there to begin with and he didn't like that strange feeling she'd left with him.

He opened his eyes again and was surprised to see how dark it was around him. Initially, he panicked, thinking he was somehow back in that room being beaten and abused in terrible, terrible ways. But then he saw the stars and realised he was still in the Scorch. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear what sounded like aircraft, but he focussed on the sounds next to him.

"Hey, you're awake, Tommy." Newt appeared over him and placed on an obviously-forced smile. "Feeling any better?"

Thomas scrunched up his face in thought. Everything was numb and his head felt weird, sounds were coming to him as if he was underwater and it was difficult for his eyes to focus on one specific thing. Did that count as feeling better or was that something he had to worry about?

"I think so," he eventually replied. He felt very confused and suddenly couldn't remember what question he'd answered to. Had he even replied to the question or had he imagined it? What did he reply with? Was this whole conversation made up in his head?

Newt sighed when he saw how mixed up Thomas was. He had a fever and that had clearly addled his mind. Infection had sent in shortly after he'd been shot and although they'd done their best to clean out the wound and keep it clean, they couldn't prevent everything from getting in it. Now Thomas was quite ill and their progress across the desert had slowed significantly. There was only a few days left to get to the Safe Haven and Newt worried about whether they could make it in that time.

The sounds of aircraft were getting closer.

"You've been out a while," Newt tried to continue the conversation. "Had us all worried."

"Worried?"

"Yeah. I mean, you took a bullet to the guts, you know?" The last bit came out more as a question because Newt wasn't sure how much of the last few days Thomas remembered.

"Oh...yeah... I think..."

Newt bit his lip worriedly. This was going worse than he'd thought it would. Thomas was really ill. The worry only increased with his friend's next question: "Where's Teresa?"

"Umm..."

"She spoke to me. I need to see her."

Newt was trying to figure out if the fever had made his friend delirious or if he had genuinely spoken to Teresa in his mind again.

The aircraft sounds were really loud now and Newt looked up in surprise. They were pretty much right on top of them!

"Teresa?"

"No, Tommy."

A group of men in biohazard suits were coming towards them.

Oh, not again! Newt thought, realising too late what was about to happen. Minho's brain was working on the same wavelengths and he came to stand by his friend's side.

"We can't let them take him again!" Minho said with firm, unmovable determination in his voice.

"We might have to - he's really ill, Minho! You saw how they were able to heal him - almost miraculously - last time!"

"They also tortured him!"

"Whatever they've decided to do, we don't have a say!"

"Where's Teresa?" Thomas muttered, his tone weary and exhausted.

"TERESA!!!" Minho exploded and Newt tried to shush him. "How can he be thinking about her at a time like this!?"

The men came and carried Thomas off and Minho knew he had to admit defeat. Newt was right: whatever WICKED decided to do, they didn't get a say in it.

The Leader turned to face the Glue and made a conscious effort to keep all emotion from his voice as he said, "They better have that shank fixed up and ready to go before the deadline."


Thomas woke up in soft, white bedsheets, feeling much more coherent and aware than he had been the last time he opened his eyes.

He took in his surroundings and was surprised to spot Teresa by the foot of his bed.

"You're not really here, are you?" Thomas had to force himself to accept the reality of the situation, knowing she couldn't have made it all the way to where he was in such a short amount of time.

"No, I'm not here. Not physically.

"WICKED wanted me to give you a message. After you get off this Berg, something awful is going to happen and I'm sorry! I can't stop it!"

"You told me this earlier, I think?"

"Yes, but I need to tell you this. I'm not against you and I won't let anything happen to you, okay? Please! Believe me: you're safe, Tom! You'll hate me at first and you won't understand, but it will all be over soon and nothing is really going to happen to you!"

"I don't know what you're on about!"

Teresa smiled sadly before fading away into nothing. Thomas blinked in surprise, knowing it was WICKED playing tricks on his mind, but having a hard time processing it anyway.


Brenda slowly came back to awareness. She'd been awake the entire time, but the Flare was making it harder for her to think normally. Coming back to a state of cohesion was becoming more difficult with each day that went by. On the other hand, it was becoming far more easier to just slip into insanity. It was incredibly worrying, but not surprising.

Brenda now took in her surroundings. She was in the Old Tower and it looked like she had wrecked the place. Old weapons that didn't work anymore were thrown all over the place, there was ripped paper everywhere from various maps and books she'd found abandoned in the Tower, water bottles had been thrown out what was left of the doorframe and left lying on the floor, food rations had been smushed into dirty carpet remains and against the walls, and underneath her feet were the remains of a crushed compass.

She sighed and put her head in her hands.

"Thought I'd find you here." She gasped and spun around to see Jorge.

"Jorge, I-"

"Don't need to explain anything. I understand."

"Where's everyone else?" With cohesion came memories and Brenda was suddenly confronted with the memory of the last time she had seen the Subjects of Group A. "THOMAS!"

"Is fine," Jorge told her, sensing that bringing up the bullet in the boy's gut wouldn't help anything and might make Brenda freak out. "I left them all by the base of the mountains to come look for you. They can make the rest of the journey without us."

"But-" Brenda began.

"WICKED wouldn't have let us into whatever Safe Haven that may or may not have been there, anyway, you know that."

"Still."

Jorge knew exactly how the young woman was feeling. She felt a sense of responsibility and wanted to make sure nothing happened to them. After all, the were little more than children. In the grand scheme of things, they were still really young and little, so naive about the world around them. They were seeing everything for the first time out here in the Scorch.

But they were safer on their own from this point on. Brenda was barely herself anymore and Jorge knew he would not be long in following, even though the Flare was affecting him much slower than anyone else. He'd been a part of an experiment for WICKED a number of years ago, part of an attempt to create Immunes. All sorts of ideas were tried: vaccines, blood transfusions, small doses of the live virus injected into cells, the list could go on and on for a long time. Some of them had half-worked or worked for a certain amount of time before producing even more problems. For some reason, WICKED could never seem to find out what was going wrong, could never seem to fix it.

The experiment on Jorge had almost worked, but it was clear they hadn't continued down that road. Jorge knew that WICKED knew that they could have had the Cure by now if they had have kept going with what they were doing. He couldn't understand why they hadn't. All they would have had to do was change a few of the things that went into one of the injections he was given. But they hadn't and they probably never would, and no one would ever know why.

So, while Brenda could feel the Flare rapidly eating away at her and destroying everything that ever made her the person she is, Jorge could feel himself going slowly insane. So, so slowly insane. He knew it was happening and he'd definitely had his moments, but the Flare was just developing slower than in others.

Fortunately, every other Crank in the Scorch was too far past the Gone to notice or get suspicious of it.

After a few seconds of silence that felt like hours, Jorge eventually spoke again.

"I had to let those boys go on alone, Brenda. Both of us are too far gone to help anymore; we'd be putting them in danger. What if one of us suddenly had a moment and attacked one of them kids? What if both of us went at the same time?"

"WICKED wouldn't let us. The chips are still in our heads and still..."

"Still what?"

He already knew. They both already knew.

"They're still working."

Brenda met his eyes and he was surprised to find tears streaming down her face. He couldn't recall if he had ever seen her cry and the sight of her in such a state frightened him.

"Why did they have to create that virus?" she sobbed. "Why'd they have to infect us? Why dump us out here to die?"

"I don't know," Jorge told her, and, truthfully, he didn't. He pulled the younger woman into a hug and just let her cry for a while before she pulled away.

He could instantly tell that the Flare had taken control back of his friend.

Brenda grabbed one of the pieces of the broken compass from the floor and rammed it into the soft, fleshy part of the inside of her arm.

"NO!" Jorge screamed and yanked at her arms, receiving a punch to the face for his efforts.

Brenda kept puncturing her skin with the broken piece of glass and then dragging it all the way up her arms. Jorge got up and this time Brenda stabbed the weapon into a fatal place, collapsing into a pool of her own blood.

Jorge screamed again and collapsed by Brenda, holding her delicately in his arms and gently rocking the two of them back and forth as he sobbed as if his heart had been destroyed and could never be repaired. In a certain way, this was true.

"WHY!?!??!" he screamed. "WWHHHYYYYY?!?!?!"

"I c-couldn't..." Brenda gasped in pain. "I couldn't live-" she paused to cough up blood. "I couldn't live like this anym-"

The sentence was never finished and any remaining trace of life fled hurriedly from her eyes. Brenda was gone and Jorge decided he should follow. He wasn't going to live in this hell-hole any longer. Not without Brenda. He picked up the shard of glass still sticking out of the woman's body and rammed it through the same place as she had.


They were on the move again and had just started what was to be a long, arduous, difficult trek up the mountains.

They hadn't gone too far when they were ambushed by the girls' group and there, at the front of them all, clearly the leader and spokesperson for the girls, was Teresa.

The girls all wielded weapons of a large variety and Thomas wondered where they'd gotten them and why WICKED would let them have them anyway. He remembered his tattoo across his back. They'd come for him and now they were going to kill him.

It seemed so silly. He'd survived so much and now he was going to die like this. After everything WICKED had done to keep him alive and now they were just going to let his counterpart kill him!

But Teresa wouldn't hurt him, would she? She was one of his closest friends. Would she really allow the other girls to do anything to him? He remembered all her telepathic messages and how she'd warned him about this moment. She had told him to trust her. She had told him nothing was going to happen and she wouldn't let anyone harm him. So, why was he still so scared?

Movement drew his attention and he turned his head to see Aris marching up to Teresa. They greeted each other, she handed him a spear, and then they both turned to face everyone else.

The Betrayer and the Partner! Thomas realised. Teresa was to betray them and Aris was - quite literally - her partner in crime. He was to help her with whatever she planned to do.

"Aris, what are you doing?" Minho asked. His reply was a cold glare.

"What does it look like? Teresa and I have a job to do. Now, step forward, Thomas."

Everyone turned to look at him and Thomas started to walk forwards.

"Tommy, no!" Newt stood in front of him to block his path. Minho joined him.

"What're you doing? You can't go with them!"

"He will or everyone else dies," Teresa told them in such a calm voice that she could have been talking about her favourite colour and no one would have noticed any difference. To further her point, all the girls raised their weapons in sync and, still in unison with each other, took a menacing step forward.

"I don't wanna see any of you guys get killed or even hurt because of me," Thomas told his friends sadly and started towards Teresa again.

Newt and Minho stopped him once more.

"They'll kill you, Tommy!" Newt tried to reason, tried to make the younger understand. His brother did understand, though, and he wasn't willing to take the risk of his friends' lives over his.

"They'll kill all of you and then me with you if I don't go. Surely it's better to give up one than to let a whole group die!"

Aris and Teresa came up at that moment, both grabbing an arm each, and led him back to the group of girls.

"Teresa-"

Before Thomas could even finish, there was the butt of a spear being slammed into his side. Surprised and completely unprepared for it, Thomas couldn't prevent the yell of pain, nor could he stop himself from dropping to his knees. Several shouts (some of which contained extremely rude words) followed. With each shout, a new hit landed against Thomas and he completely crumbled to the floor.

"SILENCE!!!!" Teresa screeched and everything immediately quieted down. "Each time you speak, I take it out on him!" To emphasise her point, she sent her fist flying into Thomas' face and he cried out as his knife wound reopened. "Anyone makes the slightest move out of line and I'll take it out on him!" Another punch, and this time she yanked o his hair to keep him upright. "You do anything and Thomas gets it!"

Aris kneeled to Thomas' current level, stating smugly, "That's the same for you. You mess up, your friends die!"

He was yanked to his feet and they started leading him away again. Someone yelled his name and this time it was Aris who delivered the blow. Thomas fell, hit his head, and felt blood start to trickle down the side of his face. This led to a few curses from Minho (however quiet they were said) and a kick to the stomach. Thomas couldn't be sure if the crying noise was coming from him or not - everything was just one big haze of pain.

"We'll find you, Tommy!" Newt yelled encouragingly. "We won't let anything happen to you!"

Thomas felt a kick between his legs and howled in a way he was sure he'd never screamed before.

"I TOLD YOU TO BE SILENT!!!" Teresa shouted and then dragged Thomas from where he had dropped into a crouch with his hands protectively over his crotch, forcing him to walk through the absolute agony he was experiencing.

They walked for what seemed like a very long time and when they stopped, the sun was starting to set.

"You lot go on ahead, me and Aris have got business to take care of," Teresa ordered and Thomas considered briefly getting on his knees and begging not to be left alone with her.

Aris shoved Thomas to his knees and sent a fist flying into his face. Thomas groaned and wiped fresh blood from his face, keeping his eyes on Teresa as she moved to stand by Aris.

"What do you want from me?" Thomas growled and spat blood from his mouth.

Teresa smiled a terrifying, insane smile that suggested murder. "I thought the tattoo on your back would've answered that question for you already."


"We need to go after him!" Minho decided.

"Dude! Calm down!" Frypan ordered. "If we go immediately after they've just left, what do you think they'll do to Thomas?"

"We have to do something!"

"Yeah, something that isn't dangerous or reckless and that will actually help us!"

It was then that Minho noticed Newt was extremely quiet and he decided his second-in-command should have an input.

"Newt! Back me up here! We need to go after Thomas, don't we?"

Newt sat on the ground, leaning against a sun-warmed rock. He looked up to meet Minho's gaze and found he didn't have the energy to speak. He just gave him a sad look of someone who knew they were about to lose their friend.

"What you looking like that for, shank?"

"You never did see Thomas' tattoo, did you?"

Minho was confused by the question and shook his head uncertainly.

"It said he was to be killed by the girl group. That's all it said. No title like Leader or Glue or number or code or nothing!"

"You waited 'til now to mention that!?!?" Minho snapped, then rounded on the other boys. "Who else knew!?"

Nobody answered, just looked away guiltily.

"You all knew! All of you! And nobody mentioned it! If I'd known, I wouldn't have let him go with them so easily!"

"Thomas wouldn't have let you keep him back from going and you know it!" Newt stood up now and marched over to Minho, standing toe-to-toe against him. "It's not their faults! Now quit laying into them, Leader!" The last word was spat out mockingly.

"If Teresa is gonna kill Thomas, it's all the more reason we need to get going right now!" Minho directed the conversation (argument) back to its origins.

"It'll only put him in more danger!" Frypan instantly jumped back into his former argument.

"What's to say he's not already dead?" someone else chipped in.

Newt was still stood in front of Minho and blocked his path as he tried to charge at whoever had made the last comment. Frypan joined his friend in holding Minho back.

"We can't just give up on him!" Minho yelled, throwing dangerous glares at his friends blocking his way.

"It just doesn't make sense." Everyone turned to see who had spoken and recognised him as Franklin. At their confused looks, he continued to explain. "WICKED went to all that effort to save Thomas - twice! That's more than any of us ever got! Why would they save him just to kill him like that? It doesn't make sense!"

"What're ya saying, shank?"

"Maybe this is just another of those tests? Maybe they're not actually going to kill him."

"Minho," Newt asked for his friend's attention. "Remember what we were talking about the other night? About the Safe Haven?"

It instantly clicked with Minho. It obviously couldn't be a battle between their respective groups anymore with Aris and Thomas with the girls now. But it had to have something to do with it. Thomas was clearly being used as another of WICKED's Variables. This was all just one big test. Of course they weren't really going to kill him; Thomas was WICKED's favourite! In that moment, Minho made a decision.

"We're continuing on to the Safe Haven," he told his friends. "That's where they're taking Thomas. We get there, we get him back, and we deal with whatever challenge WICKED lays out next. They're bound to have something prepared for us at this supposed Safe Haven."

He was surprised by how readily everyone agreed with him. They really did look up to him and trust him completely and he wasn't sure if he deserved that. Still, he couldn't let them down now, so, regardless of his insecurities, he led them on through the mountains.


It was an absolute wonder that Thomas was still conscious by this point, although he didn't think he could take much more. He was considering just rolling over and closing his eyes. He didn't much care if he opened them again or not - he was just so exhausted!

But Thomas decided he wasn't going to make things easy. Throughout the whole of Teresa and Aris taking it in turns to beat him, he'd thrown as many insults and snarky remarks at them as he could. He always made sure to make it personal. He forced himself onto his knees to throw one last blow at Teresa.

"I thought we were friends."

Her reply was completely unexpected.

"You thought we were friends?! You've never meant anything to me! Never! I've never been able to stand you!"

"But I-"

"You were a means to an end - a way to escape the Maze, nothing more." She smirked evilly at him. "Aris, on the other hand, is my closest friend. You might even describe us as lovers! We communicated telepathically the whole time I was stuck in the Glade with you!"

Aris pulled Teresa to his side as she finished speaking and drew her into a long kiss. Both seemed to be enjoying it deeply. Thomas could only watch, emotions he was unfamiliar with choking him. He let out a strangled noise and that was when the kiss broke apart.

Teresa marched over to him, stating there was one last thing to take care of. Thomas knew exactly what she meant and she confirmed it when she drew her spear. He closed his eyes and leaned back, exposing his chest for her, waiting for the pain, done with everything.

He made the mistake of opening his eyes briefly just one last time as she raised the weapon above him. He found himself completely taken aback by the smile on her face. A pure, genuine smile!

He never felt the blow land and was unconscious before he even hit the ground, everything going black behind his eyelids for what he thought was the last time. For what he hoped was the last time!


They finally made it over the mountains and found themselves bumping into the girls again. Minho was instantly marching up to the girl at the front, presuming from the way she seemed to be taking charge of the others that she was the girls' leader.

"Where are they?" he growled out.

"Teresa, Aris and that other boy?"

"Yeah, where are they?"

"I don't know. Probably still up in the mountains. Teresa said she had business to take care of with your friend and told us to go on ahead."

The girl behind her spoke up: "They seem to be the counterparts to Aris and Rachel in our group."

"Rachel?" This was a new name for Minho.

"She died at the end of the Maze Trials. This girl in our group called Beth threw a knife at her."

"That's what Gally tried to do to Thomas!" Frypan realised. "But Chuck jumped in front of him!"

"So, Thomas was meant to die?" Minho felt his heart sink.

"No!" Newt cut in. "They saved him, remember? This is probably just another bloody test!"

Minho really hoped his friend was right. Thomas was a part of the close-knit family of the Gladers. They were all each other had and it was always such a devastating blow to lose one of them.

He was considering going after the younger boy before realising he couldn't leave everyone else. Thomas would never forgive him. "Surely it's better to give up one than to let a whole group die!"

The words wouldn't let go of Minho and every minute more that went by was another that Minho found himself sinking further into regret and guilt. Why had he ever let Thomas go off with those... psychopaths!

That was another thing: he couldn't believe how readily Aris had betrayed them! Teresa and Aris must have been plotting this for a while. It made sense that they were the poster-boy and poster-girl of WICKED and Minho came to the chilling realisation that there was most likely nothing the two wouldn't do for the organisation. They were dedicated, but even that might be a serious understatement. WICKED held all the strings and they'd all just fallen into the parts they were meant to play, though the Gladers and Group B hadn't fallen into that part willingly or knowingly. Teresa and Aris had seemed to jump into those parts eagerly.

Thomas and Teresa had built the Maze. Minho didn't hold that against his friend; he said he'd been forced. And in an organisation like WICKED, he didn't doubt that any of them would hesitate to do something if it meant safety and survival. But he'd always had his doubts and suspicions about Teresa and he was starting to think that maybe she hadn't been forced. Someone like Thomas, well, he cared deeply about things and he wasn't the type of person to agree to hurt his friends. It would take a lot more than just asking politely to make Thomas send people up into such a place like the Glade. Teresa wasn't that type of person, though, and it was likely she had readily complied with whatever WICKED had asked of her.

Eventually, Group A and Group B reached the "Safe Haven".

Chancellor Ava Paige smiled from where she was observing. She had no actual cameras in the area, but the chips in the Subjects' brains provided a perfect view of what was happening. She signalled to one of her underlays.

"Ready the Pods. It's time for the next Trial."