Dreams of the Glade come to her, as well as dreams of her old life. None of them are particularly unpleasant— in fact, some of them are quite nice.

In one of them, Ash is sitting in her freshman English class, surrounded by a mix of real classmates and Gladers dressed as normal high school teens. Gally's sitting at the same table as her, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and he's holding her hand and laughing at something one of their friends has just said.

In another dream, Ash is in the Glade— once more holding hands with Gally, though this time it's while they're making out in the Medjack hut. Things begin to escalate in the dream, but before they can really get good, Ash gets woken up by a guard at the door.

It's time for another day of medical testing, this time including some interviews about their time and experiences in the Maze.

Ash squirms in the metal chair, as she waits for whomever will be conducting the interview. There's a 'mirror' on one wall of the concrete room, though she suspects it's actually a one-way window. Between that, and the style of the table and chairs, she feels rather like she's in for more of an interrogation than an interview.

The doctor from yesterday— Dr. Michaels, Ash had come to learn— opens the door after a few minutes, a file in her hands. She sets it on the table before taking a seat in the chair across the table from Ash.

"Let's start with your test results from yesterday," Dr. Michaels says. "Almost all of them came back normal, so that's good... your blood iron levels were a little low, but that's nothing a bit more red meat can fix. And it looks like you're a bit low on vitamin D as well, but we can fix that too. Let me see..." she pauses, flicking through the pages of Ash's file. She lets out a small hum.

"It looks like there's a note here about your time in the Maze," she says. "About the almost-attack you mentioned yesterday?"

Ash frowns, leaning forward in the hopes she can read what the doctor's just read.

"Would you mind telling me about that incident again, in a bit more detail?" Dr. Michaels asks. "I know reliving that sort of thing can be hard, but we need to know how serious it was."

"His name was Josh," Ash says quietly, leaning back in her chair once more as she crosses her arms and looks away. "He... kinda stalked me around the Glade for a while. He was only there for a week before he... he followed me out into the woods."

God, Ash doesn't like this. Why is she even cooperating? She knows the truth— they didn't find her files, they wrote them. She knows she and her friends won't be sticking around much longer, anyway. Why is she bothering?

"I was doing a favor for a friend who worked the gardens, and Josh grabbed me. I managed to hit him with my shovel, and I tried to run, but he caught up to me. Pinned me to the ground— I struggled, screamed a bit. Next thing I knew, he was getting thrown off me. When I looked, it was Gally— one of the other boys here. He'd been at his own work station nearby, probably cutting wood again or something, and I guess he'd heard me."

"Tell me more about Gally," the doctor insists. "What did he do, right then as well as afterwards? Had you two been particularly close before this happened?"

Ash shrugs, not wanting to talk about this part. Though she has to admit, finally talking about it feels... kinda good.

"We were friends," she says. "I mean, we still are, but— you know what I mean, right? He punched Josh a couple times, then helped me up. We took Josh to the boys in charge of the Glade— some of the ones who had been there the longest— and the decision was made to lock him up for a while."

Dr. Michaels nods, and takes a pen from her pocket to scribble some notes in Ash's file.

"And did Gally seem... attached to you, after that?" she asks, and Ash blinks.

"I mean... no more than he was before that," she says. "Like I said, we were and still are friends. Good friends."

Dr. Michaels gives her an unreadable look, then says Ash is free to go. Outside the door, Ash immediately bumps into Janson. She ducks around him and gets out of there as quickly as possible, not wanting to get dragged into any kind of conversation with the Rat Man.

Finding her way back to the cafeteria, Ash sits at a table by herself when she sees that none of her friends are here yet.

After they finally arrive, only a couple at a time, having gotten their own meals and joined her at her table, Teresa is escorted past the window just as more kids are called to "go" to the "safe haven".

Thomas jumps up and tries to sneak out the door behind them, but a guard stops him. Thomas doesn't give up, arguing, and eventually tries to push past the guard, but all that does is get the entire group of Gladers sent to their bunk room.

Newt and some of the others round on him, questioning what he'd been thinking, but Ash doesn't join in. Instead, she crawls under Thomas's bed from the previous night, and removes the vent cover in preparation of Aris's arrival— just in time, too. He crawls around the corner just as Ash is setting the grate aside.

He seems just as surprised as her friends do.

"What?" she asks, playing dumb. "I heard Thomas sneak out through there last night. Figured that the shitshow in the cafeteria had something to do with it. Was I wrong?"

Thomas shakes his head, producing the keycard he'd snatched from that guard. "I need to know for sure," he tells Newt quietly. "I'll be back soon, okay? If I'm wrong, I won't say another word about it."

Ash watches him slide under the bunk and follow Aris into the vent, then sets the vent under the bunk and props it against the wall so that it's out of sight. Crawling onto her own bed from the night before, she sighs as she stares up at the frame of the bed above her. She's pretty sure it's the one Gally had slept in, but she'd been so tired that she hadn't paid enough attention to know for sure.

"Do you believe him?" Chuck asks her quietly, and she sighs again.

"I have my own suspicions," she admits, sitting back up. She leans against the wall, head resting gently on the concrete behind her.

"After everything they've done for us?" Newt asks dubiously. "Ash, what have they done to make you guys so suspicious of them?"

"Dr. Michaels— the lady who's been examining me and stuff— she... she's said some things that don't add up," she says evasively. "Like... she said that they found our files from WCKD, but some of the stuff at the beginning is in the same handwriting as the stuff I watched her write, right in front me."

"So?" Minho asks.

"And she was so damn curious about what happened with Josh that day, and— and my relationships with you guys." She doesn't specify the one Dr. Michaels had really asked about. She probably doesn't need to. "It just... it felt like I was still nothing but a test subject."

"You were the only girl for a long time," Frypan points out. "I can't blame 'em for wanting to make sure you're okay."

"I'm really not so sure that that's why she was asking me about it," Ash says firmly.

Gally has stayed silent so far, simply watching the vent Thomas and his new friend had disappeared into.

"It's no secret I never liked the shank," he finally says, turning back toward the group and jabbing his thumb in the direction Thomas had gone. "But... despite that, he did have a killer instinct in the Glade, and he got us out of there. I can't just forget that."

Newt rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah— we all know Thomas had nothing to do with you agreeing to leave with us," he says, though any and all hostility is gone from his voice.

The slightest— slightest— trace of pink graces Gally's cheeks. If Ash had been paying enough attention to understand her friend's meaning, her blush would be a lot less subtle. As it is, she's too focused on the footsteps approaching their door.

There's no knock as a guard opens the door and demands for Ash to follow him.

Her heartbeat spikes- what do they want with me?

He leaves no room for argument, and she's quickly escorted out of the room and down the hall. She can hear her friends calling after them, begging for an explanation, but their voices fade out after a few twists and turns. The guard takes her toward the medical labs, and locks her into the same exam room from her first day.

Ash bangs on the door, calling out for anyone, and eventually Dr. Michaels answers. She and two burly orderlies enter the room, blocking the exit before the teen can try to escape.

"What's going on?" Ash asks, eyeing the three of them with intense suspicion. Surprisingly, Dr. Michaels actually answers.

"We found something… concerning," she says, leafing through a file folder. "We'd like to run just a few more tests, to eliminate the more severe possibilities."

"What did you find?" Ash says skeptically.

"A lump," the doctor deadpans. Her tone is flat and dispassionate, and the teen's stomach begins to drop until-

"It's along your spine, on the back of your neck."

Aha.

Crossing her arms, Ash says, "You mean the little tracking chip you guys put in all of us?"

The doctor glances at the orderly on her left, who nods and locks the door with a key.

"Sedate her."

Both orderlies at once are too much for her, especially when one of them has a syringe.


They lay the teen stomach-down on the exam table, a small U-shaped pillow under her to protect her face. One of the orderlies holds a small device to the back of her neck, watching as the tell-tale symbol appears on her skin.

Dr. Michaels taps away at a computer, putting in the override commands and sending them to the orderly's device. It beeps after a moment, and he sets it down on the countertop.

The other orderly transfers the teen to a gurney, and the three staff members wheel her to a recovery room to sleep off the sedative. The doctors already present in that room take over from there, moving her to a bed and putting an oxygen cannula on her upper lip.

Teresa's in a similar condition one bed over, separated only by a thin sheet divider.