I do not own The Maze Runner Trilogy.

"An act of kindness

is what you show to me

It caught me by surprise in this town of glass and ice."

—An Act of Kindness by Bastille

As they began to lift Thomas, he squirmed. "Teresa!" He shouted. "Don't do this to me!"

She punched him in the stomach this time, and he howled in pain.

"Since you obviously don't care about yourself," Teresa told him, "talk again and we'll start shooting your friends. That sound good to you?"

He said nothing, and if it weren't for the fact that he was trembling inside the bag, Ruby would've thought that he had already keeled over and died. Again, when she looked up, she found the same guy staring at her. He seemed confused this time, as if he were questioning her motives. Ruby snorted. I'd like to know just what the hell I'm thinking, too, Pretty Boy. Ruby stopped short at that thought. Pretty Boy? Why did she call him Pretty Boy? Quickly, Ruby looked away from him, focusing on carrying the sack.

"I meant what I said!" Teresa called out to Group A. "There won't be a warning. Follow us and the arrows start flying!" Then, without warning, she knelt down by the bag, grabbed what must've been Thomas's face, and started whispering.

"What're you saying to him?" Malala asked, growing tired.

"I'm letting him know just how much I'm enjoying this," Teresa snapped. "How much I'm enjoying my revenge. Do you mind?"

Malala huffed. "Well, I'm glad you're having so much fun. But we need to hurry."

"I know." Teresa whispered something else to Thomas before standing back up. "Okay, let's get out of here. Make sure you hit as many rocks as you can along the way."

As they began dragging Thomas away, Ruby, against her better judgement, looked back at Group A. She wasn't surprised to see Pretty Boy—Stop calling him that. He is not pretty; he is the enemy here—still staring at her. When he noticed he had her attention, he gave her a look that seemed to ask, If you're regretting this so much, why are you doing it? All she could do was mouth the words "No choice," and hope he somewhat understood. She turned her back on Pretty Boy as they got further away.

Just before they got out of sight, Pretty Boy began shouting. "Thomas!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. "We'll find you! We'll save you from those shucking shanks! We just have to wait until the time is right, and we have enough weapons! I'll kill that shank myself! Thomas!" He stopped when Teresa punched him in the stomach.

He has a nice voice, Ruby mused, then immediately berated herself. How stupid could she be? This was literally the apocalypse, and here she was, acting all stupid over some—some guy!

Thankfully, Thomas pulled her out of her conflicting train of thought when he said, "Why don't you just let me walk! I mean, you do have weapons. What am I gonna do?"

Kicking him in the side, Teresa responded, "Shut up, Thomas. We're not idiots. We're waiting until your Glader buddies can't see us anymore."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because that's what we were told to do," Teresa snapped. "Now shut up!"

"Why'd you tell him that?" Marie hissed agitatedly.

Teresa shrugged. "What does it matter? We're gonna kill him anyway. Who cares if he knows what we were told to do?"

"Well," Sonya said, squinting in the direction of where they left Group A, "I can barely see them now. Once we reach that crevice up there, we'll be out of sight, and they'll never find us after that. Even if they do follow."

Nodding firmly, Teresa commanded, "All right, then. Let's get him that far."

Ruby, Harriet, Sonya, and Teresa all lifted Thomas and began to carry him up the mountain.

"All right," Teresa said once they reached the crevice, "drop him." And they did.

Ruby winced a little as she heard Thomas gasping for air while they untied him. The rest of the group was pointing their weapons while Ruby worked on cutting off the knot tied in the ropes around Thomas.

"You guys must think a lot of me," Thomas said sarcastically. "Twenty of you with your knives and machetes, me with nothing. I feel so special."

Ruby snickered, catching Thomas's attention for a split second.

"Wait!" He cried out as Teresa lifted her spear once more. He held out his hands in a gesture of surrender as he slowly got to his feet. "Look, I'm not gonna try anything. Just take me wherever we're going and then I'll let you kill me like a good boy. I don't have any shuck thing to live for anyway." He looked at Teresa, his face filled with hurt, bitterness, and spite.

"Come on," Teresa said. "I'm sick of this. Let's go to the inside of the Pass so we can sleep the day off. Tonight we'll start heading through."

Sonya, Harriet, and Ruby all shared a look.

"And what about this stick we've been carrying around for the last few hours?" Ruby asked skeptically.

Teresa looked at Thomas long and hard as she responded. "Don't worry, we'll kill him. We'll kill him just the way they told us to. It's his punishment for what he did to me."

At this, Ruby frowned. Thomas looked so helplessly confused at Teresa's words, so did that mean she was lying? Did Thomas really not do anything to her? Teresa had made Thomas sound like some disgusting, awful excuse of a human being that had destroyed everything she loved, but he honestly seemed like an okay guy, all things considered. So that made Ruby wonder—what exactly was Teresa's plan?

A/N

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Sorry for the lack of Minho; I'm trying to stick pretty close to the original plot as I can, which means there won't really be any Minho/Ruby moments for a while. Also, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to Neonsweet for following and favoriting this story! That means a lot!

PS: See if you can guess who Ruby was named for!