William and George got into the showers after everyone else. They had stayed behind to give back the tracking devices, which they had been ordered to hand over without the A's noticing.
Covering their tattoos, each chose an empty shower and washed all the sweat off of themselves. The words permanently engraved on their skin bothered them to that day, and they doubted it would ever stop. Even after being free, the constant reminder of what WICKED thought of them to be a mere letter with a number would be bothersome.
They heard the A's laughing and joking between themselves, but they couldn't feign to feel even half as joyful as them. William's hand clenched his arm with every flash of light that passed through his head.
Memories, he was sure. But which ones? About what? Who was in them? He couldn't see them, nor revive them. They only came and went as they pleased, forming a horrible headache that forced him to lean on the wall for support.
He closed his eyes, stopping the flow of water to drive away the heat. The cool walls felt soothing against his warm skin. Another memory tried to find its way into his mind but was automatically blocked, just like the others were.
Deciding he had been in the showers for too long, William wrapped a towel around his shoulders to protect his tattoo from being seen, and walked to the locker room. Clothes were waiting there. Each in different sizes and colours, though there weren't many to choose from per usual.
George appeared shortly after him, making them the first ones to leave the showers. After all, the A's had been in their trials for two years. Who knew if they had proper showers there? Or if they could even use them? The Sanctuary had to be heaven for them, which made William's and George's hearts shrink. The A's heaven would prove to be hell in no time. They really couldn't stop to catch their breaths.
William shook his head and joined George on the search, from the pile of pale blue shirts and trousers, ones that would fit them. With his arm carefully covered under his shirt's sleeves, William took his time with the rest of his clothes. There was no rush, after all. No one had left the showers yet, and they'd probably take a few more minutes.
What the two boys didn't expect was that they would have to wait for half an hour, dressed and prepared to go out, for the A's to be done. The large group walked in, surprised to see the two sitting in a corner, observing the only other door apart from the one that led to the showers.
"Looks like some shanks didn't take your advice, Minho. What's up, William? George? Afraid that some bad guys with guns will come in and drag you out?" Frypan attempted to joke, though his words were so plausible with their experience so far that William couldn't take it as one.
"You're just saying that because we actually thought that happened," Chuck pointed out with a smirk.
"We didn't see when you two left, and these shanks came up with all these crazy ideas about what had happened," Newt added.
Resting his head on the cool wall, William fought the urge to stare, and drove his eyes back to the door as he said, "You guys have a lot of imagination."
George chuckled softly, elbowing William lightly with a mischievous smirk, though his eyes were still on the A's. "Can you get dressed? I'd like to see what else they've got in store for us."
"Yep, definitely didn't take Minho's advice." Frypan chuckled as he put on a shirt.
To their delight, the group decided to move on to another subject, find clothes that fit them, and got dressed. The room quickly became a mess. Clothes were all around, and only half were dressed.
"I think it would have been better for you if you had gone to the showers with the girls," George whispered to William teasingly. "Oh, but you were just staring at one of them, weren't you? Which one was it? The blondie, right?"
"Shut up." William buried his head in his hands, letting out a long sigh. "I did not stare at him."
"You didn't deny it was him who you wanted to stare at, either."
William raised his head from his hands, locking eyes with George, whose grin was wider than ever, and frowned at his friend. "I hate you."
There was a pause, but George's smirk didn't wash away. "So? Is he kind?"
The metallic objects and grey walls made the infirmary feel colder than it already was. Without letting them say a thing, the three girls were driven away from the boys to attend to them separately. George wanted to stay close to William, but they were divided into different tests and procedures.
A woman dressed in simple clothing, and wearing a large white coat, stopped in front of Newt and William. She flashed them a quick smile before asking them to follow her. Both gave doubtful glances at the rest, but complied nonetheless, being guided to two hospital recliners.
The woman left them, assuring William she would be back shortly to treat him. However, Newt had been assigned another doctor. A man who was already there, preparing an injection, which didn't appear that safe to William.
"Wait, what is that?" asked Newt.
"Just a little cocktail," answered the doctor, sparing a single glance in Newt's direction. "Calcium, folate, vitamins A through Z. Pretty much everything you've been deprived of out there. Try to relax."
Newt made a pained face before the needle could prick his skin, making William unconsciously reach out to grab his other arm's hand to comfort him in the only way he could. The grip on his hand was strong, which William was sure Newt didn't even realise that himself, but, as long as it helped, he didn't mind.
William's assigned doctor came back, and she had brought another syringe with her. He eyed it doubtfully, but could do nothing except let her roll up his left sleeve. It was his turn to receive the injection, and, at the same time, it was his time to be comforted.
"Try to relax," the doctor said, but all William could think of was Newt squeezing his hand reassuringly.
The sting was tolerable, right until the needle left his skin. Then the area that had been injected burned. A painful sensation traversed his arm up to his neck, where it stopped.
The doctor gave him a plaster and said, "It will go away soon enough. We need to run a few more tests on another location, alright? I'll take you there when it's ready."
William nodded, barely able to control himself as the pain in his left arm became stronger.He bent over his arm as if trying to protect it from further harm, but his hand was still locked with Newt's. Neither let go, even the two doctors walked away.
"Evening, Dr Crawford." A man greeted, while footsteps passed by right in front of William and Newt.
"Good evening." The woman greeted back. "How are the new arrivals holding up?"
"So far, so good," the man answered.
The footsteps then stopped, and the last thing William heard from that woman was, "And you must be Teresa."
Another two doctors walked right in front of him, this time to attend Rowan and Leen. William forced himself to sit normally to catch a last glimpse of the girls. He needed to make sure they were alright. Just in time as well, since his doctor appeared once again, the same fond smile was present on her face.
"Alright, William, the test's ready. Come with me, please," she said.
"Go where?" Newt asked, pulling William's hand lightly. "Where are you taking him?"
No chance was given for the doctor to explain anything to Newt, since George stepped off his test, not caring about the instruments monitoring his heart rate, and walked over to the infirmary's aisle.
"Can't I go with him?" George questioned, almost in a begging tone.
The doctor glanced from Newt to George, huffing softly while clasping her hand together. "Be at ease. We only need to run one more test. He'll be back soon."
Following silent orders, William let go of Newt's hand and got up. On the way to the doctor, he patted George's shoulder reassuringly, receiving a worried look from his friend.
"Last time someone said, be at ease, Chuckie almost died," George muttered, perhaps more to himself than to Newt, the only other person apart from William that heard his comment.
With one last glimpse of George and Newt, the infirmary's doors closed behind William. He sighed, but couldn't stay still. The woman was already way ahead of him. Not having enough time to think, he followed her around.
They took many turns, leaving William amazed at how the doctor could remember all of them. After five or six minutes of walking side by side with her, she stopped in front of a metallic door, which looked exactly the same as any other. The doctor opened it, being greeted by her colleagues inside.
"Good evening, we shall start test S5 from the MMC Experiment." Her calm tone delivered the command perfectly well, not letting it seem as threatening as it had to be.
A man instructed William to lie on a bed, where he waited to know what test S5, or MMC Experiment, would mean. He knew S5 was his identification number, so why would they name a test after it? Did Flor, Henry, Mae, and the rest have one for themselves, too? Then why hadn't George, Rowan, and Leen come with him as well?
"The procedure is simple, William. You can be at ease," the doctor promised, rolling up William's right sleeve, which made his eyes stay glued on the man's glasses to keep himself from peeking at the tattoo. "No signs of infection. That's wonderful."
A sudden sleepiness attacked his eyelids, making them heavier than they should be. Exhaustion urged him to give up, close his eyes and sleep, but he fought for a couple more minutes. Until he could no longer resist, followed orders and let his body fall into a strange half-asleep state.
"Did the implementation of the tracker really work, though? We've been warned many times about his body's condition," another doctor whispered, though they didn't realise just how quiet everything else was, which made their whisper hard not to hear, even for William. "It's incredible. One thing is not reacting, but rejecting it? Just . . . how is he not Immune?"
"Li!" A little girl's voice, completely different from Teresa's, exclaimed, almost as if surprised. It was different from how he heard the doctors or even the telepathic talk. The voice was in his head because it was a memory. "That's not fair! Give it back! Give it or I'll tell my brother!"
Hugging his right arm to his chest protectively, William walked through the walls with Teresa. Less than a minute ago, while following his doctor to the cafeteria, they had met Dr Crawford, who was guiding Teresa and a couple of other girls to another infirmary.
'Did they do anything to you?' Teresa asked.
'Not sure.' He answered, glancing at the gauze that covered his tattoo under his sleeve. 'But I did hear this weird voice. It was a girl, but, like, really young.'
'You finally remembered someone?'
William had the urge to stop in his tracks, pull Teresa aside, and question her. However, he controlled himself and simply continued talking to her in their minds.
'Do you know who it could be?'
Teresa stopped for a second, her eyes travelling from the ceiling to the floor repetitively. Her expression, which once was filled with mild concern, now made her look terrified.
'I can't remember . . . William, I can't remember.'
'But . . . I thought you had all your memories.'
'That's what was supposed to happen.' Teresa's eyes widened as her face went pale. 'Just like Tom . . . Tom was also supposed to remember! They took memories away from me!'
Unsure what to do, William placed both hands on Teresa's shoulders, trying to calm her down. "Teresa, look at me. It's OK. We'll figure this—"
"Hey, Teresa!"
"William!"
The people shouting inside the room they were passing by surprised both of them. But the woman guiding the girls did not stop for a second, even though the doctor showing William to the cafeteria did.
'You'll be OK, I promise. Thomas wouldn't let anyone do anything to you, and neither will I.' He waved Teresa goodbye with a reassuring smile and turned to enter the cafeteria, where Thomas was on the brink of arguing with the guard.
'You told me that Phase Two is escaping the Sanctuary, right? Just don't take too long to come looking for me.'
'Don't worry, we won't.'
William was standing next to Thomas when someone jumped on him, almost making them fall to the ground. Red hair filled his vision, letting William know right away who was welcoming him so eagerly.
"You're alive. Oh, thank goodness you're alright," Flor whispered, her shaky arms wrapping themselves around his neck to bring him closer.
"Hey," William muttered, forcing the girl to let go to cup her face in his hands. "How's it been? Everyone OK?"
There were no obvious cuts or injuries on her face or hands, the only exposed parts of her body, allowing William to calm down. Not a second passed without having another person jumping at him. Henry and Bea's appearance, though more relaxed than Flor's, prompted William to lose his footing, nearly falling down to the floor.
Mae, however, opted for a less touchy approach. She extended her hand and waited for William to shake it, which he did without a doubt.
"You're late, Birdie."
"Sorry. I got distracted trying to keep the birdies alive."
Wrapping an arm around Leen's waist, not showing any signs of ever wanting to let go, Bea flashed them a smile. Mae and Flor looked at her, relieved. Whatever had happened in the week that Bea and Leen had been apart couldn't have been great to them.
"They already told us all about your little adventure with them," Bea said, pointing at a table at the far end of the room, where the large group of A's were sitting around, chatting.
Most were eating mindlessly, though others, like Chuck, Newt, or Minho, pretended not to be sparing glances in their direction. Just like Thomas's, none of them was doubting them, nor suspecting in any way. Their eyes simply gleamed with pure curiosity.
"We have so many things to tell you. This place is insane and Bea absolutely lost her sh—" Henry cut himself short as he noticed Thomas staring. "Hey, can we help you? Lost something?"
Thomas blinked away his surprise and muttered, "Um. No, sorry. I just —" He pointed at his friends' table around the back of the room.
"Oh, yeah," George mumbled in realisation, then turned to look at the others. "Bring Aris, let's eat all together."
A memory sparked at the back of his mind, too quick and bright to let him make sense of anything. Every time he thought he had grasped something, it escaped through his fingers. It was infuriating, not knowing anything, yet receiving short, uncompleted, and strange clues.
Aris . . . Aris . . . Teresa mentioned them, too, didn't she? Who are they? William thought.
"We met him when we got here. The girls who came with him have already been called to this 'safe place' thing," Flor explained, bringing him closer to whisper. "He was the only boy in his maze."
Reality froze for William. The only boy in maze B meant that Aris was the boy under selective memory wipe. Many thoughts ran through his mind. Curiosity took part in some of them, yet a strange fear overtook the rest. His mind was trying to tell him something.
For whatever reason, the past William, struggling to surface over the memory wipe, was cowering in fear at the thought, not of meeting Aris, but something related to the boy.
"No." A young boy's voice echoed in his mind. It was similar to his own, though much younger. "Where is he? What's an Elite? Is that why I can't see him?"
William turned around, trying to find the source of the voice, despite already knowing it would either be a miracle or a hallucination if he did. With his right hand, he rubbed his temple, trying to get a mild headache to dissipate.
"Once your missions are over, William. When that day comes, I promise you'll see him again," Ava Paige answered. Her voice was calm and had a warmness to her tone that, at the moment, did not make alarms blare in his mind.
"But my missions will never be over," his younger self said sadly. "I can't help it. I swear I won't do it again. Put me back in Group A, please. I—I . . . Please, I don't want to do this. I don't want to kill anyone!"
William felt an odd warm pressure on his shoulder, but nothing was there. He placed his hand over the area, trying to find anything on his clothes that could have ended up entangled and made that sensation.
There was nothing.
"It's all a means to an end, William. The earlier you learn that, the better."
A real hand landed on his arm, driving William's attention back to reality. Mae stood in front of him, a worried look on her face. They had fallen behind, since the rest were already eating and chatting with the A's alongside someone he did not recognise, nor could, since they wore their hood over their head.
"You alright?" Mae asked, clear concern in her voice.
"Yeah, sorry." He smiled at her as if nothing was wrong or confusing him out of his mind. "Just tired. Did they tell you already that I almost got shot on the way here?"
"You what?"