𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦, thomas (tmr)

Chapter Thirty Three

Teresa had stumbled into an old, half sand covered building that seemed to be the remains of a shopping mall. The majority of the group shone their torches over the dark interior and the dusty rubble, but Thomas on the other hand, didn't seem to want to stick around.

"We have to go." He urged everyone onwards, with Minho immediately following his lead.

Everyone else stayed where they were, Clara included. They were all confused, and exhausted, and distressed. And Clara knew that they all deserved to know the full story of what was going on before they went anywhere else.

"No, Thomas, can you just stop- " Teresa attempted tiredly, but Thomas was so fired up with adrenaline sourced from his fear that he couldn't stop and listen.

"-We gotta keep moving."

"They need to know what's going on, Thomas." Clara said.

It was then that the boy stopped in his tracks. He blinked back at his scared friends, walking back towards them and letting the unnatural white light of Clara's torch cast over his figure.

"WCKD lied to us. We never got away. They're the ones that 'saved' us from the Maze. We've been with them this whole time."

Clara watched as her friends faces became expressions of horror and upset. Thomas' eyes were focused on her, preferring to look at someone who already knew all of this as opposed to someone feeling a lot of emotions at that moment.

"The three of us, we found bodies." He gestured between himself, Clara and Aris. "Far too many of them."

"Bodies? As in, dead bodies?" Minho questioned, his voice wavering.

"Well, no. But they didn't seem alive either. They were all strung up with these tubes coming out of them. They were being drained."

"There's something in us that WCKD wants; something in our blood." Clara interrupted suddenly, stealing the attention away from Thomas.

It seemed pretty obvious now, but she had only just realised that fact. It was why Janson worked so hard to try and stop them from leaving.

"We need to get as far away from them as possible before they can do anything to hurt us." Thomas confirmed.

"Okay, let's hear the plan." Newt watched Thomas expectantly, but the other boy's face simply just blanked. "You have a plan right?"

"Yeah. I don't- I don't think I, I- uhhh-"

"We followed you out here, Thomas..." It wasn't difficult to see Newt was becoming frustrated. "And it's just now you're saying that you have no idea where you're going or what you're doing."

"Wait." Aris spoke suddenly then.

His fearful, but hopeful, expression was illuminated by the torches that then fell onto his face. He looked deep in thought, trying to come up with something that would solve the small argument between Thomas and Newt.

"Janson said something about people hiding out in the mountains. It's this resistance army type thing."

"The Right Arm. If they're against WCKD just as much as we are, they'll be able to help us."

Thomas looked to Newt expectantly, as if awaiting his approval. Newt looked exasperatedly back at him, in serious disbelief he'd do something as impulsive as escaping the facility without a plan or a single idea of what the outside world was like.

"People. In the mountains. Mountain people. That's your plan?"

"You'd rather stay with WCKD?" Clara questioned, and the scoff Newt let out told her that he'd go along with their idea.