Damaged|| The Scorch Trials²/ Minho

|C.6|

Blake felt it, somehow felt it. The air sucked into nothing but shock. She has never been in the room, but the tense feel and quietness the room held told her something was different, something was wrong. Her eyes caught what everyone was gawking at. At each window, a red brick wall was there just outside the iron bars.

"Even if they were quick with those bodies," Newt said, "I'm pretty sure they didn't have time to bloody throw up some brick walls. What's going on here?"

Blake watched as Minho walked over to one of the windows and leaned against the bars, pressing his hand against the red bricks. "Solid," he said, then pounded at it.

"It doesn't even look fresh," Thomas murmured, stepping up to one himself to get a feel. "The mortar's dry. Somehow they've tricked us, that's all."

"Tricked us?" Frypan asked. "How?"

Thomas shrugged. "I don't know. Remember the Cliff? We jumped into thin air and went through an invisible hole. Who knows what these people can do."

The next half-hour passed in a haze of figuring out what had been changed. Blake 
made her way about, as did everyone else, exploring the room. She knew she wasn't much help since she had never taken a foot in the room till that very day. But she listened, maybe for one of the first times since she woke up in the Maze. She didn't say a word as people commented that all the beds in the Gladers' dorm room were made, that there was no sign of the grungy clothes they'd all worn before changing into the pajamas provided the night before. Some argued that the dressers had been rearranged,

The dressers were stocked with fresh clean clothes and new digital watches for each of them. Blake was a little excited when she found a drawer just for her, filled with clothes that would fit her properly, rather than the oversized stuff she wore at the Glade. There was a brown jacket, a black tank top, and a pair of denim shorts.

But the biggest change of all―discovered by Minho―was the sign outside the room. Instead of saying Teresa Agnes, Group A, Subject A1, The Betrayer, and Blake Taylor, Group A, Subject A3, The Bomb, it now said:

Aris Jones, Group B, Subject B1, The
Partner

And...

Toby Taylor, Group B, Subject B3, The
Sponge

Blake blinked a few times. Taylor. Both Toby and her had it after their names. It couldn't be a coincidence that she found Toby oddly familiar either. She couldn't wrap her head around it, felt frustrated that any memories she tried to seek didn't come. Most people had wandered away. She noticed that Toby was one of the first to leave the crowd like he
didn't want to hear the wrath of the storm.

Soon Thomas left till it was just Newt, Minho, and Blake standing there. She stared at the name, her stare hot like she could set the piece of paper on fire. Hard like coal.

Newt nudged her shoulder. "You okay?"

Blake snapped her gaze from the paper to her curled toes. "Yeah, I'm just trying to figure it out. You know, why this ding-dong and mine name ends with Taylor. I'm not a fool to think it's nothing."

Newt's face puzzled but he nodded. Minho crossed his arms, shifting his weight to the foot on Blake's right. "Maybe he is your husband of somethin'," Minho grinned.

Blake gave Minho a look. "Funny."

"I think Blake is too young to be married, but who knows with this bloody place anymore," Newt said, rolling his eyes.

"I think he might know something. I'm going to find out," Blake mumbled, already walking towards the boys' dorm.

"An interrogation? Might be something fun to watch," Minho said to Newt, she could hear the slight laugh in his voice.