Trials Together (Book Three): The Death Cure

Chapter 18

Rachel woke Thomas at precisely 6:03AM, according to his watch. In doing so she also woke Teresa, but that was likely her intention.

Thomas detested her more than Rat Man when she did, but understood it was payback for what he had done on the Berg. Besides, she could be far more cruel than 6:03AM.

"Morning." How she could always be so cheerful so early was a deeper mystery than curing the Flare.

"This isn't morning. This is sacrilege to sleep." Teresa moaned, no one else was awake in the room, but Aris was slowly stirring nearby.

Rachel would never have let him escape. Oddly enough the boy never seemed to mind.

"We always used to get up at this time. Got to keep in good habits." She had a point, Thomas didn't like that point.

But in the end he did drag himself up the stairs to follow her to breakfast.

In the kitchen Thomas saw Alec, Lana, Mark and Trina all eating various breakfasts whilst listening to a news program on the television. There was something about 'dangerous escaped fugitives' and Thomas had to stifle laughter.

They were dangerous, not the organisation that routinely killed children with semi-robotic monsters.

Mark and Trina were wearing the red shirts Thomas had seen hung up the day before, he assumed it was one of the jobs that was mostly done by Immunes, and therefore paid well. If Immunes were in such low supply as they had heard it was possible Thomas and some of his companions could get work like that. If the world didn't end.

"Good. I needed to tell some of you how things work around here." Lana said when she noticed them. "Stay inside, there's a key under the mat for emergencies." She gestured towards the front door. "Don't wake those three upstairs before four unless it's an emergency, and we're back at five."

"There's a copy of the sheet the Toad puts on his door. Emergency checklist and reasons you can wake them that won't lead to revenge." Mark pushed a slip of paper towards them. No matter where Thomas went in the world people were always the strangest creatures, Crank or Immune.

Reasons you can wake me up before 4PM/Emergency Checklist:

The house is on fire.

Someone is dying.

The police are here.

Cranks have invaded the city.

Some huge natural disaster.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Seriously, Darnell, if you do that again they will not find your body. They might know I did it, but they won't find your body. Misty says she supports this statement entirely and will help me hide the evidence.

Thomas would have to consider copying that, he was rather interested in what story led to the warning on the last lines but decided not to ask.

"If you're wondering they were both hungover and he woke them by playing 'Most annoying ringtones' on full blast and wouldn't turn it off for half an hour." Trina explained, smiling at the memory.

Thomas really hoped Aris and Rachel wouldn't take that as inspiration. It was exactly their kind of thing to do.

Before long Thomas and his three friends were left alone in the house. Which was rather boring, considering the only passable thing on television was a rerun of an ancient quiz show, the internet was down and none of them could figure out how the game console worked.

Brenda, Jorge and the remaining Gladers were all awake by eight. Thomas noticed that Minho was talking again, which prompted Harriet to call yet another Gathering.

If Thomas never had to attend another in his life it would be eons too soon.

This time they discussed what to do about the friends they had left on the Berg, assuming that they hadn't already been discovered and taken off to the Crank Palace, which was likely. Newt was already talking about a rescue mission to get Sonya and the others back from WICKED.

"We should wait until we hear back from Beth. If the Right Arm are against WICKED they might help us." Minho's voice sounded dejected and scratchy from over a day of silence.

"She never said she'd get back to us." Rachel sounded unsure.

"She will." Alejandra spoke up, the girl didn't say much at meetings, Thomas noticed, but you listened when she did. She was like Mary, silent from a grief she had never recovered from, just not so extreme. Alejandra had quietened since her partner had died, Leo, Thomas thought his name had been, thinking of the Gathering in the Glade where Sonya had told her to shut up because 'martians would have heard her opinion'.

"We can't stay here forever. The neighbours will suspect before long. They already might." Brenda interjected, unfortunately she had a point, they had been found very quickly in a motel. WICKED would take longer to find them here, but Thomas didn't doubt that they could do it.

"We've got a week at least. Plenty of time to see what's going on." Harriet spun her empty cup. "I say we just wait and see what comes."

"Who thinks trouble will find us before Wednesday?" Newt joked, looking around. Thomas raised his hand in solidarity, that sounded very, very likely with their luck.

A/N: I will not be updating as normal this week because I have mock exams. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, I promise this will get more exciting again soon.