I slid my card into the panel and watched the light turn green before allowing me access to the mess hall. Minho was still shouting at the guards and Newt and Frypan were still struggling to hold him back. Nobody else was paying attention. Minho always was over dramatic.
"Enough!" I shouted, my voice silencing everyone else's in the room. People turned to look at me from where they sat, eating lunch. There was a lot of scowls and narrowed eyes but nobody looked as miffed as Minho did. I locked eyes with Teresa but only for a second. She didn't seem surprised to see me. "Put your guns away." I commanded, to which the soldiers obeyed. Minho laughed sarcastically.
"Look, W.I.C.K.E.D's daughter. They follow her every command." He cries out, glaring at me. I refused to break eye contact or loose my cool.
"I said enough." I commanded again. "I came because Brenda said you wanted to speak to me but that doesn't mean I'm going to listen or that I have to stay and hear what you have to say."
"Oh you are going to damn well listen to me princess or I'll.." Minho didn't get to finish his threat as he began to march toward me. A soldier stepped in front of me, hand on his gun.
"Steven, I can handle Minho's idiotic temper tantrum now get out of the way." Steven nodded at me, stepped back again. Minho scoffed at the exchange.
"You will come with me into the hallway. You have ten minutes to state your grievances, starting now." I marched toward the door and it slid open for me readily. Minho wasn't that far behind and when he stepped out behind me, I thought he was going to punch me in the face or shove me. He did neither of those things. Instead, he just stared at me, taking in my outfit.
"What are you? Some kind of doctor? What's with the mad scientist coat?" I rolled my eyes
"If you have nothing important to say.." I began.
"I do princess." Minho interrupted. "I want to know where the hell Thomas is." It had been almost three weeks since he had seen one of his best friends. That's probably why he was so agitated. They might have all guessed by now that Thomas was being kept in solitary.
"Thomas is fine. We wanted to make sure his bullet wound was fixed up and that there was no infection." I lied easily.
"He's been gone for two weeks." I didn't reply to this statement. "Have you killed him?"
"Of course not Minho. W.I.C.K.E.D doesn't t kill people."
"No, you just let the variables kill them." I wanted to laugh because he was right. W.I.C.K.E.D always prided itself in being "humane". We had never actually killed anyone. Our variables had done all the dirty work for us. "Give me something concrete here Malls. What is W.I.C.K.E.D doing?"
"We're trying to find a cure." Instead of shifting around nervously, I stuck my hands in my pockets. My fingers closed around a pen and I clicked it nervously.
"Bull. Shit."
"I can't get you to believe in us Minho but it's the truth."
"Us? So you really have become part of W.I.C.K.E.D" I began to chew on my cheek nervously, not responding. W.I.C.K.E.D was watching our every movement from their countless hidden cameras. If I even hinted to Minho that I was still on his side, then W.I.C.K.E.D would be all over my ass and I would be in the same situation as Thomas, a padded white room with no one to talk to, nothing to see. Or maybe they would simply kill me.
"Have I ever not been a part of W.I.C.K.E.D?"
"I thought I was the one asking questions here? You're the one that's supposed to be answering me." He exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. I clicked my pen again nervously and that's when it came to me. Would the camera be able to pick up the simple clicks? Perhaps.. or maybe the sound would be too small. I had to try anyways.
"You have five minutes." Minho scoffed.
"Where do we go from here?"
"You and the other candidates.." I began with a sigh. That's wasn't a yes or no question. Pen clicks could only go so far.
"I'm not talking about them." Minho snapped pointing towards the mess room. "I'm talking about us." My heart skipped a beat and I'm sure Minho noticed the slight widening of my eyes. He smirked.
"There is no us." I click the pen twice. Would he understood two clicks as.. Wrong? As in what I'm saying is a lie? Minho didn't seem to catch the clicks.
"Don't pretend Mallory. That isn't like you." One pen click. Why was he asking me all this now? I thought he wanted nothing to do with me. Minho stepped closer and I breathed in deeply. He was trying to get under my skin. I knew Minho. I knew he would do something like that. "Come on princess, that couldn't all have been for show." He touches my cheek lightly. Two pen clicks. I step back.
"I don't know what you're referring to." Maybe he thought he could charm me into revealing everything I know but it's not that simple, he must know that. "Three minutes Minho." He scowls.
"Are you close to finding your damn cure." Two pen clicks again.
"Yes, we're very close now." Wrong. So wrong. We were no closer now than when we began these damn trials. Come on Minho. I said in my mind. Understand what I'm doing.
"Are you even listening?" Minho demanded. I clicked my pen once in the pocket of my lab coat. That's when his eyes lowered to my hand, confused by the sound of my pen. "Well are you?" Another click. His eyes lit up.
"I'm listening." I answered in a monotone voice.
"I'll ask again, what is going to happen now?" He repeated but this wasn't morose code. All I could do was click once for yes, twice for no. "Okay well are we ever going to be told what's really going on?" Two clicks. He made a face. "Where are you holding Thomas?" I wasn't allowed to talk about what W.I.C.K.E.D was doing so I stayed quiet. His question was too hard for me to answer with yes or no anyways.
"He's safe." I clicked the pen once after I said this. Because I was right. He was technically safe.
"Do you really work for W.I.C.K.E.D?" Two pen clicks.
"Of course I do." I answered easily. He breathed out, still a little angry.
"Are we still being tested? Are there more trials?" Another two pen clicks but I couldn't answer that question out loud. "Are we safe?"
"You are perfectly safe Minho." I clicked my pen twice.
----
After my talk with Minho, I headed back to the control room where Brenda sat, staring at the screen that held Thomas' image, intently. "How'd it go?" She asked in a monotone voice.
"He yelled at me, got angry, asked a bunch of questions I couldn't answer and then I left." She was replaying the conversation on one of the screens and I expanded it, throwing it up on the main screen and turning up the volume. "See for yourself." I said in a bored tone. As we got to Minho shouting,
"Are you even listening?" I strained to hear my pen click in my pocket.
"Yes." Came my voice, no sound followed it. The cameras couldn't pick it up. They hadn't hear our pen click conversation. I almost wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but instead, I kept the grim look on my face as the conversation finished and I began to head back to this very room. Brenda pushed the image away, focusing back in on Thomas.
"It's going to happen soon." She said in a murmur. I frowned, confused.
"What will?"
"They'll let him out, give them back their memories." I nodded slowly. I had been briefed on it. The Creator even wanted me to be a part of some of the surgeries.
"It'll be a good experience for you, seeing how the chips work." She had smiled at me like she was doing me a favor. If anything, she just wanted me to show me that I couldn't help them, that I was useless. She was torturing me. I knew how the chips worked. She just wanted me to watch the doctors cut open the heads of my friends, if I could even call them my friends anymore.
"You're not listening again." Brenda said with a sigh.
"Sorry." I replied, though I didn't really mean it. "Can you repeat yourself?"
"The Creator wants you to be with Jansen when he breaks the news to them." Her expression was grim. I simply nodded. Of course she would.
"I'll do it." Brenda sighs as she pulls the video feed back up for the mess hall. Everyone is still lounging around in it, talking in hushed voices.
"I wouldn't want to be there." She murmurs, looking over each and every one of them. I paused, confused.
"Why?" Brenda gave me a funny look.
"Why would I? I don't want to see their faces when they realize that not all of them are going to survive this." I immediately panicked.
"Survive what Brenda? You're not making sense." She straightened up, seeing the look on my face.
"Mallory, did.. Did they not tell you?" It felt like my heart was about to leap out of my chest.
"No.." I replied cautiously. Brenda looked away. "Tell me what Brenda." I demanded, my hand coming down on her shoulder. She was shaking her head in disbelief, her short hair flying.
"I... I can't believe you never knew." She finally looked me in the eye again. "We're experiments right?" I nodded, my voice would betray me right now. "So what do you need in an experiment?"
"Subjects, a hypothesis, a.." My voice caught in my throat. "A control group."
"We all have the Flare Mallory but we're not all immune." I started to hyperventilate, dropping down into the chair next to her. Brenda carefully took my hands as they began to shake. "Some of them aren't immune. They're going to die." And there it was, out in the open. I bet the Creator was watching us, laughing. I felt like I was about to have a full blown panic attack. Minho was never going to trust me. He was never going to believe that I didn't know about this until just this very second. None of them were ever going to trust me ever again.