"We have to get out of here. Tomorrow if not tonight." I had hissed to my friends.
"I'm not going without Mallory."
"She's a buggin traitor." Newt hissed. "I know you have the hots for her Minho but she made it pretty clear today that she doesn't care about us, that she can't be trusted."
"I don't think she knew about who was immune and who wasn't. You heard her today. She started to cry when she called Raven's name."
"Oh yes, so bloody sympathetic of her. I don't care that I'm dying Minho but I do care that you're wasting all of this talk on that girl." I touched Newt's shoulder.
"She's not a bad person." I said. Newt glared at me.
"Why don't you hate her? After everything she's done." I swallow hard.
"Because while I was in that room, alone, I had dreams of our lives before the Maze and... We were not nice people to her." The tension in his shoulders drops slightly. "Some of the guys teased her, the girls picked on her and we did nothing. We let it happen because we thought she deserved it. I didn't even consider her my friend. I don't even think she really had friends beside Aris." I sigh a little. "I know that we established in The Scorch that she was brave and selfless but.. I just didn't know how selfless until I remembered how we treated her." The three of us were quiet.
"Even if we could somehow manage to escape, how would we get to her?" Newt said in a tired voice. Nobody had the answer to that question.
----
The next morning, everyone looked nervous as we were all gathered in one room to be shown where we would go to take this surgery. Minho, Newt and I had already agreed that we didn't trust W.I.C.K.E.D or their promise that this procedure would give us back our memories. Everyone else, more or less seemed on board with the idea.
At the first room, Sonya, Aris and several other girls from Group B were asked to step into the room. Only one person refused, Aris. "No. I don't want my memories back." He said with a shake of his head. I watched Teresa narrow her eyes at him, like she had tried talking him into it but it didn't help. Jansen, though surprised, allowed Aris to follow everyone down the hallway as more names were listed off.
Not surprisingly, Raven and Newt also declined going through the Swipe. "I know who I am." Raven said firmly. "And I'd rather not remember my life if I'm going to die soon anyways." As we got to the last room, the only people left standing around were the three who had declined going in, myself, Teresa, Minho, Harriet, Selena and Ashoka.
Teresa, Harriet and Selena stepped into the room willingly. While Minho, Ashoka and I hesitated. Jansen looked at us expectantly. "Are the three of you going to go through the procedure?" Ashoka looked up towards Raven who kept up her stony expression. Swallowing hard, Ashoka bravely answered with,
"No. I don't trust you." Minho smirked and put his hand on the young girls shoulder.
"Thomas and I are with you." Jansen eyed the five of us almost in disdain.
"Well, you'll change your minds." He grumbled. Assigning the three girls beds, my eyes wandered the small room and found, Brenda and Mallory standing off in the corner. Neither of them looked surprised to see us. Suddenly Brenda rushed forward, startling Mallory who nearly dropped the tray she was holding. "Brenda!" Jansen snapped. "What are you doing!"
"Don't trust anyone." She whispered in my ear, hugging me tightly. "Only trust me, Mallory and Chancellor Paige." And then her warmth was gone as Jansen yelled at her again. "I'm sorry," Brenda said sheepishly, with a shrug. "I forgot my place."
"Be sure that you don't forget it again." He ushered the rest of us out of the room where armed guards were waiting.
"What's going on?" Raven demanded.
"We can't have you troublemakers running off and whether you like it or not, you six will undergo the surgery tomorrow. You all need your memories back." He says harshly as the guards all grab us forcefully.
"So it was a lie." Aris spit out. "We don't have a choice." Jansen chuckled darkly.
"Trust me, you'll thank me when it's over." The guards escort us to a different room, separate from the ones we had been sleeping in previously and they stayed with us, posted outside the door. Newt cursed lightly as he glanced through the small window in the door.
"We missed our buggin chance to escape."
"Where would you have gone?" Aris asks in a bored tone. "You don't know your way around this building."
"At least we could have tried." Minho argues. "I don't see you trying to do anything useful."
"Shut up boys." Raven said with a groan. "The more important question here is, what did that Brenda girl say to you Thomas?" She eyes me incredulously, like she doesn't trust me.
"How do you know she said something?" I asked her with a bit of suspicion.
"I watched her lips move but I couldn't make it out." Everyone was looking at me at that point so I sighed.
"She said not to trust anyone, that I could only trust her, Mallory and Chancellor Paige."
"Whose Chancellor Paige?" Ashoka asks quietly, confused.
"Beats me but I don't know what to make of her message. Judging by how stunned Mallory seemed that Brenda had run up to me, she had no idea that she was going to do that. She probably doesn't even know what she told me." Newt scoffs.
"You got all that from one look?"
"Mallory's a good person." Aris argues. "I think we should trust her. She was obviously assigned to your guys room for a specific reason. If I remember the Creator correctly, she liked hurting Mallory in the worst way possible and what better way than to force her to help with the surgeries on her friends."
"Well isn't that delightful." Raven mutters.
"But can we even trust Brenda?" Minho asks. "What if this is another variable."
"You trust Mallory." Newt shot back. Minho swallowed hard and looked to the floor, clasping his hands together. I eyed him curiously.
"Did something happen?" I ask him.
"No." Minho said with a hint of a blush rising on his cheeks.
"I knew it. I knew you lied when you said Mallory didn't tell you anything during your little talk last week." Newt said, sitting up and staring at Minho harshly. "What did she tell you."
"She didn't tell me anything and.." he glanced around. "I don't think we should be talking about this." He's right. W.I.C.K.E.D could have cameras or recorders in this room and we'd never know but it was a risk we had to take.
"Just tell us. You seemed pretty pleased with yourself when you walked back in after your giant hissy fit." Raven said. Minho narrowed his eyes at her and Ashoka as she giggled lightly. With a huff, Minho explained the talk he had with Mallory.
"She was giving me plain ole W.I.C.K.E.D answers, acting like a real shucking brainwashed minion. I don't know how long she had been doing it, maybe the whole time but we were having a completely separate conversation to the one we were actually saying out loud."
"What are you talking about?" Aris said with a sigh.
"She had a pen in her pocket and every time I asked a question, she would click once for yes and twice for no." Everyone sat up a little straighter to listen to his story.
"What did you ask her?" I said slowly, intrigued.
"I asked where you were, if there were any more trials, what was going to happen next. Some things she could answer, other things she couldn't. But it was only really the end of the conversation that mattered. When I asked if she worked for W.I.C.K.E.D, she clicked twice for no. When I asked if there were more trials, if we were still being tested she said, yes. And when I finally asked the ultimate question, are we safe she said, Yes Minho you're perfectly safe and clicked her pen twice." The room was quiet.
"Well, let's give her points for creativity." Aris grumbled. "So you trust her then?"
"A part of me has always wanted to but I didn't want to allow myself to.." Minho stops and shakes his head. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. If Brenda and Mallory really want to help us, I guess we'll find out tomorrow." Newt nodded.
"Yeah, now everybody better bloody go to sleep. You're all getting on my nerves."
----
We were marched back to the last room in that long hallway, where Ashoka, Minho and I refused to go through the Swipe. As expected, Brenda and Mallory were waiting for us, along with a few guards and some doctors. They seemed to be preparing something and hardly glanced our way.
Minho, of course began to argue with Jansen about the procedure, trying to pick a fight with the guards in the room. "Bring the sedative!" Jansen snapped at the girls. They nodded obediently, brandishing two needles of some weird colored liquid.
"This won't hurt a bit." Brenda says as she walks towards me and the guard holding onto me tightly. Suddenly, Brenda trips, the needle goes into the arm of the guard and she pushes down on the plunger.
"What the-" But the guard barely has time to question this as I gear up and punch him in the face.
"Mallory!" Minho shouts. I turn just in time to see the guard holding Minho, slap her hard across the face. Her needle is sticking out of his arm and she falls to the ground rubbing her cheek. Everyone immediately takes this as our cue to fight back.
Aris grabs a tray and bashes one of the doctors over the head with it. Raven kicks and claws at a female guard while Brenda, Minho and I grab up the guards Launchers. "Stop it!" Jansen roars. "Where will you go! There's nowhere in this facility you can hide."
"Who says we're staying here?" Mallory asks with a snarl. Brenda shoots her launcher and a giant ball of electrify slams into Jansen. He seizes on the floor as the rest of the guards and doctors groan, rolling on the floor.
"Come on, we have to move!" Brenda shouts, taking off out the door. Quickly, everyone chases after her.