Trials Together (Book Three): The Death Cure

Chapter 6

They went back to their old bedrooms in J wing. It was as if nothing had changed, the past two months hadn't happened at all, all the WICKED personnel seemed determined that if they acted that way towards them it would be so.

But Thomas knew entering the Trials, losing and regaining his memory and everything else had irrevocably changed who he was, had changed everyone.

Though for better or for worse remained to be seen.

"Whose room are we crashing in?" Rachel asked. Before that had always depended on who had the least messy room but someone would have definitely cleaned since they had last been here.

"We can use mine." Thomas said, they usually ended up there because Teresa did not like other people in her personal space, Aris left dirty clothes and miscellaneous trash on the floor until the resident bacteria invented the wheel and Rachel piled her books everywhere, which wouldn't have mattered so much if she didn't have almost three hundred.

Thomas smiled at the memory of the time Rachel had pushed a stack of books onto Teresa for waking her and called it a defense system. He loved his friends.

They all settled themselves on the bed, neatly made, the room looked the same way it did when he left. It could have been yesterday.

"Where do we start?" Teresa was sat so close to Thomas she was almost on his lap, not that he was complaining.

"What happened after you left for the Box?" Aris suggested, it was as good a place as any.

Thomas considered his memories of that day; waking, having breakfast with his friends, saying goodbye. The dream in the Scorch had been altered, he now knew, Aris certainly hadn't mentioned the Swipe.

Thomas had left with Rachel, then Chancellor Paige had pulled him away from her, taunted him, drugged him, Swiped him. What they had done to Rachel he didn't know.

"These masked guards came and grabbed me, one of them injected me with something. Then I wake up in the Box." Rachel shrugged, then they all looked to Thomas.

"Chancellor Paige meade me go talk to her, she told me how she infected the first Creators, Anderson and all that, so the Trials would go the way she wanted. She drugged me, then I don't remember." He explained, that left Teresa and Aris. Teresa had told him the basics but there had to be more.

"We were going to watch the cameras." Teresa twisted a lock of hair around her finger. "Then Janson made us go speak with the Chancellor." Always Chancellor Paige, they had to get rid of her.

"She said she knew about our 'silly, insignificant rebellion', but not how. Talked about how Tom was vital to the Trials, but Rach's death might be of more value than her continued participation. She told us we would keep our memories, but pretend we'd lost them, and telepathically coordinate everything, or she would hurt you, maybe even kill you. She made me write an email to the staff, pretending it was all my idea."

It all made sense. The 'voices' Rachel had heard must have been a punishment for Aris not letting her die.

But who was that even supposed to punish? Thomas wondered for a moment before he realised. It had been to punish Aris, to make him see Rachel in that much distress and not be able to help her, when if he hadn't saved her her pain would have ended.

It must have been a torture for Teresa and Aris to watch him and Rachel, to interact with them knowing that they didn't remember even a sliver of the years they had shared. They had been together since they were nine years old, not even the Trials had been able to separate them

Thomas told them his ideas of what needed to be done, it was evolving rapidly:

Get answers from Chancellor Paige.