“Get him!” Brenda yelled from somewhere close.

Thomas saw hands appear, felt them grabbing his arms. Somebody gripped him by the hair and yanked back. Thomas screamed in agony, then slashed blindly with the knife. Relief flooded through him-Jorge and Minho were gaining control, pulling him off Hans. Thomas crashed onto his back and the knife was knocked from his grip; he heard it clatter across the floor as someone kicked it to the far side of the kitchen.

“I can’t let you do this!” Thomas yelled. He hated himself even though he knew he had no control.

“Shut up!” Minho shouted back, now in his face as he and Jorge fought against Thomas’s attempts to get free. “You’re crazy, dude! They’re making you crazy!”

Thomas desperately wanted to tell Minho that he was right-Thomas didn’t really believe what he was saying.

Minho turned and yelled at Hans. “Let’s get that thing out of his head!”

“No!” Thomas shouted. “No!” He twisted and flailed his arms, battled them with ferocious strength. But the four of them proved too much. Somehow they ended up with one person holding tightly to each of his limbs. They lifted him from the floor, carried him out of the kitchen into a short hallway and down its length as he kicked and squirmed, knocking several framed pictures off the walls. The sound of shattering glass followed them.

Thomas screamed once, then again, over and over. He had no more strength to resist the internal forces-his body fought against Minho and the others; he said whatever WICKED wanted him to. He’d given up.

“In here!” Hans shouted over him.

They entered a small, cramped lab with two instrument-filled tables and a bed. A crude-looking version of the mask they’d seen back at WICKED hung over the empty mattress.

“Get him on the bed!” Hans yelled. They slammed Thomas down onto his back, where he continued to struggle. “Get this leg for me-I need to knock him out.”

Minho, who had been holding the other leg, now grabbed both legs and used his body to press them against the bed. Thomas’s thoughts immediately went back to when he and Newt had done this same thing to Alby when he’d woken up from the Changing back in the Glade Homestead.

There was the clatter and clanging of Hans going through a drawer, searching for something; then he was back.

“Hold him as still as possible!”

Thomas erupted in one last flurry of effort to get free, screaming at the top of his lungs. An arm sprang loose from Brenda’s grip and he smacked Jorge in the face with his fist.

“Stop it!” Brenda yelled as she reached for it.

Thomas arched his torso again. “I can’t… let you do this!” He had never felt such frustration.

“Hold him still, dammit!” Hans shouted.

Somehow Brenda got his arm again, leaned against it with her upper body.

Thomas felt a sharp prick in his leg. It was such an odd thing to be fighting against something so violently and yet wanting it to happen so completely.

When the darkness started to take him and his body stilled, he finally regained control of himself. At the very last second he said, “I hate those shucks.” And then he was out.

CHAPTER 28

Lost in the dark haze of drugs, Thomas dreamed.

He is fifteen years old, sitting on a bed. The room is dark except for the amber glow of a lamp on the desk. Teresa is there-she has pulled a chair out and is sitting close to him. Her face is haunted-a mask of misery.

“We had to do this,” she says quietly.

Thomas is there but isn’t there. He doesn’t remember the details of what happened, but he knows his insides feel like rot and filth. He and Teresa have done something horrible, but his dreaming self can’t quite grasp what it was. A ghastly thing that is no less repulsive because they were told to do it by the people they did it to.

“We had to do it,” she repeats.

“I know,” Thomas responds in a voice that sounds as dead as dust.

Two words pop into his head: the Purge. The wall blocking him from the memory thins for a moment and a dreadful fact looms on the other side.

Teresa starts talking again. “They wanted it to end this way, Tom. Better to die than spend years going crazier and crazier. They’re gone now. We had no choice, and no better way to make it happen. It’s done and that’s that. We need to get the new people trained and keep the Trials going. We’ve come too far to let it fall apart.”

For a moment Thomas hates her, but it’s fleeting. He knows she’s trying to be strong. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” And he doesn’t. He has never hated himself with such intensity before.

Teresa nods but says nothing.

The dreaming Thomas tries to invade the mind of his younger self, explore the memories in that unfettered space. The original Creators, Flare-infected, purged and dead. Countless volunteers to take their place. The two ongoing Maze Trials, running strong over a year in, with more results every day. The slowly but surely building blueprint. Training for the replacements.

It’s all there for the taking. For the remembering. But then he changes his mind, turns his back on it all. The past is the past. There is only the future now.

He sinks into a dark oblivion.

Thomas woke up groggy and with a dull ache behind his eyes. The dream still throbbed in his skull like a pulse, though its details had grown fuzzy. He knew enough about the Purge, about its being the shift from the original Creators to their replacements. He and Teresa had had to exterminate the entire staff after an outbreak-they’d had no choice, were the only ones left who were immune. He swore to never think about it again.

Minho was sitting in a chair nearby, his head lolling as he snored in fitful sleep.

“Minho,” Thomas whispered. “Hey. Minho. Wake up.”

“Huh?” Minho opened his eyes slowly and coughed. “What? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just want to know what happened. Did Hans get the thing switched off? Are we fixed?”

Minho nodded through a big yawn. “Yeah-both of us. At least, he said he did. Man, you wigged out big-time. You remember all that?”

“Of course I do.” A wave of embarrassment made his face flush hot. “But it was like I was paralyzed or something. I kept trying, but I couldn’t stop whatever was controlling me.”

“Dude, you tried to slice my you-know-whats off!”

Thomas laughed, something he hadn’t done in a long time. He welcomed it happily. “Too bad I didn’t. Could’ve saved the world from future little Minhos.”

“Just remember you owe me one.”

“Good that.” He owed them all.

Brenda, Jorge, and Hans walked in, all three of them looking serious, and the smile fell from Thomas’s face.

“Gally stop by and give you guys another pep talk?” Thomas asked, forcing a lighthearted tone to his voice. “You look downright depressed.”

“When did you get so cheerful, muchacho?” Jorge responded. “A few hours ago you were stabbing at us with a knife.”

Thomas opened his mouth to apologize-to explain-but Hans shushed him. He leaned over the bed and flashed a little light into both of Thomas’s eyes. “Looks like your head’s clearing up pretty well. The pain should be gone soon-your operation was a little worse because of that fail-safe.”

Thomas turned his attention to Brenda. “Is it fixed?”

“It worked,” she said. “Judging from the fact that you’re not trying to kill us anymore, it’s deactivated. And…”

“And what?”

“Well, you shouldn’t be able to talk to or hear from Teresa or Aris again.”

Thomas might’ve felt a pang of sadness at that even the day before, but now he felt only relief. “Suits me fine. Any sign of trouble yet?”

She shook her head. “No, but they can’t take any chances-Hans and his wife are going to leave, but he wanted to tell you something first.”

Hans had stepped back to stand by the wall, probably to give them a little space. He came forward now, his eyes downcast. “I wish I could go with you and help, but I have a wife, and she’s my family. She’s my first concern. I wanted to wish you luck. I hope you can do what I don’t have the courage to try.”