The Death Cure - Epilogue

Final WICKED Memorandum, Date 232.4.10, Time 12:45
TO: My Associates
FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor
RE: A new beginning
And so, we have failed.
But we have also succeeded.
Our original vision didn’t come to fruition; the blueprint never came together. We were unable to
discover either a vaccine or a treatment for the Flare. But I anticipated this outcome and put into place an
alternate solution, to save at least a portion of our race. With the help of my partners, two wisely placed
Immunes, I was able to plan and implement a solution that will result in the best outcome we could’ve
hoped for.
I know the majority of WICKED thought that we needed to get tougher, dig deeper, be more ruthless
with our subjects, keep searching for an answer. Begin new rounds of Trials. But what we neglected to
see was right before our eyes. The Immune are the only resource left to this world.
And if all has gone according to plan, we have sent the brightest, the strongest, the toughest of our
subjects to a safe place, where they can begin civilization anew while the rest of the world is driven to
extinction.
It is my hope that over the years our organization has in some part paid the price for the unspeakable act
committed against humanity by our predecessors in government. Though I am fully aware that it was an act
of desperation after the sun flares, releasing the Flare virus as a means of population control was an
abhorrent and irreversible crime. And the disastrous results could never have been predicted. WICKED
has worked ever since that act was committed to right that wrong, to find a cure. And though we have
failed in that effort, we can at least say we’ve planted the seed for mankind’s future.
I don’t know how history will judge the actions of WICKED, but I state here for the record that the
organization only ever had one goal, and that was to preserve the human race. And in this last act, we
have done just that.
As we tried to instill in each of our subjects over and over, WICKED is good

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 73

Thomas could barely breathe. He was coughing, spitting. His heart raced, refused to slow down. He’d
landed on the wooden floor of the shed, and now he crawled forward, wanting to get away from the Flat
Trans in case any nasty debris came flying through. But he noticed Brenda out of the corner of his eye. She
pushed some buttons on a control panel, and then the gray plane winked out of existence, revealing the
cedar planks of the shed wall behind it. How did she know how to do that? Thomas wondered.
“You and Minho get out,” she said, an urgency in her voice that Thomas didn’t understand. They were
safe now. Weren’t they? “I have to do one last thing.”
Minho had gotten to his feet, and he came over to help Thomas stand. “My shuck brain can’t spend one
more second thinking. Just let her do whatever she wants. Come on.”
“Good that,” Thomas said. The two of them then looked at each other for a long moment, catching their
breath, somehow reliving in those few seconds all the things they’d gone through, all the death, all the
pain. And mixed in there was relief, that maybe—just maybe—it was all over.
But mostly Thomas felt the pain of loss. Watching Teresa die—to save his life—had been almost too
much to bear. Now, staring at the person who’d become his true best friend, he had to fight back the tears.
In that moment, he swore to never tell Minho about what he’d done to Newt.
“Good that for sure, shuck-face,” Minho finally replied. But his trademark smirk was missing. Instead
was a look that said to Thomas he understood. And that they’d both carry the sorrow of their loss for the
rest of their lives. Then he turned and walked away.
After a long moment, Thomas followed him.
When he set foot outside, he had to stop and stare. They’d come to a place he’d been told didn’t exist
anymore. Lush and green and full of vibrant life. He stood at the top of a hill above a field of tall grass
and wildflowers. The two hundred or so people they’d rescued wandered the area, some of them actually
running and jumping. To his right the hill descended into a valley of towering trees that seemed to
stretched for miles, ending in a wall of rocky mountains that jutted toward the cloudless blue sky. To his
left, the grassy field slowly became scrub brush and then sand. And then the ocean, its waves big and dark
and white-tipped as they crashed onto a beach.
Paradise. They’d come to paradise. He could only hope that one day his heart would feel the joy of the
place.
He heard the door of the shed close then the whoosh of fire behind him. He turned to see Brenda; she
gently pushed him a few steps farther away from the structure, which was already engulfed in flames.
“Just making sure?” he asked.
“Just making sure,” she repeated, and gave him a smile so sincere that he relaxed a little, feeling the
tiniest bit comforted. “I’m … sorry about Teresa.”
“Thanks.” It was the only word he could find.
She didn’t say anything else, and Thomas figured there wasn’t much she needed to. They walked over
and joined the group of people who’d fought the last battle with Janson and the others, everyone scraped
and bruised from top to bottom. He met Frypan’s eyes just like he had Minho’s. Then they all faced the
shed and watched as it burned to the ground.
A few hours later, Thomas sat atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, his feet dangling over the edge. The sun
had almost dipped below the horizon, which appeared to be glowing with flames. It was one of the most
amazing sights he’d ever witnessed.
Minho had already started taking charge down below in the forest where they’d decided to live—
organizing food search parties, a building committee, a security detail. Thomas was glad of it, not wanting
another ounce of responsibility to ever rest on his shoulders again. He was tired, body and soul. He hoped
that wherever they were, they’d be isolated and safe while the rest of the world figured out how to deal
with the Flare, cure or no cure. He knew the process would be long and hard and ugly, and he was one
hundred percent positive that he wanted no part of it.
He was done.
“Hey, there.”
Thomas turned to see Brenda. “Hey, there, back. Wanna sit?”
“Why, yes, thank you.” She plopped down next to him. “Reminds me of the sunsets at WICKED, though
they never seemed quite so bright.”
“You could say that about a lot of things.” He felt another tremor of emotion as he saw the faces of
Chuck and Newt and Teresa in his mind’s eye.
A few minutes went by in silence as they stared at the vanishing light of day, the sky and water going
from orange to pink to purple, then dark blue.
“What’re you thinking in that head of yours?” Brenda asked.
“Absolutely nothing. I’m done thinking for a while.” And he meant it. For the first time in his life, he
was both free and safe, as costly as the accomplishment had been.
Then Thomas did the only thing he could think of. He reached out and took Brenda’s hand.
She squeezed his in response. “There are over two hundred of us and we’re all immune. It’ll be a good
start.”
Thomas looked over at her, suspicious at how sure she sounded—like she knew something he didn’t.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then the lips. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Thomas put it all out of his mind and pulled her closer as the last wink of the sun’s light vanished
below the horizon.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 72

Somehow Thomas kept his balance, despite the entire room quaking from the closest series of explosions
yet. Most of the racks collapsed, and objects were launched across the room. He dodged a jagged chunk
of wood, then jumped over a round piece of machinery that spun past him.
Gally, who was at Thomas’s side, tripped and fell; Thomas helped him up. They continued charging.
Brenda slipped but caught her balance.
They crashed into the others like the first line of soldiers in an ancient foot battle. Thomas met the Rat
Man himself, who was at least half a foot taller than him, wielding his blade; it came down in an arc
toward Thomas’s shoulder, but Thomas thrust upward with his stiff cable and connected with the man’s
armpit. Janson screamed and dropped his weapon as a stream of blood gushed from the wound; he
clamped his other hand over it and backed away, glaring at Thomas with hate-filled eyes.
To his right and left, everyone was fighting. Thomas’s head was full of the sounds of metal against
metal, screams and shouts and grunts. Some had matched up two-on-one; Minho ended up fighting a
woman who seemed twice as strong as any of the men. Brenda was on the ground, wrestling a skinny man,
trying to knock a machete out of his hand. Thomas saw all this with a quick glance but then returned his
attention to his own foe.
“I don’t care if I bleed to death,” Janson said with a grimace. “As long as I die after I get you back up
there.”
Another explosion jolted the floor beneath him and Thomas stumbled forward, dropping his scavenged
weapon and slamming into Janson’s chest. They both crashed to the ground, and Thomas struggled to push
off the man with one hand while swinging as hard as he could with the other. He smashed Janson’s left
cheek with his balled fist and watched as the Rat Man’s head snapped to the side, blood spraying from his
mouth. Thomas reached back to swing again, but the man arched his body violently, throwing him off; he
landed on his back.
Before he could move Janson had jumped on top of him and gotten his legs wrapped around his torso,
pinning Thomas’s arms with his knees. Thomas squirmed to get loose as the man rained down blows with
his fists, punching Thomas’s unprotected face over and over. Pain flooded him. Then adrenaline surged
through his body. He wouldn’t die here. He pushed his feet against the floor and thrust his stomach toward
the ceiling.
He only rose a few inches off the ground, but it was enough to free his arms from the man’s knees. He
blocked the next punch with both of his forearms, then threw both fists up and at Janson’s face, connected.
The Rat Man lost his balance; Thomas pushed him off, then kicked him by coiling both legs and slamming
the bottoms of his feet into Janson’s side, then again, and again, and again. The man’s body inched away
with each kick. But when Thomas next pulled back with his legs, Janson suddenly flipped around and
came at him, grabbing Thomas’s feet and throwing them to the side. Then he jumped on top of Thomas yet
again.
Thomas went nuts; kicking and punching and squirming to get out from under the man. They rolled, each
gaining the advantage for only a split second before toppling over again. Fists flew and feet kicked
—bullets of pain riddled Thomas’s body; Janson clawed and bit. They continued to roll, beating each
other nearly senseless.
Thomas finally got a good angle to slam his elbow into Janson’s nose; it stunned the man, and both of
his hands flew to his face. A burst of energy shot through Thomas; he jumped on top of Janson and put his
fingers around the man’s neck, began to squeeze. Janson kicked out, flailed his arms, but Thomas held on
with feral rage, clutching, leaning forward with all his weight to crush as he constricted his hands tighter
and tighter. He felt things snapping and pulling and breaking. Janson’s eyes bulged; his tongue jutted from
his mouth.
Someone swatted him on the head with an open palm; he could tell words were being spoken to him but
he didn’t hear them. Minho’s face appeared in front of his. He was yelling something. A bloodlust had
completely taken Thomas over. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, focused again on Janson’s face. The man
was long gone, still and pale and battered. Thomas looked back at Minho.
“He’s dead!” his friend was yelling. “He’s dead!”
Thomas forced himself to let go, stumbled off of the man, felt Minho lifting him to his feet.
“We put them all out of commission!” Minho shouted in his ear. “We need to go!”
Two explosions rocked both sides of the storage room at the same time and the walls themselves
collapsed inward, throwing chunks of brick and cement in all directions. Debris rained down on Thomas
and Minho. Dust clouded the air and shadowy figures surrounded Thomas, swaying and falling and getting
back up again. Thomas was on his feet, moving, heading in the direction of the maintenance room.
Pieces of the ceiling fell, crashing and exploding. The sounds were awful, deafening. The ground shook
violently; bombs continued to detonate over and over, seemingly everywhere at once. Thomas fell; Minho
jerked him to his feet. A few seconds later Minho fell; Thomas yanked and dragged until they were both
running again. Brenda suddenly appeared in front of Thomas, terror in her eyes. He thought he saw Teresa
nearby as well, all of them struggling to keep their balance as they moved forward.
A splintering, shattering noise split the air so loudly that Thomas looked back. His eyes drifted upward,
where a massive section of the ceiling had torn loose. He watched, hypnotized, as it fell toward him.
Teresa appeared in the corner of his vision, her image barely discernible through the clogged air. Her
body slammed into his, shoving him toward the maintenance room. His mind emptied as he stumbled
backward and fell, just as the huge piece of the building landed on top of Teresa, pinning her body; only
her head and an arm jutted out from under its girth.
“Teresa!” Thomas screamed, an unearthly sound that somehow rose above everything else. He
scrambled toward her. Blood streaked her face, and her arm looked crushed.
He shouted her name again, and in his mind he saw Chuck, falling to the ground, covered in blood, and
Newt’s bulging eyes. Three of the closest friends he’d ever had. And WICKED had taken them all away
from him.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to her, knowing she couldn’t hear. “I’m so sorry.”
Her mouth moved, working to speak, and he leaned in to make out what she was trying to say.
“Me … too,” she whispered. “I only ever … cared for …”
And then Thomas was being dragged to his feet, yanked away from her. He didn’t have the energy or
will to fight it. She was gone. His body ached with pain; his heart stung. Brenda and Minho pulled him up,
got his feet under him. The three of them lurched forward, pushed ahead. A fire had started burning in a
gaping hole left by an explosion—smoke billowed and churned with the thick dust. Thomas coughed but
only heard roaring in his ears.
Another resounding boom shattered the air; Thomas turned his head as he ran to see the back wall of the
storage room exploding, falling to the ground in pieces, flames licking through the open spaces. The
remainder of the ceiling above it began to collapse, any support now gone. Every last inch of the building
was coming down once and for all.
They reached the door to the maintenance room, squeezed inside just in time to see Gally disappear
through the Flat Trans. Everyone else was already gone. Thomas stumbled with his friends across the
short aisle between the tables. In seconds they’d be dead. The sounds of things crashing and crumbling
behind Thomas grew impossibly louder, cracks and creaks and squeals of metal and the hollow roar of
flames. All of it rose to an unimaginable pitch; Thomas refused to look, though he sensed it all coming
down, as if it were just feet away, its leading edge breathing against his neck. He pushed Brenda through
the Trans. The world was collapsing around him and Minho.
Together, they jumped into the icy gray wall.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 71

At least two hundred people had made it out of the Maze, but for some reason they’d stopped moving.
Thomas dodged people in the crowded hallway, struggling to get to the front.
He weaved around men, women and children until finally he spotted Brenda. She pushed her way
toward him and pulled him into a hug and kissed his cheek. With every bit of his heart, he wished it could
all be over right then—that they could be safe, not have to go any farther.
“Minho made me leave,” she said. “He forced me to go, promised to help if you needed it. He told me
that getting everyone out was too important and you guys could handle the Griever. I should’ve stayed. I’m
sorry.”
“I told him to,” Thomas responded. “You did the right thing. The only thing. We’ll be out of here soon.”
She gave him a little push. “Then let’s hurry and make it happen.”
“Okay.” He squeezed her hand and they joined Teresa, moving toward the front of the group again.
The hallway was even darker than before—the lights that worked at all were dim, and flickered off and
on. The people they passed huddled in silence, waiting anxiously. Thomas saw Frypan, who said nothing
but did his best to give an encouraging smile, which, as usual, looked more like a smirk. In the distance,
the occasional boom thundered through the air and the building trembled. The explosions still felt far
enough away, but Thomas knew it wouldn’t last.
When he and Brenda reached the front of the line, they found that the group had stopped at a stairwell,
unsure whether to go up or down.
“We need to go up,” Brenda said.
Thomas didn’t hesitate. He motioned for the group to follow and started climbing, Brenda at his side.
He refused to succumb to the fatigue. Four flights, five, six. He stopped on the landing, catching his
breath, and looked down, saw that the others were coming. Brenda guided him through a doorway, down
another long hallway, left and then right, up another flight of stairs. One more hall and then down some
stairs. One foot in front of the other. Thomas just hoped that the chancellor had been honest about the Flat
Trans.
An explosion sounded somewhere above him, jolting the entire building and throwing him to the floor.
Dust choked the air, and small pieces of the ceiling tiles landed on his back. Sounds of things creaking
and breaking filled the air. Finally, after several seconds of shaking, everything grew quiet and still again.
He reached out for Brenda, made sure she wasn’t hurt.
“Everybody okay?” he shouted down the hallway.
“Yeah!” someone called back.
“Keep moving! We’re almost there!” He helped Brenda to her feet and they continued, Thomas praying
the building would stay in one piece just a little while longer.
Thomas, Brenda, and those following them finally made it to the section of the building the chancellor had
circled on the map—the maintenance room. Several more bombs had detonated, each one closer than the
one before it. But nothing strong enough to stop them, and now they were practically there.
The maintenance room was situated behind a huge warehouse area. Neat rows of metal racks full of
boxes lined the right wall, and Thomas crossed to that side of the room, then began waving everybody in.
He wanted everyone together before they went through the Flat Trans. There was one door at the back of
the space—it had to lead to the room they’d been looking for.
“Keep them coming and get them ready,” he told Brenda; then he sprinted for the door. If Chancellor
Paige had lied about the Flat Trans, or if someone from WICKED or the Right Arm figured out what they
were doing, they were finished.
The door led to a small room filled with tables that were littered with tools and scraps of metal and
machine parts. On the far side, a large piece of canvas had been hung against the wall. Thomas ran to it
and ripped it down. Behind it he found a dully shimmering wall of gray framed by a rectangle of shiny
silver, and next to it, a control box.
It was the Flat Trans.
The chancellor had told the truth.
Thomas let out a laugh at the thought. WICKED—the leader of WICKED—had helped him.
Unless … He realized he needed to know one last thing. He had to test it to see where it led before he
sent everyone through. Thomas sucked in a deep breath. This was it.
He forced himself to step through the icy Flat Trans surface. And he came out into a simple wooden
shed, its door wide open in front of him. Beyond that he saw … green. Lots and lots of green. Grass,
trees, flowers, bushes. It was good enough for him.
He stepped back through to the maintenance room, exhilarated. They’d done it—they were almost safe.
He ran out to the storage area.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Get everyone in here—it works! Hurry!”
An explosion rattled the walls and the metal racks. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling.
“Hurry!” he repeated.
Teresa already had people running, shepherding them Thomas’s way. He stood just inside the door of
the maintenance room, and when the first person crossed the threshold he took the woman by the arm and
led her to the gray wall of the Flat Trans.
“You know what this is, right?” he asked her.
She nodded, bravely trying to hide her eagerness to get through the thing and out of there. “I’ve been
around the block a few times, kid.”
“Can I trust you to stand here and make sure everyone goes through?”
She blanched at first, but then she nodded.
“Don’t worry,” Thomas assured her. “Just stay here as long as you can.”
As soon as she agreed he ran back to the door.
Others had packed the small room, and Thomas stepped back. “It’s right through there. Make space on
the other side!”
He squeezed his way past the knot of people and back into the warehouse. Everyone had lined up and
was filing into the maintenance room. And standing at the back of the crowd were Minho, Brenda, Jorge,
Teresa, Aris, Frypan and a few members of Group B. Gally was there, too. Thomas weaved his way to
his friends.
“They better be quick about it up there,” Minho said. “The explosions are getting closer and closer.”
“The whole place is gonna fall down,” Gally added.
Thomas scanned the ceiling as if he expected it to happen right that second. “I know. I told them to
hurry. We’ll all be out of here in a—”
“Well, what do we have here?” a voice shouted from the back of the room.
A few gasps sounded around Thomas as he turned to see who’d spoken. The Rat Man had just come
through the door from the outside hallway, and he wasn’t alone. He was surrounded by WICKED security
guards. Thomas counted seven total, which meant that he and his friends still had the advantage.
Janson stopped and cupped his hands to shout over the rumble of another explosion. “Strange place to
hide out when everything’s about to come down!” Pieces of metal fell from the ceiling, clattering to the
ground.
“You know what’s here!” Thomas shouted back. “It’s too late—we’re already going!”
Janson pulled out the same long knife he had outside and flashed it. And as if on cue, the others
revealed similar weapons.
“But we can salvage a few,” Janson said. “And it looks like we have the strongest and brightest right
here in front of us. Even our Final Candidate, no less! The one we need most, yet who refuses to
cooperate.”
Thomas and his friends had spread out in a line between the dwindling crowd of prisoners and the
guards. The others in Thomas’s group were searching the floor for anything they could find to use as a
weapon—pipes, long screws, the jagged edge of a metal grid. Thomas spotted a warped piece of thick
cabling that ended in a spike of rigid wires, as deadly-looking as a spear. He grabbed it just as another
explosion rocked the room, sending a huge section of the metal shelving crashing to the floor
“I’ve never seen such a menacing bunch of thugs!” the Rat Man yelled, but his face was crazed, his
mouth contorted into a wild sneer. “I have to admit I’m terrified!”
“Just shut your shuck mouth and let’s get this over with!” Minho shouted back at him.
Janson focused his cold, mad gaze on the teenagers facing him.
“Gladly,” he said.
Thomas ached to lash out for all the fear and pain and suffering that had defined his life for so long.
“Go!” he shouted.
The two groups charged each other, their yells of battle drowned out by the sudden concussion of
detonating explosives that shook the building around them.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 70

“Listen to me!” Teresa screamed. She grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around to look him in
the face. “On the tail end of the Grievers”—she pointed at the closest pod—“what the Creators called the
barrel—inside the blubber, there’s a switch, like a handle. You have to reach through the skin and pull it
out. If you can do it, the things will die.”
Thomas nodded. “Okay. You keep people going!”
The tops of the pods continued to open as Thomas sprinted to the closest one. The lid was halfway up
when he reached it, and he strained to look inside. The Griever’s huge, sluglike body was trembling and
twisting, sucking up moisture and fuel from tubes connected to its sides.
Thomas ran to its far end and pulled himself up on the lip of the container, then stretched over and
leaned down to the Griever inside. He slammed his hand through the moist skin to find what Teresa had
described. He grunted with the effort, pushed until he found a hard handle, then yanked on it with all his
strength. The whole thing tore loose and the Griever fell into a limp mass of jelly at the bottom of the pod.
He threw the handle to the floor and ran to the next pod, where the lid was lowering to the ground. It
took him only a few seconds to pull himself up and over the side, bury his hand in the fatty flesh and yank
out the handle.
As he ran to the next pod, Thomas risked a quick glance up at Teresa. She was still helping people
from the floor after they slid down the chute and sending them through the doors. They were coming fast,
landing on top of each other. Sonya was there, then Frypan, then Gally. Minho came flying through even as
he watched. Thomas reached the pod, the lid now completely open, the tubes connecting the Griever to the
container detaching themselves one by one. He pulled himself up and over, slammed his hand into the
thing’s skin and ripped out the handle.
Thomas dropped to the ground and turned to the fourth pod, but the Griever was moving, its front end
slipping up and over the edge of the open pod, appendages bursting out of the skin to help it maneuver.
Thomas barely reached it in time, jumped up and heaved himself over the side of the pod. He pushed his
hand inside the blubbery skin, grabbed the handle. A pair of scissoring blades swiped at his head; he
ducked as he wrenched the piece out of the creature’s body and it died, its mass pulling it back into the
coffinlike container.
Thomas knew it was too late to stop the last Griever before it exited its pod. He turned to assess the
situation and watched as its full body sloshed out onto the ground. It was already scanning the area with a
small observer socket that extended from its front; then, as he’d seen them do so many times before, the
thing curled up into a ball and spikes burst from the skin. The creature spun forward with a great whirring
of the machines within its belly. Concrete kicked up in the air, the Griever’s spikes tearing through the
flooring, and Thomas watched, helpless, as it crashed into a small group of people who’d come through
the chute. Blades extended, it sliced through several people before they even knew what was happening.
Thomas looked around, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. A piece of pipe about the
length of his arm had broken off from something in the ceiling—he ran to it and picked it up. When he
turned back toward the Griever, he saw that Minho had already made it to the creature. He was kicking at
it with a fierceness that was almost frightening.
Thomas charged the monster, yelling at the others to get away. The Griever spun toward him as if he’d
heard the command, and it reared up on its bulbous back end. Two appendages emerged from the
creature’s sides and Thomas skidded to a halt—a new metal arm buzzed with a spinning saw, the other
with a nasty-looking claw, its four tips ending in blades.
“Minho, just let me distract it!” he yelled. “Get everyone out of here and have Brenda start leading
them to the maintenance room!”
Even as he said it, he watched a man trying to crawl out of the Griever’s way. Before the man could get
a few feet from it, a rod shot out of the creature and stabbed him in the chest, and he collapsed to the
floor, spitting blood.
Thomas ran in, raising his pipe, ready to beat his way past the appendages, find his way to the handle.
He’d almost made it when Teresa suddenly flashed in from his right, throwing her body onto the Griever.
It immediately collapsed into a ball, all its metal arms retracting to press her to its skin.
“Teresa!” Thomas screamed, pulling up short, not sure what to do.
She twisted around to look at him. “Just go! Get them out!” She started kicking and clawing, her hands
disappearing in the fatty flesh. So far she appeared to have escaped major injury.
Thomas inched in closer, gripping the pipe tighter, looking for an opening to attack without hitting her
instead.
Teresa’s eyes found him again. “Get out of—”
But her words were lost. The Griever had sucked her face into its blubbery skin and was pulling her
farther and farther in, suffocating her.
Thomas stared, frozen. Too many people had died. Too many. And he wasn’t going to stand there and
let her sacrifice herself to save him and the others. He couldn’t let that happen.
He screamed, and with all of the force he had, he ran and leaped into the air, smashing into the Griever.
The spinning saw flew toward his chest and he dodged to the left, swinging the pipe around as he did. It
connected, hard, and the saw broke off, flew through the air. Thomas heard it hit the ground and clatter
across the room. He used his balance to swing back, driving the pipe into the creature’s body, just to the
side of Teresa’s head. He strained with all he had to pull it back out, then drove it in again, then again.
An appendage with a claw clamped down on him, lifted him into the air and threw him. He slammed
onto the hard cement floor and rolled, jumped back to his feet. Teresa had gained some leverage on the
creature’s body, had gotten to her knees, was swatting at the Griever’s metal arms. Thomas charged in
again, jumped and clung to its fatty flesh. He used the pipe to whack at anything that came near him.
Teresa fought and struggled from below and the creature lurched to the side, then spun in a circle, flinging
her at least ten feet through the air before she landed.
Thomas grabbed hold of a metal arm, kicking away the claw as it swiped at him again. He planted his
feet against the blubber, pushed himself down the creature’s side and stretched. He plunged his arm into
the flabby flesh, felt for the handle. Something sliced his back, and pain ripped through his body. He kept
digging, searching for the handle—the deeper he went, the more the creature’s flesh felt like thick mud.
Finally his fingertips brushed hard plastic and he forced his hand forward another inch, grabbed the
handle, pulled with all his strength and spun his body off of the Griever. He looked up to see Teresa
batting back a pair of blades just inches from her face. And then a sudden silence filled the room as the
creature’s machine core sputtered and died. It collapsed into a flat, oblong pile of fat and gears, its
protruding appendages falling to the ground, limp.
Thomas rested his head on the floor and sucked in huge lungfuls of air. And then Teresa was by his
side, helping him roll over onto his back. He saw the pain on her face, the scratches, the flushed, sweaty
skin. But then somehow she smiled.
“Thanks, Tom,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” The respite from the battle felt too good to be true.
She helped pull him to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Thomas noticed that no one was coming through the chute anymore, and Minho had just ushered the last
few people through the double doors. Then he turned and faced Thomas and Teresa.
He bent over, hands on knees to catch his breath. “That’s all of them.” He stood straight with a groan.
“All that made it, anyway. Guess we know now why they let us in so easy—they planned to slice us to
bits with shuck Grievers if we came back out. Anyway, you guys need to push up to the front and help
Brenda lead the way.”
“She’s okay, then?” Thomas asked. The relief he felt was overwhelming.
“Yeah. She’s up there already.”
Thomas crawled to his feet, but didn’t take two steps before he stopped again. A deep rumble came
from somewhere, from everywhere. The room shook for a few seconds then stilled.
“We better hurry,” he said, and broke into a sprint, following the others.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 69

The wounded screamed. Rumbles of thunder and the sound of rock fracturing combined to make a horrible
chorus as the ground beneath Thomas continued to shake. The Maze was falling apart around them—they
had to get out.
“Run!” he yelled at Sonya.
She didn’t hesitate—she turned and disappeared into the corridors of the Maze. The people who’d
been standing in her line didn’t need to be told to follow.
Thomas stumbled, regained his balance, ran over to Minho. “Bring up the rear! Teresa, Brenda and I
need to get to the head of the pack!”
Minho nodded and gave him a push to get him going. Thomas glanced back in time to see the
Homestead split down the middle like a cracked acorn, half of its slipshod structure collapsing to the
ground in a cloud of splintered wood and dust. His gaze swept to the Map Room, its concrete walls
already crumbling to pieces.
There was no time to spare. He searched the chaos until he found Teresa. He grabbed his old friend
and she followed him to the gap into the Maze. Brenda was there, trying her best with Jorge to facilitate
who would go next, to prevent everyone from going at once in a stampede that would surely kill half of
them.
Another splintering crack sounded from above; Thomas looked up to see a section of wall falling
toward the ground by the fields. It exploded when it hit, luckily with no one underneath. With a sudden
jerk of horror he realized that the roof itself would eventually collapse.
“Go!” Brenda yelled at him. “I’m right behind you!”
Teresa grabbed his arm, yanked him forward, and the three of them ran past the jagged left edge of the
Door and into the Maze, weaving their way around the crowd of people heading in the same direction.
Thomas had to sprint to catch up with Sonya—he had no idea whether she’d been a Runner in Group B’s
Maze or whether she’d remember the layout as well as he did, if it was even the same.
The ground continued to tremble, and lurched with every distant explosion. People stumbled left and
right, fell, got back up, kept running. Thomas dodged and ducked as he ran, jumping over a fallen man at
one point. Rocks tumbled from the walls. He watched one hit a man in the head, knocking him to the
ground. People bent over his lifeless body, tried to lift him, but there was so much blood that Thomas
could tell it was already too late.
Thomas reached Sonya and ran past her, leading everyone turn after turn.
He knew they were getting close. He could only hope that the Maze had been the first place to get hit
and the rest of the compound was intact—that they’d still have time if they could just get out. The ground
suddenly jumped underneath him and an earsplitting crack pierced the air. He fell face-first, scrambled to
get up. A hundred feet or so in front of him, a section of the stone floor had shifted upward. As he
watched, half of it exploded, sending a rain of rocks and dust in all directions.
He didn’t stop. There was a narrow space between the protruding ground and the wall, and he ran
through it, Teresa and Brenda on his heels. But he knew the bottleneck would slow things down.
“Hurry!” he yelled over his shoulder. He slowed to watch and could see the desperation in everyone’s
eyes.
Sonya exited the gap, then paused to help funnel the others through, grabbing hands, pulling and
pushing. It went faster than Thomas could’ve hoped, and he continued toward the Cliff at full speed.
Through the Maze he went, the world shaking, stone crumbling and falling all around them, people
screaming and crying. There was nothing he could do but lead the survivors onward. A left and then a
right. Another right. Then they were into the long corridor that ended at the Cliff. Beyond its edge, he
could see the gray ceiling end at the black walls, the round hole of the exit—and a large crack shooting up
and across the once-false sky.
He turned to Sonya and the others. “Hurry! Move!”
As they approached, Thomas got a full view of the terror. Faces white and twisted in fear, people
falling to the ground, getting back up. He saw a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten, half dragging a
lady until she finally got her feet underneath her. A boulder the size of a small car toppled from high off
the wall and struck an older man, throwing him several yards before he hit the ground and collapsed in a
heap. Thomas was horror-struck but kept running, all the while yelling encouragement to everyone around
him.
Finally he reached the Cliff. The two boards were firmly in place, and Sonya gestured to Teresa to
cross the makeshift bridge and go through the old Griever hole. Then Brenda crossed with a line of
people trailing her.
Thomas waited on the edge of the Cliff, waving people on. It was agonizing work, almost unbearable,
to see the people so slowly making their way out of the Maze when the whole place seemed ready to
collapse on itself at any second. One by one they ran across the boards and dropped into the hole. Thomas
wondered if Teresa was sending them down the chute instead of the ladder to make it go more quickly.
“You go!” Sonya yelled to Thomas. “They need to know what to do once they’re down there.”
Thomas nodded, though he felt horrible for leaving—he’d done the same thing the first time he’d
escaped, abandoning the Gladers to fight while he’d punched in the code. But he knew she was right. He
took one last look at the quaking Maze—chunks of the ceiling torn loose and stone jutting from the ground
where it had once been smooth. He didn’t know how they’d all make it, and his heart ached for Minho,
Frypan, the others.
He squeezed into the flow of people and crossed the boards to the hole, then swerved away from the
crowd at the chute and ran to the ladder. He picked his way down the rungs as quickly as he could and
was relieved to see at the bottom that the damage hadn’t reached that section yet. Teresa was there,
helping people get up after they landed and telling them which direction to head.
“I’ll do this!” he yelled to her. “Get to the front of the pack!” He pointed through the double doors.
She was about to answer when she caught sight of something behind him. Her eyes widened in fear, and
Thomas spun around.
Several of the dusty Griever pods were opening, their top halves lifting upward on hinges like the lids
of coffins.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 68

Minho led the way this time, his shoulders squared as he ran, every inch of him showing the pride he’d
felt for those two years when he’d ruled the corridors of the Maze. Thomas was right behind him, craning
his neck to see the walls of ivy majestically rising toward the gray ceiling. It was a strange feeling, being
back in there after everything they’d been through since their escape.
No one said much as they ran toward the Glade. Thomas wondered what Brenda and Jorge must think
of the Maze—he knew it had to seem enormous. A beetle blade could never translate size like this back to
the observation rooms. And he could only imagine all the bad memories crashing back into Gally’s brain.
They turned the final corner that led to the wide corridor outside the East Door of the Glade. When
Thomas came to the section of wall where he’d tied Alby up in the ivy, he looked at the spot, could see
the mangled mess of the vines. All that effort to save the former leader of the Gladers, only to see him die
a few days later, his mind never fully recovered from the Changing.
A surge of anger burned like liquid heat in Thomas’s veins.
They reached the huge gap in the walls that made up the East Door, and Thomas caught his breath and
slowed. There were hundreds of people milling about the Glade. He was horrified that there were even a
few babies and small children scattered among the crowd. It took a moment for the murmurs to spread
across the sea of Immunes, but within seconds every eye was trained on the new arrivals and utter silence
fell upon the Glade.
“Did you know there were this many?” Minho asked Thomas.
There were people everywhere—certainly more than the Gladers had ever numbered. But what stole
Thomas’s words was seeing the Glade itself again. The crooked building they called the Homestead; the
pathetic copse of trees; the Bloodhouse barn; the fields, now only hardened weeds. The charred Map
Room, its metal door blackened and still hanging ajar. He could even see the Slammer from where he
stood. A bubble of emotion threatened to burst inside him.
“Hey, daydreamer,” Minho said, snapping his fingers. “I asked you a question.”
“Huh? Oh … There’s so many—they make the place look smaller than it ever did when we were here.”
It didn’t take long before their friends spotted them. Frypan. Clint, the Med-jack. Sonya and some other
girls from Group B. They all came running, and there was a short burst of reunions and hugs.
Frypan swatted Thomas on the arm. “Can you believe they put me back in this place? They wouldn’t
even let me cook, just sent us a bunch of packaged food in the Box three times a day. Kitchen doesn’t even
work—no electricity, nothing.”
Thomas laughed, the anger easing. “You think you were a lousy cook for fifty guys? Try feeding this
army.”
“Funny man, Thomas. You are a funny man. I’m glad to see you.” Then his eyes got big. “Gally?
Gally’s here? Gally’s alive?”
“Nice to see you, too,” the boy responded dryly.
Thomas patted Frypan on the back. “Long story. He’s a good guy now.”
Gally scoffed but didn’t respond.
Minho stepped up to them. “All right, happy time is over. How in the world are we going to do this,
dude?”
“Shouldn’t be too bad,” Thomas said. He actually hated the idea of trying to funnel all these people not
only through the Maze itself, but then all the way through the WICKED complex to the Flat Trans. Still, it
had to be done.
“Don’t feed me that klunk,” Minho said. “Your eyes don’t lie.”
Thomas smiled. “Well, we’ve certainly got a lot of people to fight with us.”
“Have you looked at these poor saps?” Minho asked, sounding disgusted. “Half of ’em are younger than
us, and the other half look like they haven’t so much as arm wrestled before, much less had a fistfight.”
“Sometimes numbers are all that matters,” Thomas responded.
He spotted Teresa and called her over, then found Brenda.
“What’s the plan?” Teresa asked.
If Teresa was really with them, this was when Thomas needed her—and all the memories she’d had
returned.
“Okay, let’s split them into groups,” he said to everyone. “There’s gotta be four or five hundred people,
so … groups of fifty. Then have one Glader or Group B person be in charge of them. Teresa, do you know
how to get to this maintenance room?”
He showed her the map and she nodded after examining it.
Thomas continued. “Then I’ll help move people along as you and Brenda lead the way. Everyone else
guide one of the groups. Except Minho, Jorge, and Gally. I think you guys should cover the rear.”
“Sounds good to me,” Minho said, shrugging. Impossibly, he looked bored.
“Whatever you say, muchacho,” Jorge added. Gally just nodded.
They spent the next twenty minutes dividing everyone into groups and getting them into long lines. They
paid special attention to keeping the groups even in terms of age and strength. The Immunes had no
problem following orders once they realized the new arrivals had come to help rescue them.
Once they were organized into groups, Thomas and his friends lined up in front of the East Door.
Thomas waved his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Listen up!” Thomas began. “WICKED is planning to use you for science. Your bodies—your brains.
They’ve been studying people for years, collecting data to develop a cure for the Flare. Now they want to
use you as well, but you deserve more than a life as lab rats. You are—we all are—the future, and the
future isn’t going to happen the way WICKED wants it to. That’s why we’re here. To get you out of this
place. We’ll be going through a bunch of buildings to find a Flat Trans that’ll take us somewhere safe. If
we’re attacked, we’re going to have to fight. Stick with your groups, and the strongest need to do
whatever it takes to protect the—”
Thomas’s last words were cut off by a violent crack—like the sound of stone splintering. And then,
nothing. Only an echo bouncing off the enormous walls.
“What was that?” Minho yelled, searching the sky for the source.
Thomas inspected the Glade, the walls of the Maze rising up behind him, but nothing was out of place.
He was just about to speak when another crack sounded, then another. A thunderous din of rumbling
crossed the Glade, beginning low and increasing in depth and volume. The ground started to tremble, and
it seemed as if the world was going to fall apart.
People turned in circles, looking for the source of the noise, and Thomas could tell panic was
spreading. He’d lose control soon. The ground shook more violently; the sounds amplified—thunder and
grinding rock—and now screams erupted from the mass of people standing in front of him.
Suddenly it dawned on Thomas. “The explosives.”
“What?” Minho shouted at him.
Thomas looked at his friend. “The Right Arm!”
A deafening roar shook the Glade, and Thomas spun around to look up. A large portion of the wall to
the left of the East Door had broken loose, great chunks of stone flying everywhere. A huge section
seemed to hover at an impossible angle, and then it fell, toppling toward the ground.
Thomas didn’t have time to shout a warning before the massive piece of rock landed on a group of
people, crushing them as it broke in half. He stood for a moment, speechless as blood oozed out from the
edges and pooled on the stone floor.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 67

Thomas showed them the letter he’d discovered next to him in the recovery room, and it only took a few
moments for them all to agree—even Teresa and Gally—to abandon the Right Arm and set off on their
own. Set off for the Maze.
Brenda looked at Thomas’s map and said she knew exactly how to get there. She gave him a knife and
he gripped it tightly in his right hand, wondering if his survival would come down to one thin blade. They
slipped out of the side room and made for the double doors while Vince and the others yelled at them,
called them crazy, told them they’d get killed within minutes. Thomas ignored every word.
The door was still cracked, and Thomas was the first one through. He crouched, ready for an attack, but
the hall was empty. The others fell in behind him, and he decided to trade stealth for speed, sprinting
down that first long hallway. The gloomy light made the place feel haunted, as if the spirits of all the
people WICKED had let die were there waiting in the corners and alcoves. But to Thomas, it felt like they
were on his side.
With Brenda pointing the way, they turned a corner, went down a flight of stairs. Took a shortcut
through an old storage room, down another long hallway. Down more stairs. A right and then a left.
Thomas kept a fast pace, constantly scanning for danger. He never paused, never stopped to catch his
breath, never doubted Brenda’s directions. He was a Runner again, and despite everything, it felt good.
They approached the end of one hallway and turned to the right. Thomas had only gone three more steps
when out of nowhere someone was on top of him, gripping his shoulders and throwing him to the ground.
Thomas fell and rolled, pushing to get the person off of him. He heard shouts and the sounds of others
struggling. It was dark and Thomas could barely see who he was fighting, but he punched and kicked,
slashed with his knife, felt it connect and rip something. A woman screamed. A fist smacked into his right
cheek, something hard nailed him in the upper thigh.
Thomas paused to brace himself, then pushed with all his strength. His attacker slammed into the wall,
then jumped back on top of him again. They rolled, bumped into another pair of people fighting. It took
every bit of his concentration to hold on to the knife, and he kept slashing, but it was hard being so close
to his assailant. He jabbed with his left fist, hit under his attacker’s chin, then used the moment of reprieve
to slam his knife into the person’s stomach. Another scream—again a woman, and definitely the person
who was attacking him. He pushed her off for good.
Thomas stood, looked around to see who he could help. In the bare light, he saw Minho straddling a
man, whaling on him, the guy showing no resistance. Brenda and Jorge had teamed up on another guard,
and just as Thomas looked the man scrambled to his feet and fled. Teresa, Harriet, and Aris were leaning
against a wall, catching their breath. They’d all survived. They needed to run.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Minho, leave him!”
His friend threw another couple of punches for good measure, then stood up, giving his guy one last
kick. “I’m done. We can go.”
And the group turned and kept running.
They ran down another long flight of stairs and stumbled one by one into the room at the bottom. Thomas
froze in shock when he realized where he was. It was the chamber that housed the Griever pods, the room
they’d found themselves in after they escaped from the Maze. The observation room windows were still
shattered—the glass lay in shards all over the floor. The forty or so oblong pods where the Grievers
rested and charged looked like they’d been sealed closed since the Gladers had come through weeks
earlier. A layer of dust dulled what had been a shiny white surface the last time Thomas had seen them.
He knew that as a member of WICKED he’d spent countless hours and days in this place as they’d
worked on creating the Maze, and he felt the shame of it all over again.
Brenda pointed out the ladder that led up to where they needed to go. Thomas shuddered at the memory
of going down the slimy Griever chute during their escape—they could’ve just climbed down a ladder.
“Why isn’t anybody here?” Minho asked. He turned in a circle, searching the place. “If they’re holding
people in there, why no guards?”
Thomas thought about it. “Who needs soldiers to keep them in when you have the Maze doing the job
for you? It took us long enough to figure a way out.”
“I don’t know,” Minho said. “Something’s fishy about it.”
Thomas shrugged. “Well, sitting here isn’t gonna help. Unless you’ve got something useful, let’s get up
there and start bringing them out.”
“Useful?” Minho repeated. “I got nothin’.”
“Then up we go.”
Thomas climbed the ladder and pulled himself out into another familiar room—the one with the input
stations where he had typed the code words to shut down the Grievers. Chuck had been there, and he’d
been terrified but brave. And not even an hour after that he was dead. The pain of losing his friend filled
Thomas’s chest once again.
“Home, sweet home,” Minho muttered. He was pointing at a round hole above them. It was the hole that
exited to the Cliff. Back when the Maze was fully operational, holotech had been used to conceal it, to
make it look like part of the fake, endless sky beyond the stone edge of the drop-off. It was all turned off
now, of course, and Thomas could see the walls of the Maze through the opening. A stepladder had been
placed directly under it.
“I can’t believe we’re back here,” Teresa said, moving to stand beside Thomas. Her voice sounded
haunted, and it echoed how he felt inside.
And for some reason, with that simple statement, Thomas realized that standing there, the two of them
were finally on equal ground. Trying to save lives, trying to make up for what they’d done to help start it
all. He wanted to believe that with every ounce of his being.
He turned to look at her. “Crazy, huh?”
She smiled for the first time since … he couldn’t remember. “Crazy.”
There was so much Thomas still didn’t remember—about himself, about her—but she was here,
helping, and that was all he could ask for.
“Don’t you think we better get up there?” Brenda asked.
“Yeah.” Thomas nodded. “We better.”
He went last. After the others climbed through, he scaled the ladder, pushed himself up onto the ledge,
then walked over two boards that had been placed across the gap to the Maze’s stone floor at the Cliff
edge. Below him was just a black-walled work area that had always lookedlike an endless drop before.
He looked back up at the Maze and had to pause to take it all in.
Where the sky had once shone blue and bright, there was now only the dull gray ceiling. The holotech
off the side of the Cliff had been completely shut down, and the once-vertigo-inducing view had been
transformed into simple black stucco. But seeing the massive ivy-covered walls leading away from the
Cliff took his breath away. Those had been towering even without the help of illusion, and now they rose
above him like ancient monoliths, green and gray and cracked. As if they’d stand there for a thousand
years, enormous tombstones marking the death of so many.
He was back.
CHAPTER

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 66

Everything came into focus at that moment for Thomas. There’d been a fanaticism about Vince that hadn’t
fully hit him until now. And there was the way the Right Arm had treated Thomas and his friends in the
van after taking them hostage at the Berg. Also, why did they have all these explosives but no real
conventional weapons? It didn’t make sense unless their goal was to destroy, not take over. The Right
Arm wasn’t exactly on the same page as he was. Maybe they thought their motives were pure, but Thomas
was beginning to realize that the organization had a darker purpose.
He needed to step carefully. All that mattered at that moment was saving his friends and finding and
releasing the others who’d been captured.
The lady’s voice interrupted Thomas’s thoughts. “You’re doing a lot of heavy thinking in that noggin of
yours.”
“Yeah … sorry. When do you think they’re going to set off the explosives?”
“Pretty soon, I suppose. They’ve been planting for hours. They want them all to detonate at the same
time, but I’m guessing we aren’t quite that skilled.”
“What about all the people inside? What about the ones we came to rescue?”
The two of them looked at each other, then shrugged. “Vince hopes to get everyone out.”
“He hopes? What does that mean?”
“He hopes.”
“I need to talk to him.” What Thomas really wanted was to find Minho and Brenda. Right Arm or no
Right Arm, he knew what they had to do: get to the Maze and lead everyone out of there to the Flat Trans.
The lady pointed to the hole in the side of the building. “Just through there a ways is an area they’ve
pretty much taken over. You’ll probably find Vince there. Careful, though. WICKED’s got guards hiding
all over the place. And they’re vicious little buggers.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Thomas turned, eager to get inside. The hole loomed over him, dusty
darkness waiting within. There were no more alarms or flashing red lights. He stepped through.
At first Thomas didn’t see or hear anything. He walked on in silence, careful of what might be around
each turn. The lights got brighter the farther he walked, and he finally spotted a door at the end of the
hallway that had been propped open. He jogged to it and peered in to see a large room with tables
scattered across the floor set on their sides like shields. Several people crouched behind them.
The people were watching a large set of double doors on the other side of the room, and no one noticed
him as he squeezed against the doorframe, hiding most of his body from the inside. He leaned his head in
to get a better look. He spotted Vince and Gally behind one of the tables, but didn’t recognize anyone else.
On the far left side of the room, there was a small office, and he could tell that at least nine or ten people
were huddled inside. He strained to see, but he couldn’t make out any faces.
“Hey!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “Hey! Gally!”
The boy turned immediately, but had to glance around a few seconds before he spotted Thomas. Gally
squinted, as though he thought his eyes might be tricking him.
Thomas waved to make sure he saw him and Gally motioned for him to come over.
Thomas looked around again to make sure it was safe; then he crouched down, ran over to the table and
collapsed on the ground next to his old nemesis. He had so many questions he didn’t know where to begin.
“What happened?” Gally asked him. “What did they do to you?”
Vince shot him a glare but didn’t say anything.
Thomas didn’t know how to answer. “They … ran a few tests. Look, I found out where they’re keeping
the Immunes. You can’t blow the place up until we get them out.”
“Then go get ’em,” Vince said. “We’ve got a one-shot deal here, and I’m not going to waste it.”
“You brought some of those people here!” Thomas looked to Gally for support, but he only got a shrug
in response.
Thomas was on his own.
“Where’s Brenda, Minho, everyone else?” he asked.
Gally nodded toward the side room. “Those guys are all in there, said they wouldn’t do anything until
you came back.”
Thomas suddenly felt sorry for the scarred boy beside him. “Come with me, Gally. Let these guys do
whatever they want, but come help us. Don’t you wish someone had done the same for us when we were
in the Maze?”
Vince spun on them. “Don’t even think about it,” he barked. “Thomas, you knew coming in here what
our goals were. If you abandon us now I’ll consider you a turncoat. You’ll be a target.”
Thomas kept his focus on Gally. He saw a sadness in the boy’s eyes that made his heart break. And he
also saw something he’d never seen there before: trust. Genuine trust.
“Come with us,” Thomas said.
A smile formed on his old enemy’s face and he responded in a way Thomas never would have
expected.
“Okay.”
Thomas didn’t wait for Vince to react. He grabbed Gally’s arm and they scooted away from the table
together, then ran to the office and slipped inside.
Minho was the first to him, pulling him into a bear hug as Gally watched awkwardly from the side.
Then the others were there, Minho. Brenda. Jorge. Teresa. Even Aris. Thomas almost got dizzy from the
quick exchange of hugs and words of relief and welcome. He was especially thrilled to see Brenda, and
he held on to her longer than anyone else. But as good as it felt, he knew they didn’t have time for it.
He pulled away. “I can’t explain everything right now. We have to go find the Immunes WICKED took,
then find this back-door Flat Trans I learned about—and we need to hurry before the Right Arm blows
this place up.”
“Where are the Immunes?” Brenda asked.
“Yeah, what did you learn?” Minho added.
Thomas never thought he’d say what he had to say next. “We need to go back to the Maze

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 65

Janson pulled out a long, slender knife, held it up and inspected it with narrowed eyes. “Let me tell you
something, kid. I’ve never thought of myself as a violent man, but you and your friends sure have driven
me to the brink. My patience is stretched to a minimum, but I’m going to show restraint. Unlike you, I think
about more than myself. I’m working to save people, and I will finish this project.”
Thomas forced his every inch to relax, to be still. Struggling hadn’t accomplished a thing, and he
needed to save his energy for when the right opportunity presented itself. It was clear that the Rat Man had
lost it, and judging from that blade, he was determined to get Thomas back in the operating room at any
cost.
“That’s a good boy. No need to fight this. You should be proud. It will be you and your mind that save
the world, Thomas.”
The man holding Thomas down—a squat guy with black hair—spoke then. “I’m going to let go of your
mouth now, boy. Let out one peep and A.D. Janson’s gonna give you a nice poke with that blade of his.
Understand? We want you alive, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a few war wounds.”
Thomas nodded as calmly as he could and the man let go of him and sat back. “Smart boy.”
It was Thomas’s cue to go for it. He swung his leg violently to his right and kicked Janson in the face.
The man’s head jerked backward and his body crashed to the ground. The dark-haired man moved to
tackle Thomas, but Thomas squirmed out from under him and went after Janson again, this time kicking the
hand that held the knife. It flew out of his grasp, skipping across the ground until it smacked into the side
of the building.
Thomas turned his attention to the blade, and that was all the squat man needed. He lunged at Thomas,
who landed on his back on top of Janson. Janson squirmed beneath them as they wrestled, and Thomas felt
a desperation seize him, adrenaline exploding through his body. He screamed and pushed, kicked, fought
his way out from between the two men. Scrabbling and clawing with his hands and feet, he got loose and
dove toward the building for the knife. He landed next to it, grabbed it and spun around, expecting an
immediate attack. Both men were just getting to their feet, obviously stunned by his sudden burst of
strength.
Thomas stood up as well, holding the knife out in front of him. “Just let me go. Just walk away and let
me go. I swear if you come after me I’m gonna go crazy with this thing and won’t stop stabbing till you’re
both dead. I swear it.”
“It’s two against one, kid,” Janson said. “I don’t care if you have a knife.”
“You’ve seen what I can do,” Thomas replied, trying to sound as dangerous as he felt. “You’ve
watched me in the Maze and the Scorch.” He almost wanted to laugh at the irony. They had made him into
a killer … to save people?
The short guy scoffed. “If you think we’re—”
Thomas reared back and threw the knife as he’d seen Gally do, handle over blade. It cartwheeled
through the space between them and slammed into the man’s neck. There was no blood at first, but he
reached up, shock transforming his face, and clawed at the knife stuck in him. That was when the blood
came, spurting in jets in time with his heartbeat. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak he
collapsed to his knees.
“You little …,” Janson whispered, his eyes wide with horror as he stared at his colleague.
Thomas was shocked by what he’d done, and froze to the spot, but the moment broke as Janson turned
his head to look back at him. Thomas burst into a sprint out of the courtyard, around the corner of the
building. He had to get back to the hole in the building, had to get back inside.
“Thomas!” Janson shouted; Thomas heard his footsteps in pursuit. “Get back here! You have no idea
what you’re doing!”
Thomas didn’t even pause. He passed the bush he’d hidden behind and ran full-bore toward the gaping
hole in the side of the building. A man and a woman still sat nearby, crouched on the ground so that their
backs touched. Upon seeing Thomas, they both clambered to their feet.
“I’m Thomas!” he yelled at them just as they opened their mouths to ask questions. “I’m on your side!”
They exchanged a look, then returned their attention to Thomas just as he skidded to a stop in front of
them. Heaving for breath, he turned to look back, saw the shadowed figure of Janson running toward them,
maybe fifty feet away.
“They’ve been looking all over for you,” the male guard said. “But you’re supposed to be in there.” He
jabbed a finger at the hole.
“Where is everybody? Where’s Vince?” Thomas panted.
And as he spoke he knew Janson was still tearing after him. Thomas turned to face the Rat Man, whose
face was screwed up in unnatural rage. It was a look Thomas had seen before. It was the same insane
anger he’d seen in Newt. The Rat Man had the Flare.
Janson spoke between heavy breaths. “That boy … is property … of WICKED. Hand him over.”
The lady didn’t flinch. “WICKED doesn’t mean a pile of goose crap to me, old man. If I were you, I’d
get lost, and I wouldn’t go back inside, either. Bad things are about to happen to your friends in there.”
The Rat Man didn’t respond, just kept panting, his eyes darting between Thomas and the others. Finally,
he started to back away, slowly. “You people don’t get it. Your self-righteous arrogance will be the end
of everything. I hope you can live with that while you rot in hell.”
Then he turned and ran away, disappearing into the gloom.
“What’d you do to piss him off?” the lady asked.
Thomas tried to catch his breath. “Long story. I need to find Vince, or whoever’s in charge. I need to
find my friends.”
“Calm down there, kid,” the man responded. “Things are kind of quiet right now. People getting in
position, planting, that sort of thing.”
“Planting?” Thomas asked.
“Planting.”
“What does that mean?”
“Explosives, you idiot. We’re about to bring this whole building down. Show old WICKED that we
mean serious business.”

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 64

There were two mazes on the map, of course—the one for Group A and the one for Group B. Both
must’ve been built deep into the bedrock that lay under the main buildings of WICKED’s headquarters.
Thomas couldn’t tell which one he’d been directed to go to, but either way he was going back to the
Maze. With a sickening dread, he started running toward Chancellor Paige’s tunnel.
He followed the map and ran down hallway after hallway until he got to a long set of stairs that
descended into a basement. The path took him through empty rooms and then, finally, to a small door that
opened to a tunnel. The tunnel was dark but, Thomas was relieved to see, not completely black. Several
uncovered lightbulbs hung from the ceiling as he ran along the narrow corridor. After about two hundred
feet he came to a ladder that had been marked on the map. Up he went, and at the top there was a round
metal door with a wheel handle that reminded him of the entrance to the Map Room in the Glade.
He spun the handle and pushed with all his strength. A dim light came in as Thomas forced the door up,
and as it flipped open on its hinges, a great gust of cold air blew over him. He heaved himself out and
onto the ground, next to a big rock in the barren, snow-covered land between the forest and WICKED
headquarters.
He carefully hefted the lid to the tunnel up and over to close it again, then crouched behind the stone.
He didn’t notice any movement, but the night was too dark to see very well. He looked up into the sky,
and when he saw the same heavy gray clouds he’d noticed when he’d reached the complex, he realized
that he had no idea how much time had passed since then. Had he been in the building for only a few
hours, or had a full night and day come and gone?
Chancellor Paige’s note said that the Right Arm had made their own entrance into the buildings,
probably with the explosions Thomas had heard earlier, and that was where he needed to go first. He saw
the wisdom of connecting with the group—there was safety in numbers—and he had to let them know
where the Immunes were hidden. Judging from the map, the best option Thomas had was to run to the
cluster of buildings farthest from where he’d come out and search the area.
He went for it, edging around the boulder and sprinting for the closest building. He crouched as he ran,
trying to stay as low as possible. Lightning streaked through the sky; it illuminated the cement of the
complex and flashed off the white snow. Thunder followed quickly, rumbling across the land and rattling
deep in his chest.
He reached the first building and pushed through the line of ragged bushes up against the wall. He
edged along the side of the structure but found nothing. He stopped when he came to the first corner and
peered around it—in the space between buildings were a series of courtyards. But he still saw no way
inside.
He skirted the next two buildings, but as he approached the fourth one, he heard voices and
immediately dropped to the ground. As quietly as he could, he scooted along the frozen dirt toward an
overgrown bush, then peeked around it to search for the source of the noise.
There it was. Rubble lay strewn across the yard in huge heaps, and behind them a massive hole had
been blasted in the side of the building. Which meant that the explosion had originated from the inside. A
faint light shone from the opening, casting broken shadows on the ground. Sitting on the edge of one of
those shadows were two people wearing civilian clothes. The Right Arm.
Thomas had started to stand up when an icy hand gripped his mouth tightly and he was jerked
backward. Another arm wrapped around his chest and pulled him, dragging him along the ground; his feet
burrowed through the snow. Thomas kicked out, struggling to free himself, but the person was too strong.
They turned the corner of the building into another small courtyard, and Thomas was thrown to the
ground on his stomach. His captor flopped him onto his back and clamped a hand again over Thomas’s
mouth. It was a man he didn’t recognize. Another figure crouched over him as well.
Janson.
“I’m very disappointed,” the Rat Man said. “Looks like not everyone in my organization is on the same
team after all.”
Thomas could do nothing but struggle against the person pinning him to the ground.
Janson sighed. “I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 63

“Thomas, I have faith in you,” a woman said to him as he fought to regain consciousness. He didn’t
recognize the voice, but it was somehow soft and authoritative at the same time. He continued struggling,
heard himself moan, felt himself shifting in his bed.
Finally, he opened his eyes. Blinking against the brightness of the overhead lights, he noticed a door
closing behind whoever had been there to wake him.
“Wait,” he said, but it came out as nothing more than a gravelly whisper.
By force of will he got his elbows under him and pushed himself up. He was alone in the room, the
only sounds distant shouts and an occasional rumble like thunder. His mind began to clear, and he realized
that other than a little grogginess, he felt fine. Which meant that, unless the miracles of science had really
taken a leap, he also still had his brain.
A manila folder on the table beside his bed caught his attention. In big red letters, Thomas had been
written across the front of it. He swung his legs around to sit up on the edge of the mattress and grabbed
the folder.
There were two pieces of paper inside. The first was a map of the WICKED complex, with black
marker tracing several routes through the building. He quickly scanned the second: it was a letter,
addressed to him and signed by Chancellor Paige. He put the map down and started to read the letter from
the beginning.
Dear Thomas,
It’s my belief that the Trials are over. We have more than enough data to create a blueprint. My
associates disagree with me on this matter, but I was able to stop this procedure and save your life.
It’s now our task to work with the data we already have and build a cure for the Flare. Your
participation, and that of the other subjects, is no longer necessary.
You now have a great task ahead of you. When I became chancellor I realized the importance of
creating a back door of sorts to this building. I placed this back door in an unused maintenance room.
I’m asking you to remove yourself, your friends, and the considerable number of Immunes we’ve
gathered. Time is of the essence, as I’m sure you’re aware.
There are three paths marked on the map I’ve enclosed. The first shows you how to leave this
building through a tunnel—once outside, you’ll be able to find where the Right Arm has made their
own entrance to another building. There, you can join them. The second route will show you how to
get to the Immunes. The third shows you how to find the back door. It’s a Flat Trans that will
transport you to what I hope will be a new life. Take them all and leave.
Ava Paige, Chancellor
Thomas stared at the paper, his mind in a spin. Another rumble sounded far away and jarred him back
to reality. He trusted Brenda, and she trusted the chancellor. All he could do now was move.
He folded the letter and the map and stuffed them in his back pocket, then slowly stood up. Surprised at
how quickly his strength had returned, he ran to the door. A peek out into the hallway showed that it was
empty. He slipped out, and just as he did, two people came running by from behind. They didn’t so much
as glance at him, and Thomas realized that the chaos brought about by the Right Arm’s attack might be the
thing that ended up saving him.
He pulled out the map and studied it carefully, following the black line that led to the tunnel. It
wouldn’t take long at all to get to it. He memorized the path and started jogging down the hall, scanning
the two other paths Chancellor Paige had marked on the map as he went.
He had only gone a few yards when he stopped, stunned by what he was seeing. He pulled the map
closer to make sure—maybe he wasn’t reading it right. But there was no mistaking what it showed.
WICKED had hidden the Immunes in the Maze

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 62

For a long time, Thomas knew only darkness. The break in the void of his thoughts was just a hairline
crack—only wide enough to let him know about the void itself. Somewhere on the edge of it all, he knew
that he was supposed to be asleep, kept alive only so they could inspect his brain. Take it apart, probably
slice by slice.
So he wasn’t dead yet.
At some point as he floated in this confusing mass of blackness, he heard a voice. Calling his name.
After hearing Thomas several times, he finally decided to go after it, find it. He made himself move
toward the voice.
Toward his name.

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 61

Thomas’s chest constricted and his throat seemed to swell. Everything was on the line, but he was frozen.
Janson barked orders. “Dr. Christensen, quickly. Who knows what these people are up to, but we can’t
waste a second now. I’ll go tell operating personnel to stand their ground, no matter what.”
“Wait,” Thomas finally croaked. “I don’t know if I can do this.” The words felt empty—he knew they
wouldn’t stop at this point.
Janson’s face burned red. Instead of answering Thomas, he turned to the doctor. “Do whatever it takes
to open this kid up.”
Just as Thomas opened his mouth to speak, something sharp pricked his arm, sending jolts of heat
through his body, and he went limp, collapsing onto the gurney. From his neck down he was numb, and
terror flared inside him. Dr. Christensen leaned over him and passed a spent syringe to a nurse.
“I’m really sorry, Thomas. We have to do this.”
The doctor and a nurse pushed him farther onto the bed, hoisting his legs up so that he lay flat on his
back. Thomas could move his head slightly from side to side, but that was all. The sudden turn of events
overwhelmed him as he realized the implications. He was about to die. Unless somehow the Right Arm
got to him immediately, he was going to die.
Janson stepped into his view. Nodding approvingly, the Rat Man patted the doctor on the shoulder.
“Get it done.” Then he turned and disappeared; Thomas could hear someone shouting in the hallway
before the door closed.
“I just need to run a few tests,” Dr. Christensen explained. “Then we’ll get you into the operating
room.” He turned to fiddle with some instruments behind him.
It felt like the man spoke to him from a hundred miles away. Thomas lay helpless, his mind spinning as
the doctor took blood, measured his skull. The man worked in silence, barely blinking. But the beads of
sweat on his forehead showed that he was racing against who-knew-what. Did he have an hour to get this
done? Several hours?
Thomas closed his eyes. He wondered if the weapons-disabling device had done its job. Wondered if
anyone would find him. Then he realized, did he even want them to? Was it really possible that WICKED
almost had a cure? He forced himself to breathe evenly, focus on trying to move his limbs. But nothing
happened.
The doctor suddenly straightened and grinned at Thomas. “I believe we’re ready. We’ll wheel you to
the operating room now.”
The man walked through the door and Thomas’s gurney was pushed into the hallway. Unable to move,
he lay staring up at the lights in the ceiling flashing by as he rolled down the corridor. He finally had to
close his eyes.
They’d put him to sleep. The world would fade. And he’d be dead.
He snapped his eyes open again. Closed them. His heart pounded; his hands grew sweaty and he
realized he was gripping the sheets on the gurney in two balled fists. Movement was coming back, slowly.
Eyes open again. The lights zooming by. Another turn, then another. Despair threatened to squeeze the life
out of Thomas before the doctors could do it.
“I …,” he started to say, but nothing else came out.
“What?” Christensen asked, peering down at him.
Thomas struggled to speak, but before he could force any words out a thunderous boom rattled the
hallway and the doctor tripped, his weight pushing the gurney forward as he scrambled to stop himself
from falling. The bed shot to the right and crashed into the wall, then rebounded and spun until it hit the
other side. Thomas tried to move, but he was still paralyzed, helpless. He thought of Chuck and Newt, and
a sadness like none he’d ever known seized his heart.
Someone screamed from the direction of the explosion. Shouts followed; then everything grew silent
again, and the doctor was up on his feet, hurrying to the gurney, straightening it out, pushing it again,
banging through a set of swinging doors. A host of people dressed in scrubs awaited them in a white
operating room.
Christensen started barking orders. “We have to hurry! Everyone, get to your places. Lisa, get him fully
sedated. Now!”
A short lady responded. “We haven’t done all the prep—”
“It doesn’t matter! As far as we know the whole building’s gonna burn down.”
He placed the gurney next to an operating table; several sets of hands were lifting Thomas and moving
him over before the gurney even came to a complete stop. He settled on his back, strained to take in the
beehive buzz of doctors and nurses, at least nine or ten of them. He felt a prick in his arm, glanced down
to see the short lady inserting an IV into his vein. All the while the only movement he could manage was
in his hands.
Lights were placed in position just above him. Other things were stuck into his body in various places;
monitors started beeping; there was the hum of a machine; people talking over other people; the room was
filled with the scurry of movement, like an orchestrated dance.
And the lights, so bright. The room spinning, though he lay perfectly still. The rising terror of what they
were doing to him. Knowing it was ending, right here, right now.
“I hope it works,” he finally managed to get out.
A few seconds later, the drugs finally took him and it all went away

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 60

Thomas followed the doctors, but his mind was racing. He didn’t know what to do. There was no way to
communicate with the Right Arm, and he’d lost his ability to speak inside Teresa’s—or Aris’s—mind.
They turned a couple of corners, and the zigzagging made Thomas think of the Maze. He almost wished
he were back there—things were so much simpler then.
“There’s a room right up here on the left,” Janson explained. “I already put a typing pad in there if
you’d like to leave any messages for your friends. I’ll figure out a way to deliver them.”
“I’ll make sure you get something to eat, also,” Dr. Wright called from behind.
Their politeness annoyed Thomas. He remembered stories of killers being put to death in the old days.
They always got a last meal, too. As fancy as they wanted it.
“I want steak,” he said, stopping to look at her. “And shrimp. And lobster. And pancakes. And a candy
bar.”
“I’m sorry—you’ll have to settle for a couple of sandwiches.”
Thomas sighed. “Figures.”
Thomas sat in a soft chair, staring at the typing pad on the small table in front of him. He had no intention
of writing a note to anyone, but he didn’t know what else to do. The situation had proven to be way more
complicated than he could’ve imagined. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but the notion that they’d
dissect him alive had never crossed his mind. He’d figured whatever they did, he could just play along
until the Right Arm showed up.
But there wouldn’t be any coming back from playing along now.
He finally typed goodbye messages to Minho and Brenda just in case he ended up dead; then he rested
his head in his arms until the food arrived. He ate slowly, then rested again. He could only hope his
friends showed up in time. Either way, he certainly wouldn’t leave this room until he absolutely had to.
He dozed as he waited, the minutes stretching on.
A knock at the door startled him awake.
“Thomas?” came the muffled voice of Janson. “We really need to get things started.”
The words lit a fire of panic in Thomas. “I’m … not ready yet.” He knew he sounded ridiculous.
After a long pause, Janson said, “I’m afraid we don’t have much of a choice.”
“But …,” Thomas began, but before he could pull his thoughts together, the door opened and Janson
stepped inside.
“Thomas—waiting will only make it worse. We need to go.”
Thomas didn’t know what to do. He was surprised that they’d been so calm with him so far. He
realized he’d pushed it to the limit and he’d run out of time. He took a deep breath.
“Let’s get it over with.”
The Rat Man smiled. “Follow me.”
Janson led Thomas to a prep room with a wheeled bed surrounded by all kinds of monitors and several
nurses. Dr. Christensen was there, dressed from head to toe in scrubs, a surgical mask already in place on
his face. Thomas could only see his eyes, but he looked eager to get started.
“So that’s it?” Thomas asked. A surge of panic raced through his gut, and it felt as if something were
trying to chew through his chest. “Time to cut me open?”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor answered. “But we need to begin.”
The Rat Man was just about to speak again when a blaring alarm erupted throughout the building.
Thomas’s heart lurched and relief flooded his system. It had to be the Right Arm.
The door swung open and Thomas turned just in time to see a frantic-looking woman announce, “A
Berg arrived with a delivery, but it was a trick to get people inside—they’re trying to take over the main
building this very second.”
Janson’s response almost stopped Thomas’s heart.
“Looks like we need to hurry and get this procedure started. Christensen, put him under

Categories: The Death Cure

The Death Cure - Chapter 59

Thomas’s heartbeat sped up to rattling thumps in his chest. He knew that the man wasn’t testing him.
They’d gone as far as they could in analyzing reactions and brain patterns. Now they’d chosen the person
best suited to … take apart in their effort to build the cure.
Suddenly, the Right Arm couldn’t get there fast enough.
“My brain?” he forced himself to repeat.
“Yes,” Dr. Christensen answered. “The Final Candidate holds the missing piece to complete the data
for the blueprint. But we had no way to tell until we monitored the patterns against the Variables.
Vivisection will give us our final data, your systems functioning properly while we do it. Not that you’ll
feel any pain—we’ll heavily sedate you until …”
He didn’t need to finish. His words drifted off into silence and the three WICKED scientists awaited
Thomas’s response. But he couldn’t speak. He’d faced death countless times over what he could
remember of his life, yet he’d always done so in the desperate hope to survive, doing anything in his
power to last one more day. But this was different. He didn’t just have to last through some trial until his
rescuers came. This was something he wouldn’t come back from. This was the end if they didn’t come.
He had a random, horrible thought: did Teresa know about this?
It surprised him how deeply the idea hurt.
“Thomas?” Janson asked, breaking Thomas’s train of thought. “I know this must come as quite a shock
to you. I need you to understand that this is not a test. This is not a Variable and I’m not lying to you. We
think we can complete the blueprint for the cure by analyzing your brain tissue and how, combined with
the patterns we’ve collected, its physical makeup allows it to resist the Flare virus’s power. The Trials
were all created so we wouldn’t have to just cut everyone open. Our whole aim was to save lives, not
waste them.”
“We’ve been collecting and analyzing the patterns for years, and you’ve been the strongest by far in
your reactions to the Variables,” Dr. Wright continued. “We’ve known for a long time—and it was the
highest priority to keep this from the subjects—that in the end we’d have to choose the best candidate for
this last procedure.”
Dr. Christensen went on to outline the process while Thomas listened in numb silence. “You have to be
alive but not awake. We’ll sedate you and numb the area of the incision, but there aren’t any nerves in the
brain so it’s a relatively painless process. Unfortunately, you won’t recover from our neural explorations
—the procedure is fatal. But the results will be invaluable.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” Thomas asked. All he could see was Newt’s final moments. What if Thomas
could prevent that horrible death for countless others?
The Psych’s eyes flickered with discomfort. “Then we’ll keep … working at it. But we have every
confidence—”
Thomas cut her off, unable to help himself. “But you don’t, do you? You’ve been paying people to steal
more immune … subjects”—he said the word with vicious spite—“so you can start all over again.”
No one answered at first. Then Janson said, “We will do whatever it takes to find a cure. With as little
loss of life as possible. Nothing else needs to be said on the matter.”
“Why are we even talking?” Thomas asked. “Why not just grab me and tie me down, rip my brain out?”
Dr. Christensen answered. “Because you’re our Final Candidate. You were part of the bridge between
our founders and the current staff. We’re trying to show you the respect you deserve. It’s our hope that
you’ll make the choice yourself.”
“Thomas, do you need a minute?” Dr. Wright asked. “I know this is difficult, and I assure you we don’t
take it lightly. What we’re asking for is a huge sacrifice. Will you donate your brain to science? Will you
allow us to put the final pieces of the puzzle together? Take another step toward a cure for the good of the
human race?”
Thomas didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe the turn of events. After everything, could it be
true that they only needed one more death?
The Right Arm was coming. Newt’s image seared across his mind.
“I need to be alone,” he finally got out. “Please.” For the first time, a part of him actually wanted to
give in, let them do this. Even if there was only a small chance that it would work.
“You’ll be doing the right thing,” Dr. Christensen said. “And don’t worry. You’re not going to feel an
ounce of pain.”
Thomas didn’t want to hear another word. “I just need some time alone before all this begins.”
“Fair enough,” Janson said, standing up. “We’ll accompany you to the medical facilities and get you in
a private room for a while. Though we need to get things started soon.”
Thomas leaned forward and put his head in his hands, staring at the floor. The plan he’d concocted with
the Right Arm suddenly seemed foolish beyond measure. Even if he could escape this group—even if he
wanted to now—how would he survive until his friends arrived?
“Thomas?” Dr. Wright asked, reaching out to put a hand on his back. “Are you okay? Do you have any
more questions?”
Thomas sat up, brushed her hand away. “Just … let’s go where you said.”
The air suddenly seemed to go out of Janson’s office and Thomas’s chest tightened. He stood and
walked to the door, opened it and stepped out into the hallway. It was all too much

Categories: The Death Cure