And so they'd gone back.

A somber mood rested over the Glade, an easy thing to happen when all is gray. The dim light hadn't changed a bit since they'd woken up that morning, and Thomas wondered if anything would change at "sunset" either.

Minho headed straight for the Map Room as they came through the West Door.

Thomas was surprised. He thought it was the last thing they should do. "Aren't you dying to tell Newt and Alby about the Griever Hole?"

"Hey, we're still Runners," Minho said, "and we still have a job." Thomas followed him to the steel door of the big concrete block and Minho turned to give him a wan smile. "But yeah, we'll do it quick so we can talk to them."

There were already other Runners milling about the room, drawing up their Maps when they entered. No one said a word, as if all speculation on the new sky had been exhausted. The hopelessness in the room made Thomas feel as if he were walking through mud-thick water. He knew he should also be exhausted, but he was too excited to feel it-he couldn't wait to see Newt's and Alby's reactions to the news about the Cliff.

He sat down at the table and drew up the day's Map based on his memory and notes, Minho looking over his shoulder the whole time, giving pointers. "I think that hall was actually cut off here, not there," and "Watch your proportions," and "Draw straighter, you shank." He was annoying but helpful, and fifteen minutes after entering the room, Thomas examined his finished product. Pride washed through him-it was just as good as any other Map he'd seen.

"Not bad," Minho said. "For a Greenie, anyway."

Minho got up and walked over to the Section One trunk and opened it. Thomas knelt down in front of it and took out the Map from the day before and held it up side by side with the one he'd just drawn.

"What am I looking for?" he asked.

"Patterns. But looking at two days' worth isn't gonna tell you jack. You really need to study several weeks, look for patterns, anything. I know there's something there, something that'll help us. Just can't find it yet. Like I said, it sucks."

Thomas had an itch in the back of his mind, the same one he'd felt the very first time in this room. The Maze walls, moving. Patterns. All those straight lines-were they suggesting an entirely different kind of map? Pointing to something? He had such a heavy feeling that he was missing an obvious hint or clue.

Minho tapped him on the shoulder. "You can always come back and study your b.u.t.t off after dinner, after we talk to Newt and Alby. Come on."

Thomas put the papers in the trunk and closed it, hating the twinge of unease he felt. It was like a p.r.i.c.k in his side. Walls moving, straight lines, patterns ... There had to be an answer. "Okay, let's go."

They'd just stepped outside the Map Room, the heavy door clanging shut behind them, when Newt and Alby walked up, neither one of them looking very happy. Thomas's excitement immediately turned to worry.

"Hey," Minho said. "We were just-"

"Get on with it," Alby interrupted. "Ain't got time to waste. Find anything? Anything?"

Minho actually recoiled at the harsh rebuke, but his face seemed more confused to Thomas than hurt or angry. "Nice to see you, too. Yeah, we did find something, actually."

Oddly, Alby almost looked disappointed. "Cuz this whole shuck place is fallin' to pieces." He shot Thomas a nasty glare as if it were all his fault.

What's wrong with him? Thomas thought, feeling his own anger light up. They'd been working hard all day and this was their thanks?

"What do you mean?" Minho asked. "What else happened?"

Newt answered, nodding toward the Box as he did so. "b.l.o.o.d.y supplies didn't come today. Come every week for two years, same time, same day. But not today."

All four of them looked over at the steel doors attached to the ground. To Thomas, there seemed to be a shadow hovering over it darker than the gray air surrounding everything else.

"Oh, we're shucked for good now," Minho whispered, his reaction alerting Thomas to how grave the situation really was.

"No sun for the plants," Newt said, "no supplies from the b.l.o.o.d.y Box-yeah, I'd say we're shucked, all right."

Alby had folded his arms, still glaring at the Box as if trying to open the doors with his mind. Thomas hoped their leader didn't bring up what he'd seen in the Changing-or anything related to Thomas, for that matter. Especially now.

"Yeah, anyway," Minho continued. "We found something weird."

Thomas waited, hoping that Newt or Alby would have a positive reaction to the news, maybe even have further information to shed light on the mystery.

Newt raised his eyebrows. "What?"

Minho took a full three minutes to explain, starting with the Griever they followed and ending with the results of their rock-throwing experiment.

"Must lead to where the ... ya know ... Grievers live," he said when finished.

"The Griever Hole," Thomas added. All three of them looked at him, annoyed, as if he had no right to speak. But for the first time, being treated like the Greenie didn't bother him that much.

"Gotta b.l.o.o.d.y see that for myself," Newt said. Then murmured, "Hard to believe." Thomas couldn't have agreed more.

"I don't know what we can do," Minho said. "Maybe we could build something to block off that corridor."

"No way," Newt said. "Shuck things can climb the b.l.o.o.d.y walls, remember? Nothing we could build would keep them out."

But a commotion outside the Homestead shifted their attention away from the conversation. A group of Gladers stood at the front door of the house, shouting to be heard over each other. Chuck was in the group, and when he saw Thomas and the others he ran over, a look of excitement spread across his face. Thomas could only wonder what crazy thing had happened now.

"What's going on?" Newt asked.

"She's awake!" Chuck yelled. "The girl's awake!"

Thomas's insides twisted; he leaned against the concrete wall of the Map Room. The girl. The girl who spoke in his head. He wanted to run before it happened again, before she spoke to him in his mind.

But it was too late.

Tom, I don't know any of these people. Come get me! It's all fading.... I'm forgetting everything but you.... I have to tell you things! But it's all fading....

He couldn't understand how she did it, how she was inside his head.

Teresa paused, then said something that made no sense.

The Maze is a code, Tom. The Maze is a code.

CHAPTER 36.

Thomas didn't want to see her. He didn't want to see anybody.

As soon as Newt set off to go and talk to the girl, Thomas silently slipped away, hoping no one would notice him in the excitement. With everyone's thoughts on the stranger waking up from her coma, it proved easy. He skirted the edge of the Glade, then, breaking into a run, he headed for his place of seclusion behind the Deadhead forest.

He crouched in the corner, nestled in the ivy, and threw his blanket over himself, head and all. Somehow, it seemed like a way to hide from Teresa's intrusion into his mind. A few minutes pa.s.sed, his heart finally calming to a slow roll.

"Forgetting about you was the worst part."

At first, Thomas thought it was another message in his head; he squeezed his fists against his ears. But no, it'd been ... different. He'd heard it with his ears. A girl's voice. Chills creeping up his spine, he slowly lowered the blanket.

Teresa stood to his right, leaning against the ma.s.sive stone wall. She looked so different now, awake and alert-standing. Wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, blue jeans, and brown shoes, she looked-impossibly-even more striking than when he'd seen her in the coma. Black hair framed the fair skin of her face, with eyes the blue of pure flame.

"Tom, do you really not remember me?" Her voice was soft, a contrast from the crazed, hard sound he'd heard from her after she first arrived, when she'd delivered the message that everything was going to change.

"You mean ... you remember me?" he asked, embarra.s.sed at the squeak that escaped on the last word.

"Yes. No. Maybe." She threw her arms up in disgust. "I can't explain it."

Thomas opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything.

"I remember remembering," she muttered, sitting down with a heavy sigh; she pulled her legs up to wrap her arms around her knees. "Feelings. Emotions. Like I have all these shelves in my head, labeled for memories and faces, but they're empty. As if everything before this is just on the other side of a white curtain. Including you."

"But how do you know me?" He felt like the walls were spinning around him.

Teresa turned toward him. "I don't know. Something about before we came to the Maze. Something about us. It's mostly empty, like I said."

"You know about the Maze? Who told you? You just woke up."

"I ... It's all very confusing right now." She held a hand out. "But I know you're my friend."

Almost in a daze, Thomas pulled the blanket completely off and leaned forward to shake her hand. "I like how you call me Tom." As soon as it came out, he was sure he couldn't have possibly said anything dumber.

Teresa rolled her eyes. "That's your name, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but most people call me Thomas. Well, except Newt-he calls me Tommy. Tom makes me feel ... like I'm at home or something. Even though I don't know what home is." He let out a bitter laugh. "Are we messed up or what?"

She smiled for the first time, and he almost had to look away, as if something that nice didn't belong in such a glum and gray place, as if he had no right to look at her expression.

"Yeah, we're messed up," she said. "And I'm scared."

"So am I, trust me." Which was definitely the understatement of the day.

A long moment pa.s.sed, both of them looking toward the ground.

"What's ...," he began, not sure how to ask it. "How ... did you talk to me inside my mind?"

Teresa shook her head. No idea-I can just do it, she thought to him. Then she spoke aloud again. "It's like if you tried to ride a bicycle here-if they had one. I bet you could do it without thinking. But do you remember learning to ride one?"

"No. I mean ... I remember riding one, but not learning." He paused, feeling a wave of sadness. "Or who taught me."

"Well," she said, her eyes flickering as if she was embarra.s.sed by his sudden gloom. "Anyway ... it's kind of like that."

"Really clears things up."

Teresa shrugged. "You didn't tell anyone, did you? They'd think we're crazy."

"Well ... when it first happened, I did. But I think Newt just thinks I was stressed out or something." Thomas felt fidgety, like he'd go nuts if he didn't move. He stood up, started pacing in front of her. "We need to figure things out. That weird note you had about being the last person to ever come here, your coma, the fact you can talk to me telepathically. Any ideas?"

Teresa followed him with her eyes as he walked back and forth. "Save your breath and quit asking. All I have are faint impressions-that you and I were important, that we were used somehow. That we're smart. That we came here for a reason. I know I triggered the Ending, whatever that means." She groaned, her face reddening. "My memories are as useless as yours."

Thomas knelt down in front of her. "No, they're not. I mean, the fact that you knew my memory had been wiped without asking me-and this other stuff. You're way ahead of me and everybody else."

Their eyes met for a long time; it looked like her mind was spinning, trying to make sense of it all.

I just don't know, she said in his mind.

"There you go again," Thomas said aloud, though he was relieved that her trick didn't really freak him out anymore. "How do you do that?"

"I just do, and I bet you can, too."

"Well, can't say I'm too anxious to try." He sat back down and pulled his legs up, much like she had done. "You said something to me-in my head-right before you found me over here. You said 'The Maze is a code.' What did you mean?"

She shook her head slightly. "When I first woke up, it was like I'd entered an insane asylum-these strange guys hovering over my bed, the world tipping around me, memories swirling in my brain. I tried to reach out and grasp a few, and that was one of them. I can't really remember why I said it."

"Was there anything else?"

"Actually, yeah." She pulled up the sleeve of her left arm, exposing her bicep. Small letters were written across the skin in thin black ink.

"What's that?" he asked, leaning in for a better look.

"Read it yourself."

The letters were messy, but he could make them out when he got close enough.

WICKED is good Thomas's heart beat faster. "I've seen that word-wicked." He searched his mind for what the phrase could possibly mean. "On the little creatures that live here. The beetle blades."

"What are those?" she asked.

"Just little lizardlike machines that spy on us for the Creators-the people who sent us here."

Teresa considered that for a moment, looking off into s.p.a.ce. Then she focused on her arm. "I can't remember why I wrote this," she said as she wet her thumb and started rubbing off the words. "But don't let me forget-it has to mean something."

The three words ran through Thomas's mind over and over. "When did you write it?"

"When I woke up. They had a pen and notepad next to the bed. In the commotion I wrote it down."

Thomas was baffled by this girl-first the connection he'd felt to her from the very beginning, then the mind-speaking, now this. "Everything about you is weird. You know that, right?"

"Judging by your little hiding spot, I'd say you're not so normal yourself. Like living in the woods, do ya?"

Thomas tried to scowl, then smiled. He felt pathetic, and embarra.s.sed about hiding. "Well, you look familiar to me and you claim we're friends. Guess I'll trust you."