The Scorch Trials

As Minho frees Thomas and Brenda, he tells them how Jorge and the Gladers were scouring the city for food and supplies when Frypan saw the three Cranks pull a gun on Thomas and Brenda. The group made a plan of attack, and then came for them as soon as possible. Thomas notes that Brenda’s body language is standoffish, and realizes that she is probably angry about what he said to her just before blacking out from the mysterious drink. Minho says they need to leave immediately as there are only a dozen of them holding about twenty Cranks hostage upstairs. As the three head upstairs, Thomas tries to apologize to Brenda, but she cuts him off, saying that she does not care about him and Teresa, and that she was just trying to have a good time. Feeling hurt, Thomas tries calling out to Teresa in his mind, to no avail.

Upstairs, Thomas is reunited with his friends and the other Gladers. He realizes, however, that among the Cranks being held prisoner, there is only Ponytail and Tall and Ugly; Blondie is nowhere to be found. He warns Minho about Blondie, who has “something worse than a knife” (231). Minho tells Thomas not to worry, and prepares the Gladers for a hasty escape. As the Gladers leave the building and head back into the alley, someone shouts out to Thomas. He turns around and sees Blondie standing near the bottom step by the door with the gun pointed at Thomas. Before anyone can say or do anything, Blondie fires, and shoots Thomas in the left shoulder.

Thomas’s shoulder erupts in pain, and Minho beats Blondie to the ground. Newt and the others try to make Thomas comfortable, but the pain is so intense that he wills himself to pass out. He hears Jorge say that he can get the bullet out if he can get a fire going. Minho says they need to leave the city, and as the Gladers lift him up, Thomas finally passes out. Thomas moves in and out of consciousness, and at one point, hears a fire close by. He also hears someone saying that he needs to be held, and that “this is gonna hurt somethin’ awful” (236). Thomas then hears a hiss, before an unimaginable pain shoots through his shoulder, and he passes out for the third time.

The next time Thomas awakens, he notices that Brenda is holding his hand. The pain in his shoulder has now been replaced by a different pain, all over his body. Thomas feels worse, and the word “infection” pops into his head. When he wakes up again, his entire body feels like it is throbbing, and he again thinks of “infection.” Suddenly, he hears a noise, and someone yells the word “Berg.” The Gladers begin scrambling, and Brenda rushes up to him to apologize, but is pushed away by two people with strange clothing on. The men pick Thomas up and just before he passes out again from the pain, he notices the word WICKED on one of their clothing.

When Thomas wakes up, he realizes that he has been taken to a hospital. An angry woman is standing over him, saying that “this wasn’t supposed to happen” (241). She asks someone how a gun made it into the city, and says that there must have been an untold amount of bacteria and debris on the bullet. A man answers, saying it does not matter, that they must hurry and send Thomas back. As he tries to understand, a new pain enters Thomas’s shoulder, and he passes out again. The next time Thomas wakes up, he realizes he has no pain at all, and understands that he must be drugged. He wakes again later at the sound of voices, but keeps his eyes shut to try and hear what he can. A man is asking if the event with the gun will mess up the killzone patterns. Another woman says that they are now down to four or five Candidates, but that Thomas is their greatest hope. She suddenly says that she thinks Thomas might be awake, but someone else says it does not matter if he hears what they are talking about. The man says Thomas does not know enough for anything they say to affect the Variables, and that he should know that WICKED made a “huge exception” in getting the infection out of his body. WICKED, the man says, will “do what it has to when necessary” (242). A woman laughs, and tells Thomas that they are about to return him to the Scorch, and that “It’s what you would’ve wanted us to do” (243).