The Scorch Trials

Thomas tries getting back to sleep, but finds it nearly impossible with Teresa’s strange warning echoing in his head and the heat bearing down on him. In the evening, he talks briefly with Newt about WICKED, and how, though he does not trust them, they saved his life. Brenda wakes up and Thomas introduces her to Newt, but they joke about already knowing one another. Thomas tries to engage Brenda in conversation, but she leaves. Newt jokes that he and Brenda are dating, and then leaves as well.

The group sets off just as the sun dips below the horizon, and trek for miles. Newt talks to Thomas again about how strange it is for WICKED to break their own rules and save Thomas. Thomas also talks with Minho, and the group moves on towards the mountains. Thomas finally is able to get some alone time with Brenda and tries to talk with her. She tells him not to apologize, and the two finally make up. They are laughing and everyone seems in good spirits when Thomas suddenly stops dead in his tracks, tripping whoever is behind him. In the distance, he sees Teresa walking towards the group with a large weapon in her hands.

Upon seeing Teresa, the rest of the Gladers stop as well. Suddenly, Thomas notices that there are girls to the right and left of her, and when he turns around, he sees girls behind them as well. The Gladers are surrounded by the girls, all of whom carry weapons. Thomas immediately thinks about his tattoo, which says that Group B is supposed to kill him. Minho calls out to Teresa, and Brenda looks at Thomas, shocked to find that the menacing girl in front of them is the one-and-only Teresa. Teresa tells the Gladers that if any of them moves, the girls will open fire on them with arrows. She walks through the Gladers, ignoring questions from Newt and Minho, and approaches Thomas. Thomas tries to ask her what is going on, but she hits him, drawing blood. She then asks him if he is Thomas, and when he tries to say that she knows who he is, she hits him again. When Thomas finally shouts that he is Thomas, Teresa tells the Gladers that Thomas is going with Group B, and that if anyone tries to stop them, they will be killed. Teresa says she will count to five, and every time she hits five, a Glader will be killed. Thomas finally agrees to go with Group B, and they cover him in a rough sack. Though he is confused, what terrifies Thomas the most is that one of the girls tells him to go along with it and let them kill him.

The girls manage to get Thomas in the sack, and Teresa warns the Gladers again about trying to follow them. She then crouches down and tells Thomas that she is being blocked from speaking to him telepathically and that he has to remember to trust her. All Thomas can think about, however, is how foolish he had been to think that things were better. He notes that if Teresa really is playacting with the girls, she is doing a great job. When she again stoops down and tells him that it will all be over soon, Thomas really has no idea what to think, riddled as he is with pain and anxiety. Then the girls begin dragging Thomas across the rough ground like baggage. As they cross the desert, Thomas tries telling himself that Teresa said to trust her, and he wonders if everything she has done up until this point might be an act.

When the girls reach the mountain, they have a difficult time dragging Thomas and he learns that WICKED has told the girls to get Thomas out of sight of his friends before releasing him from the bag. The girls decide to carry him up the mountain until they are out of sight of the Gladers. When they reach higher ground, the girls drop him on the ground, just as Teresa has instructed them to do. Thomas tries to plead with her, but Teresa says they need to sleep so that they can get through the mountain pass and then kill Thomas as they have been instructed to do. She says that killing Thomas is “his punishment for what he did to me” (268).