He was alive, breathing deeply, but he gazed at the sky with an emptiness in his eyes. As if he was waiting for some god to come down and take him away, end his miserable life. He showed no sign he’d even noticed the Gladers approach.

“Hey! Old man!” Minho shouted, always the tactful one. “What’re you doing out here?”

Thomas had a hard enough time hearing the words over the ripping wind; he couldn’t imagine that the ancient guy could make anything out. But was he blind as well? Maybe.

Thomas nudged Minho out of the way and knelt down right beside the man’s face. The melancholy there was heartbreaking. He held his hand out and waved it right above the old guy’s eyes.

Nothing. No blink, no movement. It was only after Thomas pulled his hand back that the man’s eyelids slowly drooped closed, then open again. Just once.

“Sir?” Thomas asked. “Mister?” The words sounded strange to him, conjured up from the murky memories of his past. He certainly hadn’t used them since being sent to the Glade and the Maze. “Can you hear me? Can you talk?”

The man did that slow blink again, but didn’t say anything.

Newt knelt next to Thomas and spoke loudly over the wind. “This guy’s a bloody gold mine if we can get him to tell us stuff about the city. Looks harmless, probably knows what to expect when we go in there.”

Thomas sighed. “Yeah, but he doesn’t even seem to be able to hear us, much less have a long talk.”

“Keep trying,” Minho said from behind them. “You’re officially our foreign ambassador, Thomas. Get the dude to open up and tell us about the good ol’ days.”

For some odd reason Thomas wanted to say something funny back, but he couldn’t think of anything. If he’d been funny in his old life, every scrap of humor had certainly vanished in the memory swipe. “Okay,” he said.

He scooted as close to the man’s head as he could, then positioned himself so their eyes were square, just a couple of feet apart. “Sir? We really need your help!” He felt bad for shouting, worried the old man might take it the wrong way, but he had no choice. The wind was gusting stronger and stronger. “We need you to tell us if it’s safe to go inside the city! We can carry you there if you need help yourself. Sir? Sir!”

The man’s dark eyes had been looking past him, up at the sky, but now they shifted, slowly, until they focused on his. Awareness filled them like dark liquid poured slowly into a glass. His lips parted, but nothing came out except a small cough.

Thomas’s hopes lifted. “My name is Thomas. These are my friends. We’ve been walking through the desert for a couple of days, and we need more water and food. What do you…”

He trailed off when the man’s eyes flicked back and forth, a sudden hint of panic there.

“It’s okay, we won’t hurt you,” Thomas quickly said. “We’re… we’re the good guys. But we’d really appreciate it if-”

The man’s left hand shot out from beneath the blankets wrapped around him and clasped Thomas’s wrist, gripping it with a strength far greater than seemed possible. Thomas cried out in surprise and instinctively tried to pull his arm free, but couldn’t. He was shocked by the man’s strength. He could barely budge against the man’s iron manacle of a fist.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Let go of me!”

The man shook his head, those dark eyes full more of fear than any kind of belligerence. His lips parted again, and a rough, indecipherable whisper rose from his mouth. He didn’t loosen his grip.

Thomas gave up the struggle to free his arm; instead, he relaxed and leaned forward to put his ear close to the stranger’s mouth. “What’d you say!” he shouted.

The man spoke again, a dry rasp that was unsettling, spooky. Thomas caught the words storm and terror and bad people. None of them sounded very inspiring.

“One more time!” Thomas yelled, his head still cocked so his ear rested only inches above the man’s face.

This time Thomas understood most of it, missing only a few words. “Storm coming… full of terror… brings out… stay away… bad people.”

The man shot up into a sitting position, his eyes full and white around his irises. “Storm! Storm! Storm!” He didn’t stop, repeating the word over and over; a mucus-thick strand of saliva finally crested over his bottom lip and swung back and forth like a hypnotist’s pendulum.

He released Thomas’s arm, and Thomas scooted back on his butt to get away. Even as he did so, the wind intensified, seemed to go from strong gusts to outright hurricane-strength gales of terror, just like the man had said. The world was lost in the sound of roaring, screaming air. Thomas felt as if his hair and clothes might rip off at any second. Almost all of the Gladers’ sheets went flying, flapping over the ground and into the air like an army of ghosts. Food skittered in all directions.

Thomas got to his feet, an almost impossible task with the wind trying to knock him over. He stumbled forward several feet until he leaned back into it; invisible hands held him up.

Minho stood nearby, frantically waving his arms as he tried to get everyone’s attention. Most saw and gathered around him, including Thomas, who fought off the panic creeping along his insides. It was only a storm. Far better than Grievers or Cranks with knives. Or ropes.

The old man had lost his blankets to the wind, and he huddled now in the fetal position, his skinny legs squeezed against his chest, eyes closed. Thomas had the fleeting thought that they should carry him someplace safe, save him for at least attempting to warn them about the storm. But something told him the man would fight tooth and nail if they tried to touch him or pick him up.

The Gladers were now packed together. Minho pointed at the city. The closest building was within a half hour if they ran at a good pace. The way the wind tore at them, the way the clouds above thickened and churned and bruised to a deep purple, almost black, the way dust and debris flew through the air, reaching that building seemed the only sane choice.

Minho started running. The others fell in, and Thomas waited to bring up the rear, knowing that was what Minho wanted him to do. He finally broke into a brisk jog, glad they weren’t going directly into the wind. Only then did a few of the words the old man had said pop into his mind. They made him break into a sweat that quickly evaporated, leaving his skin dry and salty.

Stay away. Bad people.

CHAPTER 24

As they approached the city, it became harder for Thomas to actually see it. The dust in the air had thickened into a brown fog, and he felt it in every breath. It was crusting in his eyes, making them water and turning into goop that he had to keep wiping away. The large building they were shooting for had become a looming shadow behind the cloud of dust, towering taller and taller, like a growing giant.

The wind had gained a rough edge, pelting him with sand and grit until it hurt. Every once in a while a larger object would fly by, scaring him half out of his wits. A branch. Something that looked like a small mouse. A piece of roofing tile. And countless scraps of paper. All swirling through the air like snowflakes.

Then came the lightning.

They’d halved the distance to the building-maybe more than that-when the bolts came from nowhere, and the world around him erupted in light and thunder.

They fell from the sky in jagged streaks, like bars of white light, slamming into the ground and throwing up massive amounts of scorched earth. The crushing sound was too much to bear, and Thomas’s ears began to go numb, the horrific noise fading to a distant hum as he went deaf.

He kept running, almost blind now, unable to hear, barely able to see the building. People fell and got back up. Thomas stumbled but caught his balance. He helped Newt regain his feet, then Frypan. Pushed them forward as he kept on. It was only a matter of time before one of the thick daggers of lightning struck someone and fried them to a blackened char. His hair stood on end despite the ripping wind, the static in the air raging and prickly as flying needles.