Thomas barely heard the last few words of what Aris had said over the sounds of surprise coming from the other Gladers. Confusion swirled in his brain. Aris had announced what he’d been through as simply and quickly as describing a trip to the beach. But it seemed crazy. Monumental, if true. Luckily someone voiced exactly what Thomas was trying to sort out in his mind.

“Wait a minute,” Newt said. “You lived in a big maze, on a farm, where walls closed every night? Just you and a few dozen girls? Were there creatures called Grievers? Were you the last one to arrive? And did everything go buggin’ nuts when you did? Did you come in a coma? With a note that said you were the last one ever?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Aris was saying even before Newt had finished. “How do you know all this? How…”

“It’s the same shuck experiment,” Minho said, the earlier belligerence gone from his voice. “Or same… whatever. But they had all girls and one boy, we had all boys and one girl. WICKED must’ve built two of those mazes, run two different tests!”

Thomas’s line of thinking had already accepted that. He finally settled himself enough to speak. He looked at Aris. “Did they call you the Trigger?”

Aris nodded, obviously as perplexed as anyone else in the room.

“And could you…,” Thomas began, but hesitated. He felt like every time he brought this up, he was admitting to the world that he was crazy. “Could you speak to one of those girls inside your mind? Ya know, like telepathically?”

Aris’s eyes widened, staring deeply at Thomas as if he’d understood a dark secret that only someone else who shared it could understand.

Can you hear me?

The phrase appeared so clearly inside Thomas’s mind that at first he thought Aris had spoken aloud. But no-his lips hadn’t moved.

Can you hear me? the boy repeated.

Thomas hesitated, swallowed. Yes.

They killed her, Aris said back to him. They killed my best friend.

CHAPTER 6

“What’s going on?” Newt asked, looking back and forth between Thomas and Aris. “Why’re you guys looking at each other like you just fell in love?”

“He can do it, too,” Thomas answered, not taking his eyes off the new kid, seeing the others only in his peripheral vision. That final statement by Aris had terrified him; if they’d killed his telepathy partner…

“Do what?” Frypan asked.

“What do you think?” Minho said. “He’s a freak like Thomas. They can talk in each other’s heads.”

Newt was glaring at Thomas now. “Serious?”

Thomas nodded and almost spoke to Aris in his mind again, but said it out loud at the last second. “Who killed her? What happened?”

“Who killed who?” Minho said. “No more of your voodoo klunk while we’re around.”

Thomas, eyes watering now, finally broke his gaze with Aris and looked over at Minho. “He had someone he could do this with, just like I did. I mean… do. But he said they killed her. I want to know who they are.”

Aris’s head had dropped; his eyes looked closed from where Thomas sat. “I don’t really know who they are. It’s too confusing. I couldn’t tell the bad guys from the good guys. But I think somehow they made this girl Beth… stab… my friend. Her name was Rachel. She’s dead, man. She’s dead.” He covered his face with both hands.

Thomas felt an almost painful prick of confusion. Everything pointed to Aris’s having come from another version of the Maze, set up in the same format except with the ratio of girls to boys being switched. But that would make Aris their version of Teresa. And this Beth sounded like their version of Gally, who’d killed Chuck. With a knife. Did that mean that Gally was supposed to have killed Thomas instead?

But why was Aris here now? And where was Teresa? Things that had almost started to click in his mind fell apart again.

“Well, how’d you end up with us?” Newt asked. “Where are all these girls you keep talking about? How many of them escaped with you? Did they bring all of you here or just you?”

Thomas couldn’t help but feel sorry for Aris. To get grilled with all these questions after something like that had happened. If the roles were switched, if Thomas had seen Teresa get killed… Watching it happen to Chuck had been bad enough.

Bad enough? he thought. Or was seeing Chuck die worse? Thomas wanted to scream. At that moment, everything in the world just sucked .

Aris looked up finally, wiped a couple of tears from his cheeks. He did it without the slightest hint of shame, and Thomas suddenly knew that he liked this kid.

“Look,” the boy said. “I’m just as confused as everyone else. About thirty of us survived, they took us to that gym, fed us, cleaned us up. Then they brought me to this place last night, saying I should be separate since I’m a guy. That’s it. Then you sticks show up.”

“Sticks?” Minho repeated.

Aris shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t even know what it means. Just a word they used when I got there.”

Minho exchanged a glance with Thomas, half smiling. Looked like both groups had come up with their own vocabulary.

“Hey,” one of the Gladers Thomas didn’t really know called out. He was leaning against the wall behind Aris, pointing at him. “What’s that on the side of your neck? Something black, right below your collar.”

Aris tried to look down, but couldn’t bend his neck to see that part of his body. “What?”

Thomas saw a dark splotch just above the back neckline of the boy’s pajama shirt as he shifted around. It appeared to be a thick line, stretching from the hollow of his collarbone around to his back. And it was broken up, like it might be lettering.

“Here, let me look,” Newt offered. He stood from the bed and walked over, his limp-from something in the past he’d never shared with Thomas-showing more than usual. He reached out and pulled Aris’s shirt down more so he could see the odd marking better.

“It’s a tattoo,” Newt said, squinting as if he didn’t believe his eyes.

“What’s it say?” Minho asked, though he’d already gotten up from the bed and approached to get his own look.

When Newt didn’t answer right away, curiosity forced Thomas to his feet, and soon he was right beside Minho, leaning over to see the tattoo himself. What he saw printed there in blocky letters made his heart skip a beat.

Property of WICKED. Group B, Subject B1. The Partner.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Minho asked.

“What does it say?” Aris asked, reaching around to feel the skin of his neck and shoulders, pulling his shirt collar down. “I swear it wasn’t there last night!”

Newt repeated the words to him, then said, “Property of WICKED? I thought we’d escaped them. Or you’d escaped them, too. Whatever.” He turned around, visibly frustrated, and went back to sit down on his bed.

“And why would it call you the Partner?” Minho said, still staring at the tattoo.

Aris shook his head. “I don’t have a clue. I swear. And there’s no way that was there before last night. I showered, looked in the mirror. I would’ve seen it. And someone would’ve noticed it back in the Maze for sure.”

“You’re telling me they tattooed you in the middle of the night?” Minho said. “Without you noticing? Come on, dude.”

“I swear!” Aris insisted. Then he got up and went to the bathroom, probably to try to see the words for himself.

“I don’t believe a shuck word he says,” Minho whispered to Thomas on his way back to his seat. Then, just as he leaned forward to plop back down on the mattress, his shirt shifted enough to reveal a thick line of black on his neck.

“Whoa!” Thomas said. For a second, he was too stunned to move.

“What?” Minho asked, looking at Thomas as if he’d just sprouted a third ear on his forehead.

“Your-your neck,” Thomas finally got out. “You have it on your neck, too!”

“What the shuck you talkin’ about?” Minho said, pulling at his shirt, face scrunched up as he struggled to see something he couldn’t.