فصل 45

CHAPTER 45

They shifted him around on the ground till they got the bag slipped entirely over his body. Then they tied the open end at his feet with a rope, knotting it tight and wrapping its ends up and around the rest of him, pinning him inside the bag, cinching another knot just over his head.

Thomas felt the bag going taut; then his head was pulled up. He imagined girls holding either end of this impossibly long rope. Which could only mean one thing—they were going to drag him. He couldn’t take it anymore, started squirming even though he knew what it’d get him.

“Teresa! Don’t do this to me!”

This time a fist hit him right in the stomach, making him howl. He tried to double over, tried to clutch his middle, but couldn’t because of the stupid bag. Nausea swept through him; he fought it, kept his food down.

“Since you obviously don’t care about yourself,” Teresa said, “talk again and we’ll start shooting your friends. That sound good to you?” Thomas didn’t respond; he heaved a silent sob of agony. Had he really been thinking things were looking up in the world only yesterday? His infection cured and his wound healed, away from the city of Cranks, nothing but a swift and hard hike through the mountains between them and the safe haven. He should’ve known better after everything he’d been through.

“I meant what I said!” Teresa yelled at the Gladers. “There won’t be a warning. Follow us and the arrows start flying.” Thomas saw her outline as she knelt next to him, heard her knees crunching on the dirt. Then she grabbed him through the material of the bag, put her head against his, her mouth just half an inch from his ear. She started whispering, so faintly he had to strain to hear, concentrating to separate her words from the breeze.

“They’re blocking me from talking to you in our heads. Remember to trust me.”

Thomas, surprised, had to fight to keep his mouth shut.

“What’re you saying to him?” This came from one of the girls holding the rope attached to the bag.

“I’m letting him know just how much I’m enjoying this. How much I’m enjoying my revenge. Do you mind?” Thomas had never heard such arrogance from her. She was either a really good actress or had started going crazy. Gained a split personality or two.

“Well,” the other girl responded. “Glad you’re having so much fun. But we need to hurry.” “I know,” Teresa said. She gripped the sides of Thomas’s head even harder, squeezed and shook it. Then she pressed her mouth against the rough material, pushing on his ear. When she spoke, again with that hot whisper, he could feel her hot breath through the weave of the burlap. “Hang in there. It’ll be over soon.” The words numbed Thomas’s brain; he had no idea what to think. Was she being sarcastic?

She released him and stood back up. “Okay, let’s get out of here. Make sure you hit as many rocks as you can along the way.” His captors started walking, dragging him along behind them. He felt the rough ground below him as he was dragged across it, the big sack providing absolutely no protection. It hurt. He arched his back, putting all his weight on his feet, letting his shoes bear the brunt of the impacts. But he knew his strength couldn’t hold out forever.

Teresa walked right beside him as they pulled his body along. He could just make her out through the burlap.

Then Minho started yelling, his voice already fading with distance, the sound of being dragged against the dirt making it that much harder to hear. What Thomas did hear, however, gave him little hope. Between garbled unflattering names, Thomas heard the words “we’ll find you” and “time is right” and “weapons.” Teresa slammed her fist into Thomas’s stomach again, shutting Minho up.

And across the desert they went, Thomas bouncing over the dirt like a sack of old clothes.

Thomas imagined horrible things as they went along. His legs were weakening every second, and he knew he’d have to lower his body to the ground soon. He pictured the bleeding wounds, the permanent scars.

But maybe it wouldn’t matter. They planned on killing him anyway.

Teresa had said to trust her. And even though he had a hard time doing it, he was trying to believe her. Could all the stuff she’d done to him since reappearing with the weapons and Group B really be an act? If it wasn’t, why would she keep whispering to him to trust her?

His mind turned it all over in circles until he couldn’t concentrate anymore. His body was being rubbed raw, and he knew he needed to figure out how to prevent every inch of skin from being scratched off.

The mountains saved him.

When they started going up the steep slope, it obviously became difficult for the girls to drag his body the way they’d done across flat ground. They tried pulling him in quick jerks—slipping and letting him slide several feet back down, then hauling him back up only to let him slip again. Teresa finally said it’d probably be easier to carry him by the shoulders and ankles. And that they should do it in shifts.

An idea hit Thomas then that was so obvious he thought surely he’d missed something. “Why don’t you just let me walk!” he called through the burlap, his voice muffled and cracking from thirst. “I mean, you do have weapons. What am I gonna do?” Teresa kicked him in the side. “Shut up, Thomas. We’re not idiots. We’re waiting until your Glader buddies can’t see us anymore.” He’d done his best to stifle his groan when her foot crashed into his rib cage. “Huh? Why?” “Because that’s what we were told to do. Now shut up!”

“Why’d you tell him that?” one of the other girls whispered harshly.

“What does it matter?” Teresa responded, not even trying to hide what she was saying. “We’re gonna kill him anyway. Who cares if he knows what we were told to do?” Told to do, Thomas thought. By WICKED.

A different girl spoke up. “Well, I can barely see them now. Once we reach that crevice up there, we’ll be out of sight, and they’ll never find us after that. Even if they do follow.” “All right, then,” Teresa said. “Let’s just get him that far.”

Hands were soon gripping Thomas on all sides, lifting him into the air. From what he could see through the sack, Teresa and three of her new friends were carrying him. They picked their way through boulders and around dead trees, going up and up and up. He heard their heavy breaths, smelled their sweat, hated them more with each jolting step. Even Teresa. He tried one last time to reach her mind, to salvage his trust in her, but she wasn’t there.

The trudge up the mountain went on for maybe an hour—with stops here and there for girls to switch off carrying duties—and it had been at least twice that long since they’d left the Gladers. The sun was reaching a point where it would become dangerous, the heat stifling. But then they rounded a massive wall, the ground leveling a bit, and entered shade. The cooler air was a relief.

“All right,” Teresa said. “Drop him.”

Without ceremony, they did what she said and he slammed into the ground with a heavy grunt. It knocked the wind out of him, and he lay there gasping for air as they started untying the ropes. By the time he caught his breath, the bag had been taken off.

He blinked, looking up at Teresa and her friends. They all had their weapons pointed at him, which just seemed ridiculous.

From somewhere he found a trace of courage. “You guys must think a lot of me, twenty of you with knives and machetes, me with nothing. I feel so special.” Teresa reared back with her spear.

“Wait!” Thomas cried, and she stopped. He held his hands up in deference, slowly got to his feet. “Look, I’m not gonna try anything. Just take me wherever we’re going and then I’ll let you kill me like a good boy. I don’t have any shuck thing to live for anyway.” He looked directly at Teresa when he said this, tried to put as much spite into his words as possible. He still held on to a little hope that somehow this would end up making sense, but either way, after how he’d been treated, he wasn’t in such a hot mood.

“Come on,” Teresa said. “I’m sick of this. Let’s get to the inside of the Pass so we can sleep the day off. Tonight we’ll start heading through.” The girl with dark skin who’d helped put him in the sack spoke next. “And what about this guy we’ve been hauling around for the last few hours?” “Don’t worry, we’ll kill him,” Teresa replied. “We’ll kill him just the way they told us to. It’s his punishment for what he did to me.”