Frozen, Thomas watched as one of the Griever’s long arms reached for the lifeless body. That was all it took to break him from his fear. He scrambled to his feet, searched the floor around him for a weapon. All he saw were knives—they couldn’t help him now. Panic exploded within him, consumed him.
Then Gally was speaking again; the Griever pulled back its arm, as if it needed the thing to be able to observe and listen. But its body kept churning, trying to squeeze its way inside.
“No one ever understood!” the boy screamed over the horrible noise of the creature, crunching its way deeper into the Homestead, ripping the wall to pieces. “No one ever understood what I saw, what the Changing did to me! Don’t go back to the real world, Thomas! You don’t … want … to remember!”
Gally gave Thomas a long, haunted look, his eyes full of terror; then he turned and dove onto the writhing body of the Griever. Thomas yelled out as he watched every extended arm of the monster immediately retract and clasp onto Gally’s arms and legs, making escape or rescue impossible. The boy’s body sank several inches into the creature’s squishy flesh, making a horrific squelching sound. Then, with surprising speed, the Griever pushed itself back outside the shattered frame of the window and began descending toward the ground below.
Thomas ran to the jagged, gaping hole, looked down just in time to see the Griever land and start scooting across the Glade, Gally’s body appearing and disappearing as the thing rolled. The lights of the monster shone brightly, casting an eerie yellow glow across the stone of the open West Door, where the Griever exited into the depths of the Maze. Then, seconds later, several other monsters followed close behind their companion, whirring and clicking as if celebrating their victory.
Thomas was sickened to the verge of throwing up. He began to back away from the window, but something outside caught his eye. He quickly leaned out of the building to get a better look. A lone shape was sprinting across the courtyard of the Glade toward the exit through which Gally had just been taken.
Despite the poor light, Thomas realized who it was immediately. He screamed—yelled at him to stop—but it was too late.
Minho, running full speed, disappeared into the Maze.
CHAPTER 40
Lights blazed throughout the Homestead. Gladers ran about, everyone talking at once. A couple of boys cried in a corner. Chaos ruled.
Thomas ignored all of it.
He ran into the hallway, then leaped down the stairs three at a time. He pushed his way through a crowd in the foyer, tore out of the Homestead and toward the West Door, sprinting. He pulled up just short of the threshold of the Maze, his instincts forcing him to think twice about entering. Newt called to him from behind, delaying the decision.
“Minho followed it out there!” Thomas yelled when Newt caught up to him, a small towel pressed against the wound on his head. A patchy spot of blood had already seeped through the white material.
“I saw,” Newt said, pulling the towel away to look at it; he grimaced and put it back. “Shuck it, that hurts like a mother. Minho must’ve finally fried his last bit of brain cells—not to mention Gally. Always knew he was crazy.”
Thomas could only worry about Minho. “I’m going after him.”
“Time to be a bloody hero again?”
Thomas looked at Newt sharply, hurt by the rebuke. “You think I do things to impress you shanks? Please. All I care about is getting out of here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a regular toughie. But right now we’ve got worse problems.”
“What?” Thomas knew if he wanted to catch up with Minho he had no time for this.
“Somebody—” Newt began.
“There he is!” Thomas shouted. Minho had just turned a corner up ahead and was coming straight for them. Thomas cupped his hands. “What were you doing, idiot!”
Minho waited until he made it back through the Door, then bent over, hands on his knees, and sucked in a few breaths before answering. “I just … wanted to … make sure.”
“Make sure of what?” Newt asked. “Lotta good you’d be, taken with Gally.”
Minho straightened and put his hands on his hips, still breathing heavily. “Slim it, boys! I just wanted to see if they went toward the Cliff. Toward the Griever Hole.”
“And?” Thomas said.
“Bingo.” Minho wiped sweat from his forehead.
“I just can’t believe it,” Newt said, almost whispering. “What a night.”
Thomas’s thoughts tried to drift toward the Hole and what it all meant, but he couldn’t shake the thought of what Newt had been about to say before they saw Minho return. “What were you about to tell me?” he asked. “You said we had worse—”
“Yeah.” Newt pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “You can still see the buggin’ smoke.”
Thomas looked in that direction. The heavy metal door of the Map Room was slightly ajar, a wispy trail of black smoke drifting out and into the gray sky.
“Somebody burned the Map trunks,” Newt said. “Every last one of ’em.”
For some reason, Thomas didn’t care about the Maps that much—they seemed pointless anyway. He stood outside the window of the Slammer, having left Newt and Minho when they went to investigate the sabotage of the Map Room. Thomas had noticed them exchange an odd look before they split up, almost as if communicating some secret with their eyes. But Thomas could think of only one thing.
“Teresa?” he asked.
Her face appeared, hands rubbing her eyes. “Was anybody killed?” she asked, somewhat groggy.