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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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.

"Were you sleeping?" Thomas asked. He was relieved to see that she appeared okay, felt himself relax.

"I was," she responded. "Until I heard something shred the Homestead to bits. What happened?"

Thomas shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know how you could've slept through the sound of all those Grievers out here."

"You try coming out of a coma sometime. See how you do." Now answer my question, she said inside his head.

Thomas blinked, momentarily surprised by the voice since she hadn't done it in a while. "Cut that junk out."

"Just tell me what happened."

Thomas sighed; it was such a long story, and he didn't feel like telling the whole thing. "You don't know Gally, but he's a psycho kid who ran away. He showed up, jumped on a Griever, and they all took off into the Maze. It was really weird." He still couldn't believe it had actually happened.

"Which is saying a lot," Teresa said.

"Yeah." He looked behind him, hoping to see Alby somewhere. Surely he'd let Teresa out now. Gladers were scattered all over the complex, but there was no sign of their leader. He turned back to Teresa. "I just don't get it. Why would the Grievers have left after getting Gally? He said something about them killing us one a night until we were all dead-he said it at least twice."

Teresa put her hands through the bars, rested her forearms against the concrete sill. "Just one a night? Why?"

"I don't know. He also said it had to do with ... trials. Or variables. Something like that." Thomas had the same strange urge he'd had the night before-to reach out and take one of her hands. He stopped himself, though.

"Tom, I was thinking about what you told me I said. That the Maze is a code. Being holed up in here does wonders for making the brain do what it was made for."

"What do you think it means?" Intensely interested, he tried to block out the shouts and chatter rumbling through the Glade as others found out about the Map Room being burned.

"Well, the walls move every day, right?"

"Yeah." He could tell she was really on to something.

"And Minho said they think there's a pattern, right?"

"Right." Gears were starting to shift into place inside Thomas's head as well, almost as if a prior memory was beginning to break loose.

"Well, I can't remember why I said that to you about the code. I know when I was coming out of the coma all sorts of thoughts and memories swirled through my head like crazy, almost as if I could feel someone emptying my mind, sucking them out. And I felt like I needed to say that thing about the code before I lost it. So there must be an important reason."

Thomas almost didn't hear her-he was thinking harder than he had in a while. "They always compare each section's Map to the one from the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, day by day, each Runner just a.n.a.lyzing their own Section. What if they're supposed to compare the Maps to other sections ..." He trailed off, feeling like he was on the cusp of something.

Teresa seemed to ignore him, doing her own theorizing. "The first thing the word code makes me think of is letters. Letters in the alphabet. Maybe the Maze is trying to spell something."

Everything came together so quickly in Thomas's mind, he almost heard an audible click, as if the pieces all snapped into place at once. "You're right-you're right! But the Runners have been looking at it wrong this whole time. They've been a.n.a.lyzing it the wrong way!"

Teresa gripped the bars now, her knuckles white, her face pressed against the iron rods. "What? What're you talking about?"

Thomas grabbed the two bars outside of where she held on, moved close enough to smell her-a surprisingly pleasant scent of sweat and flowers. "Minho said the patterns repeat themselves, only they can't figure out what it means. But they've always studied them section by section, comparing one day to the next. What if each day is a separate piece of the code, and they're supposed to use all eight sections together somehow?"

"You think maybe each day is trying to reveal a word?" Teresa asked. "With the wall movements?"

Thomas nodded. "Or maybe a letter a day, I don't know. But they've always thought the movements would reveal how to escape, not spell something. They've been studying it like a map, not like a picture of something. We've gotta-" Then he stopped, remembering what he'd just been told by Newt. "Oh, no."

Teresa's eyes flared with worry. "What's wrong?"

"Oh no oh no oh no ..." Thomas let go of the bars and stumbled back a step as the realization hit him. He turned to look at the Map Room. The smoke had lessened, but it still wafted out the door, a dark, hazy cloud covering the entire area.

"What's wrong?" Teresa repeated. She couldn't see the Map Room from her angle.

Thomas faced her again. "I didn't think it mattered...."

"What!" she demanded.

"Someone burned all the Maps. If there was a code, it's gone."

CHAPTER 41.

"I'll be back," Thomas said, turning to go. His stomach was full of acid. "I gotta find Newt, see if any of the Maps survived."

"Wait!" Teresa yelled. "Get me out of here!"

But there was no time, and Thomas felt awful about it. "I can't-I'll be back, I promise." He turned before she could protest and set off at a sprint for the Map Room and its foggy black cloud of smoke. Needles of pain p.r.i.c.ked his insides. If Teresa was right, and they'd been that close to figuring out some kind of clue to get out of there, only to see it literally lost in flames ... It was so upsetting it hurt.

The first thing Thomas saw when he ran up was a group of Gladers huddled just outside the large steel door, still ajar, its outer edge blackened with soot. But as he got closer, he realized they were surrounding something on the ground, all of them looking down at it. He spotted Newt, kneeling there in the middle, leaning over a body.

Minho was standing behind him, looking distraught and dirty, and spotted Thomas first. "Where'd you go?" he asked.

"To talk to Teresa-what happened?" He waited anxiously for the next dump of bad news.

Minho's forehead creased in anger. "Our Map Room was set on fire and you ran off to talk to your shuck girlfriend? What's wrong with you?"

Thomas knew the rebuke should've stung, but his mind was too preoccupied. "I didn't think it mattered anymore-if you haven't figured out the Maps by now ..."

Minho looked disgusted, the pale light and fog of smoke making his face seem almost sinister. "Yeah, this'd be a great freaking time to give up. What the-"

"I'm sorry-just tell me what happened." Thomas leaned over the shoulder of a skinny boy standing in front of him to get a look at the body on the ground.

It was Alby, flat on his back, a huge gash on his forehead. Blood seeped down both sides of his head, some into his eyes, crusting there. Newt was cleaning it with a wet rag, gingerly, asking questions in a whisper too low to hear. Thomas, concerned for Alby despite his recent ill-tempered ways, turned back to Minho and repeated his question.

"Winston found him out here, half dead, the Map Room blazing. Some shanks got in there and put it out, but way too late. All the trunks are burned to a freaking crisp. I suspected Alby at first, but whoever did it slammed his shuck head against the table-you can see where. It's nasty."

"Who do you think did it?" Thomas was hesitant to tell him about the possible discovery he and Teresa had made. With no Maps, the point was moot.

"Maybe Gally before he showed up in the Homestead and went psycho? Maybe the Grievers? I don't know, and I don't care. Doesn't matter."

Thomas was surprised at the sudden change of heart. "Now who's the one giving up?"

Minho's head snapped up so quickly, Thomas took a step backward. There was a flash of anger there, but it quickly melted into an odd expression of surprise or confusion. "That's not what I meant, shank."

Thomas narrowed his eyes in curiosity. "What did-"

"Just shut your hole for now." Minho put his fingers to his lips, his eyes darting around to see if anyone was looking at him. "Just shut your hole. You'll find out soon enough."

Thomas took a deep breath and thought. If he expected the other boys to be honest, he should be honest too. He decided he'd better share about the possible Maze code, Maps or no Maps. "Minho, I need to tell you and Newt something. And we need to let Teresa out-she's probably starving and we could use her help."

"That stupid girl is the last thing I'm worried about."

Thomas ignored the insult. "Just give us a few minutes-we have an idea. Maybe it'll still work if enough Runners remember their Maps."

This seemed to get Minho's full attention-but again, there was that same strange look, as if Thomas was missing something very obvious. "An idea? What?"

"Just come over to the Slammer with me. You and Newt."

Minho thought for a second. "Newt!" he called out.

"Yeah?" Newt stood up, refolding his b.l.o.o.d.y rag to find a clean spot. Thomas couldn't help noticing that every inch was drenched in red.

Minho pointed down at Alby. "Let the Med-jacks take care of him. We need to talk."

Newt gave him a questioning look, then handed the rag to the closest Glader. "Go find Clint-tell him we got worse problems than guys with buggin' splinters." When the kid ran off to do as he was told, Newt stepped away from Alby. "Talk about what?"

Minho nodded at Thomas, but didn't say anything.

"Just come with me," Thomas said. Then he turned and headed for the Slammer without waiting for a response.

"Let her out." Thomas stood by the cell door, arms folded. "Let her out, and then we'll talk. Trust me-you wanna hear it."

Newt was covered in soot and dirt, his hair matted with sweat. He certainly didn't seem to be in a very good mood. "Tommy, this is-"

"Please. Just open it-let her out. Please." He wouldn't give up this time.

Minho stood in front of the door with his hands on his hips. "How can we trust her?" he asked. "Soon as she woke up, the whole place fell to pieces. She even admitted she triggered something."

"He's got a point," Newt said.

Thomas gestured through the door at Teresa. "We can trust her. Every time I've talked to her, it's something about trying to get out of here. She was sent here just like the rest of us-it's stupid to think she's responsible for any of this."

Newt grunted. "Then what the b.l.o.o.d.y shuck did she mean by sayin' she triggered something?"