ACT II  SCENE XLVIII
TEMENOS

   NEWT STOPPED and bent over, panting heavily with his face scrunched up under the sun. Minho stopped next to him to take long deep breaths. Cassandra's head throbbed painfully as she slowed to an amble, the adrenaline in her veins finally running its course and her vision swam from the glaring intensity of the sun. She felt her legs give in and she fell down to the ground with a grunt.

"Cass, what are you doing?" Archie ran by and stopped. "This isn't the time for a nap unless it's a dirt nap!"

"What's the difference?" she asked, voice slurred with exhaustion. "I''m done. Everything hurts."

A loud scream erupted behind her and she covered her head with her arms as another rock soared over her. It hit the ground and she looked up to see Archie's eyes widen in alarm. Cassandra looked over her shoulder and found a Crank sprinting up to her with monstrous speed. Frypan threw himself into its side and started beating the crap out of it with a stick.

She immediately scrambled to her feet just as another wave of Cranks broke the edge of the forest. Jorge threw a few metal balls at the group and electric arcs erupted when they hit the ground. The flashes of current momentarily blinded Cassandra and she reached up to shield her eyes. Whatever the weapons were, it had done the job and the Cranks laid motionless where they dropped. A few Gladers fought off the remaining stragglers before reconvening.

Newt handed her a strip of damp cloth for her wound and she muttered a small thanks as she accepted it. The cut stung lightly when she touched it, causing her to wince involuntarily. Now she had a wound on both sides of her head. Great.

"That was...unnecessarily dramatic," Minho commented drily.

"Saved us the trouble, didn't it?" Jorge responded with a grin.

Minho dropped down carelessly next to Cassandra, resting his back against her side as he heaved a weary sigh. "Well, whatever, we're out of the woods now. Let's catch our breaths for a bit."

The Gladers gathered around to quench their thirsts and excited chatter broke out now that they were a lot closer to their destination. Archie stood up to scan their horizons in a slow circle, a hand over his keen hawk-like blue eyes. He started to point in a direction that led towards the highest cliff side of the mountain range with eddying grooves that clearly marked the remnants of a waterfall or river.

"There're people heading down from there," he told them. "And another group further west."

Everyone strained their eyes to catch sight of what he was talking about and Cassandra saw it only by the gradual movement of the black spots in the distance. Her heart skipped a beat when she remembered her dream in the Glade with Thomas. It had to be him.

"Hey, Cassie," Minho started and turned her around so she could face him. He brushed the matted hair away from her face and inspected the wound on her temple with gentle fingers. "It's just a small cut," he finally concluded before helping to clean the remaining blood from her face.

"How many more miles d'you reckon?" Newt asked.

"A couple, maybe, give or take," Minho replied. "It should be somewhere around here."

"But there's nothing to see for miles around but the shuck mountains," Archie said. "Was kinda hoping there might be a building with a cross on it. X marks the spot."

"Maybe there's a rainbow that'll lead us to the land of unicorns." Minho scoffed out a laugh.

"Maybe it's underground," Newt suggested.

"Those girls sure do walk fast though," Archie commented.

Cassandra turned to find the cluster of black specks on the western horizon and found that they had already managed to pass them while they were resting. Together, the group of Gladers started across the barren desert ground for what they hoped would be their last time. The boys continued to chat amongst themselves in seemingly good spirits, their attentions now turned towards the girls of Group B.

"Do you think they'd all be as cute as Cass and Teresa? Didn't get a good look the last time."

"I think I'd prefer a blonde, like me."

"As long as she can cook, that's good enough for me, man."

"I'd be happy if they changed their minds about shooting us with bloody arrows."

An hour passed as they continued their monotonous trek, viewing the same scenery for the past two weeks. Cassandra felt her nerves starting to vibrate with tense energy the longer they walked. She really hoped that there would be a promised cure at the end. If there wasn't, everything would have been for nought.

Frypan started then with a cry of surprise that made everyone stop dead in their tracks to look at the boy. He pointed towards the west with his eyebrows raised. "I think they're waving at us."

Cassandra turned and saw one of the dark silhouettes in the distance waving her arm in the air. Squinting, she could see that there was something on the ground in front of them and confusion took form in her mind.

"Think they found somethin'?" Newt asked.

"There's only one way to find out," Minho replied.

"Are you willingly going to walk towards the enemy?" Frypan raised a skeptical brow.

"If they've found a clue, I'm not gonna continue traipsing around this shuck place aimlessly," Minho told him. "Besides, if they really wanted us dead, they wouldn't be inviting us over to join them for tea."

"Dude, I don't know..."

"This ain't a democracy," Minho said snappily. "I'm headin' over and you can join me or not. It's up to you."

Frypan looked towards Cassandra for some kind of reasonable evaluation but she merely shrugged her shoulders. Minho turned in the direction of Group B and started to make his way towards them with her following suit. The Gladers exchanged apprehensive looks before proceeding to go after them.

When their group finally came within distance of the other, Cassandra could see the dark skinned girl was standing a little ways in front to greet them. She must be the leader of the group. The girl nodded towards them and held her hands up in a gesture of amity before introducing herself and a couple of other girls behind her.

"Look, everything that happened before was just a misunderstanding," Harriet started when they were within hearing distance. "We're sorry if any of you got hurt. We decided not to kill Thomas but he disappeared while we were on our way down here."

"Do you seriously expect us to believe that?" Minho asked, his voice laced thickly with disdain.

"No, and it really doesn't matter because there's something else more important," she told them. She turned to the side and gestured towards the object sticking out of the ground. "Make sense of that if you will."

All eyes were trained on the fluttering orange fabric that whipped about in the beginnings of a sudden broiling storm. The skies overhead turned dark, flashes of lightning threatening to break through the thin layer of evaporated mist. The black evenly spaced letters waved towards them in the brink of another catastrophic downpour. Cassandra could feel her heart empty out its contents into her stomach to allow it to be consumed by something dark and hot.

THE SAFE HAVEN

Cassandra knew it was just too good to be true.

She could feel her face quivering, as the tightly packed mass in her chest grew larger with each passing second, suffocating her and making it hard to breathe. The gale around them continued to howl with increasing tenacity, throwing up sand into the air. Harriet started to explain in further detail of what happened after they had abducted Thomas, and how Teresa kept telling them that he did something bad to her but not what.

"Sounds to me like she was hiding something," Newt said.

"Yeah, it was obvious she was but we never really dwelled on it," Harriet responded. "She knew a lot more about WICKED than we did, and the weird man told us to listen to her."

"We were all convinced that we had to go through the Trial," Sonya told them.

"There wasn't much of a choice anyway," Harriet continued. "We travelled underground through the tunnels, lost a couple of sticks on the way. The only thing that kept us going was the hope that it'll all be over soon."

Minho grunted. "Sounds familiar."

"It'll never be over," Cassandra said bitterly. "There's always going to be something else, another test, another Variable, another factor. We're all just freaking test subjects to them."

She stalked forwards and tore the flag out of the ground, breaking the wooden stick in half across her knee with a furious snarl. Everything was big shucking joke. Cassandra threw the remnants on the ground and stomped on it, grinding her heel into the orange fabric. "I'm going to shove this shucking flag up their asses so high that—"

"Hey, it's Thomas!" Frypan suddenly called out.

Cassandra paused in her tirade to look around. Thomas was grinning when he saw them, charging through the belligerent wind towards their group. Teresa and Aris were just a few steps behind him. He threw his arms around his friends when they finally met up.

"Cass." Thomas' eyes scanned her face in a mixture of relief and sadness. "You're okay. I'm so glad you're okay."

"You too." Cassandra then turned to the girl beside him. "Teresa." She enveloped her friend in a hug and the girl beamed back, her blue eyes wavering with unspoken gratitude.

"Hey, Cass," she responded. "I'm glad you're okay too."

"I thought you'd be fightin' tooth and nail with these girls after what they did to us," Thomas said, crossing his arms. "To me, anyway."

Cassandra stuck her tongue out at him and he mimicked her expression with exaggerated disgust.

"Well, first of all," Minho started. "They have nastier weapons, not to mention bows and arrows. We lost most of ours with everything happenin'. Plus, some chick named Harriet explained everything. We're the ones who should be surprised—that you're still with them." He shot a glare at both Teresa and Aris. "Never trusted either one of those shuck traitors."

"They're on our side, trust me," Thomas said quickly, but he seemed to be holding in a sigh.

Minho gave a bitter laugh. "Figured you'd say that. Let me guess, it's a long story?"

"Yeah, very long story." The boy's lip twitched downward. "Anyway, why'd you all stop here? What's everybody looking at?"

"Have a peeky-peek yourself." Minho waved his hand while stepping to the side. A few boys and girls looked at him before shuffling away to make a path that allowed them to see the broken pieces of the flag on the ground.

Thomas and Teresa frowned deeply as they took several steps forward to have a closer look, then Thomas turned around to stare at Cassandra. "You did that, didn't you?" He pointed accusingly.

She smiled smugly in response and he sighed before glancing at his watch. "We have over an hour left. Our safe haven was a stick in the ground?" Thomas looked around at them as if expecting someone to refute his claim.

"Wasn't so bad when you think about it." Minho shrugged. "More than half of us made it here. Looks like even more of the girlie group."

"The Flare turn you crazy already?" Thomas raised an eyebrow "Yeah, we got here. Safe and sound. To a broken stick."

Minho scoffed. "Dude, they wouldn't send us here for no reason. We made it in the time they gave us. Now we wait until the clock ticks down and something'll happen."

"That's what worries me," Thomas replied with a slight grimace.

"Hate to say it," Teresa started. "But I agree with Thomas. After everything they've done to us, it'd be way too easy to have a little sign here, and then they come get us in a nice helicopter as a reward. Something bad's gonna happen."

Thomas hesitated as he glanced back to Minho, who wore a disgruntled expression as he continued to glare at Teresa with distrust. Cassandra nudged him in the ribs. "Fine, explain, but let me get Newt first," he said. "Then I want to know Thomas' side of the story."

He left briefly, disappearing through the throng of teenagers behind him. A minute later, he reappeared with Newt in tow. The blonde's eyes were wide with awe as he looked between their little group.

"Hey, Tommy," he greeted. Just that, two words, as if Thomas hadn't been kidnapped at all.

"Hey," Thomas replied simply.

Newt crossed his arms, then turned to Teresa. "So Minho said you were going to explain everything. It better be bloody good, you know."

Teresa sighed wearily before she and Thomas related the events that happened. She told them that she'd been taken by WICKED and forced to act out their plan—which was to betray Thomas with Aris. Cassandra thought it was an odd plan and a stark difference to her near death experience.

"Back in the Glade," Cassandra started, making sure to keep her voice low. She didn't want Aris to overhear her. "I heard a voice that kept telling me I was a mistake. Then I heard a voice calling to me in the mountain, and I thought it was Teresa. But when I went there, it was Rachel from Group B. She killed me. Slit my throat." She pointed at the thin scar. "Then some magic gas healed me too."

She looked up at Thomas and Teresa's shocked faces. "We went through almost the same experience..." Thomas said. "Just the reasons were different..."

Newt started suddenly and cried out in surprise. His eyes were trained over Thomas' shoulder at something in the distance, profound terror marked deeply on his features. Everyone turned to look and Cassandra felt her heart drop at what she saw.

A section of the ground was opening in a perfect square of about fifteen feet in width, throwing up more desert dust into the air that caught in the swirling wind that whipped about them. It pivoted on a diagonal axis, a white oblong pod slowly emerging from the depths of the earth. It reminded her of a coffin, albeit oddly shaped, and she knew instantly that there was something inside it.

"What the hell is happening?" Cassandra asked.

Then all around them, more sections of the ground started to uncover themselves in a wide circle. The sounds of their metallic groaning pierced through the air over the raucous squall, making it sound like an army of demons were closing in on them.

They were surrounded.