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They had Thomas.
They had Thomas, forced to his knees, a gun to his head.
“You have the list of names, Minho. Pick who dies, or we kill them all.” Thomas nodded at Minho.
He wanted to be the one to die.
Minho shook his head back at him.
He didn’t want anyone to die.
“Choose, Minho, or we’ll start with this one.” Ratman glanced at Thomas. “It’d be such a waste, too.”
Janson circled Thomas. “Such a waste. You were the best of us, Thomas. You worked with us, trained us, built the Mazes. But you’ll serve as an example, if need be.”
The tattoo on his neck burned.
Maybe it would have been better if the girls had killed him.
Because now his life was in Minho’s hands, along with everyone else’s, and he knew what Minho would do.
And Minho didn’t deserve to live with that.
No one did.
So Thomas did what he did best.
"I worked with you ? You're telling me Teresa and I handpicked you to be the next second in command of WICKED? Come on, Janson, at least speak sense." Was it his best plan? Absolutely not. Minho was looking at him like he was insane, which was fair.
Any amount of time spent in Janson’s presence was enough to make him insane.
“Well, you picked Ava, certainly, and she selected me.”
“Or was it that she sent four kids on a kill mission to gain command more easily?”
“Those were Cranks! ” Thomas’s memory of that was very hazy, very faint, but now he knew it was real.
“And we were children.” The guards were getting uneasy. Maybe they hadn’t thought about this. They probably hadn’t been there, though; guards would be seen as expendable around here.
“That doesn’t matter.” Janson dismisses the topic easily, but there's a tension in his shoulders that says it's hit home. "Well, Minho, if you're not going to decide, I guess I'll have to choose for you. A gun, please." He held out a hand, and a pistol was placed in his palm.
"I'll start with you, little dead boy. You won't be mouthing off when you've got a bullet in your ribs." The guards held Minho back, now, and Thomas looked at him, and smiled. He was glad he'd gotten to know Minho.
"Why are you smiling, brat?"
"Just wondering why you're stalling." Thomas returned, absently. His focus stayed on Minho until he realized that would be cruel.
He locked eyes with Janson.
And he fired.
Minho screamed as the guards' hands dug into his arms.
Minho screamed as the shot rang out.
Minho screamed as Thomas, so accepting of death, took a bullet through the chest and stayed up on his knees, glaring at Ratman.
In challenge.
"Why can't you just drop dead already?"
"I trained you, Janson, and you really don't know?"
Janson shot him again, blood splattering up onto Thomas's face, getting paler by the second.
He still hadn't made one noise, not even the softest little grunt, of pain.
Minho didn't know how he did it.
"Choose, Minho. Either Thomas dies here, slowly, alone, or he dies quickly, a bullet to the head. No more pain." Janson was suddenly watching him again, a crazed look in his eyes.
"I-" He didn't want Thomas to die at all, but surely a quick death would be better?
He wouldn't be in as much pain, then.
"Don't, Minho." Thomas's voice was soft; he was hunched over now, arms wrapped around his torso to keep the blood in.
Minho didn't want to see him like this, ever.
He didn't want Thomas to die.
"No, Minho," Thomas repeated. "Don't."
"Well, he still has another choice to make, doesn't he, Thomas?"
Minho shook his head, silent tears streaming down his face.
He didn't want to choose.
"You must choose, Minho. Pick three others to die. The girls, maybe. You don't know them."
As if that made it any better.
"Or maybe you'll pick three boys. Your boys. You are their leader, right, Minho?" Ratman was rubbing salt in the wound and he knew it. "Just give me three names and three descriptions, Minho, and this will all be over. Three lives, well, four, I suppose, counting Thomas, or we kill everyone." Thomas shook his head. Did he really think Ratman was bluffing?
"If you wanted us all dead, Janson, we'd all be dead already." Wonderful. Minho loved it when his dying boyfriend decided to call bluff on the guy killing them.
"Well well well, it seems you can still think, Thomas. Maybe we'll bring Teresa in, see what else she can get out of that brain of yours. You'll be useful down to your last hours, Thomas."
"Truly, my life-long dream." Thomas deadpanned.
"Glad we'll be able to fulfill it for you, then." Janson turned on Minho. "I tire of talking to a dead boy. Tell me, Minho, pick any three of your fellows and you will live. Maybe I'll be kind, and let Thomas live, as well." Maybe? Maybe? Minho didn't want to trade lives.
He didn't want to make this call.
"Pick, Minho. Or would you rather choose how Thomas dies? Would you like him to be left here to bleed out, alone? Or would you like to end it all right now, with a shot to the head?" Minho froze again.
"Let him leave, Janson. You don't need him here to hurt me."
"You're right, Thomas. But I need him here to hurt him. ANd he needs to decide quickly. My patience is running out." Ratman tapped the gun against his palm, then aimed it back at Thomas.
"Where do you think, Gin? Head, hip, or thigh?"
"Thigh, sir."
"Why?"
"More chance of hitting the femoral artery, sir."
"And then he could stay here and bleed out? Good thinking, Gin." The guard who had spoken, standing behind Thomas, looked queasy and disgusted.
Minho thought he deserved to be shot in the thigh himself.
The gun went off again.
Minho squeezed his eyes shut.
Thomas did scream this time—a hollow sound that cut off to pained breathing.
"Oh, so the dead boy can scream. Who knew?" Ratman laughed, and Minho lost it.
Left elbow back, hard.
Right foot down, hard.
Spin, kick at their legs, try to destabilize them.
Ratman just kept laughing.
The guards by Thomas didn't rush him at all.
Minho hit at his guards until they were down, then ran to tackle Ratman.
Right as he fired again.
Into Thomas's limp body.
"All that, Minho? All that for a little dead boy? Why? Why have you gone to this effort for him?"
"Why do you think you get to kill children and teenagers who have done nothing to you?" Minho roared, punching Ratman solidly in the face.
It shut him up, at least. Then, crawling to Thomas's body because he didn't think he could stand, Minho let go of what had been holding back his tears.
"Go get help or something." He growled to the guards over Thomas. "Either that or kill us both." The one nodded and ran off—Minho didn't really care where to. He knew Thomas's heart was beating because of the blood still spurting out of his thigh.
Using his shirt, Minho tied a knot off over the wound, hoping to keep some pressure on.
To his surprise, the guard shoved him aside.
"Your hands are shaking, kid. I've got medical training, let me handle this." Expertly, the guard used their shirts to bind up Thomas's wounds, at least for now.
Minho didn't want to just sit back and watch, but he had not experience that would be helpful here, none at all.
Thomas wondered if he should try to sit up.
There was a weird pressure on his leg, and on his ribs, and on his side, and on his arm.
Thomas took a deep breath and remembered why sitting up would be a bad idea.
Clean, sharp pain in his ribs, only a little duller in his side. Pulsing, sharp, stabbing pain in his leg. A different pulsing, a little less, maybe, in his arm, but it hurt nonetheless.
Something pressed against his leg and Thomas screamed.
There was a thud, and Thomas turned his head, slowly, very slowly, to look at Minho, who had fallen backward.
Maybe Minho hadn't known he was awake.
Minho came closer, though, and Thomas, even with blurred vision, could see tears on his face. He reached out, as if to touch him, but had to stop.
Minho came closer anyway, and put Thomas's head in his lap.
It was a nice feeling, much better than all the pain Thomas was trying to ignore right now.
It'd be easier to ignore if it wasn't the worst thing he'd felt; even if he could speak, he wouldn't have the words to describe it.
Thomas leaned into Minho. The merciful, blissful dark took him away.
Minho panicked when Thomas passed out.
"Calm down. The medbay is nearby, Cal will be back soon, he passed out from pain, not blood loss. He hasn't lost enough blood for that yet."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Minho asked, voice rough.
He wanted to kick Ratman again, but that would involve moving Thomas, and he didn't want to do that.
Not until he had to.
"I'm staying with him. I don't trust any of you." Minho told the guard.
"Good. You'll have to clean up and put scrubs on, though. You won't be allowed in without it."
"What?"
"He's going to need surgery, kid. None of the bullets have an exit wound. He'd be dead already if they did. I don't know how he's not as it is."
"What?"
"Well, it didn't hit his heart, and he did a decent job of minimizing blood loss with what he had. Janson didn't hit his femoral artery, either." At Minho's confused look—it wasn't his fault he didn't know what the femoral artery was—the guard explained.
"Major artery in the leg. He would have bled out by now if it was hit."
"Why are you helping us?" Minho asked, surprised by the question.
It was something Thomas would do, not him.
"Why? Because I did not sign on to kill kids. I signed on to get out of a Crank-infested city and starvation. Cal, they kidnapped his sister."
Was Minho supposed to feel sorry for him?
"It was a bad choice, but at the time it seemed like a better choice than any other I had." The guard went on explaining. "Of course, people actually do believe WICKED is good. They have a great PR team, for these times."
Minho didn’t want to think about why they needed a PR team when they kept the giant mazes for keeping children in a secret.
What was their public research?
There were fast-moving footsteps in the hall.
“Gin, help me move him, they’re getting the OR prepped already.”
“Sure, Cal. The kid wants to stay in the room.” Gin nodded toward Minho.
“The whole time? It’s gonna be a long night, kid. Run ahead and tell a nurse, they’ll help you scrub in.”
Minho got the feeling this was not something they would ever be doing, but he wasn’t letting them separate him from Thomas.
Maybe he shouldn’t have insisted so much on being here.
Watching them cut Thomas open with blades and digging around and remove things and then heal it up with little lasers was not fun.
It was not comforting.
But at least he knew what they were doing to Thomas.
(he ended up falling asleep, later, after they moved thomas, head resting on thomas’s good arm.)
Thomas woke up, achy, but not in pain. He was more floaty than anything, really, and there was a weight on his arm.
Thomas booped Minho on the nose and fell back asleep.
The next time Thomas woke up would be three days later—he’d be awake for about three minutes, and terrify Minho in that time.
“Is he going to wake up?”
“Tomorrow seems likely. He has multiple traumatic injuries, even with our technology he’s not going to heal overnight.” A doctor told Minho, bored. He’d asked every day so far.
He just wanted Thomas to be okay.
Thomas woke up, head foggy and in little pain. Given that Minho was sleeping on his arm, he figured it was night.
Minho looked tired. Had he been sitting here the whole time? Thomas pulled his arm away, gently, but Minho woke up.
“You’re awake!” Minho’s excitement was quiet, but it was all Thomas needed.
“How long was I out?”
“A week. You scared me, Thomas.”
“I’m sorry.” Thomas looked around. “Minho, does anyone else know where we are?” Minho shook his head slowly. “Well, I’m up. Go talk to the others, go eat and shower. I’ll still be here.” Really, Thomas didn’t want Minho to see him cry. He was hurting, and he was scared—he didn’t know where Ratman was but that had been a test and he didn’t think they had passed. Thomas waited until Minho had shut the door behind him to bring his hands up to his face as best he could, hiding his tears as best he could.
He was aching , and his leg and chest still hurt, and he didn't want to be here anymore.
He just wanted to leave , to go back to the Maze where the biggest problem he had was figuring out how to get out.
(he didn't want to go back, really—what thomas wanted was something normal, something better than the scrap of existence he'd been given.
he had yet to figure out that he could expand his scrap, decorate it, and that all his problems had their place.
he was a boy.
he had time.)
Thomas was still crying when a nurse came in to check on him.
"Are you in pain?" She asked, almost bored.
"No." Thomas shook his head, somehow getting the word out. "Just—"
"Emotionally scarred?" Another nurse stepped in. "Lena, you are the worst at handling crying kids, leave." She came and sat on the bed. Thomas would have pulled away from her if he'd had the energy to do so.
"Hey, kid, I'm Quinnie, and I'm the nurse in charge of your recovery." She checked that the door was closed and lowered her voice. "And your escape, but don't tell anyone." Thomas stared at her.
"I have physical therapy plans. You'll be back with your friends in no time." Her smile hardly reached her eyes. "Come on, now, let me check those dressings for you." Thomas, who had stopped crying at some point, sat numbly and let her work.
This might be another test.
"You're all set. Another day or so, and we'll have you up and moving." She stood to open the door, then looked back and winked. "And that boyfriend of yours can climb into bed with you, but only for sleeping, you hear me?"
Flushing bright red, Thomas nodded. He had some idea what she meant, but the Glade wasn't a great place for sex and then they'd been in the desert.
"You can come visit with Thomas, now." Quinnie let Minho and Newt in; Brenda was hovering right outside the door.
Minho got in the bed, very carefully. Newt and Brenda each took a side, but neither stayed long. Thomas was grateful they ignored the tear tracks on his cheeks and just told him what had been going on.
Minho liked Newt, and he tolatered Brenda, he really did.
But he was glad when they left.
They’d been politely ignoring Thomas’s distraught face, making small talk instead, but this was something he needed to talk to Thomas about.
“Thomas, what happened? Are you in pain? Did the nurse do something?” Thomas shook his head, curling into Minho the way he did when he’d had a nightmare.
“I’m scared, Minho. What Janson did—that was a test. We failed. This is a test too, I think. Everything is, with them.”
“So? We lived through their tests before, we can do it again.” Minho told him. He wished he could cup his hands around Thomas’s face, rest their foreheads together, but he was behind Thomas and moving that much wasn’t going to happen.
“Not all of us.” Minho barely caught the words.
“I know. That’s why we keeping fighting them, with who we have.” Thomas rolled a little, just enough to turn his face into Minho’s shoulder. “We’re going to make it, Thomas. Ratman’s not around; he left yesterday. You’re going to heal and we’re going to get out of here. I promise.” Minho kissed the top of Thomas’s head.
They would get out of here.
He knew they would.
Thomas stayed quiet, on the verge of crying again.
He knew Minho thought they would get away, for good this time, but it wasn’t happening.
WICKED had too much invested in them to ever let them go without a fight.
“Stop thinking, love.” Minho whispered.
Thomas nodded.
For now, he’d sap Minho’s body heat.
A nap sounded nice, too.
He could deal with WICKED when he woke up.