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6.
The light flickered on to reveal an empty hallway. Blake thought she would feel some sort of relief, but as she felt Thomas freeze beside her she realized that something was wrong.
Newt nudged past them, walking forward with his slight limp, something she never asked him about. He walked until he stood in the very center of the room's carpeted floor. "This is impossible," he said, turning around a long circle motion, gazing up at the ceiling. "Not enough time passed for someone to get them out. And no one else even came into this buggin' room. We would've heard them!"
The bodies...Minho and Thomas had mentioned them to her. Now they were gone. Of course, she had never seen the bodies, but telling by the reactions around her they must have been bad. And getting rid of them so fast-
"We should know by now—nothing is impossible," Blake shook her head. Her with Grievers, them surviving the Maze, everything they had been through had beaten the impossible.
Blake walked out in the hallway, stepping to the side with Thomas to lean against the wall. Other Gladers with Toby and Aris came out of the small dorm room. As each boy entered the hallway, their faces filled with confused awe.
"You're right," Minho said to Newt. "We were in there with the door closed for, what, twenty minutes? No way anyone could've moved all those bodies that quickly. Plus, this place is locked from the inside."
"Not to mention getting rid of the smell," Thomas added.
Minho nodded, deep-set eyes searching the room.
"Well, you shanks are right smart," Frypan said through a sign. "But take a look around. They're gone. So whatever you think, somehow they got rid of them."
Blake shrugged, staring at her bare feet. "I suppose that's one way to think of it."
"Hey," Winston said. "Those crazy people quit screaming and yelling."
Blake's head snapped back up, she looked at Thomas with confusion.
Thomas shifted, nodding. "I thought we just couldn't hear them from Aris's room. But you're right―they stopped."
Soon everyone was running for the larger dorm room on the far side of the common area. Blake and Thomas followed behind the group. Mixed emotions washed a wave across her. Maybe she followed because she was curious, or maybe it was because she didn't want to leave the Gladers alone. A pit hollow filled her stomach.
"No way!" Minho yelled from up ahead, snapping her back. She watched as he disappeared inside the room without another word.
As Blake drew closer she noticed the hesitation in the boys. Their eyes wide as they stared at the door. She recalled how Minho walked in without another thought. He was brave, one of the qualities she admired. Slowly the rest of the boys entered the dorm. Blake waited for a second as each Glader and then Aris and Toby piled their way inside before she walked in too.
Blake felt it, somehow felt it. The air sucked into nothing but shock. She has never been in the room, but the tense feel and quietness the room held told her something was different, something was wrong. Her eyes caught what everyone was gawking at. At each window, a red brick wall was there just outside the iron bars.
"Even if they were quick with those bodies," Newt said, "I'm pretty sure they didn't have time to bloody throw up some brick walls. What's going on here?"
Blake watched as Minho walked over to one of the windows and leaned against the bars, pressing his hand against the red bricks. "Solid," he said, then pounded at it.
"It doesn't even look fresh," Thomas murmured, stepping up to one himself to get a feel. "The mortar's dry. Somehow they've tricked us, that's all."
"Tricked us?" Frypan asked. "How?"
Thomas shrugged. "I don't know. Remember the Cliff? We jumped into thin air and went through an invisible hole. Who knows what these people can do."
The next half-hour passed in a haze of figuring out what had been changed. Blake
made her way about, as did everyone else, exploring the room. She knew she wasn't much help since she had never taken a foot in the room till that very day. But she listened, maybe for one of the first times since she woke up in the Maze. She didn't say a word as people commented that all the beds in the Gladers' dorm room were made, that there was no sign of the grungy clothes they'd all worn before changing into the pajamas provided the night before. Some argued that the dressers had been rearranged,
The dressers were stocked with fresh clean clothes and new digital watches for each of them. Blake was a little excited when she found a drawer just for her, filled with clothes that would fit her properly, rather than the oversized stuff she wore at the Glade. There was a brown jacket, a black tank top, and a pair of denim shorts.
But the biggest change of all―discovered by Minho―was the sign outside the room. Instead of saying Teresa Agnes, Group A, Subject A1, The Betrayer, and Blake Taylor, Group A, Subject A3, The Bomb, it now said:
Aris Jones, Group B, Subject B1, The
Partner
And...
Toby Taylor, Group B, Subject B3, The
Sponge
Blake blinked a few times. Taylor. Both Toby and her had it after their names. It couldn't be a coincidence that she found Toby oddly familiar either. She couldn't wrap her head around it, felt frustrated that any memories she tried to seek didn't come. Most people had wandered away. She noticed that Toby was one of the first to leave the crowd like he
didn't want to hear the wrath of the storm.
Soon Thomas left till it was just Newt, Minho, and Blake standing there. She stared at the name, her stare hot like she could set the piece of paper on fire. Hard like coal.
Newt nudged her shoulder. "You okay?"
Blake snapped her gaze from the paper to her curled toes. "Yeah, I'm just trying to figure it out. You know, why this ding-dong and mine name ends with Taylor. I'm not a fool to think it's nothing."
Newt's face puzzled but he nodded. Minho crossed his arms, shifting his weight to the foot on Blake's right. "Maybe he is your husband of somethin'," Minho grinned.
Blake gave Minho a look. "Funny."
"I think Blake is too young to be married, but who knows with this bloody place anymore," Newt said, rolling his eyes.
"I think he might know something. I'm going to find out," Blake mumbled, already walking towards the boys' dorm.
"An interrogation? Might be something fun to watch," Minho said to Newt, she could hear the slight laugh in his voice.
Blake quickly found Toby by a bunk near the back of the boys' dorm. He sat by himself, running his fingers through his brown curls, leaning against the bunk on the floor. His walnut eyes flickered to her sliver-blue eyes, his lips formed a hallow smile. "I was waiting."
"For me? Oh really?"
He nodded, leaning his head back. "Not many girls can keep themselves away from me."
Blake's stomach twisted at the sentence. "Whatever you-"
"I was kidding. I don't know why you would think that would be very funny. You remind me of Emily and she never thought anything I said was funny. Well-"
"Do you usually talk about pointless stuff?" Blake asked, sitting next to him.
Toby rolled his eyes. "You say it like it's a bad thing."
"I'm not here to joke or have a nice little conversation. I want to hear what you know."
"I told you-"
"I want to hear what you know about me," Blake said gesturing to herself. Toby's smile faded, his eyes moved to a spot on the ground.
"This will be a lot of talking."
"Shouldn't be a problem for you."
He gave her a look but explained, "I never got memories during the day. It was always during late nights. The memories would mix with my dreams, making them sometimes hard to understand. But I'm pretty good at soaking up information, problem-solving stuff. Maybe that where I get the name 'The Sponge'. Anyways, when I slept, I saw this girl. She was always chased or covered with a foggy mist, but I would catch glimpse of her eyes as she lead me through different memories."
"Lead?" Blake asked, shaking her head slightly.
"Yeah, you heard it right. Basically as she walked I would run after her. Before I could catch her, I would get hit with a memory...And wake up," Toby said, wide-eyed.
"Okay, so get to the point where I come in."
"Right, right. So when I saw glimpses of her eyes, they were beautiful. Sliver-blue, round, and soft. I wasn't scared of her. When you woke up, your eyes were the first thing I notice. And..." Toby took a deep breath, talking too fast. "And the eyes I kept seeing in my dream—they were yours."
Blake looked down. "So, what does this mean?"
"It means I saw you almost every night! I swore I would find you, 'cause I saw you for a reason. And now the paper! Blake, I don't know who you are, but at the same time it feels like I do," Toby said rather loudly. Eyes flickered to them, but neither of them cared. Blake was utterly speechless. All of this seemed too wack to be true, but it also was too wack to not be true.
"I, uh. I don't know," Blake said, honestly.
Toby nodded, his eyes already off somewhere else. Blake followed his gaze to Minho who was giving him a deadly stare. Toby's posture sunk a bit. "Can you please tell your boyfriend to stop looking at me likes he wants to gut me. It's a bit threatening, to be honest. I'm a bit scared to go to the bathroom when he is around."
Blake's gaze met Minho's and for a good moment that's all they did was stare. Something in her stomach caused her to look at Toby. "What?"
Toby's eyebrows crippled, but he grinned. "You know, when you were unconscious, he was forced out of the room to go do something else so he wouldn't kill Aris and me."
Blake pushed herself off the ground. "I'll go talk to him about not killing you. Wish me luck," she winked, then walking towards Minho.
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I finally updated!!! And I made the chapter longer than normal for a little treat. This chapter was super fun to write, maybe since summer break is just a few days away, so I'm in a writing mood again. I hope you like Toby and how do you think he ties in with Blake? All of this will be found out soon.
Hope you liked the chapter!!
Marie.