He called out to her on a whim. He wasn’t really sure why. Maybe the quiet was finally starting to get to him, and the thought of walking all the way down the mountain in the awkward silence that had followed his waking in the chamber was unbearable. Despite everything that had happened, despite how much it all had hurt him --- physically and emotionally --- he still found himself wanting to talk to her. To reach out to her, see what she knew, ask her what had happened. To try and figure things out like they always had.
He'd known it was going to happen. Not the details --- he'd hardly known any details since they’d left the Maze --- but he had known that a betrayal scenario had been planned, and that it involved Teresa and Group B. Teresa had even warned him, more than once, even though it had been risky for her to do it. She’d warned him that it was going to be bad, and she’d told him again and again to trust her, to hang in there, that it would all be over soon. And he had. He’d tried so hard to hold onto his hope, because he knew her, knew that WICKED had planned this out, that it was their fault, not Teresa’s. And that knowledge had helped him to keep trusting her, had helped to keep his faith in her from crumbling completely from underneath him. He’d held out, barely, despite everything, and he’d believed her when she told him she was sorry, that none of it was real. That she’d had to do it. To save him. He believed her.
And yet, it had still hurt. Hurt more than he’d ever expected it to, more than he’d ever thought it could. She’d hit him, let them drag him across every bump and crack in their way, lulled him into a false sense of wary security, only to lay down blow after blow, doing her absolute best to hit everywhere she knew would hurt. She’d done everything in her power to make him feel completely and utterly betrayed, and somehow...it had worked. He did feel betrayed. Or something close to it, anyway. And even though he knew now that he’d been right, that it had all been an act, another one of WICKED’s cruel Variables thrown at him to get the patterns they wanted, he still couldn’t shake it off. He was angry, bitter, and hurt, and in that moment, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to get over it completely.
How he’d ever been able to work with these people, he had no idea.
Nevertheless, he reached out; in his mind, so that Aris wouldn’t hear them. He didn’t turn to look at her, didn’t pause or reach for her hand like he might have before, but there were things he wanted to talk about, and he knew it would eat away at him if he didn’t say something.
( Is the telepathy working again? )