Trish grabbed Isaac’s arm, pulling him close to her. “Kletter said there’s a real possibility that Sadina has something in her blood, DNA, whatever, that might create a cure for a new version of the Flare. So it’s an adventure, yes, but mainly it’s a good cause!”

Miyoko scoffed. “Seems to me like some of us are forgetting the histories. Wasn’t that the whole point of our ancestors being used and abused and having to escape in the first place? Because they thought they could find a cure?”

Isaac was glad someone else had joined him in using logic.

“This is totally different,” countered Trish. “We’re going voluntarily, and Kletter is immune just like we are. Supposedly are, anyway. She said it’s just some medical tests they want to run, that it’s totally different from the brain studies the Gladers had to go through. She used the word physiological, I know that. As opposed to psychological, maybe. Ugh, just wait until the damn woman explains it herself.”

“Good idea,” said Dominic. “You really suck at explaining it.”

“Wah-wah,” Trish replied. No one really knew what it meant when she made that noise.

Isaac breathed a little easier. Trish’s point about it being an adventure had really struck him. It terrified him, yes, but it was also exhilarating to think that they could see the world—something he never thought in a million years would happen. It had been over seven decades since the Gladers had escaped what seemed like the apocalypse. Surely things back in the old world had been figured out, made safer. But his mind wouldn’t let him off so easily. Kletter, starving, had arrived in a boat, its deck littered with corpses, all shot in the head. By her.

Isaac tried to out-walk his thoughts, wishing he could flip a switch and turn his stupid brain off.

They gathered at the stern of the boat, on the big deck that a few days earlier had been covered in lifeless bodies. Someone—Isaac had no idea who—had gotten rid of the dead and cleaned the place up. He had a ridiculous image in his head of pirates with mops and wooden buckets, slopping and scrubbing with soapy water, singing as they worked. From a story once told by the old folks.