In Chap­ter 50 of *The Scorch Tri­als*, Thomas fol­lows Tere­sa through a eerie, moon­lit for­est, their sur­round­ings adding to the ten­sion between them. He con­fronts her about her ear­li­er betray­al, ques­tion­ing why she con­tin­ued to threat­en him despite oth­ers agree­ing to spare his life. Tere­sa deflects by abrupt­ly ask­ing if Thomas knows Aris, a boy from their past, leav­ing Thomas con­fused and wary. Her cryp­tic behav­ior and refusal to explain imme­di­ate­ly height­en the sense of unease, set­ting the stage for a shock­ing rev­e­la­tion.

Tere­sa reveals that Aris was a sig­nif­i­cant part of her life before the Maze and that they share a tele­path­ic con­nec­tion, just as she once did with Thomas. She cold­ly explains that their rela­tion­ship was mere­ly part of WICKED’s tests, and now she and Aris are fol­low­ing orders. Thomas is stunned, refus­ing to believe her, but Tere­sa remains indif­fer­ent, even mock­ing his dis­be­lief. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lates when Aris appears behind Thomas, hold­ing a knife to his back, forc­ing him to com­ply with their demands.

Led to a hid­den cave, Thomas is trapped between Tere­sa and Aris, who open­ly dis­play their close­ness, fur­ther deep­en­ing his sense of betray­al. The cave’s eerie green light casts a sin­is­ter glow, ampli­fy­ing the ten­sion as Tere­sa jus­ti­fies her actions, claim­ing she had no choice but to manip­u­late Thomas to pass WICKED’s Tri­als. She insists her loy­al­ty lies with Aris, not Thomas, and that their sur­vival depends on his coop­er­a­tion. Thomas, furi­ous and heart­bro­ken, lash­es out, demand­ing they end the cha­rade and pro­ceed with what­ev­er they’ve planned.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in Thomas’s emo­tion­al break­down as Tere­sa and Aris pre­pare to open a mys­te­ri­ous door, sig­nal­ing his impend­ing fate. His trust in Tere­sa is shat­tered, and he real­izes she has ful­ly aligned her­self with WICKED’s agen­da. The green-lit door puls­es omi­nous­ly, sym­bol­iz­ing the unknown dan­gers ahead, while Thomas’s anger and despair under­score the chapter’s dark turn. The betray­al leaves him iso­lat­ed, forced to con­front the harsh real­i­ty that those he once trust­ed are now his ene­mies.