Annalise’s phone begins buzzing on the coffee table. She reaches for it, but then her hand freezes. She lifts her eyes to mine.

“I thought you shut down the lines,” Sydney asks Marcella.

“I did,” she replies.

Annalise picks up her phone and then turns the screen around for us to see. The call is coming from Annalise’s number.

“Then who’s calling me?” she asks. Sydney and I exchange a look.

“About that … ,” I say.

Reading the concern in my voice, Annalise sets the phone back down on the table. The vibration echoes throughout the room. When the phone stops ringing, Annalise picks it up to remove the battery.

“Okay,” Annalise says, fear having crept into her voice. She looks up at me. “Tell us what really happened at school today.”

I take a deep breath and tell them about the woman in the garden.

* * *

None of us have our phones and it’s kind of … lonely. Before now, we’d never had access to the outside world. No phones or internet. We only started using them over the past two weeks, but we grew attached to how easily we could connect or find information. We seem to have an extra sense when it comes to technology. Annalise especially was a quick study, and we guess it’s something in her programming that gives her that talent. But we all liked the instant freedom a phone gave us. I can see why people become dependent on them.

Before bed, the girls and I discussed the vision I had at school. We have no idea who the woman could be, but we’re sure that she’s the one Leandra warned us about. We agreed not to tell Leandra about this latest development, though. We have no illusions about the danger it would put us in.

Annalise reasoned that the woman might not be a real person at all. She could be something from our old programming resurfacing, or something reactivated by the academy to find us. We threw out several theories, but nothing stuck, so we ended up tabling the discussion until we get new information.

Sydney and I told the girls about school, what it looked like, how people behaved. Marcella smiled when I described the posters on the walls of my history classroom. Brynn wanted to hear everything about Adrian, as if she was already interested in being her friend.

But of course, the conversation grew sad because the other girls didn’t get to experience it with us. When it got late, we said good night and went to our rooms.

In my bed now, my head still hurts. I reach over and take the aspirin that Brynn set out on my nightstand. I’m wary of medication now, but Brynn promised it would help. I take it with a sip of water and rest back against the pillow, closing my eyes. It’s hard to concentrate on saving the world when it feels like a vise is crushing your brain.

There’s a soft knock on my door. I sit up, wincing and closing one eye. Marcella pokes her head in apologetically.

“Did I wake you up?” she asks.

“No. Come in.”

I pat the bed for her to join me, and she does, sitting against the headboard.

“I was worried about you today,” she whispers. “It was frustrating to not be there. I had no way to protect you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know,” she says. “But I still hated being apart.”

We all hate being separated. The girls and I are completely intertwined, connected as though there are unseen wires between us. At the academy, the cruelest punishment was when the professors would separate us. We vowed to never let that happen again.

“When we’re done with this, when we end the corporation, we’ll move somewhere else,” I say. “We’ll do whatever we want.”

Marcella presses her lips together and nods, accepting this version of our future, no matter how unlikely it seems right now.

“How’s Brynn doing?” I ask.

“She …” Marcella pauses. “She’s having a hard time. She wants to go back for them right now. She thinks we can break them out.” Marcella smiles at this thought, at the pureness in it.

Brynn won’t give up on the other girls. She has a fierce love that we all admire. But we can’t go back to Innovations Academy. We have to free them a different way.

Marcella looks sideways at me, her brow creased with worry. “How are you feeling?” she asks.

“The headache’s a little better.”

“I’ll pretend to believe that,” she says. “But I’m not really asking about your headache.”

We hold each other’s gaze before I curl up on my side, my hands tucked under my cheek. “Someone got to me,” I whisper. “They found me and they got to me. She scared me, Marcella.” My voice cracks. “I’m always scared.”

I don’t mean to, but I start crying. One of the most difficult aspects of the aftermath of the academy is the helplessness. The feeling of never, ever being safe again.

Marcella puts her hand on my arm and then lies next to me, letting me cry on her shoulder.

This isn’t the first time I’ve broken down. We’ve all done it since leaving the academy—moments where our emotions were uncontainable. So we agreed not to hold them in, especially after Annalise pointed out that controlling our emotions was one of the ways the academy manipulated us.

A hysterical girl is easy to discredit, in their eyes. Annalise believes it’s the opposite: Deeply felt emotions are our power. Our ability to feel is just as important as our ability to think.

But … I haven’t been completely honest with the girls. And even now, I can’t bring myself to completely fall apart. I’m scared of losing myself in my fear.

Because that’s the thing: I’m scared in the most debilitating way. I’m so scared that I wake up multiple times a night to check the lock on my bedroom door. I’m so scared that I sleep with the lights on, leading Sydney to room with Annalise instead.

I’m so scared … that it was my idea to shut everyone out of our lives. No new friends. I promise myself it’ll be different when this is all over. That we’ll get to live.

But that’s not true. This may never be over.

“You don’t have to be alone, Mena,” Marcella whispers. She pets back my hair, continuing to study me with a sympathetic gaze. “You can’t keep going like this,” she adds.

“Like what?” I say, wiping the tears off my cheeks.

“Alone.”

I swallow hard, lowering my eyes. She’s right. I’ve been withdrawn. I used to find comfort in the girls, in our closeness. It’s still there, of course. But I’ve shut out the world. I distrust it. Resent it. But the isolation is starting to eat away at me.

Every day, I become a little less human.

“I know you’re scared,” Marcella says in a quiet voice. “And that’s why I want you to give Raven a chance.”

“What?” I ask, stunned. “Raven? But we don’t even know her.”

“You need help. We all do.”

I’m offended that she thinks a hacker can solve the problems that society created with a simple tweak. Like we’re the problem and not the abusive men who created us.

“So what do you want her to do?” I ask. “Stick an ice pick in my eye and reprogram me? Download my consciousness?”