“Sharp sticks?” Jackson repeats confused. He reaches to touch my arm, but I jerk away from him.

“Don’t touch me,” I say.

“Whoa, yeah, I’m sorry,” he says, truly apologetic. “I just . . . You’re not making sense. But I believe you anyway. So let’s get out of here. I’ll hit that guy over the head”—he hikes his thumb toward the theater—“and we’ll all run for it. All the girls.”

That won’t work. We’d have nowhere to go. If that memory is right, the investors know. Our parents and sponsors know. They’re all part of the same sick system. Who are these people? Are they . . . Are they even my parents?

“I have to get back inside,” I say, starting toward the theater. “I have to warn the other girls. We have evidence now—my memories, those files. We just have to use it all to shut down the academy.”

Jackson jogs ahead to stop in front of me, holding up his hand as if to show he’s not trying to be pushy. “What if it’s not enough?” he asks. “What if the school is still too powerful?”

I stare at him, waiting for an answer to come to me. Instead, I’m met with the unimaginable horror that he might be right. I shiver once and dart my eyes away before going back inside.

Jackson doesn’t follow me. I clear my cheeks, making sure the tears are gone. And just as I get to theater nine, the door swings open and Guardian Bose comes rushing out. He stops abruptly when he sees me.

“Where the hell were you?” he demands.

“Bathroom,” I answer, breathless. He grabs my elbow, making me wince.

“Get back inside,” he growls, and pushes me ahead of him. He escorts me down the aisle to my seat, then pushes me down into my chair. It takes everything I have to not fight back.

“Don’t leave this theater again until I tell you,” he says, pointing in my face. I work to look sufficiently ashamed.

“I promise,” I say.

Guardian Bose goes back to his seat, and when he’s gone, Sydney exhales.

“You were gone awhile,” she murmurs. She realizes how bad I’m shaking, and she threads her fingers through mine, asking if I’m okay.

Being close to her, being together, lets me finally break down. I cry into her shoulder, unable to tell her the horrible truth. Not yet. I just let her hold me and tell me that we’ll take care of each other.

24

I’m quiet on the bus ride home, afraid to say anything in case the Guardian overhears. And more than that, I’m devastated. The girls will know soon enough, but I can’t tell them now and expect them to keep it in. They’ll need space to grieve. We’ll need space to plan.

I can’t wait for Jackson to find a way. We’ll find our own way. I lean my head against the window, emotionally and physically exhausted. I close my eyes, searching the memory.

And as I do, other ones begin to fill in. Other truths become obvious even though they weren’t at the time.

I haven’t been at Innovations Academy for eight months. I’ve been there for almost two years. I’ve been through their education before as a girl with a different last name. Anton sent me home with a man I was supposed to please. An . . . investment. Instead, I tried to get away and was hit by a car.

When I woke up, Dr. Groger was leading me up the stairs. Physically, nothing hurt, but I was lonely—I knew something was wrong. He told me I missed my parents—the Rhodeses. At the time, I agreed, thinking of them fondly—my parents.

But then, I saw the other girls in the reception hall. Sydney first, of course. Our eyes meeting across the room. And then there was Marcella and Annalise. We all stared at each other, relieved. Loving each other instantly.

Only it wasn’t instantly. It was again. The four of us had been here before. Each of us returning to the academy for an additional year of training.

Annalise no longer had blond hair. She was now a redhead—something that aggravated her, even if she didn’t understand why. After I tried to paint her hair, Anton put us all through impulse control therapy.

“Abide by your specifications,” he said. As if that was the bigger sin.

The other girls came later, Lennon Rose and Brynn. They were new. We loved them, too. We made each other stronger, each moment together feeling like a lifetime.

And there were other girls who had returned, like Valentine.

“Perfection,” Leandra announced on our first day back, “is our guarantee. Our investors expect it.”

And I open my eyes, knowing that the academy will do anything to keep their investors happy. Even if it means making us over again and again.

When we get back to school a short while later, Mr. Petrov and his wife are waiting on the stairs to welcome us, smiling and waving proudly.

Annalise murmurs for me to smile—ironically, of course—as we get off the bus. I catch Leandra watching us, seeming curious, but I quickly walk past with a polite nod.

Once inside, the Guardian tells us he’s sick of looking at us, possibly joking, and he goes to his room and shuts the door. He leaves us on our own, and as we stand in the hallway, my pleasantries fade away.

Valentine comes over to look me dead in the eyes. “What?” she asks. “He can’t help?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But . . . you all need to know something. We should . . .” The words catch in my throat, the horror of them, and I lead the girls into my room. About to destroy their world.

• • •

Annalise throws up in my bathroom, sobbing heavily. Marcella stares straight ahead while Brynn holds her hand, murmuring over and over that she doesn’t understand. Valentine stands at the window, facing out.

Next to me, Sydney is motionless—in shock, I’m assuming.

It’s hard to explain that it’s not exactly a surprise, that the signs of the academy’s true intentions were there all along. But it does not make them any less horrific.

“And you’re saying,” Sydney starts, her voice so low it’s barely a whisper, “our parents know.”

“If they’re our actual parents,” I say, making her flinch. “But yes, I believe they know. They all know.”

She turns to me, tears clinging to her long lashes. “And you were hit by a car?” she asks.

“Then how are you okay?” Brynn asks. “Why don’t you have any scars?” She looks around the room frantically, looking for an excuse not to believe. “She’d have scars, right?”

“Broken bones,” Annalise says, coming out of the bathroom and blotting her mouth with a tissue. “Cuts and bruises—stuff like that. But the doctor used his technology to put you back together,” she says to me. “Just like the graft on your knee. I saw in the files they can do repairs like that. A doll they can fix over and over. Must be convenient.”

Although the thought is horrifying, it would explain why I didn’t have any pain when I woke up. Annalise comes to sit on the other side of Sydney. I’ve told them everything, and now we just have to figure out how to use the information.

“I wasn’t with you,” Brynn says, her voice soft. Marcella looks at her, seeing that she feels left out, even if it’s not something anyone would want to be a part of. She wasn’t one of our original girls. I imagine she feels suddenly lonely at the thought of being apart from us.