The world drops out from under me, and for a moment, I’m weightless in my horror. Because it’s not a brain in Valentine’s head—not in the traditional sense. Not in a . . . human sense.

Valentine Wright’s brain is made of metal—shiny metal with grooves and various buttons and inputs, wires threading in and out. A large hole has been drilled through the center, purposely destroyed.

Her brain is made of metal.

Her brain is a machine.

Like the other girl, Valentine’s veins are entangled with wires. Clearly the wires have been there for a while. They’ve always been there.

Slowly, I glance down and discover that her organs are also exposed, her body opened up. I look over the wires again, seeing where they connect. Some are thin enough to be thread—bright blue or red. Some are thicker. And there are clusters of what I assume are nerves. The entire body is connected to the brain—the machine brain.

As I study the system, it starts to make sense, the way the power flows, the purpose.

The wires connect each organ, sending a pulse for the metal brain to interpret. Analyze. The brain then decides when the body is hungry, when the heart is beating quickly. When there is pain. Or fear. Or impairment.

The organs are human—I can see that much. So is the skin. The veins. But the brain is a computer powering the entire system. A computer like our parental assistants.

I stumble back a step, my eyes wide. Artificial intelligence.

The color drains from Jackson’s face, and when he turns to me, he’s pure ruin. “What is this?” he asks, his voice cracking. “What the fuck is happening?”

And I don’t know, but I do. Somewhere inside me I have the answer. The calculations. The truth.

For a moment, my balance tips. And then Jackson is in front of me.

“Mena?” he whispers miserably. I stare into his dark eyes as he searches my face. Looking for an answer. “What have they done to you?”

And the clear thought finally comes, pushing aside the rubble. The answer I knew in impulse control therapy. The one I knew at the Federal Flower Garden.

“They made us in a lab,” I say, naming the truth. Tears drip onto my cheeks. “They grew us in a garden like roses.”

Across the room, Brynn turns to press her face into Marcella’s shoulder. Sydney continues to stare at Valentine’s body, her lips parted as she takes it all in.

“That’s the secret,” I say. “That’s what Guardian Bose thought we knew. They made us in a lab. We’re . . . We’re an investment. They must have . . .” I look at the hole in Valentine’s brain. “They must have thought she knew.”

I put my shaking fingers absently on my forehead as I look around the room wildly. I’m pure panic, my thoughts coming so fast that I can’t concentrate on any single one.

I think about the professors teaching us to be well-behaved. About the investors that we had to impress. About Dr. Groger’s checkups and Anton’s impulse control therapy. And then I think about Guardian Bose coming into my room at night.

They never cared about us as real people. We were always just objects. Products.

“Philomena,” Jackson says. He waits until I can focus on his face, and his eyes weaken. “Keep it together, okay? Right now, hold it together.”

Jackson cares about me. He cares about how these men have hurt me. Even if he doesn’t fully grasp what I am. Or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t care.

“Am I real?” I whisper, understanding the weight of the words. Sydney sniffles, and when I look back at her, her lip trembles. “Are we?” I ask. She doesn’t answer.

Jackson puts his hands on my upper arms, turning me toward him. He’s quiet for a long moment before nodding definitively.

“Yes,” he says. “You’re all real. You’re strong. Smart. You feel things. So, yes, Mena.” His hands slide off my arms. “You are very much real. No matter what’s on that table—you’re real.”

“How can I be?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “I really don’t. But we were all created in some way, right?” He looks at me, wanting me to agree. Needing me to make sense of this for him. “We were all created,” he repeats. “It’s what they’ve done to you since then that’s the fucking problem.”

Jackson waits for me to decide what to feel. The choices that make me. And I decide that I am real. No one gets to decide that but me. I am real.

And when I look at him, I see why I was so drawn to him in the first place. Why he was so different. He may have wanted information from me, but he never looked at me the way they did. He saw me, not flesh. Not dollars. Not . . . wires.

He wanted to figure things out just like I did. He wanted knowledge. He wanted answers. And now he has plenty.

“We’re all like this,” Sydney says, her voice hollow. “We’re machines.”

She looks at me, and we’re both very still. If we’re just machines, it shouldn’t matter that we killed the Guardian. We don’t have to feel guilt. We’re free to act without consequence.

And yet, his death weighs on me. It’s changed me.

The girls and I are bonded in a way that’s stronger than anything Innovations Metal Works or Innovations Academy could ever create. The truth of our existence only a small part of our connection. And we had to preserve that bond. We made a choice.

It was a choice.

And now, we can choose to be better than these men. We choose to love each other. We choose to be free. We do all of this without speaking a word out loud. We don’t have to.

Jackson stands dazed, continuing to dart his eyes around the room. I think he might pass out. “We have to keep moving,” he says. “I think your friend is bleeding to death.” He motions to Annalise.

Just as we turn to get her, a voice booms, “What the hell is going on?”

I spin around and find Dr. Groger standing in the doorway of his office. He looks at Jackson, and his “good doctor” façade is gone. His possessiveness at the sight of “his girls” talking to a boy colors his reaction.

“We need your help,” I say, walking over to Annalise. “Guardian Bose hurt her, and”—I motion to the blood—“she’s bleeding to death. You have to save her.”

He shakes his head. “Get to your room, Mena,” he says. “All of you girls. Now!” He claps his hands together, dismissing us.

“They’re not staying at your bullshit school, or factory, or whatever the fuck this place is,” Jackson says. “You’re going to help their friend and then you’re going to let them leave.”

The doctor laughs at Jackson’s boldness. “You’ve made a big mistake coming here,” he tells him. “I’m not sure if you understand what’s going on. Not only is this breaking and entering, but you’re also stealing someone else’s property.”

“We don’t belong to you,” I say. “Not anymore.”

Dr. Groger smiles and removes his glasses, tucking them into his front pocket. He pulls the walkie-talkie off his hip, and as he brings it to his lips, he watches Jackson. Jackson is the one he’s trying to intimidate. He figures he’s already controlling us.