“Like that Jonah kid,” I offer.
Brynn runs the water at the sink to rinse out the pan. “Why do you suspect him?” she asks. “Did he say something?”
“It’s not just him,” I tell her. “But he did stand out to me. In a way, he reminds me of the men at the academy. He has a certain … smugness, I guess it’s called.”
“I call that ‘punch potential,’?” Annalise says, scraping up a forkful of eggs. Sydney snorts a laugh.
“What are you going to do when you find the investor’s son?” Brynn asks, coming to stand behind Marcella. She leans down, draping both her arms over Marcella’s shoulders. “What if he has a girlfriend?”
“Ew, we’re not going toseducehim,” Sydney explains. “Whoever this kid is, we’re going to befriend him and get an invite to his house. Then we’ll go through all his stuff.”
Marcella shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah, about that,” she says. “I’ve been reading posts about your prep school on social media. They don’t have a great reputation. Not to add to the frustration, but I found several anonymous stories about boys from your school being aggressive with girls. So you need to be careful interacting with them. They’re used to pushing girls around and taking what they want.”
Annalise sets down her glass of juice with a loud clank. My stomach turns, although I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d seen enough hints to suspect as much.
“Why does this keep happening?” Brynn murmurs, straightening.
Sydney stands up from the table, dusting off her hands. “Because the academy was just a symptom of the problems in their society. But I promise,” she adds angrily, “no one will ever take anything from us again.” She pushes in her chair, scraping it along the floor.
You can’t kill them all, Leandra told us the last time we talked to her on the phone. She threw the comment away like it couldapply to anything. But, of course, Sydney and I knew that she was talking about men in power.
You sure?Sydney replied. She meant it sarcastically, but Leandra told her she was impressed.
“Let’s go, Mena,” Sydney says now, collecting her things.
“Wait,” Annalise says. “What do you want to do about Raven?”
I grab my notebook and shove it into one of the backpacks Brynn picked up for us yesterday.
“We’ll think about it,” I say, and look sideways at Marcella. She nods her thanks.
“Let me know, okay?” Annalise says. “It’s important.”
“I know it is,” I reply. “And I promise we’ll talk about it when we get home.”
I notice that my headache is creeping back. I’m dreading the day ahead, interacting with the students of Ridgeview Prep. I just want to be with the girls.
I’m also worried that the woman’s voice is still banging around in my head somewhere, even if I can’t hear her. I’m afraid of ending up like Imogene.
We wave goodbye to the girls, and then Sydney and I go to school.
The day passes quickly, although I find I’m much further behind than I anticipated. Luckily, I retain information easily—we all do. At Innovations Academy, we were only taught the basics. They withheld education in order to control us.
I take notes as much as I can so that tonight the girls and I can research the answers online. It’s the opportunity for all of us to learn. And while Sydney and I are at school, Annalise does the same with our body systems.
We’re catching up, and to be honest, our sourced information about the world is sometimes more accurate than what they’re teaching in my classes.
It turns out, a steady diet of action films hasn’t prepared us for regular interactions with people. Our education gave us little in the way of actual learning. Even our beauty rituals seem out of place in the outside world—our makeup too heavy and our clothes too focused on male preferences. We’re learning, though. Brynn recently discovered sweatpants, and I don’t understand why people don’t wear them every day. Why is discomfort a synonym for professional dress?
When classes are over, I wait for Sydney near the door to the field. As I stand there, I see Adrian from my first-hour class. I hold up my hand in a wave, and she glances behind her. Then she turns back and points to herself. I smile.
“Yes, hi,” I say. She smiles in return and comes over to where I’m standing. “Are you going to the game?” I ask her. Her expression falters.
“The rugby game?” She looks horrified. “No. Why, are you?”
“I thought I’d check it out,” I say.
“Well, have fun,” she replies. “A bunch of dickheads and their dickhead friends screaming for them.”
