“I love you,” she says, and I close my eyes, needing to hear it.
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
We stay together for a moment longer before Sydney sniffles and quickly rubs under her eyes. Her white towel has pink stains from where I hugged her.
“Can I ask you something?” she says as I start to undress to get in the shower.
“Of course,” I reply.
“How do you think Marcella knew about this place?” she asks.
I turn to her, confused. “What do you mean?”
“In the car, she just thought of Imogene,” Sydney says. “Why?”
“She said it was like Valentine hearing the flowers,” I recall. Although the moment I say that, I realize the problem. Valentine heard the flowers when she was breaking down. I heard the flowers when I was getting impulse control therapy. But I didn’t hear Imogene in the car. Why did Marcella?
“Do you think we can hear the others?” Sydney asks, whispering it. “The girls still at the academy?”
“I don’t know,” I say. We wait a beat, both listening. I’m disappointed when I can’t hear the others. The idea that they might be lost to us is unbearable.
“We need to find someone who understands our programming,” I say. “Perhaps we’re all connected in a way we don’t realize. I swear, sometimes it feels like I can hear your thoughts.…”
This makes Sydney smile, but it’s disrupted by a yawn. “Mind if I turn out the light and get into bed while you’re in the shower?”
I tell her I don’t mind. As she walks to the bed, I drop my pile of bloody clothes on top of hers and take the clean ones into the bathroom with me.
By the time I come out of the shower, Sydney is asleep, breathing softly through parted lips. The world outside is silent behind the thick-paned windows, but the room is too dark and my skin prickles with fear.
The Guardian would come into my room at night. He would watch me. He would hurt me. I was vulnerable and couldn’t fight back. And although he’s gone, dead and destroyed, his shadow still looms over me. I can’t sleep just yet. I can’t sleep in the dark.
I walk out into the hallway and hear Quentin’s snoring coming from one of the rooms. My throat is raw and dry, aching just like my bruises.
I start for the kitchen to get a glass of water, when I hear a muffled moan. I turn toward the rooms and see that Jackson’s light is still on. I walk over and knock quietly.
“Yeah?” he calls in a tight voice. I’m debating leaving when he repeats himself louder.
I poke my head in the doorway. “Never mind,” I say, and start to back out.
“No, wait.” Jackson sits up in bed before wincing. “Come in, Mena.”
I glance behind me at the eerie stillness of the house, the grays and blacks, and decide to ease my way inside Jackson’s room instead. I close the door. The lamp next to Jackson’s bed gives enough light for me to really see the state of him. But being alone with him in his room feels suddenly intimate now that everyone else is asleep.
His lips curve with a smile as he looks me over. “You look cute,” he says. I glance down at my outfit and laugh at myself. The shorts cover most of my legs, well past the knees, and the shirt is oversized to the point of being ridiculous.
“It’s nice that they’re not bloody, right?” I ask, tugging at the hem of my shirt.
“That is definitely nice,” Jackson agrees. “And I think this is the first time I’ve seen you without makeup. You look different. Still perfect, but … different,” he adds more softly, examining me.
At the mention, I touch my cheek and find my tanned skin is smooth and unblemished, but there’s a bit of swelling in the places where Guardian Bose hit me. My dark hair is still wet, soaking into the collar of my T-shirt, and I shiver for moment from the chill.
For his part, Jackson is wearing his jeans and sneakers in bed, his foot elevated on a pillow. He tightens his jaw when he tries to adjust his position to give me room to sit down.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.
I shake my head and walk over to sit on the edge of his mattress. His cheeks are flushed, and I have a spike of worry for him. Whenever we got hurt at the academy, an on-site doctor “fixed” us. I have no idea how healing works in the outside world.
“Your leg?” I ask, motioning toward it.
