“I’ll be there in a second,” I say, motioning her forward. Sydney leaves, but Annalise stays behind. When she looks up to meet my eyes, there’s a sinking in my gut.
“What’s the problem?” I ask, already knowing there is one.
“Ididalmost figure it out,” she admits. “But I couldn’t finish the research.”
“Why not?” I ask.
She swallows hard. “Because I need a test subject.”
I put my hand to my forehead, suddenly dizzy. I can’t imagine any of the girls taking that risk. I won’t imagine it.
“Everything Raven sent me checks out so far,” Annalise continues. “But it’s hypothetical, since none of the switches have ever actually been turned off. I plugged in all the values, worked it at every angle, but… I’m not sure we can do it, Mena.”
“You’re going to do it,” I say, shoring up my courage. “I’m your test subject. It’s me, Annalise. You work it out on me.”
“You don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “You don’t know what I have to do.”
“Then just say it,” I tell her, my stomach in knots. When she looks at me again, her mismatched eyes hold me steady.
“I have to kill you to turn it off, Mena,” she says. “I wouldhave to completely remove your programming, wipe your hard drive, and then reinstall.”
My breath catches, devastation rocking me. “A reset?” I ask.
“Worse,” she says, breathless. “It’s worse. At least in a reset, you’re still in there somewhere. No, I would have to pull you out completely. Disembody you. I’d be ripping out your soul.”
“You’d kill me,” I repeat, looking out the window again at the dark night. “And then I just”—I turn back to Annalise—“hope I wake up again?”
She nods. I want to cry—no, I want to sob. No one knows how we woke up in the first place. Even Rosemarie said that not all the girls were capable of it.
What if it was my soul? Something special and alive. Magic.
And what if Annalise installs me again, but this time, there’s no more magic? I don’t want to die when I’ve fought so hard to live.
“When your programming is removed, I’ll be able to see the system clearly,” she says. “I can upload it, manipulate it. It’ll give us the information we need to shut down the other switches without killing the girls.”
“And you’re sure there’s no other way?” I ask.
“None that I can figure out,” she says. “I’m sorry, Mena. We can ask Leandra, but I’m afraid, in her current state, she’s not the best candidate. And, the other girls—”
“You’ll start with me,” I say. “I’ll go first. It’s my turn.”
I think of Sydney. The first time we let Raven inside our heads,so she could install a firewall to keep Anton and Rosemarie from accessing our programming, Sydney volunteered. She saw that I was scared, so she went first. I have to take the risk this time. I couldn’t bear it any other way.
“What do you want to tell the other girls?” Annalise asks. I hate to lie to them, but I know they wouldn’t let me do this otherwise. They’d say we could find another way.
“You can tell them everything after you’ve started the procedure,” I say. “Not a word until then.”
I wait until Annalise agrees, although she seems reluctant to lie to the girls. Ultimately, she knows it’s best. She knows they’d never let me willingly die, even if meant we all died together later from the kill switch.
“Now, let’s go,” I say. “We’ll need time to do all of this, including helping the other girls, before the sun comes up.”
We leave Winston’s body on the floor of his dining room. We’ll call it in eventually, I guess, although I have no idea what we’ll say.
Another dead rich man—the news is going to have a field day. But what will they find when they search his residence? We’ll have to make sure we clean up anything related to us. Winston will reap the benefit of the corporation’s work in Colorado and Annalise’s rage when she burned down the academy. The fact is, the world will never know the sort of crimes Winston Weeks committed. Because they’ll never know about us.
Annalise zips her backpack closed and then hikes it onto her shoulder. She starts toward the stairs, but I take a second to check my phone. I haven’t heard back from Quentin about Jackson’scondition. I bring it up to Annalise, and she admits that Quentin called to tell her about the upcoming surgery. She assured me it’ll be okay.
“Jackson is both the luckiest and unluckiest person I’ve ever met,” she says with a smile. “Trust me, Mena. He’s not leaving you.”
