could pay some of the maintenance workers to let me go,” she said, turning to Neesha, “so that’s when I told you that we should try selling Apex.” She turned to Aiden. “And I convinced you to start buying.”
Aiden’s whole body tensed. Their relationship was worse than nothing. It was another hustle.
“Dr. Richardson could tell I was up to something, so I started noticing maintenance workers hovering around me, all the time. Last week, that tall guy showed up—”
“Yanis,” Neesha said.
“Right. I think she brought him in just to keep an eye on me. I realized none of these guys are maintenance, and they never were. They’re security.”
“I was fucking right,” Aiden whispered.
“Then, on Day Forty, I passed Eddy on his way into a session, and he grabbed my wrist. I don’t know how I knew what he meant, but . . . I did. I waited thirty minutes, and then I doubled back. Eddy had propped the door to Dr. Richardson’s office open, so I went in. I didn’t see them, but I could hear him, whimpering, from somewhere inside of the office.
“There was another room—a room I didn’t know about. The door was hidden behind some of the books in her office, but it was cracked open. I looked in, and . . . I saw the next stage of the therapy.”
Aiden leaned closer. His palms were sweating.
“Eddy was sitting on a chair, in the middle of the room. There was a bunch of tubes running straight into his head, and . . . there were computers, and machines in a big cabinet where Dr. Richardson was sitting. Behind her, hooked up to the tubes, there was this . . . big, white, metal . . . funnel, going all the way up to the ceiling. I tried to stop myself, but . . . I gasped, and she saw me.
“She didn’t even look surprised or anything, almost like she knew I was going to be coming. She said it was a more advanced form of therapy, one the school itself had developed, that depended on reading some kind of . . . brain activity, or something.”
“Neural impulses,” Neesha whispered.
Emma shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Zaza sat up. “What was the machine for?”
“She said it was the reason they built the school in the first place. This was the purpose of the Griou Research Center, but it wasn’t always called that. It was the Alo—I don’t remember, something with an A. She didn’t tell me what it meant.”
“So it’s not the GRC.” Evan put it together immediately. “It’s the ARC. The arc.”
No one said a thing, but the mural loomed enormous over them, Noah’s ark flying away from the burning world.
“She didn’t tell me anything else about it.” Emma was speaking faster, rushing to get through it. “And she said I should go, because she had to finish Eddy’s session. But I know it has something to do with really bright lights, or something . . . because every time he sees bright, flashing lights, he freaks out, and . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry I don’t know any more than that. But whatever it is, I knew it’s what . . . did that to him.
“So I ran to my room, and I packed up like, three things, and . . . and . . . and I tried to get my half of the money from Zaza—and I went to church. I saw Dr. Richardson watching me, so I volunteered to do the candles. Then, as soon as I got to the back—” She winced. “I started to flicker the lights . . . because I knew it would cause a reaction from Eddy. I’d seen him freak out before, and I knew it would get everybody’s attention, especially Dr. Richardson’s.”
She ran her hand over Eddy’s head gently and leaned it in her direction. He hadn’t reacted during the entire story. He was unnaturally emotionless, so robotic, that his skin looked like it would be cold to the touch.
“Then, I just . . . faded into the chaos. Zaza didn’t have the money yet when I asked, so I took the envelope from your jacket”—she nodded to Neesha—“and I disappeared into the woods. I went to bribe a maintenance worker, but by that point, they were all looking for me. I couldn’t get over the fence without setting off warnings, so I came back to the one place I knew the instructors