Page 99 of Flickerstate

“Agreed,” Griffin says fervently.

I’m surprised at his forcefulness. Then I remember: Candace. I wonder how long it took the emergency team to respond when a beast attacked her. “What about you, Griffin?” I ask to change the subject. “How will you employ your paranormal whiz-bang?”

Antoine laughs. Jacqueline chews her lip, clearly holding back from telling me that our lack of scientific understanding doesn’t make nav paranormal.

And Griffin, for the first time, pauses before speaking. “I want to study interference.”

Questions swarm my brain, but Griffin is clearly a little uncomfortable, so I mind my manners and change the subject by complaining about how much homework I have. For a while, we all chitchat about problem sets and midterms and Mr. Grant’s blatant favoritism toward students who’ll talk to him about major-league baseball. (“I mean, I like stats,” Jacqueline says, “but I cannot make myself give a shit about RBIs.”)

When Jacqueline and Antoine realize they forgot their tickets back in Lucasson and double back, Griffin and I are left standingtogether, silent and still. Slowly, he raises his hand and brushes his knuckles down my velvet sleeve. It’s a graze, featherlight, but I go rigid with surprise. “What are you thinking about?” he asks. “When you go inside yourself, you always look so distressed.”

“Why interference?” I ask.

He withdraws his hand. “Did I freak you out?”

“Just curious.”

From the look on his face, he doesn’t believe me. “I’d think you’d be used to the idea of research on interference. I’ve talked to Bree about her plans. All the psych labs she’s interested in use interference.”

“They get consent,” I say.

“They’re still navigating people. Lots of, like, philosophical conundrums there. If you do something under interference, the possibility existed that you’d do it of your own free will. How can we know that the interference is what made you do it?”

“We can’t. And?”

A pained smile plays around his mouth. “You never give me a single inch.”

“Don’t whine, Minter; you love it.”

“I do,” he admits quietly. “Did you hear the rumors about my old blockmate Jake?”

I’m treading on thin ice. And the liquid sloshing beneath could be water or blood. “Some.”

Griffin’s shoulders hunch inside his tux. “I want to know if there’s some way to find out…whether someone has interfered withyour choices. Or whether all your choices are the ones you would have made anyway.”

Griffin must be thinking of a particular choice he made. What did his own internal voice tell him to do? I want to grill him. But I’m not sure how he’ll react if I turn the heat too high. Maybe the ice will break under us. The last thing I need is for him to storm back to his room while Vik and Candace are making merry with his keycard.

I touch his shoulder. “It’s an awful situation. I’m sorry.”

His eyes lift to mine. I’m not sure how long we stand like that, in a quiet bubble in a loud line, his shoulder burning through his jacket against my palm. The longer we stare, the more his pupils dilate, black eclipsing blue.

“Not distressed. Just intense, remember?” I say, trying to laugh it off. “Come on. We’re almost to the front.”

***

The dining hall drips streamers. A mirror ball sheds glow across the walls, and bass thumps in the floor. I stand in the doorway with Griffin and peer inside. Hundreds of kids dance, chat, or ladle punch into plastic coupes from giant crystal bowls on the long table at the room’s far end.

Hundreds of kids who might die if the roof falls on me.

I don’t want to go in.

But I have to. So.

When Griffin and I stroll inside, conversations near the doorway stutter out. People—kids I know, kids I don’t—stare. Moststares are for Griffin, Golden Boy, Archive competition winner: furtive glances from giggly girls, envious or idol-worshiping stares from boys. But some are for me: jealous squints, raised eyebrows, once-overs. I’m not sure I like the attention. I feel something raw, angry, ugly. Like,Yeah, bow down.Like, since my friends from home dumped me, I’ve connected with three other human beings total, but I messed things up with Vik, I messed things up with Bree, I nearly messed things up with Candace, and sometimes I wonder whether it’s even worth trying to find a shared level with a new person. Maybe I should just scare everyone into leaving me alone.

Griffin turns to me. “Want me to get you a drink?”

The dining hall is warm with too many bodies. Sweat prickles my scalp beneath my piled-up hair. “Sure, thanks.”