Page 115 of Flickerstate

AndGriffin?

Griffin, who loves Candace so much, who’s been friends with Vik since they were skinny freshmen, who asked me so gently about my dad?

I want to vomit.

I can’t see who they’re carrying. Then, as they manipulate the body upside down onto the Cruciform, I can.

Those powder-blue-painted toenails and narrow ankles, which Mr. Davis straps with synthetic bands to the stake. Those long arms, which Dr. Langmore buckles one by one to the transom. That lolling head, gravity unfurling its blond curls to brush the floor.

Bree.

***

Vik, Candace, and I guessed what we might see in this subterranean hidey-hole, but now that we’re seeing it, we reject it. The crackling music, no. The burning light, no. The bristling machine, no. The lipsticked cup, no. Dr. Langmore tightening restraints around Bree’s wrist until her flesh bulges white around the black synthetic strap, no. Griffin, our Griffin, kneeling to snap a metal band around Bree’s neck, no, no, no.

Mr. Davis pulls out two syringes full of colorless liquid. He stabs the soft hollow between Bree’s collarbone and throat. A bright bead of blood rolls into her falling curls.

“Miura died, Jake died—we have to get her down from there,” Candace whispers. “Now.”

I nod, turn on my heel, and stride into the bright chamber—without knowing what I’ll do next and without truly believing in the situation, like it’s a bite-dream, painful but not yet real.

“Let her go,” I demand, my voice bouncing off the domed ceiling.

Griffin jerks upright. His face contorts in shock. “What are you doing here?”

Candace stalks forward to stand beside me. “What are you doing toBree?”

She keeps her voice soft and steady. But I think if Griffin stepped too close to her now, her hands would fly to his throat. She would do her best—and her best is formidable—to crush his windpipe.

Griffin won’t meet her eyes. There’s no hint of his usual boyish energy.

Mr. Davis stares at us glumly and says nothing.

Dr. Langmore tightens Bree’s last strap and swivels on us. Her beige heels clack against the floor like chitin. “Ms. Allen volunteered for this experiment,” she tells us, apparently unconcerned that three students have burst in on her evil basement laboratory.

Vik, at my left shoulder, snorts in disgust. “Like Jake ‘volunteered’? Like Aria did?”

Candace is staring hard at Griffin. “Is this where they took me, the night my bite healed?”

Swallowing, he nods. “Last year, I told Dr. Langmore you were bite-sick, and she told me…you didn’t have to be.”

Candace inhales painfully. “What did healing me do to whoever was in the machine?”

“Nothing,” Dr. Langmore cuts in quickly. “Mr. Lippman had a heart attack. It’s unfortunate, but the Cruciform didn’t cause it.”

Griffin freezes, eyes darting to Bree. “Jake’s dead?” he whispers.

“Kay Lucasson designed the Cruciform,” I say to Dr. Langmore.“Highwall’s notebooks said Lucasson modeled the machine on her research into beasts. The Cruciform powers itself off a navigator’s futures, the way beasts feed on futures. It dramatically increased the possibility thatsomethingwould kill Jake. So it killed him. Youknowit killed him. Why even use the machine? You can cure bites with leaguing. You leagued to cure Highwall’s bites, we know you did.”

As I speak, Griffin whitens. He must have suspected the Cruciform was dangerous, but I don’t think Dr. Langmore or Mr. Davis told him how it worked.

Dr. Langmore’s face just wrinkles up like she smells something rank. “Leaguing is a pipe dream. It requires absolute equality and absolute unity among participants. At the first hint of a single leader—at any minor controversy—it fails. Highwall’s league fell apart as soon as the others refused to use our power for more ambitious projects.”

“More ambitious projects?” I echo.

Now Dr. Langmore is staring down her nose at me likeIsmell rank. “Ms. Sullivan, you and your friends have broken into a locked archive. I could have you expelled. I could have youarrested. Why do you believe I’m obligated to answer your questions?”

“You said Bree volunteered,” I snap back. “But did she sign any consent forms? I’m betting not. I’m betting that if we call the police and some journalists and some lawyers, we could haveyouarrested.”