Page 124 of Flickerstate

“His lawyer claims she was.” Candace’s voice gets even quieter. “But…”

“I—I’m sorry.”

Candace nods.

“I wanted to ask you guys…” Bree glances at me. “What really happened? No one’s been able to tell me the whole story. And I don’t remember much after walking through the Archive door.”

After everything, I owe Bree the truth. So I take a shaky breath and spill it.

My bite.

My dad’s bites.

Leaguing.

Breaking into the Archive. The candidate files, the Cruciform, Highwall’s five-person league.

Vik, Candace, and I realizing that Bree had disappeared. Everything after.

As I talk, Bree’s eyes snap between me and Candace like we’re playing the U.S. Open finals.

“Griffin carried you out of there, and we ran after him,” I finish. “Or, I mean, stumbled after him. Then I fainted. Dr. Langmore had injected me with something. Mr. Davis had injected you withtwosomethings, which I’m guessing explains your amnesia situation.”

“The Nav Department and the EMTs arrived,” Candace adds. “They checked you guys for bites and took you to the hospital. Wouldn’t let me come with.”

Bree stares at Candace.

Bree stares at me.

“So, wait, Norah,” she says. “You flipped out on me after the final trial because…”

I hunch. “I’m sorry.”

“…because you weredying, and the whole time I’d been telling you tochill outabout the trials, you knew there was a cure in the Archive?”

“I didn’t know,” I say. “I hoped.”

“Oh my God.” Bree covers her mouth with the hand Candace isn’t holding. “I’m such a jerk. I was like, just relax, Norah! Let’s go to a party!”

“You’re not a jerk,” I say miserably. “You had no idea what my problem was. I didn’t tell you. I pushed and pushed, and I never explained—”

“Of course you didn’t explain. Why would you, after I was so awful to Candace at orientation overherbites. I’m so sorry—”

“Stop saying that.I’msorry—”

“Guys,” Candace interrupts. “How about you cease and desist apologizing to each other, and we just hug it out?”

Bree flings out her free arm, welcoming me in. Soon I’m embracing her lanky, bird-boned torso while Candace puts an arm around my back.

“So,” Bree mumbles into my shoulder. “Five-person leaguing cures bites? I’m in.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Bree, another newly minted eighteen-year-old legally empowered to make her own bad decisions, checks herself out of the hospital.She, Candace, and I find Vik and Mirabel at the hospital roundabout. Candace orders us an XL rideshare back to campus, but the first two drivers cancel—guess they heard about the swarm at the Academy—and the third is twenty minutes away.

While we wait, Bree calls Kayla. I’m trying not to stare at Vik, so when Candace wanders off from the rest of the group and takes out her phone, I follow.

She’s frowning at a picture of herself and Griffin, flanked by a petite Asian woman and a leonine white guy with silvering blond hair. The guy’s hand rests possessively on Griffin’s shoulder. On his wrist is a two-tone gold watch, which must have cost more than Mom’s Corolla—