Chapter 60
LEGACY LIES
I storm straight to the practice room, not stopping until I’m panting in front of a very concerned Vincent. He motions for Colt to shut the door, turning his full attention to me the moment we’re alone.
“Maysie?” he starts, but I’m not feeling very patient.
“The other girls. The ones in this wing—is that—was that…” The words die in my throat. I open my mouth again, but he holds up his hands.
“No. They aren’t like you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What about before? I’ve done this before, right? Back then—was I like them?” The urge to run surges in my chest, turning my stomach.
Depending on what he says next, I just might.
His words drag like they hurt to say. “I know what you saw, but you were never one of them. Not now. Certainly not then.”
“But—” Anger surges behind my eyes. “How do you know? How could you possibly know?”
“Because I was there,” he says slowly, eyes chilling to distant pools of ice as he takes me in.
My breath catches. “You knew me?”
“Knew you?” A strained laugh breaks from him, thin and bitter. “I was your mentor.”
My jaw hits the floor.
“You—what?”
“As I told you before. Before this, I—we—were in a different side of the program. The legacy wing.”
I close my eyes and try to picture it but come up blank. I was here…but not here. And with him? My head might explode. I want nothing more than to curl up and sob. But if I let myself cry, I may never stop.
Instead, I wrench my mouth open and force a question before he shuts down like he always does. “What makes it different?”
“For one…” He scrubs a hand down his face, eyes darting anywhere but me. “The desired outcome. Legacy girls aren’t made for polishing. The goal is merely stabilization. A safe reintroduction once they’re ready.”
“Reintroduction to what?”
“Society.” He braces his palms on the piano lid, knuckles white. “If you become stable enough, you can go home.”
“Home?” My voice breaks on the word.
He flinches. Drags a hand down his mouth like he’s already said too much.
“You promised me the truth,” I remind him, settling on the edge of the bench and pulling my knees up.
He nods slowly. “If the parents want their child back, they’ll return home. If not—the organization finds them a placement. A family, a school, a job. Whatever makes them look the most benevolent.”
I almost laugh, because “benevolent” is the last word I’d use for the organization.
Although, aside from the last part, it sounds…humane. Unreal, actually.
“Why would they get to go home when we don’t?”
He sighs. “This place may be government-run, but the funding must come from somewhere. Investors keep the lights on—for both wings. Though they only care about this one. Not everyone shares Vale’s…
vision.” He reads the question behind my eyes before I can ask it.
“Both are necessary to keeping the organization in power.”
I blink a few times. “Why?”
“The public wants comfort, to know their daughters can be saved and returned. The investors want results they can flaunt. There’s no value in the legacy wing without advanced girls making the system look flawless.
” His eyes darken as he says it. The words sound rehearsed…
or learned, like a speech he’s been given before.
“But what about flares?”
“Legacy subjects know about flares.” He spends a long moment studying my reaction before he continues. “The lead physician, Doctor Vale, believes if you know what you are, you’ll be easier to control. Carr believes subjects are only dangerous once they remember what they can do.”
I stiffen; the scribbled note reverberates in my mind.
A monster only becomes dangerous once it remembers its name.
“So they know everything?”
He shakes his head. “Only what the program wants them to know. Legacy girls are shown videos of flares as—” He hesitates, this level of honesty obviously new to him. “Cautionary tales.”
“They have videos of flares?”
His eyes flick to mine, then away.
“Vincent?”
He wrings his hands, still not looking at me. “Hundreds. They have an entire catalogue of documented flares.” His next words fall so, so soft. “Yours is infamous.”
Oh.
My flare. The moment my parents decided I should be shipped off and erased by a doctor who claims to have a cure for a problem he can’t even explain.
The moment whatever life I had before this ended.
It’s on video. Countless people have seen it, and I don’t even know what it is.
My throat burns, but no matter how many times I reshape the words, I can’t force them out. What did I do?
I might’ve hurt people. Killed people.
“Did I…” The words fracture into static. I try again. “The flare. Did I hurt—”
“No,” he breathes. His next words are slow and quiet, as if he’s not sure he’s making the right choice by uttering them. “You brought down a ballroom chandelier in front of four hundred people. They said it was a miracle no one died.”
I what?