Chapter 61
REACTIVE AND DANGEROUS
“I’m sure your parents tried to protect you—it was just too public. You were handed off to me twenty-four hours later, still covered in glass.” Vincent flinches as he recounts, wiping his hands against his pants.
Twenty-four hours? When they took Avery, she was gone for months.
Vincent surveys me with those too-knowing eyes, finding my question. “Carr didn’t reset you the first time. He attributes that to your failure.”
They perfected the art of memory wiping and didn’t bother to use it on me?
“I don’t believe you,” I hear myself say. “Why would they do that?”
He nods like he expected that. “Your parents have a lot more pull than you might think.”
I’m too angry to even consider opening that can of worms.
“Why am I here now? Why can’t I go back to the training wing?”
“Carr says you aren’t safe anymore.”
“Why not?” I demand, biting down on my lip just to focus on something.
“Maysie, I—”
“Tell me,” I interject, hating the way his face twists. “I’m sorry. Just—please. I want to know. Please don’t lie to me.”
He sighs. “Every girl is different, but many are reactivity risks. If one girl flares, it’s like”—he waves a hand—“a powder keg.”
“But—”
“Your circumstances are different, so they isolated you here. Most aren’t so lucky.”
It clicks. Every warning, every cue, every look of panic I mistook for irritation. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
“That’s why you stormed into the drills hall.”
A muscle in his forearm jumps, but he nods. “Your gift is known to be…reactive. And powerful. Carr’s been fascinated with you from the start.”
“Why?”
“Flares draw on energy,” he says quietly.
“It has to come from somewhere. Once external sources are depleted, it turns inward, taking everything that keeps a person alive. Focus, restraint, the quiet voice in your head that tells you to stop. It burns through all of it.” Vincent sucks in a ragged breath.
“Most don’t survive one.” He swallows hard, fists still clenched at his sides. “You’ve had four.”
Four. I’m a tragedy on repeat.
His eyes unfocus like he’s reliving things I never want to witness. “It’s not the power that kills. It’s the exhaustion. The body empties itself trying to sustain what it was never built to hold.”
I press forward, words tumbling so fast they scrape my throat raw. “Then what happened? What happened to them, to me, to—”
“My pod—our pod—was unbalanced. Girls with reactivity markers aren’t supposed to be placed together. Between the six of you, four had known markers.” He frowns faintly. “I knew it was a mistake, but all my reports went unread. The doctors assured me it was fine. Vale said I was overreacting.”
His words devastate me, but the only emotion that dares swell in my chest is frustration. “You knew we were a risk. And you did—what? Nothing?”
“I was seventeen! What could I have done?” His voice is bitter, like he’s blaming the boy he used to be as much as the man he is now. “It happened so fast. Everything was stable.” He shuts his eyes like the weight of them is too much to bear. “Until it wasn’t.”
His hand clamps over his mouth so hard that his knuckles pale. For one terrifying second, I think he might actually be sick. “I was told you were gone,” he whispers. “I signed your termination notice.” His shoulders twitch violently, sending fissures down his crumbling facade.
“When did you know?” The question slips out before I can stifle it. “When did you recognize me?”
Vincent’s hand falls away slowly. He’s blanched, trembling.
“Not soon enough,” he admits, the words breaking against his teeth.
His gaze darts to the floor, shame burning hot in the silence.
“God.” A laugh escapes him, but it sounds more like a sob.
“You were right in front of me, and I didn’t see it. ”
“You didn’t know—”
“I should have known. From the moment you asked about stars. From the moment I first heard you play.” He huffs a humorless sound. “I’ve worked with dozens of girls since my demotion, but—”
“Demotion?” I blurt, instantly regretting interrupting him.
He startles, then exhales. “I let six girls die, Maysie. I couldn’t be a mentor anymore, but Carr said my skills were too useful to waste.
He made me his ‘assistant.’” His fingers twitch into half-hearted air quotes.
“Flare-intervention, termination, so much damn paperwork. Temporary, he said. Just until they could figure out what to do with me.”
I grimace. The way he’s describing himself as property sounds a little too familiar.
He drags a shaky hand through his hair. “But once I developed a reputation, it stuck. They hand me a girl already drowning, then blame me when she slips under. Easier to call me the executioner than admit the water’s poisoned.”
My eyes lift again, and he’s finally looking at me. Only, I’m not sure which version of me he’s seeing.
“I knew something was off from the moment Carr assigned me to observe you. First, because he never just wants ’observation,’ and second, your file was littered with redactions, unheard of for someone they still considered stable.”
“So, wait… You’ve always known?”
“No.” He presses the heel of his hand to his temple.
Shakes his head. “Maybe some part of me knew. I just refused to believe it. I convinced myself I was losing it. That I was still so stricken with grief after almost a year that I couldn’t even contain my own ghosts.
It was easier to trust the lie than admit Carr would’ve done this—” He draws a rough inhale. “Or that I let it happen.”
He falls silent, staring at the floor like he’s begging to fall through it.
A thousand thoughts tangle in my mind like skittering mice. I should hate him for not seeing me. I should hate him for saying it out loud. But all I can think is that he looks like a man begging for mercy. And somehow, I can’t deny him that.
He saved me. More than once. He dragged me back from the breaking point, knowing I’d hate him for it.
The reality singes my skin far worse than any flare. Carr had rewritten me, sure. But Vincent had rewritten himself. He’d chosen blindness over hope again and again just to survive. He drove himself insane because the alternative meant facing the fact that I was never truly gone.
“Vincent, it’s okay,” I whisper, holding the words taut for his sake. The room stills. His head snaps back up. He’s blinking rapidly like I just walked over and slapped him across the face.
The storm in his irises has subsided, leaving his undereyes slick with something he’d never admit to. My heart splinters with every passing second, aching for him to say something. Anything.
When he finally speaks, his voice breaks like a snapped twig. “You have every reason to hate me.”
“I don’t,” I whisper, chest throbbing. For me, for him, for the other girls. For every person trapped underground right now. I press my forehead into my knees, more helpless than I’ve ever felt.
His eyes look so sad, so empty, so hollow, and I can’t remember when I started looking at him, but now I can’t look away.
He shakes his head. “I’m not your enemy.”
“I know.”
With that, his composure scrapes back into place, piece by piece, until I’m staring at a wrecked arts and crafts project. “Please don’t mistake that for safety.”