Maybe because they aren’t planning on keeping us alive?

Talking to Rae, hearing her excitement, I had enough distance from the pain and betrayal to face a very real, very disturbing possibility.

What if I was wrong? About everything?

I didn’t have any evidence that the people here had actually killed Liz and Brady. Liz had “dreamed” of being in some kind of hospital room, restrained. For all I knew, she’d died in a car crash when they were bringing her here. Or she’d committed suicide that night. Or, in trying to restrain her, they’d accidentally killed her.

Liz and Brady just happened to both die accidentally after leaving Lyle House?

Okay, that was unlikely.

Rae’s birth mom and Simon’s dad both happened to have a falling-out with the Edison Group and fled, taking their study subject kids with them?

No, there was definitely something wrong here. I needed answers and I wasn’t going to find them locked in my cell. Nor was I eager to meet that thing in my room again.

Just as I thought that, Dr. Davidoff arrived to take me back there. As I followed him down the hall, I scrambled for an excuse to go someplace else in the building, any way to add details to my mental map of the place.

I considered asking to speak to Aunt Lauren. I’d have to pretend I’d forgiven her for lying to me my entire life, betraying me, and tossing me to the mercy of the Edison Group. I wasn’t that good an actor. And Aunt Lauren wasn’t that stupid. There was a reason she hadn’t tried to see me. She was biding her time, waiting until I got lonely for a familiar face, desperate for excuses. Until then, she’d stay away.

There was one other person I could ask to speak to….

The thought made my skin crawl almost as much as the thought of seeing Aunt Lauren. But I needed answers.