“Like how you can send vampires running,” Sylas says. “Dipping into peoples’ minds is Emmy’s thing. You didn’t think the experiments were all the same—that was the Highers thing. Monarch was trying to create uniqueness—a Highers worst nightmare.”

“It’s all wrong however you look at it,” Aiden says. “And let’s not forget to tell her your thing. What is it again?” He asks and Sylas glares. The Aiden turns to me. “He can manipulate what people feel.”

My face drops. “What?”

“Yeah, he can make you feel however he wants you to at the moment, so you don’t know if he’s telling the truth no matter what you do.”

It’s like he knows about the kiss. “Look,” I say to Aiden. “Do you think I know things that no one else does? Things that might lead to a cure?”

He presses his lips together. “You don’t have to be one of them to find it out, Juniper.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” I say. “What I’m asking is if you think I might know something important that could lead us to a cure.”

He shakes his head, frustrated. “You said that you hear Monarch saying you were going to fix the world, right?” he asks and I nod. “Then there’s your answer.”

I take a breath and then step in front of Sylas. “Okay, see what’s in my head.”

He smiles and then whistles through his fingers. Emmy walks in. Her eyes are black like Sylas’s and her black dress fluffs out at her waist. The laces of her ragged boots drag across the floor.

“She’s ready for you, Emmy,” Sylas’s says with a grin.

Emmy smiles at me. But it’s not a welcoming smile. It’s fake, plastic. Really she’s afraid Sylas will find out what she’s hiding. A dark secret about who she really wants to be.

The two guys from earlier also enter the room, boots marching across the cement, until they reach Aiden and grab him by the arms.

“I’m staying,” he says to Sylas, shaking their hands off.

“You lost all say in this when you decided to become human,” Sylas says, waving his hand. “Take him away from here and keep him away until we’re done.”

They grab Aiden again, this time more violently, and drag him out, along with his fear that he’ll never see me again.

“Should I sit or stand for this?” I ask.

Sylas glances at Emmy, and then says, “You should lie down.”

I sigh, sit on the floor, and rest my head against the hard concrete. Emmy drops down on her knees beside me, her red hair a curtain around her head. I notice the numbers on her wrist as she traces her hand across my eyes.