“Rose.” He scooted closer to me on the bench, lowering his voice. “How serious are you about this?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, bringing my voice down to match his.

“Did they give you anything while you were at the AM? To control your power?”

“Uh, yeah.” I nodded. “Sleeping pills. Which actually really helped.”

“Oh, that’s … that’s good,” he said, like he was expecting a different answer. “I’m glad they’ve figured some stuff out at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“The AM has never seemed that interested in helping Atypicals,” he said, his jaw tightening. “They’re more interested in protecting themselves against Atypicals. Making themselves immune to Atypicals. Immune to their abilities. Dampening our powers to keep them safe.”

“What? How?”

“I’m not totally sure how it works, but I’ve seen it in action, I know it does work.” The tiniest of smiles was growing on his face and I noticed that it seemed kind of out of place, like it wasn’t something he did very much. “If someone took it, you wouldn’t be able to walk into their dreams, your brother wouldn’t be able to read their mind—”

“And you think that’s what they gave you to take your ability away?” I asked.

“Um, yeah, I think maybe it was.” His eyes darted around, like he was nervous about someone overhearing us. “But think about what that could do for your dad. Isn’t it worth a try?”

“You think I should have my dad ask the AM about it?”

“What? No—” His eyes went wide at the suggestion. “Definitely not.”

“Why not? Surely if someone volunteered to be experimented on—”

“No one’s supposed to know about it,” he explained. “It’s not really sanctioned by the rest of the organization. The head of the division, Wadsworth … it’s her invention. And she doesn’t want anyone else to have it.”

“What is going on over there?” I said. “You’re saying the director has, what, her own whole separate mad scientist thing going on?”

“That’s not far off actually,” he muttered.

“Wha—”

“Look, can you help me?” He scooted closer to me again, his eyes wide and pleading. He still looked so tired, like being out of the AM wasn’t giving him any peace.

“What can I do?” I asked and I saw his shoulders relax.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, turning back to lean his back against the bench. “I need to … I need to do some thinking.”

“Okay…”

“But you can’t tell anyone about this,” he said. “Not even your family. No one.”

“Yeah, okay, sure,” I said, starting to wonder exactly what I’d gotten myself into.