“You two … know each other?” I asked, even though it was very obvious.

“Rose, how—” Dr. Bright started, before sighing and closing her eyes.

“Of course,” she murmured to herself. “Damien is the mystery patient at the AM. And that’s why you weren’t aware of his power. Because he doesn’t have it anymore. Isn’t that right?”

She aimed that final question toward Damien, but it didn’t sound like she was actually asking him. It sounded like she was rubbing it in his face.

“Wait, how did you know he doesn’t have his power?” I asked.

Neither of them said anything. They just stood there, staring at each other, until Damien broke the silence.

“I should go,” he said, starting to step back.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Dr. Bright said, not taking her eyes off of him.

“Wait, what?” I said, confused. “Damien, don’t—”

“Thanks for trying, Rose.” He sighed, looking at me sadly. “I hope you have a nice life.”

“Damien—” I called after him, thrown by how quickly he had turned cold but he just … left. Turned his back on us and walked away.

“Dr. Bright—” I started but she jumped in before I could even form a question.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” she said, “but I think you should go home.”

“What?”

“I never should have—I need to—” I’d never seen Dr. Bright stumble over her words like this. I had absolutely no idea what to do or say so I just stood there, waiting for her to explain it all to me.

“Damien was a patient of mine,” she said finally.

“Oh.”

“And he…” She swallowed and took a step toward me, lowering her voice. “What exactly did he tell you?”

I scanned over her face, trying to figure out why she was asking, what answer she was looking for. Eventually, I decided that the fastest way to get the truth from her was to give her the truth myself.

“He said that the AM kidnaps and experiments on Atypicals,” I said for a start.

She just nodded at that, not looking in the least bit surprised. That made me SO mad. Had Dr. Bright known that the whole time? That the AM was doing horrible, illegal stuff? When she’d been reluctant to talk about it with me and wasn’t super enthusiastic about me going back, it seemed like maybe she just had a difference in philosophy. Or, honestly, since finding out about her and Owen, I thought maybe her distaste was just because she’d had a messy breakup or something.

But here she was, not even batting an eye at the information that the place I’d spent four whole weeks at was experimenting on innocent people. Suddenly, I didn’t want to tell her a single thing more about what Damien and I had talked about.

“I’m sorry that you were dragged into this, Rose,” Dr. Bright said.