On the walk back to Cypress, I tell my friends about my night, glossing over my jump from the car so that it sounds like a minor incident. We all agree that Harlowe, Ivy, and Graham must have had help injecting them and transporting them to the pump house. But who? I can’t help but wonder if somehow Madison had a hand in this… Though Maude reminds me that her original is no longer on campus. She left this evening for the campaign trail.

I don’t bring up what’s really worrying me. Their safety. When they broke out of those chains tonight, they showed those juniors their preternatural strength. I feel momentary relief, though, when I think about it. Certainly I would never be capable of something like that, would I? I’m not that strong. Which means maybe Gravelle has been lying to me all this time. Maybe I’m not a Similar at all.

But when I climb into the shower at one-thirty in the morning, peeling off my jeans and T-shirt and letting the warm, soapy water rush over me, I realize that I’m not in any pain. My wrists feel completely fine. And every single one of my cuts and scrapes are a faint pink, already beginning to fade.

Masquerade

The next morning, I drag my leaden body out of bed. I get dressed, noticing as I slide on fresh jeans that I feel exhausted from lack of sleep, but otherwise fine, physically. That deeply unsettles me. After soaping myself off last night and examining every inch of my body, I have only a few faint scratches to show for my tangle with the road.

I don’t want to believe it, but now I have evidence staring me in the face. My cuts healing remarkably fast. All my aches and pains gone. How is this even possible? As a middle schooler, I got plenty of cuts and scrapes, even some burns. They didn’t heal like this. Still, I never had any serious accidents. Is that because of who I am and my genetic makeup? Or was I not enough of a daredevil to ever test it? Or maybe the properties grow stronger the older you get. I’ll have to ask the Similars to tell me everything they know, but without letting on why.

Then there’s the other thing I can barely admit to myself—that something very unusual and disturbing happened last night when I heard Harlowe’s thoughts. I’d be tempted to write it off as just one of those weird things, except that those thoughts led me right to the pump house and my friends. Which means I couldn’t have imagined the whole thing, or hallucinated it. As much as I want to deny it, it happened. I heard Harlowe’s thoughts like she was talking directly to me.