“Oh, they told us that.” Ramona waves a hand. “That’s their story. But we all think that’s bullshit. My parents were super psyched, though, that there might be some ‘explanation’ for what’s ‘wrong’ with me.” She shrugs. “They’d take hearing I have the plague as long as it was proof that it doesn’t have anything to do with them. I told my parents this crap had holes in it and they were just like, whatever, fix her.”

What Ramona hasn’t mentioned, though, is being an Outlier or Heightened Emotional Perception or anything like that. I should tell them, at least offer it as a possibility. But something stops me. It will sound slightly insane. And it will be hard to explain. But that’s not what’s holding me back. I’m also not ready to hand over the only thing I have: my secret. Keeping it doesn’t make me feel like a good person. But that doesn’t make it any less of a good idea. And, in my defense, “reasons for me to trust people” have been in short supply.

“This is so dumb,” comes a voice from below me. It’s only then that I notice the pair of feet propped up on the edge of the couch to my right, legs stretched out the length of it. There’s a book blocking the girl’s face. George Orwell’s 1984.

“What’s dumb?” Becca asks whoever is behind the book.

“All of you, trying to figure out what these assholes are actually up to,” the voice goes on. I look at her hands, the tattoo of an infinity symbol visible on the inside of one wrist. “Whatever you think, the truth is probably a thousand times worse. And they aren’t going to come clean because you guess right.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Ramona asks, annoyed but a little wary, too. At least I think that’s what she’s feeling. With so many girls around it’s impossible to get a clear read on anyone.

“Depends on the situation,” the girl behind the book says. “They as in: not us.”

She has a point. One thing I have definitely learned since what happened at the camp in Maine is that who is “in charge” can be way more complicated than it looks.

“I saw you talking to that guard, too,” Ramona says to the girl with the book. “You sure he hasn’t told you anything?”

“I haven’t been talking to anybody,” she says.

“I saw you,” Ramona presses.

“Then I suggest you get your eyes checked.”

“Hi,” I say, hoping the girl will lower the book. The eye contact might help me get a read on her. As it is, the buzz of the group is deafening. “I’m Wylie.”