“But you guys—” Kenzie started. Ashley put a hand on Kenzie’s shoulder, and Kenzie slumped back into her seat. She pulled her feet up onto her seat and hugged her knees. “Okay.”

“Did they get better?” Rain asked.

I was already shaking my head when Sveta said, “No. You know how his Screaming Anxiety form kept screaming? There was a woman like that. Her mind didn’t exit that state, and she roared out cuss words nonstop. All day, every day, without ever sleeping. She had surges of strength that meant she couldn’t be in a regular hospital. There was a man who boiled alive. The bubbles would swell—”

“I don’t—I don’t need details,” Rain said.

“They were still there when I arrived at the Asylum, along with a few others that had survived,” Sveta said. There was a hard edge to her voice, like she could’ve been angry or burst into tears in the same breath. “When Victoria did. They were probably still there on Gold Morning.”

“He was my friend,” Rain said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I know he was younger, or—”

“He wasn’t younger,” I said. “Twice your age.”

“Ah,” Rain said, and he huffed out the word like it had hit him straight in the solar plexus.

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter any to me,” Kenzie said, stubborn. “It doesn’t change anything. In fact, I kind of feel validated, because it fits everything in super neat with my seating chart—”

“It should matter,” Ashley said. “And let’s just let the others talk a moment, no commentary. Please?”

“I didn’t have many friends, when I first came to group therapy,” Rain said. “I didn’t even know Erin properly then, everyone at the compound had turned on me.”

“He gave you games and comics,” Tristan said.

Rain nodded. “And we talked online, whenever I was online. He helped me research clusters and find details on Love Lost, Cradle, and Snag. And he’s a complete and utter monster?”

“Apparently,” Sveta said.

“We can’t know one hundred percent,” I said. “He’s apparently an experiment. Not a clone, but a malleable housing for the DNA signature for the agent to hook into, I’d have to reread the notes.”

“Ashley was a clone and she turned out okay,” Kenzie said. “Better than her former self.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“The malleable house stuff,” Rain said. “That was why he was falling apart? He was trying to fix something by creating permanent changes?”

I hesitated.

“He lied about that too?”

“He was apparently doing the exact opposite of what he was saying. Trying to weaken the ‘Chris’ in him to make the changes stick longer. Intentionally creating changes to break down his old self.”