I’m no longer worried that we’ll stick out in this crowd, but my instincts are screaming at me that there’s no way I can keep track of every potential threat.
Zian drops into a seat at the top next to an aisle—easy to escape from as need be. In my apprehension, I approve of his choice.
As I sink into the padded seat next to him, he yanks up the little wooden desk surface that’s attached to the chair and sets his notebook on it. I’ve got one of those too, and a couple of pens—all part of keeping up our front.
If anyonedoeswonder about the new arrivals in the townhouse residences, we want to give every appearance of being totally normal students. Definitely no freaks on the run from sadistic experimenters here.
The twitching of my skin gradually ebbs as the relaxed murmurs of the other students flow around me. How are the other guys faring in the computer lab?
My mind slips back to the memory of them leaving the townhouse, Jacob and Andreas looking like normal if breathtakingly handsome students but Dominic a little awkward in the padded parka he swapped his usual trench coat for. It obscured the lumps on his back completely, but he must be hot in it even keeping the front wide open.
But I doubt he wants to be trapped in the townhouse any more than I do.
My hand slips my pendant out from under my shirt. I click the pieces apart and snap them back together, willing myself even calmer, even more focused.
If a threat happens to come from anywhere in this horde, I’ll be ready for it.
After the thirdclick-snap, Zian glances over at me. My hand freezes, and then I stuff the pendant back out of sight, remembering Jacob’s vicious response when he first saw it.
Maybe it’s better not to remind the men of what I’m still holding onto from the guy we lost.
The professor walks onto the stage below, looking more like a doll than a person from way up here. He swipes his graying hair to the side of his forehead, takes his spot behind the podium, and activates his microphone with a brief fizzle of static.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” he says in a drawling sort of voice. “Let’s get started.”
I didn’t expect to pay all that much attention to the content of the lecture. My pen moves over the page, but I’m making notes about the kinds of clothes the other students are wearing, doodling their poses in their chairs.
I don’t need to study Sociology. I need How To Appear To Be A Regular Human Being 101.
The short missions we went on under the guardians’ instructions never lasted more than a day. We were never prepared to fully integrate.
Or at least I wasn’t.
A fresh prickle of annoyance tingles through me. Why are we trying to blend in at all? It would be so much easier if we just vanished to someplace we could live off the land and avoided making the slightest ripple in anyone else’s life.
Other people do that. And then I wouldn’t have to be stressing about whether I’m making my ripples in just the right shape.
The professor’s voice drones on with a flicker of bullet points changing on the projection screen. I study Zian from the edge of my vision, deliberating the best strategy to get through to him.
“Listening to an old dude talk for hours on end isn’t what I pictured freedom looking like,” I mutter under my breath in a dry tone.
Zian’s eyebrow twitches, but he keeps his gaze on whatever he’s jotting down in his notebook.
Still keeping my voice low so only he can hear with his keen ears, I tap my pen against my scrawled-on paper. “I wonder if we couldn’t just grab a few computers and set up our own workstation someplace out of the way.”
“We don’t just need computers,” he replies brusquely. “Once we figure out who she is, we need to findher. We can’t just hide.”
And what kind of a mess are we going to end up in if the guys insist on confronting this woman who at least used to work with the exact same people we’re running from?
I scowl at my paper, but this isn’t exactly an ideal setting for getting into an extended debate. And Zian isn’t really the debating type—or he never was before, anyway.
There’s so much I still don’t know about the guys I used to be so in sync with.
But I have him to myself for just the next two hours. There’s got to be some way I can start to convince him that their crazy plan is too dangerous.
As I stew over the problem, the professor’s voice filters through my thoughts. “That brings us to the concept of tribalism. Now, obviously forming bonds with our fellow human beings is an important factor in our survival as a species. But our tendency to create ‘packs’ of sorts can also have major negative consequences.”
I cock my head, intrigued despite myself—because my guys and I are basically our own little pack, aren’t we? Does this bigwig think there’s something wrong with that?