Page 30 of Endless Anger
It takes her another minute to respond. She’s always been like that though. Methodical and precise, so concerned with how she presents to the rest of the world.
“I’d advise you against it,” she says finally. “It’s…not a good place. There are people there who’d love to see you suffer.”
“Why am I always getting singled out?”
“Not just you,” Quincy says. “All of us.”
Frustration zips through me, and I fold my arms over my chest. “Stop being cryptic, and just tell me what’s going on. You can’t say stupid shit and expect me to accept the vagueness. If it’s okay foryouto still go there, why can’t I?”
“There are things Ican’tescape,” she tells me, her voice somewhat pleading. She’s always so quiet and put together, it’s unnerving to see her unravel before me. “I’ve got it under control. Mostly. Things have been going on, and tonight… Something rattled me.”
“What?”
“The details aren’t important. But you should know there are forces at work there who are hell-bent on keeping us Andersons away.”
My irritation mounts. “God, Q, have you been brainwashed? Stop talking in fucking riddles. What is going on?”
Quincy hesitates. “I’m not sure exactly. I just know we’re not wanted.”
Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulls out a scrap of paper. I unfold it quickly, instantly recognizing the handwritten entry from that encyclopedia in the campus library four years back.
“It was a mistake going there,” she says softly.
“So it’s real? The students, the faculty… They really believe this curse bullshit?”
She nods.
“What does elimination even mean, exactly? Are you in danger?”
“As long as you and Noelle don’t step foot there again, no.”
Sighing, I collapse into my desk chair. None of this makes any goddamn sense, nor does it explain why she’s still attending or why she looks the way she does. “Lucy still wants to go.”
“Tell her not to.”
“I can’t fucking do that, Q. You spent the last several years talking about how much you loved the place. She thinks it’s a utopia.”
“Well, I was wrong. Can’t you explain that? She’ll do whatever you tell her to.”
That unsettles me. I spin around, facing the wall, and stare at the book spines hovering above my laptop. Even if I had that kind of power over Lucy, I wouldn’t want to use it.
What’s the point if she doesn’t have freedom? To choose and to be her own person?
Isn’t that what she was just begging me for?
Dropping my head into my hands, I ignore the persistence in my bones. The nagging desire to listen to Quincy and convince Lucy to stay here, where I know she’ll be safe.
“Give me something to offer her,” I tell my sister. “If there’s a concrete threat, then she should know?—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You can’t tell her about any of this.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll tell Aurora, who will tell Foxe, who will tell his parents. Then we’ll have thirty days before the school is shut down. If that.”
My eyebrows hike up. “It sounds like itshouldbe shut down.”
“Shutting the place down would erase all I’ve been—it would leave a ton of students displaced, and ruin a decent institution being corrupted by a secret few. Totally dismantling it does no good.”
