Twisted Circles (Secret Society 2)

“You still haven’t found my file?” Stella’s scoff lifted my attention back to her.

“One minute.” I closed out of Eva’s file and looked for Stella Thompson, finding it quickly.

The photographs were different, but the faces were identical. I thought about myself and Nolan. About Will and Nora, who were also twins. Will and Nora, who no one on earth would have assumed were even related—he was black, and she was white, and they looked like they may as well be from entirely different families, and yet, they shared a womb and were born minutes apart from each other. There was only one explanation for all of this. Finally, I set the iPad down and looked straight at the girl who claimed she was Stella Thompson.

“Do you have a sister?”

She looked thrown by the question, sitting straighter and swallowing quickly, not quite meeting my eyes. When she finally did, it was after taking a deep breath and straightening her shoulders.

“No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”

“You look familiar.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t.” She evaded my eyes again.

My intuition was never wrong, never faltered, and I knew without a doubt that she was lying.

I just didn’t understand why.

Before leaving The Institute, I saw Stella one last time, in the common living room area, curled up reading a book. As I walked out of the wing, I spotted a nurse who was headed in the opposite direction.

“Hey. Do you interact with her?” I pointed at Stella.

“Miss Thompson? Of course.” The nurse smiled, shaking the cup of pills in her hand. “These are hers.”

“What are they for? What is she here for?”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” She looked at my name tag.

“Adam Astor. I work for Dr. Maslow.”

“Which one?”

“Neil Maslow.”

“Oh. Okay.” She raised an eyebrow. “Well, Miss Thompson seems to have suffered a panic attack of sorts last week. We’re just keeping her comfortable and relaxed until she’s ready to go.”

“Does she come often?”

“I’m new here.” The nurse shrugged a shoulder. “I wouldn’t know. They say she’s always in this wing though. She’s one of the doctor’s daughters.” She whispered that last part.

“Yeah. I know.” I looked at Stella again.

“Poor girl. She keeps crying out for her sister and Dr. Maz keeps telling her she doesn’t have one.”

Blood roared in my ears. “Dr. Maz?”

“Yeah, Neil.” The nurse blushed. “He told me to keep a close eye on her. I don’t think she’ll hurt herself or anything. I think he just doesn’t want her to leave until she’s ready.”

“Probably.”

With that information, I said goodbye and turned around. As I walked toward the exit, I pulled up the email with Stella Thompson’s schedule. It was given to me a few weeks ago when The Swords informed me that this hunting season would be different than the last. Instead of going after men who showed promise or were from prestigious backgrounds, I’d go after Stella. Once I found the schedule in the mass of junk mail and student center emails, I took a screenshot and held my phone in a firm grip.

I wasn’t sure who was lying, but I’d get to the bottom of it one way or another.

Chapter Twelve

Eva

Karen never envisioned herself with a daughter like me. Even though her late husband, Esteban Guerra, was a hardworking, dark, Dominican man, in Karen’s daydreams, her daughter would be blonde, like her, and laugh emphatically at her mom jokes. Instead, the church parishioner, who was helping her with finding a baby girl to adopt, found me. An olive-skinned, curly-haired baby with brown almond eyes that were so large they would only later be rivaled by her poor attitude. Karen said I never slept. Not as a baby, not as a toddler, and not as a teenager. My restlessness kept her awake at night. Karen, who was an avid ID Channel watcher, told me she thought she saw me in her room in the dead of night once, just staring at her. I told her she was imagining things. She told me I was crazy and had me committed the following morning.

Dr. Maslow never gave me any inclination of what she thought was happening in my house, nor did she seem concerned when I told her the reason my anger couldn’t be managed was that Karen was constantly trying to control me. Dr. Maslow’s job wasn’t to coddle Karen or me. It was to assess the situation and do what she could to help, which in my case was welcome me in The Institute and give me drugs to numb my emotions. She hated when I said that about my meds, but it was the truth. As I got older, I began to realize just how difficult it must have been for Karen to raise someone like me. I realized that it wasn’t because I wasn’t blonde or looked like her that we didn’t get along. Some people just don’t mesh, and that was true for me and Karen. These days, we gave each other ample space, but reached out every few days of not speaking just to make sure the other was doing okay.