Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks, #1)(52)

I pass her on my way back to my room, still thinking about the recorded message. And how the voice sounded oddly familiar. I go back to my room and wait for Sydney.

? ? ?

It’s about forty minutes later when there’s a soft knock on my door.

“Come in,” I call.

Sydney and Annalise walk in, saying hello before they come to sit on the bed with me. Annalise is holding a hair tie, and she asks if I want her to braid my hair. I tell her I’m okay for now.

“Brynn will let me,” she says with a shrug, and I laugh because it’s true.

“Where are Marcella and Brynn?” I ask.

“I think in Marcella’s room,” Sydney says. “Why?”

“Get them,” I tell her. “I have to show you girls something. It’s important.”

Sydney says that she will, and sensing the seriousness, she rushes out. I tell Annalise that I’ll be right back, and I go to Lennon Rose’s room, checking for the Guardian before slipping inside.

For a moment, it steals my breath, the way I miss her. The way I can still sense her. It’s even stronger than yesterday—or maybe I’m just feeling more. I go over to the bed and slip my hand beneath the mattress, relieved when the book is still there. I tuck it under my shirt and quickly return to my room.

Marcella eyes me suspiciously as I reenter, closing my door and wishing I could lock it. “Another secret?” Marcella asks. But her attempt at joking falls flat. It’s been a devastating day already, and I think all of us are still raw from Leandra and Professor Penchant’s words.

I take the book out of my shirt, making Marcella start with surprise. Sydney looks uncomfortable but doesn’t react like she did on the track. When I sit on the floor, she comes to sit next to me. The other girls join us, forming a circle.

“I found this in Lennon Rose’s room,” I say. “I think she was reading it before the open house. And I think it might have been why she was so upset.”

“I thought she was upset because her parents ran out of money,” Annalise says, checking with the other girls.

“That’s what Anton said,” I explain. “But he might not have been telling the truth. And when I checked Lennon Rose’s room, I found this.”

I take out the book and flip to the poem “Girls with Sharp Sticks.” I’m scared to show the other girls; I even hesitate. It seems . . . radical. But when I look at Sydney, she nods for me to give it to her. I pass it her way first.

“The poem is called ‘Girls with Sharp Sticks,’?” I say. Marcella smiles at the title, and the others wait impatiently as Sydney runs her eyes down the page. I watch her read, the shocked way her eyes blink. When she’s done, she looks dazed.

“Let me see,” Annalise says. Sydney hands it over without a word, lost in thought. Annalise reads it quickly, and I see her smile at the last line. Her smile is followed by a flash of guilt and then another smile.

“Who wrote this?” she asks, lifting her eyes to mine. They’re shiny with exhilaration. Defiance.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “And I don’t know how Lennon Rose got it, but I think Valentine could have given it to her.”

Brynn finishes reading, sitting very still when she’s done. Her lips are parted, her cheeks red. She passes the book to Marcella. “A girl wrote it,” Brynn says. “I’m sure of it.”

Marcella is the last to read, and when she finishes, she stares at the page. I’m suddenly worried that she isn’t going to appreciate the words or that she’ll be scared by them. But instead, she looks at me.

“This is . . . ,” she starts. “This is kind of like us. The way we are at this school. The way . . .” She doesn’t finish the thought. She looks down at the page again, and her eyes drip tears.

The parallels to our lives are obvious. At least, they are now that we’re looking for them. The way we’re taught, kept, trained. It’s only now that we’re starting to see what’s happening to us. We may not completely understand, but there is a sense that we’ve been . . . wronged.

A heaviness pulls us down, and we all lower our heads. I think about Rebecca being humiliated and then trying to fight back in the only way she knew—destroying what they coveted: her beauty.

“There’s something else,” I say, after a moment. “You can’t take the nightly vitamins anymore.”

Brynn looks confused. “Why not?” she asks. “I’ll be off balance.”

I explain to her that I haven’t had vitamins in my system since Friday night. And when I tell them about the silver dust inside the capsule, Brynn grips Marcella’s leg, terrified.

“I’m not sure what they’ve been doing to us,” I say. “But since I stopped taking them, I see more. I understand more. Those pills are controlling us. With what? I’m not sure. But we need to figure out what the purpose of this school really is.”

I see that the girls aren’t totally getting my theories, even if the poem has moved them.

“Just . . . Just pretend to take the vitamins tonight,” I beg. “See how you feel tomorrow. Deal?”

“Yeah,” Annalise says, seeming lost in thought. “Fine. I hate swallowing those pills anyway.”

I tell them what Jackson said about the town knowing about the school, and how it’s super mysterious and kind of scary. They listen closely, and Sydney occasionally looks toward the bars on the window.