CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MILGRAM

( — u.s. social psychologist who conducted a wide range of controversial experiments looking at influence of researchers. )

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          HAILEY HAS PRETTY MUCH RAISED HELL IN THE PROJECT OXYGEN HOUSE. People are screaming, even if Gabriella could easily make it all stop if she wanted to, and Rhiannon fears this might be the beginning of a riot, the tiny spark that will ignite it all.

          As usual, she stays quiet, unable to voice any of her thoughts. While she feels terrible for Dimitri, as this was one of the worst ways he could have found out about what happened to Taylor; he should have found out the truth in private, next to his family and the police, not through a news channel surrounded by people he doesn't care about.

          Jude never lets her go, ready to serve as a human shield if necessary, as collateral damage can also be deadly sometimes, but Rhiannon is praying he won't have to do anything. Instead, they just watch the apocalypse descend upon the house, as Hailey refuses to stop screaming at the cameras, every participant is standing in the living room (making it almost seem suffocating) and maybe even Connor is listening to this somewhere.

          The thought sends shivers down Rhiannon's spine and she forces herself to think about something else—anything else. Things are already bad enough without fearing he has found a way of watching her every move once more, as if he needed to be more in control of her than he already is.

          She finds it hard to breathe, with the GABA levels in her system rising, and her chest tightens, with her heart being rendered unable to properly pump blood. Rhiannon hates to admit it, but it's only the gentle pressure of Jude's hands against her shoulders that keeps her afloat, as the edges of her vision darken and the wooden floor sways under her feet.

          It turns out Beatrice and Frances might be able to hear what's going on in the house from whatever they're watching them; it's either that or they realized the commotion was getting out of control and someone was bound to get hurt, as they quickly barge inside the building through the front door, livid. Dimitri doesn't move an inch with the slamming of the door, even though Gabriella jumps in her place, startled.

         "What the hell is going on here?" Beatrice questions, her voice an octave higher than its usual tone, and everyone freezes into place—well, better yet, mostly everyone, as Hailey shows absolutely no signs of wishing to calm down. She's fuming, hands clenched into fists next to her thighs. "Why are you people screaming?"

          "You bitch!" Hayley roars, and Beatrice stops, brows knitted together, and Frances purses his lips together in a thin line. Rhiannon wishes she hadn't noticed the way Laura tries to hide behind Sutton, to no avail. "How dare you? How dare you come back to this house and ask what's going on when you caused this? Let me go!" she protests, after having taken some steps forward, only to be pulled back by Matteo as he wraps his arms around her. She's so light he easily lifts her off the ground. "Matteo, let me go!"

          "Miss Hobbes," Frances intervenes, "I'm going to have to ask you to calm down."

          "I bet one of you killed her!" Hayley snaps, still struggling to break free from Matteo's grip, but, surprisingly, he remains firm. It's almost as if she weighed next to nothing. "Is that the traumatic event you want us to go through? Do you . . . do you think this is okay?" 

          "Wait." Beatrice raises her hands next to her shoulders and Dimitri's weeping briefly stops. Rhiannon can only hope it will last for a long moment. "What are you talking about? Who died?"

          Hailey's face is as red as blood and it's the first time Rhiannon has ever seen her lose control, which is quite a terrifying sight; her eyes are clouded with tears—angry tears—and she curls her lips, digging her nails into Matteo's arms in an attempt of breaking free. She kicks the air, ferociously, but it's still a devastating sight, enhanced by the desperate, silent look Gabriella throws her.

          "Don't give me that oblivious attitude when you already know the truth!" she continues, and Matteo gasps when her elbow stabs him in the chest. "You can keep pretending all you want, but we know why you chose us! You chose us because you think we'd help you cover up what you did to Taylor—"

          "What?" The incredulity in Beatrice's voice is hard to fake, even though she's trained to be in control of her emotions, while Frances remains as expressionless as ever, leaving Rhiannon to wonder if he feels anything about this . . . or even at all. "Taylor? Taylor Morris?"

          "Just look at him!" Both Beatrice and Frances risk a glance at Dimitri, who's still sobbing, still facing the TV screen, and those vultures who dare to call themselves reporters try to film the paramedics as they surround someone wrapped in plastic. Rhiannon's stomach churns, with bile burning its way up her throat. "Look at him, damn it! How can you possibly say you're following all ethical guidelines when all you've done is lock us up in a house four days per week, force someone to not be able to mourn their dead girlfriend properly because you're always watching us and not even tell us why!"

          "Miss Hobbes—"

           Hailey humorlessly laughs. "You can't possibly expect us to believe you chose us randomly! I, for one, don't believe in coincidences"—the proud look plastered on Matteo's face is visible to everyone—"and I'm not stupid, so it'd be nice if you stop treating me like I am!"

          "One of you was chosen at random," Frances dryly clarifies, and Laura gulps, from the other side of the living room, "and everyone else was chosen based on that. Is that what you wanted to hear? We needed people who already had strong ties between them to get completely polarized groups when we compare them; this group needs to be the exact opposite of the control group."

          The living room falls silent and someone knocks on the door, but everyone stays right where they are, not daring to move a muscle. Rhiannon's brain circuits begin to shut down and she stumbles to the side, even with Jude's steady presence behind her.

          They always have a perfect, preprogrammed excuse, treating them like predictable robots that can only choose one answer out of a list including all possibilities. They're raising them like pigs for slaughter, refusing to not give cryptic answers to their valid questions because it's best if they live in ignorance—because it's safer. Because these are matters college kids should not get involved in, even though one of them has just been found dead, wrapped in plastic.

          Rhiannon realizes it now. Just like things cannot possibly be reduced to merely mechanical concepts and theories, they also can't only be explained by the action of neurotransmitters and synapses. Sometimes, people just plain and simply suck, and it's not Physics or Neurosciences who can explain it.

          Not even Psychology can. It's just too woven into their DNA.

          "Does anyone want to quit the experiment?" Beatrice asks, hands on her hips, breaking the silence, and no one says anything, probably because they're too frightened. "We've told you countless times; if you want to quit the experiment, you're free to do so whenever you wish, but it's important that you let us know so we can replace you—"

          "With all due respect, ma'am," Roman chimes in, and Rhiannon realizes she had almost forgotten he was here as well, "not everything can be replaceable. You can replace participants in an experiment if you find a way of ensuring they keep their mouth shut about what happened, yes, but I find it slightly . . . insensitive to talk about replacing people after someone just died."

          "My question still stands," Beatrice reiterates, as if he hadn't even opened his mouth to say what he said. "Does anyone want to quit? Mr. Bonheur?"

          "No," Dimitri replies, through gritted teeth, and Rhiannon shivers. She has heard that exact tone in someone else's voice, hinting towards the strong desire of vengeance towards those who wronged him; she heard it in her father's voice, that day in his office, moments before he slapped her. "No, I don't."

           "Good. The university is happy to provide counseling and therapy sessions if anyone needs some psychological support during this rough period." She fixes the lapels of her coat as Sutton whispers something in Laura's ear and Matteo carefully sets Hailey down, now that she's no longer struggling to break free. "If there's anything else we can potentially help you with, please don't hesitate before coming to talk to us. Let's hope nothing like this ever happens again."

          They don't wait for a kiss and hug goodbye and spin around on their heels, their footsteps echoing in the silent house. The only other sound they can hear is the crackling of the flames in the fireplace and the faint voice of the reporters coming from the TV, with the latter having turned into background noise.

          Rhiannon wants to use this opportunity to disappear upstairs, fearing this might have been a tsunami of social interactions, one she doesn't know how to handle, but even those plans are ruined by Beatrice and Frances. The former lets her know there's someone at the door to talk to her, but she should remember the only encouraged interactions in this house are the ones between the participants and between them and the experimenters.

          Sighing softly, she follows them across the hallway, heart pounding fast against her sternum, and she wishes she had something to support herself on, as her steps aren't nearly as steady as she hoped. Frances and Beatrice leave the door open on her way out and, standing outside, in the middle of the pouring rain, is Isla.

          The rain has taken away all the volume from her hair and it falls on both sides of her face in two curtains, with some strands sticking to her face, and she's so drenched, so pale she looks like a drowning victim, bottom lip trembling incessantly. Rhiannon's heart sinks, falling to the space between them, as if things hadn't gone wrong enough; when they said the experiment would be draining on so many levels, they certainly weren't overreacting.

          "Isla," she mutters, with her voice being barely distinguishable over the storm. "What's going on?"

          "Have you seen the news?" Isla blurts out, teeth chattering, and she attempts to bring the flaps of her coat closer together. The wind hisses and a tree nearby, one of the thinnest, weakest ones, dangerously wobbles from side to side. "What happened at the beach—"

          "Yes," Rhiannon admits. "It's terrible. What happened to you?"

          Isla opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a choked sob that easily makes Rhiannon's mind go blank. There's an entire repertoire of actions she can possibly follow, but every line gets erased with every second Isla spends in such a vulnerable, miserable state; this was never supposed to happen, as Isla is supposed to be the strong one, and Rhiannon doesn't know how she'll carry them both when she doesn't know what it means to be strong.

          "Isla," she tries to insist. "Talk to me. Please."

          "Taylor wasn't alone at the beach," she confesses, swallowing. "Papa just told me the hospital called him to let him know because he's apparently the emergency contact." The deep breath she attempts to take is so shaky it doesn't have the wished effect and she finally steps forward to stand under the lights illuminating the front porch. "He was there, Rhea, and I don't—I don't know why. I don't know what the hell is going through his head, but I was the one who asked him to help me investigate this damn thing, and now—now he almost drowned. I—"

          "Calm down," Rhiannon, the hypocrite, asks. "Who nearly drowned? Rowan?"

          Isla answers with another sob, nodding almost imperceptibly, and Rhiannon's chest catches on fire, with the overwhelming feelings of guilt and empathy for Isla begin to kick in. She was the one who gave him those notes, which might have pushed him to get caught even deeper into the middle of the investigation surrounding Taylor's disappearance; if Isla can be blamed for him having gotten hurt—which Rhiannon isn't doing—then so can she, possibly even more.

          "I'm sorry," Isla murmurs, twisting her hands in each other. "I shouldn't have come here, but I have no one else to talk to; Papa didn't want me to leave the campus and it was hard getting past security to come here, but trying to follow him to the hospital would be pushing my luck. I don't—what am I supposed to do? What if . . . what if he doesn't—"

          "You have to go back to the dorm," Rhiannon chimes in, and one of the surveillance cameras outside, sheltered by the roof of the porch, menacingly glares at her, with a tiny red light flickering on its side. "It's not safe for you to be out here."

          "Rhea," Isla begs, holding the door when Rhiannon attempts to close it, "please. I need you, okay?" She sniffles, and Rhiannon forces herself to not look into her tear-filled eyes, knowing it will only make things a lot harder than they need to be. "I need my best friend."

          "I know"—Rhiannon stares down at her feet—"and I'm sorry, but you need to go somewhere safe and stay there, okay? This house isn't safe for any of us and certainly not for you, but I promise I'll meet you when morning comes—"

          "Yeah, you know what? Don't bother." Rhiannon risks a glance up at her and finds her raising her chin, jaw firmly clenched. "I don't know what this stupid experiment has turned you into, but I don't like it one bit; I don't know if they're forcing you to shelter yourself from the world even more than you already did, but, if they are, I hope they have a valid reason to do it."

          "Isla . . ."

          "I also hope you remember who's really on your side and who's not." Isla fixes her cape around her shoulders before pulling her hood up. The wind makes the ends whoosh around her legs. "Those people might be really nice, but I'd think twice before putting my hands in the fire for them."

          Rhiannon grits her teeth. "If you must know, they're not the ones I'm worried about." She shoots a quick glance at the camera before focusing back on Isla, who doesn't seem a single bit interested in what she had to say. "I don't know what Northrop and McCall are looking for with this experiment, but I fear there might be something more than what they've told us. It all seems too . . . shady to be true; I know you don't do conspiracy theories," she quickly adds, when Isla rolls her eyes, "but the coincidences are too frequent and too strong for them to be just that."

          Isla sighs, following her stare. "You know what they say, don't you? Curiosity killed the cat . . ."

          ". . . but satisfaction brought it back."

          "Right. I want to believe you know what you're doing, but I don't trust those two. At all. Let's just hope . . . this doesn't get you killed. Or any of you, for that matter."

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i know this might seem like a filler chapter at first and, while i agree all books need those, be it for relationship development or even just worldbuilding, this is not one of them!!! promise. pay attention to the dialogues and the reactions from the characters if you're still looking for some answers or forming your theories regarding who killed taylor and/or who dies on january 14.

there are only four chapters left in part one, spanning from this day (november 30) to january 14, meaning every detail is important and i'm going to try my best to not make things seem too rushed; you can expect some longer chapters just for that reason (not TOO long, mind you; this one was 2.6k words long, so the following ones might reach 3k), but i'm also aiming for it to not be a heavy read, full of info dumps and all.