Page 70 of Artifice
She didn’t like this at all. The fact they knew Olive was suspicious also put a target on her back.
Then another thought hit her.
Was that why Colin’s mom had gotten that text today? Because someone on the administration had found out Olive was asking about him?
Had these people just expected Colin’s parents to roll over and pretend like nothing had happened to their son? Were they hoping to sweep this under the rug like had happened for those other students?
The temporary trust Abe had given her disappeared, and he took a step back. “Something about this isn’t jiving for me.”
“Wait!” Olive raised her hand, desperate to get him to stay. She’d been quiet enough for him to have second thoughts, and that was her mistake. “I just want to help. That’s all.”
He stared at her another moment with that wary look in his gaze.
Olive lifted a prayer that she hadn’t scared him away.
Because this might be one of her only chances to find out the answers she needed about Colin.
CHAPTER 36
Abe glanced to the left then the right. Then he looked back at Olive.
“Something messed up happened with Colin,” he told her. “But nobody will listen. No one cares.”
“His parents care.”
“Colin hated this place from the start.”
“Then why did he tell his parents he was doing well?”
He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because I ask questions. I do my research.”
His gaze remained suspicious. Then he shrugged. “That’s what they told us to say. That we’re doing well.”
“What happens if you don’t say that?”
He rubbed his wrists again. “There are consequences.”
Olive’s stomach churned with disgust. That wasn’t okay—not by any stretch of the imagination.
“You keep sayingthey,” Olive said. “Who exactly is ‘they’?”
“Everyone. It’s like the staff here are all robots. They’ve been trained to say the same things and operate in the same way. Just like they want us to do.”
Olive stored that fact in the back of her mind. She could kind of see it, even though she’d mostly interacted with only three or four key staff members.
“What exactly happened to Colin?” Olive pressed, sensing Abe’s nervousness growing.
She needed answers before he got nervous and sprang.
“He started asking questions about the medicine they’re giving us.” Abe’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They call them ‘supplements,’ but they make you feel weird. Foggy. Colin stopped taking his. Started flushing them.”
Olive didn’t like the sound of these supplements. “Then what happened?”
“He said he started thinking more clearly. That’s when he got even more suspicious and started investigating. He found a shipping manifest in Principal Denarau’s office. Something about ‘special cargo’ being moved through those tunnels under the lighthouse.”
“And?” She held her breath as she waited.
