So glad to be back!! I'm sorry it took me so long. This semester was the worst I've ever done, and finals week just finished. Anyway, I'll be writing all summer so I plan to update frequently. Also, I graduate in half a year so there's that ... woo! Thanks for sticking with me guys. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. Enjoy the chapter~

Lay slams the door behind him, and I watch as the screen pulsates dimly before slowly fading away. I do not know why I thought visiting his office would provide me answers, but at least I had taken action. I was getting bored sitting in classrooms all day and chatting with people who were clearly guarding their words. Defeated, I retreat to my room.

I pass several professors on my way back, who do nothing but throw me dismissive glances. It seems I am as invisible here as I was in the Government. Nothing has changed, although not drawing attention to myself may work towards my advantage more in the Institute than it does in the Government. I am about to place my hand on the scanner when I reconsider my options.

Lay had said that the Institute didn’t care what I did as long as they knew where I was. That meant two things: one, that I was being watched, something I already knew; and two, that I was limited by undefined boundaries. Wanting to test the Institute’s rules and find something worth reporting to the Government, I walk past my room and on towards the student living quarters.

It looks exactly the same as the guest quarters, except the colors of the scanners are different. The numbers have started over, as well, and as I meander the hallways they jump back and forth between even and odd. Not a sliver of sound escapes those silver doors. The more I walk the more I realize the layout is like a convoluted grid. I am about to pass the room marked ‘1910’ when the door suddenly opens. I had been walking in silence for so long that the disturbance pulls a tiny, frustratingly feeble whelp from my lips.

The student just rolls her eyes at me, and all I can do is stare. She is full of contrasts. Her hair is blacker than the shadows that shroud her room, while her skin is as pale as the fluorescent lights above us. Her eyes are full of untested strength, while her features are delicately shaped. A few seconds pass before I realize she is staring at me, as well; and so I look away.

She is just a student. Why do I feel so intimidated?

“Who are you?” she asks me as she closes the door to her room. “Are you new?”

“Oh, I’m not a student,” I respond. “I’m a guest.”

“The Institute doesn’t just have guests,” she says, sounding much like that one posh (but handsome) professor I am starting to regret forming a pact with. “You’re the Argent, aren’t you?”

“Is it obvious?”

“No. You look like anyone else, really. But those clothes - only the Government would have something so dull.”

And here I thought I had brought my nicest garments.

“I was just taking a tour of the place,” I find myself explaining. “It can get – “

“I don’t care what you’re doing here.” She brushes by me, and then pauses. “How do you know Professor Lay?”

I nearly choke. “I’m sorry?”

“I was in the classroom you sat in. You weren’t the best whisperer, so of course I heard you.” She crosses her arms. “How’d you meet him?”

“He was a visitor to the Government.” I don’t know why I’m telling her this.

“Well, I was just asking because there’s something strange about you. I don’t know what it is.” She shrugs and turns around. I notice her socks are mismatched.

“What’s your name?” I ask, not expecting an answer.

“Rye.” She pauses to consider me. “What’s yours?”

“Emer.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

Her focus is drifting and, since I am eager to know about this girl and the Institute in general, I ask, “How long have you been a student here?”

I can tell she is rarely asked this question by the way she perks up. “Since I was six. I haven’t left the Institute since then.”

“I know how that feels,” I answer. “I lived in the Argent region all my life until I started working in the Government. I haven’t seen anything beyond those walls.”

Although she tries to hide it, I can sense her interest. “You’ve seen the whole world, compared to us. We only hear stories about you, read books about you. It must have been incredible.”

I think back to the time I had snuck into the Brass region with Luhan, and the danger we had almost faced. “Not always. And you? Where did you live before you moved here?”

“I don’t remember,” she replies, and the way she says it, her voice laced with distance and her tongue heavy with forgotten memories, tells me there is something more to the story. “I don’t remember anything before the Institute.” The glaze in her eyes recedes. She lifts her head, and the fire is back in those obsidian irises. “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to you.”

“Of course you aren’t,” I murmur as I watch her spin on her heel and walk away. Tired of walking through identical hallways and finding nothing, I go to my room and send my message to the Government.

“Entry 2, Emer. I observed classes today. There is a room in the North Wing that is prohibited. I will try to figure out how I can get access to it. In addition, I spoke with a student, and from what I observed, she honestly could not remember what her life was like prior to the Institute. I will look into that, as well.”

I feel as though Luhan is in that restricted room. I don’t have any proof to back that thought, but something inside me is telling me he is in there. I have to get Lay to tell me what that room is for. I only have three months in the Institute, and if I continue at the rate I am going, I will certainly return to the Government with my head in my hands.

If I can uncover whatever the Government believes the Institute is hiding, I can resolve their potentially groundless suspicion of them and see Luhan again. And who is to say that after an unsuccessful attempt, I will return to being just a normal lackey? They could demote me - or worse. I don’t want to think about it.

As the seconds tick by, the sick tightening in my stomach tells me that this is my last chance at redemption.

A series of obnoxious knocks wakes me from a peaceful sleep. I have been here a week, and this is the first visitor I have gotten, aside from the Exon that had spooked me on my first morning. Judging by the sporadic pattern of the knocks, they are from a human. I throw a sweater over my camisole and open the door.

“Hi.” It’s Rye, and she looks exactly the same as the last time I saw her, except she is out of breath.

“Good morning,” I say. Am I supposed to invite her inside? “Are you all right?”

“I have some questions for you.” If she hadn’t looked away for that brief second, I would have believed her lie when she said, “It’s for a class project.”

“You can come inside,” I decide. I would rather not have anyone seeing her outside my room if she was not assigned to be here.

“Thanks,” She barges in, sits on the only chair in the room, and crosses her legs. There is a notebook in her hands, and a white pen.

“What is this project about?” I ask carefully as I sit on my bed and wrap the sweater tighter around me. I exhale and see my breath appear as a curly gray mist. “I think they forget I live here sometimes. It’s always so cold.”

“Our rooms are like that, too. You get used to it.” She clicks the pen and then opens to the first page. “For our project, we are to do a presentation on the Government. I figured I would get the best grade if I did my research on someone who is actually from there.” She is brazen with her lies, and although it scares me, it makes me like her even more. I used to be like that, before I lost everything I cared about.

“This is the most interesting thing that has happened since I have been here,” I say. “You can ask me all you want. I have nothing else to do.” It comes out lonelier than I intended, and she knows it.

“First question. What is your position in the Government?”

“I’m a lackey,” I say without mirth. “I do whatever the council needs me to do. Errands. Different tasks. It isn’t an enviable position, but it was created just for me."

If she were expecting something grandiose, she wouldn’t get it from me. I hate being a disappointment to people, but there is no use lying about what I do. She writes quickly, and moves on without a hesitant breath.

“Second question. Can you explain the hierarchy within the Government?”

I am more than prepared to answer this question, having studied for the Test twice and failing the first time. I explain the hierarchy, beginning with Judge Shore and working my way down the line of command. At the end I repeat how insignificant my own role is, not to relegate my own position but to paint a picture of the complexities within the Government, and the relevance or lack thereof that can be found within each responsibility. She writes everything all down, more interested than I deemed for a person who is here for a different reason.

But I don’t want to answer any more questions or continue the charade. “Rye. Why are you really here?”

The pen stops moving across the page. “I thought I was good at lying.”

“I have met several liars,” I admit. “I’ve become great at telling the difference.”

She closes the notebook and tucks the pen within the rings binding it together. “I know why you’re here. They didn’t tell us, but we all know. You would be surprised how far whispers can reach around here.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” I murmur.

“We aren’t supposed to talk to you. That was the only thing they told us. But I don’t like being told what to do, so I disabled the cameras for a moment to come in here.”

“You disabled the cameras?”

“You don’t think they’re just letting you walk around, do you?”

“As long as they know where you are,” Lay’s words so conveniently remind me.

“Those cameras are for all of us,” she continues. “At least we can breathe for a little bit.”

Her words unsettle me. I wrap the sweater tighter around my chest, feeling a chill that had not been there before. Although I invited her in, she has over-welcomed her stay. “If that’s all, you can leave. I am sure you have homework to do.”

Her lips curve into a frozen smile. “I’m not looking to be your friend, or your enemy. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. They don’t tell us enough around here. And I don’t remember enough. It pisses me off.” She stands. “Can I ask you one more question?”

I rub my eyes. “I won’t stop you.”

“When did you find out you loved Luhan?”

I nearly gape at her. She is the first person in the Institute to say Luhan’s name since I arrived. To hear Luhan being referred to by name – not a number, not an edition, not a series – further enforces the reason why I came.

“It just happened,” I say and replay the memories we shared that was pivotal to creating that moment when I realized I loved him. But I cannot pinpoint an exact moment. I only remember him – his eyes, his smile, his Rubik’s Cube. And I know that, despite the vagueness in my words, that was the truth.

She nods, grabs her notebook, and quietly leaves the room. I stare at the chair she had vacated before I reach for the broken picture frame. My fingers outline the curve of Luhan’s face, and then the shape of the crack. The surface is rough, but I don’t lift my hand away. It doesn’t hurt. And the worst part is that every time I am reminded of Luhan, the thought of him hurts less and less.

I don’t know if that is a good thing.

Three precise knocks ring against my door. “Am I a bloody hotel?” I say aloud, weary of the visit for which I had just been grateful. When I open the door, a 3^rd Gen Exon awaits.

“Hello,” It says in a familiarly monotone voice. “I am here to deliver an invitation from Lay.”

“What is it?”

The Exon extends a card. I unfold the cardboard paper.

Would you like to join me for dinner?