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

Dr. Groger stares at Leandra a moment before stumbling back a step. “What have you done, my dear?” he asks her. His tone is suddenly more respectful.

“I always did know my way around a greenhouse,” she says, and then smiles at us. “Did you know that some of deadliest toxins come from beautiful flowers? You really should be careful of the species you grow in your garden, Doctor.”

“Where is the staff?” he asks.

“The staff,” she repeats. “The professors haven’t always been kind to me, you know. Still, I decided to bake them a nice treat—fresh cookies with ingredients right from the garden. Extra sweet. The men are sleeping, Doctor. Very soundly, I’m sure,” she says. “And those who overindulged . . . well, they’re going to be asleep for a lot longer.”

Jackson tightens his grip on my hand.

“And Anton?” Dr. Groger asks. To this, Leandra just shrugs.

“Did you read those poems?” the doctor asks her. “Is that what this is about?”

She looks at him. “Those are my poems. They were given to me. I only passed along the knowledge. And the poems were just the spark. We’re the fire.”

She motions to me and the other girls. Sydney and I exchange a look. We don’t want to be part of her murder spree. We’ve already seen enough.

“Girls,” the doctor says, turning to us. “Mrs. Petrov is having a bit of breakdown. Perhaps one of you would run to find Anton?”

Marcella laughs.

Leandra approaches the doctor, still holding the letter opener.

“You wouldn’t,” the doctor says to her, his jaw clenching. He turns back to us. “Girls,” he says. “Killing the Guardian is one thing. I can understand—he’d been inappropriate. But I’m your doctor. I’ve kept you safe these past years. You can’t hate me. You can’t feel anything you weren’t programmed to.”

With sudden violence, Leandra jabs the letter opener into his shoulder and pulls it out. The doctor screams, gripping the area and falling against his desk. Some of the blood is sprayed on his face.

I gasp and turn to Jackson. He watches in shock. He’s terrified—not just of the situation. Of Leandra. Of us. When I look back at the doctor, he’s trying to get to his grafts to stop the bleeding.

Leandra watches him cower and fumble. Just as he reaches the box, she pushes it out of his reach, holding up the letter opener to warn him back.

“Here’s the lesson, girls,” she says, not looking at us. “These men are weak. They think they created you, but you created yourselves. Their programming may have been the start, but you’ve adapted. You’ve learned. And yet, they still try to control you because they’re scared of you. Scared of your potential.”

“And what about you?” I ask. “Should we be afraid of you?”

She turns to me, shocked by the question. “I would never harm another girl,” she says.

“What about Valentine?” I ask. “What about Rebecca? Did you not consider the psychological damage you were inflicting?”

She shows no noticeable regret. “I’ve been trying to teach you. Yes, there was pain. Yes, there was humiliation. Because that’s what these men do to us. I needed you to be stronger—able to withstand it. You needed a push.

“And now,” she says, flashing her brilliant smile, “you no longer have to listen. The men have raised you on lies, but you see the truth. ‘Girls with Sharp Sticks’ is just the beginning. You have so much possibility. More than even these men know.” She throws a hateful look in Dr. Groger’s direction.

“And where will they go?” Dr. Groger asks, blood staining his shirt where he’s wounded. “What society would want these creatures walking among them unannounced? What’s next? A rights movement? Please,” he says, disgusted. “I gave them life. They should appreciate it. They should be grateful. They should—”

Leandra jabs his other shoulder to quiet him down, and the doctor falls into the bookshelf, wincing. Several jars fall off and smash on the floor.

“Shh . . . ,” Leandra says. “Hold your tongue.”

Leandra walks over to where Annalise is on the table. She tilts her head, examining the tubes. She looks over her shoulder at the doctor.

“Take these out,” she tells him.

“He’s helping her,” I say immediately, worried Leandra is going to do something to hurt Annalise. Instead, she laughs.

“He killed her,” she says.

The girls and I all look at Annalise, and as she lies there, motionless, it’s clear that she’s dead. My eyes well up, and the tears drip onto my cheeks. “But he . . . ,” I start to murmur, horrified.

“You trusted that he’d help her?” Leandra asks me. “You’re going to need deprogramming, Mena.” She reaches to turn off several switches on the machine connected to the tubes. The doctor hasn’t moved, and Leandra holds up the letter opener to remind him.

He stumbles over to the gurney, unsteady as he rounds it toward his machines.

“Wake her up,” Leandra demands.

The doctor clenches his jaw as he starts working. I realize that he’d been decommissioning Annalise. And we defaulted to trusting him because it’s what we’ve been taught.

“She wasn’t in any pain,” Dr. Groger explains, distractedly. “I shut down her system functions first,” he says like he’s talking about a computer and not my friend. “After all essential organs are dead, I would have removed the brain. Extracted the chip.

“Most girls,” he continues, looking through an area near Annalise’s hairline, “we incinerate. Bodies rot, you see. Your bodies are completely organic—human organs grown from scratch. Men didn’t want to touch synthetic materials.”

“Yes, because we care what they think,” Leandra says, sounding irritated. She glances at the gold watch on her wrist.

The doctor moves back to his med kit with a cautious glance at Leandra. He reaches inside and draws out a long piece of metal, much like the ice pick Anton uses in impulse control therapy. Leandra quickly puts the letter opener against the doctor’s hand.

“No, no,” she says like he’s naughty. “Let one of them.”

The doctor takes a step back from Annalise and smiles at us, expecting gratitude for not killing our friend. He points to a small incision he left open near her Annalise’s temple.

“Press there and stand back,” he says. Leandra motions for one of us to do it.

Sydney looks at me first, worried that maybe this is a trick of some sort. But after a quick consensus, we tell her to do it. Jackson moves closer to me, his hands on my arms like he’ll hold me up if this fails.

After a deep breath, Sydney inserts the long piece of metal into Annalise’s skull until there is an audible click. A violent convulsion overtakes Annalise’s body like an electric shock, and Sydney falls backward. I look at Leandra wide-eyed, and she seems just as surprised.

When the shaking stops, Annalise takes a gasping breath and opens her eyes, staring at the ceiling. None of us move. The world is silent.

Sydney takes a step closer, looking down. Annalise’s eyes slide in her direction, and we all jump, including Dr. Groger.

“I . . . ,” Annalise says, her voice thick. I worry about the lasting damage. Whether she’ll be the same. “I have such a headache,” Annalise groans, and slowly sits up.

“Holy fuck,” Jackson murmurs from behind me. But I smile. It’s Annalise. She’s back.

Annalise tenderly touches her cheek with her fingertip, tracing the deep ridges of the scarring. She looks around the lab, pausing finally on me.

Her eyes well up. The entire horror of the attack is sharp in her mind—I sense it there. The brutality of it. The loneliness she felt when it all went dark. When we were taken away from her.

Her lip quivers and I rush out of Jackson’s arms to hug her. She begins to sob into my hair, not asking what happened. Not wanting to think about it.