Page 195 of Secrets Along the Shore

I kept going. The next student, and the next—same patterns. Notes about brain response to sound waves, treatments involving low-frequency vibrations, strobe light therapy, and oils. And then: behavioral conditioning. Electro-aural stimulation.

I froze.

I had read about these experiments before. Once. In college, during a seminar on medical ethics. Cruel, outdated trials that had been used on Deaf children decades ago. The belief had been that hearing could be forced—or conditioned—into someone. Electrodes strapped to foreheads. Bright light punishments. Teaching through pain and reward. The goal was to erase deafness, not understand it. Not respect it.

These weren’t students. They were subjects.

And the lodge? It hadn’t been a reward. It had been a control group setting.

My fingers trembled as I moved on to the next file. One by one, they all blurred into the same story: a summer of testing masked as a getaway. No wonder the students hated me. Maybe I had been part of it and didn’t even realize it. Maybe I had been too young, too flattered by beingchosento ask why. But something must have happened to keep me from experiencing any of the treatments.

I closed the final file and leaned against the wall, bile rising in my throat. It was too much. Too ugly.

Across the room was another filing cabinet, heavier, taller, the kind you needed a key to open. I tried the top drawer. Locked. I tried the next. Same.

I knew what was in there.

Everything about the experiments, under lock and key.

There had been no data in the files in the unlocked drawer, just the history of each student. I needed to know what Scanlon’s results were…and why I was also the only student he kept bringing back. I wasn’t just any student.

My head ached. The pounding behind my eyes throbbed like I was underwater. There had to be a key. Somewhere. He wouldn’t have left it far. But deep down, I already knew that inside that locked cabinet was the answer to what happened the summer Olivia—Livvie—drowned.

What Scanlon had done to me.

CHAPTER

SIX

I woke to light.

Not dawn seeping through the curtains or the moon slipping past the branches. No, this was blinding—artificial. Every bulb in the lodge, upstairs and down, burning bright. I blinked against it, disoriented, heart knocking in my chest like a drum. My bedroom door was cracked open.

I never kept it that way.

I sat up slowly, unsure if I’d left something on and forgotten. But I knew I hadn’t. Ineverdid. Not since the fire drills at the school, where I had to memorize which lights signaled certain dangers. I always double-checked things now.

My phone was on the nightstand. No notifications.

I slipped from bed and pulled on a sweatshirt over my pajama tank. I shoved my feet into the boots I kept at the ready near the door.

The lodge was glowing.

Every single room—bedrooms, kitchen, dining, library, even the third-floor landing—was lit like a stage set.

I texted Mr. Monroe.

Lights are all on. Something’s wrong. Please come first thing.

My fingers hovered. Should I call the police? But what would I say? I didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t. But there was no evidence of a break-in, as far as I could tell. The doors remained locked.

No footprints on the rug.

No windows open.

No sign of broken glass.

Still, I didn’t feel alone. I sensed someone breathing behind me, but turning, I found no one.