Finding Unity - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,1

knew. After the motorcycle accident, for a while, Dr. Murray and the fallout he’d created had gone to the back burner.

But now she was back in Vermont and people were clamoring for her attention. Journalists, the police, the university—everyone wanted to talk to her. They wanted first-hand accounts of what she’d experienced.

At first, Nora had let the guys run interference. Matisse, Ryan, Seok, Cai, and Apollo had taken messages and made excuses. They’d sat with her while the Brownington PD interviewed her. And now two of them, Ryan Valore and Seok Jheon stood outside the bright lights and watched right along with Professor Bismarck.

“Nora?” Lucy prompted.

Her leg ached. The walking cast was off now, had been for a few weeks, but she was still weak. She pointed her toes, stretching, but it did little to ease the throbbing.

“I don’t know what Reid’s work with Dr. Murray turned into,” she said, “but I imagine it started the same as mine.”

Lucy nodded. “I know you’re not able to go into much detail about Reid, given that you’re under a court order not to say anything until—or if—the doctors in this study are charged, but I’m curious about what happened to you in the beginning. I think a lot of people are.”

Over Lucy’s shoulder, Ryan nodded, signaling that this was a question she could answer. “In the beginning, all I had to do was answer questions about how I saw the world. Was it a hopeful place? Did I believe in fate? I had to take an IQ test. A Rorschach test—is that how you say it?”

“Yes,” she answered. “The inkblot test.”

“Yes.” Nora clasped her hands on her lap, entwining her fingers and squeezing. She resisted the urge to crack her knuckles. “Those sorts of things.”

“Those are all pretty typical tests in a psychological study.” The reporter glanced down at a notebook on her lap. “Were the results of those tests ever shared with you?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes one of the doctors would share a detail or two they gleaned from the tests, but I was never shown anything comprehensive.”

“How do you feel about knowing all of this information will be public knowledge if charges are brought?”

Nora swallowed. Ryan wasn’t looking at her anymore. His gaze was trained on Seok Jheon, his expression unreadable. Lucy’s question bothered Nora in a lot of ways, but the main one was this—if all of the details of Dr. Murray’s study were revealed, then all of the details she had shared about her personal life would be shared. And the main detail, the one that affected more than just her, had to do with her relationships.

“Nervous,” she admitted and cleared her throat. “Terrified.”

“Probably because of the experience you had after the shooting at Alexander Twilight High School. You were named a person of interest after Reid’s identity was known. Police cleared you, but you suffered some fallout. What happened after the shooting?”

Before Lucy had even finished her question, she’d begun to shake her head. “What happened to me was nothing like what other people had to deal with.” Losing a loved one… she’d had years of not being close to Reid and she’d still mourned him. Mourned the boy he was. The brother he’d been. But it was nothing like what had happened to the parents, siblings, teachers, children of the people who were killed that day last fall.

Leaning forward, Lucy pinned her with a kind but intense stare. “Nora. You lost your home. Your jobs. You had no money and nowhere to go.”

“It all worked out.” She couldn’t help smiling as two of the five men she loved faced her. They’d been her port in a storm. “I wasn’t alone.”

Chapter 2

Seok

Seok Jheon stared out the window. He held his kerchief, wrapping it around and around his hand distractedly.

Outside, his best friend, Apollo Morris, and his girlfriend, Nora Leslie, walked up and down the sidewalk.

Their lips moved as they spoke, but he couldn’t hear them. Next door, one of the apartments had their music blaring. It was March and a sunny day, the kind of day that came after months of snow and rain and grayness.

It was the kind of day people turned up the music and rolled down their windows, just so they could breathe. The traffic was constant.

Nora laughed at something Apollo said. She stopped, head thrown back, gripping his arm for balance. Apollo smiled, and though he couldn’t see his eyes, Seok would bet they were trained on their girl.

Just like his were.

Things