No one spoke for a few seconds.
Then Lena finally broke the silence. "What do you mean they take people?"
Mira glanced around like someone might overhear. "Not all at once. Not violently. They make it feel like a choice."
Ava frowned. "That doesn't make sense. If it's a choice, then why hide it?"
Mira looked at her. "Because once they get inside your head, you stop realizing you ever had a choice to begin with."
I stared at her. "How do you know all this?"
"I used to be one of them," she said quietly.
Lena tensed. "You mean—"
"I lived it," Mira interrupted. "I thought I was special. Chosen. Protected. But I wasn't being trained. I was being rewritten."
I didn't like the sound of that.
"What happened to you?" Ava asked.
"I ran," Mira said. "Before they could finish."
Lena looked at me. I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was.
Was that even possible?
Could you escape if they were already inside your head?
Mira must've seen the doubt on our faces. "It's not easy. You lose parts of yourself along the way."
She looked directly at me. "And once you see what they show you… you start to wonder why you ever wanted to leave."
I felt a chill crawl up my spine.
"Did you?" I asked.
She didn't answer right away.
Then she whispered, "Sometimes."