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gardens, I stop in my tracks and take a quick back step around the corner.
    Mother is at the end of the hallway, close to Evie's gardens. She's standing with the new Suitor, but he's in his Guard uniform. She’s wearing a red—her signature color—a sleeveless dress with gold lining the neckline. The hemline skims just under her knees. Her wheat blonde hair is twisted into some intricate style that I’m sure her lady’s maid spent hours on this morning. Of course, as per usual, not a hair is out of place. I’m sure even her make-up is perfect.
    They're talking quietly, but the marble hallway carries their voices to me.
    “I promised you that if you passed training, you could have Evelyn. And I mean to keep that promise,” Mother is saying.
    I narrow my eyes. She promised Evie to someone else? The sudden jolt of pain I feel is as if Mother has kicked me in the gut; all the air rushes out of my lungs. No matter how hard I try to inhale, I just can’t seem to catch my breath.
    “But you heard her,” the Guard says. “She wants that boy from Sector Three. She didn't even look twice at me. And you should have seen her at the tea. When he walked in, her whole demeanor changed.”
    His words finally shove much needed oxygen into my lungs and I’m able to take a shaky breath.
    I can't see what Mother is doing, but she says, “That boy from Three is of no concern to me. I sent Evelyn to Dr. Friar. He'll take care of that little problem. Now come. It's getting close to curfew and I'd hate for the Enforcers to destroy all of our hard work.”
    The sounding slap of their shoes comes closer and I bolt back to the stairs, only slowing my steps when I get to the first floor.
    With a peek out the door, I watch as Mother escorts the Guard out, and then comes back to the elevator. Just as she steps in , she glances my way and pauses. For one horrible minute that stretches into eternity, I think she sees me. Then she continues to step into the elevator, and I release my breath in a fast rush of air.
    My instincts tell me to go to the Medical Sector and claim Evie from Dr. Friar, but my head is telling me to take it slow. Barging in on their session would be a mistake; I need to figure out what's going on before I take drastic measures. Talk it through with my mom. Let her know that the game has changed.
    I duck out of the stairwell and hurry down the hall, past the lone Guard who again doesn't even notice me. In fact, he almost looks like he's asleep. Only with his eyes open.
    Making my way back to the Residential Sector, I try to figure out what I heard. I'm not sure how sending Evie to her psychiatrist is going to stop her from choosing me, but Mother seemed quite confident.
    I ponder that question the entire walk from the Palace Wing to the Residential Sector. Evie loves me. I know she does. She’ll tell Dr. Friar. Surely, a psychiatrist would recognize the truth in her words. That’s what they’re trained to recognize, right?
    You can’t change how someone feels. Not like that. Not in one night.
    Suddenly, as if there’s a movie montage playing in the head, I remember everything she’s ever said to me in a new light. I finally put the pieces together. How almost every single time she’d missed our nightly meet-ups because she “forgot,” she’d had a visit with Dr. Friar prior to it. Or how whenever Mother had to cancel an afternoon Suitor meeting, Dr. Friar had been somewhere in the background. We knew she was being Conditioned, forced to forget and be docile; we just hadn’t known how.
    It was Dr. Friar.
    It made sense. Who else would have done it? Who else would know the brain better than a psychiatrist? Eli had to have known. They all had to have known.
    Without a second thought, I do a one-eighty and rush straight to Dr. Friar’s office.
    No, I think. Not this time. Not. This. Time.
    I don’t care what I have to do to get her away from here. Away from him . But I will. I will not lose her again. And I sure as