The Girl Who Dared to Think Read online

  A moment’s hesitation held me in place, but once I realized it was too late to backpedal, I nodded. Grey, looking uncomfortable, glanced at me.

  On the stove, the kettle had begun to boil in earnest, the soft whistle from earlier now a howling shriek that reverberated around the little room. Silvan stood automatically, brushing past me on his way to the kitchen, and grabbed the kettle to move it. The screaming died to a burbling hiccup.

  “I know this is a lot to take in,” I said. “I was just like you. I fell to a three and sought Medica treatment... but it was awful. I couldn’t remember anything from when I was on the drugs. Any sense of myself was gone. But with Paragon, I can be me. I don’t have to change in order to please the Tower. And we’d like for you to—”

  With a feral howl, Silvan spun, the kettle coming around in a crushing blow toward my head. The motion came so fast that for a second I sat frozen, watching the container filled with boiling water arcing toward me. I was just starting to move, already knowing it was too late, when Grey darted over me, his hand pushing me even farther to the side as he flowed past me to take my place as target.

  There was a loud noise as the kettle connected with the flesh of his forearm, a soft, sizzling sound, then a gasp of pain. I could smell something burning as Grey brought a fist around and jabbed Silvan in the side, under the ribs. Silvan wheezed as the air was forced from his lungs by the force of the blow, and Grey used his other arm to sweep the kettle out of his hand, sending it flying into the cushions. Silvan staggered back and then lunged at Grey, his hands coming up and together, fingers outstretched as if to throttle him, and I finally got my feet under me.

  I threw myself at him, using my legs to push off, and caught him around the waist in a full tackle. We both went down, my shoulder radiating pain as I bounced off him and onto the floor. I rolled onto my side, gasping at the pain, and suddenly fingers were grabbing my hair, gripping me painfully. I reached up with my hands, trying to pry Silvan’s fingers out of my hair, but he jerked my head up and slammed it down on the ground, so hard that my vision grayed out as pain exploded from the back of my skull.

  “You’re dissidents!” he screamed. “You threaten the safety and well-being of the Tower!”

  He slammed my head down again, and the pain grew even worse. My thoughts were sluggish and disjointed, and I couldn’t remember how my hands worked so I could stop him. My head was jerked up again, but then I felt some of my hair tear free as the hold on me was viciously jerked away.

  I blacked out for a second, and came to with my hands on my head, trying to contain the agonizing pain radiating from the impact site. I looked up to see Grey’s fist flashing up and back down, connecting with Silvan’s face. Once, twice, a third... It was too much, but Grey didn’t show any sign of stopping.

  “Grey,” I managed, my voice coming out a hoarse croak. His fist fell again, and I cleared my throat and started to pick myself up. “Grey.”

  His fist froze in midair, and he turned back to me, the fury on his face morphing into complete concern. He let go of Silvan’s uniform, dropping the dazed man to the ground, and crossed over to me, his hands going around my waist to help me right myself. I leaned heavily on him, more heavily than I cared to think about, and looked at where Silvan lay groaning on the floor.

  “What happened?” I asked, still groggy. “Why did he—”

  “Later,” Grey said, his hand going into his pocket, and I looked down to see violent-looking red and brown flesh on his forearm where the kettle had caught him.

  “Your arm,” I managed, and he looked down at it, his face an angry mask.

  “Later,” he repeated, withdrawing a blue pill that looked identical to the one he had been playing with in Sarah’s quarters. I remembered asking him about it, and realized I’d never gotten an answer. He helped me over to lean against a wall, then moved to where Silvan was slowly getting onto his hands and knees.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked as he approached the man, and then watched as he put his arm around his neck—in a move I recognized instantly. “Oh.” I looked away while Grey cut off the blood flow to Silvan’s head—not because I couldn’t watch, but because the room was spinning. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing and not losing the contents of my stomach, and heard Silvan’s brief moment of struggle before he blacked out.

  When I peeled my eyelids back, fighting through the sudden tightness in my skull from the bright light of the room, I saw Grey rolling the man over and checking his pulse. After a moment, he pushed the pill past Silvan’s slightly opened lips and forced him to swallow by massaging his neck. Finished, he straightened and immediately moved to gather me up, before guiding us both out of the quarters.

  Back in the main hall, we both hobbled down the long tunnel, moving as inconspicuously as possible. Luckily, we were in the middle of a shift, so everyone else was either working or resting, which meant there weren’t too many people to mark our passing. Silvan would be up shortly, screaming his head off about the two nines who had offered him an illegal pill that would make him a nine as well.

  It made me wonder how Roark had dealt with these situations, and the blue pill flashed through my mind. It did something to them; I was now very sure of it, but I wasn’t sure what.

  “What was that you gave him?” I asked, once we had put a little distance behind us. Grey’s arm around my waist tightened, and he looked at me sharply. I realized he was still angry. “What?”

  “You should’ve followed my lead,” he said, turning me down a side hall.

  I looked away from him, my brows coming together as I thought about his statement. “Wait... Are you saying this is my fault? Because if so, then to hell with you. Your questions weren’t exactly designed for him to give an honest answer without fear of incrimination.”

  “Liana, he was ready for Medica treatment, and—”

  “He’s been brainwashed,” I interjected angrily, not liking the patronizing quality of his voice.

  To his credit, he bit back what he was going to say, a muscle in his jaw ticking. Then he sighed, reaching up with his free hand and raking it through his hair, wincing when the burned flesh on his forearm pulled.

  “I know he has,” he said. “But he was also cutting his own flesh. Didn’t you notice the scars on his arms?”

  I thought back, fighting through the pain in my head. “No. I didn’t. I mean... how do you even know he was cutting himself?”

  Grey’s face tightened, and he looked down. “I learned how to recognize it through Roark. It’s a bigger problem in the Tower than many would think. He had multiple scars, some old and white, others pink and fresh, too regular and patterned to be accidental.”

  “Oh. But shouldn’t that mean we should be helping him?”

  “We are, by leaving him. The best place for him to go is the Medica. They have doctors to help with situations like this. Unlike you and I, Silvan can and will recover. But not if we recruit him.” He held his arm up to look at the burn. “We couldn’t take care of his emotional and mental well-being.”

  I felt a surge of guilt and looked away. “I’m sorry,” I said as we rounded another corner. “I didn’t realize.”

  We walked in silence for a minute, and then he said, “You shouldn’t apologize. You were worried about him. That’s not a terrible thing. It just didn’t work out this time.”

  “Well, the next time, I’ll just follow your lead.”

  “Next time?” I heard the surprise in his voice and turned to see a small smile playing on his lips. “You really want to do this again?”

  “Well, yeah.” Stopping, I looked up at him. “I mean, we’re about fifty-fifty right now in our success rate, but... I really like doing it. I like trying. It’s the first time that I’ve ever felt like I made a positive change in someone’s life.”

  “And you didn’t when you rescued me? Because that was a pretty positive thing for me.”

  I smiled at his teasing tone and began moving again. “Fine
, that too,” I replied dryly, rolling my eyes theatrically. “So you still never answered my questions, and I’ve had to ask them twice. Last time you offered me the answer for a kiss, and never delivered. It’s turning into a pattern with you.”

  He laughed loudly, his eyes brightening, and just like that, some of my bumps and bruises faded away into inexplicable happiness. I waited for him to stop laughing, my own smile riding my lips, and he looked over at me, his eyes warm and appreciative.

  “You’re right, of course. Quite rude of me.”

  “Quite,” I agreed primly. “So, are you going to make me ask a third time?”

  “Not at all,” he said, pressing the button to open a door that separated Cogstown from Water Treatment. The door beeped, and Grey withdrew his silver chip, holding it up to the scanner. The door hummed then, and then a digitally rendered woman’s voice spoke.

  “This isn’t a regular entrance,” it chimed brightly. “I suggest you bugger off, before I get mad.”

  I smiled in response and watched Grey roll his eyes and kick the base of the thick metal door three times. “Your mother is bad with tools,” he announced, and there was a little beep.

  “Password accepted. All right, I’m opening the door, but I don’t want to see your face ever again,” it said, just as cheerfully as before. The door slid open, and I stepped through.

  “Man, when did the automatic voices get personalities?” I joked, and Grey shrugged.

  “Well, each department has its own voices programmed for their talking equipment,” he said, referring to any system that could communicate verbally with the citizens of the Tower. “The elevators are all networked together, so they use the same voice. But, yeah, they do have a little bit more personality lately. Maybe someone is experimenting, trying to give the voices more flavor. Anyway, in answer to your question, the pill I gave him was something Roark calls Spero. It’s supposed to make him forget the last hour or so.”

  “So he won’t remember us at all?”

  “He shouldn’t,” he replied, and I exhaled. I had trusted that the pill was designed for a specific purpose to keep us safe, and I was glad that I had been right. Even still... he would probably wake up knowing he had been attacked, but with no memory of why. That was going to draw attention. I was suddenly glad we had gotten out of there as quickly as we had.

  “Good. Now tell me we’re going to Roark to get looked at.”

  “We are. We’re going to have to—”

  Whatever else he was going to say was lost when I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye.

  I jerked back, my baton coming out in a flash of blue as I stepped around Grey, pushing him behind me. He made a surprised sound, but I ignored it, my eyes darting around the dark hall and tangle of pipes, searching. The hall appeared calm and empty, but I could’ve sworn I’d seen something. Just like in the cornfields, and just like in the Lion’s Den.

  “Liana? Should I ask if this is going to become a pattern with you?”

  I heard the teasing quality in his voice, but immediately felt defensive. “I could’ve sworn I saw someone,” I announced, spinning around.

  Grey’s eyes darted over my shoulder, looking behind me, but of course there was nothing to see. After a pause, he nodded. “I believe you,” he said, meeting my gaze. “But whoever it is isn’t here anymore. Let’s just get to Roark’s as fast as we can. He can check us out, maybe tell us what to do—okay?”

  I eyed him, uncertain whether he was being completely honest about believing me. After a moment, though, I realized I didn’t care if he believed me; if he wanted to get out of here, that was fine by me. Because my instincts were screaming at me to run as fast as possible.

  23

  “You have a minor concussion.”

  Roark spoke the words in a matter-of-fact tone as he looked at me from across the table in his little home. Behind him, Grey stood stone-faced, not quite meeting my gaze, but definitely waiting to gauge my reaction.

  “I know what I saw,” I said, perhaps a bit stubbornly. “It’s happened to me more than once, Roark. Maybe twice is a coincidence, but three times is not.”

  “There’s no evidence to support your claim, girl. You’re the only one who saw anything, and this latest time, you had just suffered a fairly violent altercation. Safe to say it can account for what you thought you saw.”

  “Okay, but after we met Sarah I could’ve sworn I saw something in the cornfields.”

  “That particular crop is famous for freaking out non-Hands,” Grey said quietly. “The artificial wind confuses them, given the lack of real wind inside the Tower. A few get sick from time to time.”

  I glanced over the white tufts of Roark’s head at Grey, and gave him a withering glance. His comment hurt, and just confirmed my suspicions that he was saying what he thought he had to, to get me to follow him.

  “But at the Lion’s Den,” I said, unwilling to let it go, “I could’ve sworn I felt like someone was watching me, and it wasn’t a good feeling.” I was right about this—we needed to be on our guard. I just had to convince them. “Guys, I am not the type of girl who freaks out over nothing or imagines things. I thought maybe I was stressed at first, but now... I think I’m being followed.”

  Grey and Roark exchanged looks, and then looked back at me. I met their gazes head on, and it wasn’t easy. My skull still ached from Silvan’s attack a little over an hour ago, my center of gravity slightly off sync with my eyes, making them tend to wander. Which made looking at them so hard, yet so necessary. I curled my fingers into the pain, partially to fight through it, but also to keep my hands from seeking out and gingerly probing the area where my hair had been ripped out. Roark had given me a band to help reduce the swelling and ease the pain, and, while it did help, I sort of wished he was more liberal with the pain medication.

  “All right,” Roark said, and I jolted back into reality. I had gotten a little lost in my aches and pains, and it took me a few seconds to remember what we had been talking about. I needed to get it together. “Tell you what I’ll do—I have a contact who might be able to find out if someone has been following you. I’ll reach out to him, and see if he can help us. Will that make you feel better?”

  I nodded, some of my frayed nerves settling somewhat.

  “Good,” Roark continued, turning his attention back to the salve he was making for Grey’s arm. “But if it comes back that you aren’t being followed, I expect you to drop all of this. Agreed?”

  “Yes,” I said tartly. “Agreed.” But even as I spoke the words, I realized I didn’t care what he found out—I knew what I knew. And if I wanted to do something about it, then I was just going to have to figure it out myself.

  A couple hours later, with Roark’s tentative approval, I left and made my way back up to Smallsville, intent on seeing if I could find anything in the corn that would help prove my theory. I had an evening shift with Gerome starting at five tonight, but until then, I had nothing but time.

  Even as I made my way up there, I recognized how flawed the idea was. Hands moved in, out, and all over the fields dozens of times throughout the day, and distinguishing one Tower-made boot from another was impossible, save for size and possibly weight. And even then, finding the exact spot where Grey and I had been standing would be almost impossible, as there was no way of distinguishing where on the trail we had been. But I had to do something. It was better than waiting or going home, so here I was.

  The light, crisp wind that washed over me as I stepped out onto the floor was refreshing, but I couldn’t let myself relax, not with the knowledge that, even now, someone could be watching me. That paranoia only grew worse as I was greeted by workers on the path, all of them eager or excited to see a nine. It was all I could do not to shove my hands in my pockets, put my head down, and stalk forward, but I had to be careful. A nine wouldn’t act that way.

  So I forced a blank expression onto my face and perfected my “yes, I see you” nod as I strolled down the pat
h cut through the corn. I moved at a sedate pace, picking my way down the long path and eyeing each bend speculatively, trying to decide which spot was the one where Grey had kissed me.

  That kiss. We hadn’t talked about it—or at least not seriously—since we’d met up earlier today. Maybe we would’ve, had Silvan not attacked us, but after Grey’s reaction to my assertion that I was being followed, as well as the lack of serious conversation about said kiss, I was left feeling confused and slightly hurt. I had no idea how he felt about me—I just knew that he had kissed me twice.

  I hadn’t stopped thinking about it, though, and maybe I was being too much of a ‘girl’ about it, but I really wanted to know what he wanted. Was he just being a guy and seeing what I would let him get away with, or did he genuinely like me? Did I like him?

  I was angry with him right now, that much was certain, but did I like him? That was a bit harder to classify. Because on the one hand, yes, I thought I did. On the other, more realistic hand, I had tried to arrest him, then saved his life, then been saved by him, and... I felt pretty justified in saying that the mixture of emotions I was feeling about the whole situation just left me feeling... unsettled.

  I paused as I crossed one of the footbridges running over an irrigation canal and looked out over the fields, trying to think. The issue with being followed and the issue with Grey were separate—yet mildly connected by his lack of belief in me.

  If I really thought about it, I couldn’t be angry with him for doubting me. Not once, but twice I had claimed to see something, only for there to be nothing there. If I were him, I wouldn’t believe me either. He didn’t know me well enough to trust my assessment of things, not like Eric and Zoe did.

  As I thought of my two friends, and how I hadn’t seen them in seventeen days and counting, my stomach twisted into even more knots. I frowned and leaned over the railing, allowing my elbows to hold me up as I watched the irrigation canal snake out through the massive fields. I wondered what they were up to... and how furious they both were with me. It wasn’t like me to disappear. But then again, maybe they’d think it was just my medication.