The Girl Who Dared to Think

by Bella Forrest

  “I didn’t ask him to give me his,” I said, a bit defensively. “But he knew I was desperate and took pity on me. If you had helped me in the first place, then we wouldn’t be here right now!”

  “That’s not useful,” he chided, and I fell silent. I was right, but he was right as well: none of that mattered now. “Do you have any more questions?”

  “Maybe later,” I said, still dwelling on the fact that it was my fault Grey had gotten caught.

  “Then allow me to indulge in a few more. What is Grey, to you?”

  I looked away, confused by the question, and not afraid to admit it. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean... why are you doing this?”

  I shook my head at him, my brows furrowing. “You’re joking, right? They’re killing people up there! I would want to do something no matter who they were.”

  Roark blinked and cocked his head, his eyes appraising me, as if he had discovered some new and interesting facet to me that he hadn’t been expecting. I didn’t care. I was practically vibrating from my impatience. I had expected Roark to be a little more animated in his desire to rescue Grey. Now we were playing twenty questions regarding my motivations? He needed to take a hard look at his own before he started judging me.

  “So, do you intend to try and rescue the others?” he asked.

  I hesitated. I had considered that during my time in the plunge, and had come up with the sad truth that I couldn’t. I doubted I could even access the level without another Knight accompanying me, and I didn’t know the layout.

  “No,” I admitted. “Grey is the only one I have access to, which means he is the only one I can save. But just because I know him doesn’t mean I’d give him preferential treatment. This is the opportunity I have.”

  “He told me he kissed you,” Roark said softly. “You sure this isn’t some emotional romance thing?”

  I flushed in anger and stood up. “Why the hell are you asking me this? I’m here because I’m not a killer!”

  “Peace, girl. I was testing your resolve on this. I can’t have someone who will balk at the first drop of a hat.”

  I pressed my lips together but let it pass. He didn’t know me, nor I him, so it was fair on his part to make sure I was made of strong enough stuff.

  “You have a plan?” he asked.

  “I was hoping you might have something you could give him,” I said. “There’s a way into the cell, and if I can figure out a reason or excuse to be inside, I can maybe slip it to him.”

  Roark stood up out of his chair and moved back over to the workstation. “I do have something that can help him,” he said. “It’s a weakened version of the pills he gave you, actually, but it should be strong enough to get him to a four.”

  “Really?” I said as I followed him, my eyes on the test tubes. “How does it work?”

  Roark let out a huff. “As if I’m just going to tell you that,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Let me rephrase. How long does it take to kick in?”

  “Ah.” He wore the ghost of a smile as he picked up a pestle and began grinding something in a tiny mortar. “Well, he already has some in his system, but I have to assume it’ll be gone before you can enact whatever plan you’ve got cooked up. I can use something to activate the metabolism to boost it.”

  “Good,” I replied, “because I’m not sure how much time they’re going to give him. I have a little bit of time, but I got the impression from my mo—” I paused, unable to even mention her “—mentor that this should be done sooner, rather than later. A sort of... ‘hurry up and bite the bullet’ mentality.”

  The last part came out bitter, but I couldn’t help it. I was doing everything I could to keep it together.

  “Who are you?” Roark asked, breaking my bleak thoughts, and I looked up to see him staring at me. “You’re unlike any Knight I’ve ever met.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, willing to take that as a compliment after what I’d seen tonight.

  I continued to watch him make the pill while I began generating ideas about how I could give it to Grey. Whatever I came up with had to be convincing, believable, and reasonable, and I couldn’t risk letting Grey know who I was while I was in there.

  Most of all, I couldn’t get caught.

  16

  “Absolutely not.”

  Gerome looked at me sharply and blew out a pent-up breath of frustration, as if he were dealing with a petulant child. I watched him from the corner of my eye as I pretended to look up at some piping overhead. We were on patrol—which meant a lot of hours spent walking, trying to keep children from making too much mischief, or searching for thieves who were trying to steal food to save their ration cards (or who had lost their rations in illegal gambling). We’d been at it for six hours, and were heading back to the Citadel to put in our reports and meet with our Knight Commander to learn what our duties would be tomorrow. I was using the walk back to ask the one question I needed confirmation on: could I go talk with my prisoner, one on one?

  I’d spent the better part of the night, after leaving Roark’s with the pill for Grey, trying to think about how to get inside. Sneaking in was not a possibility, and I was only a young woman; I doubted I could force my way in. Which meant I had to be clever.

  “Why do you want to talk to him, Liana?” Gerome finally asked, and I looked over at him, giving him the carefully neutral face I’d been practicing in the mirror.

  “Because I feel it’s important that I do,” I replied, and then I looked away, trying to act nonchalant. “What you’re asking me to do is not something I’m taking lightly, Gerome. The surprise still hasn’t faded, and I find myself wondering more about him. How his brain works, what his disease is really like.”

  I came to a stop before him and performed a perfect snap turn, coming around to face him, and stopping him short. “I have to see it and hear it, so I know what dangerous behavior to look for.”

  It was disgusting talking in that way—keeping my voice flat and disinterested while spouting the propaganda of bigots. But I knew approaching this emotionally would make everyone even more suspicious about my number... and how it was still at a nine. If I wanted this to work, I was going to have to finally play the role of perfect soldier.

  At least now I have a good reason to, I thought, my mind already picturing Grey.

  “I’m quite surprised to hear this coming from you,” Gerome said carefully. “Your mother netted me this morning and told me about your little outburst last night.”

  I kept my face neutral and eyes blank—glossy and devoid of life. “My behavior last night was unacceptable. It must have been a fluke in my medication, no doubt brought on by the shock of what I witnessed.”

  He stared at me, and then nodded. “I can understand that. Now, back to your request. Even with your explanation, I still have to deny you.”

  “May I ask why?” I asked, the “may I” surprising even me. Who knew I could speak so formally when I wanted to?

  “It has been proven,” he said with the tone of one delivering a familiar lecture, “that being near a one is psychologically dangerous, even with our rankings being so high. Thoughts from their kind can be insidious; I’ve seen good Knights fall before, when exposed to them. In a matter of days.”

  His voice was soft, whisper thin, like brittle paper, and I watched as an old sorrow began to shine through his dark eyes. I knew he felt bad—and I understood why he would—and all I could feel was sorry for the “fallen Knights” he was referring to. At the end of the day, they were murderers, and I was guessing that the reality of what they were doing had, in the end, overwhelmed their loyalty to Scipio. It was sickening that anyone would be willing to just put aside all basic human decency in service of a machine.

  I waited what I felt was a respectful amount of time before resuming the argument, unwilling to let it go. “Be that as it may—”

  He held up a hand. “Enough.” His expression softened, and he put a large, club-like
hand on his hip. “I think I see where you are going, Liana, and I need to be the first to tell you that it has been tried. And it has failed—multiple times.”

  I managed to keep my confusion off my face, but it was hard not to. I had no idea what he was getting at. “Sir?”

  “You want to study him, right? See if you can crack the riddle of the ones? Many have tried, Liana, and at the end of the day, the reports are always the same: unknown causes. Some people are just dead weight. We live in hard times, and if we want to ensure our continued survival, the worthless must go.”

  “You mean the ones who won’t conform,” I practically spat at him. I was exceptionally lucky he didn’t notice my flash of rage. I drew in a deep breath, trying to calm the churning anger that had blossomed under his callous words.

  “Exactly. This society has no need for an individual who can’t contribute.”

  I took a moment, as if to think about what he was saying, but was actually focused on getting back to the matter at hand, trying to reconfigure my argument in a way that would get me what I wanted. Determination and desperation were keeping me locked in on this trajectory. I just had to hope that neither feeling got me into trouble.

  “Sir? I still very much want to meet the prisoner,” I stated flatly. “Even with these definitive studies, I still have to meet him. I have to make sure I am doing the right thing, once and for all.”

  “Your faith should be in Scipio, Squire,” he said sharply.

  “My faith is with Scipio,” I replied calmly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he will be the first person I am going to kill. That is a lot to ask of anyone, and I intend to do it, but there is only so far faith is going to take me. So please. Give me peace of mind that what I am doing is the right thing. For all of us.”

  Gerome paused, tilting his head from side to side in uncertainty.

  “I cannot let you speak to him,” he said eventually, and—to my surprise—with a touch of regret. “But I can let you see him again. Maybe that will answer any questions you might have?”

  I followed Gerome back to the cell, still unwilling to give up on the plan of getting the pill to Grey. I held my eyes fixed on the end of the gruesome hallway, ignoring the windows with the trays and equipment inside. He opened the door into the cell, and I almost pushed ahead of him through the door to see Grey.

  Grey was huddled in the corner, as far away from the door as possible, and had grown even filthier than before in the short time that had passed. Bloody scraps of fabric were wadded up in one corner of the room—from where he had tried to bandage the cut on his chest, I was sure—and I turned to Gerome, unable to even look at the sight.

  My words, however, continued to come out flat and disinterested. “Do you ever clean the cells?” I asked. “Or them?”

  “That would be a waste of resources on a dead man. Besides, once they are in, they don’t leave until after the button has been pushed.”

  My mouth pinched in disdain, but I hid it with a turn of my head. “That seems cruel.”

  Gerome gave me a sad look. “Then push the button before it gets worse. Had you done it right away, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad.”

  My eyes moved over to the button in question, then slid away in disgust. If I couldn’t figure out how to get Grey the pill, then someone else would kill him—and I’d be dropped from the Knights and quickly be on my way to joining him in death.

  “I’m not ready,” I informed him coolly. “I might have been if I could have talked to him, but now I must find another way to come to terms with what I must do.”

  The lies were coming easier now, and while I knew that should concern me, I was grateful for it. I just had to be careful.

  “Then things will only get worse,” he said with a shrug.

  I locked my jaw up tight to keep from replying, and looked back into the cell, studying it. I avoided looking at Grey as much as possible, knowing that seeing him in this condition could break me, and it was hard. My desperate and ill-conceived backup plan of slipping the pill into Grey’s food had died when Gerome talked about not wanting to waste resources. And even if Gerome hadn’t told me, it was painfully obvious that Grey wasn’t being fed. I watched as one hand went to his stomach, a grimace sliding over his face, and felt sick to my own stomach.

  “I’ve seen enough,” I announced, turning around quickly.

  Gerome didn’t move toward the door.

  “Liana, you are making this much harder than it needs to be,” he said.

  “Am I?” I asked, giving him a look while ignoring the burn of outrage at his words. “Killing isn’t something that should come naturally, sir, and while I understand that Scipio has decreed this, that doesn’t mean I can immediately perform the task. This is not easy, sir, and I don’t think it should be. Please respect that.”

  Gerome just looked at me, his eyes stunned. “This is a shame. I had thought that if I brought you down here you would find the courage to get it over with, but I can see that you’re not ready. We’ve shown you this too soon. Don’t worry. Maybe in a few more months you’ll be ready.”

  I started to nod, but then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw his arm move. It caught my attention, and I followed it, realizing quickly and with considerable alarm that he was reaching for the button. My heart stalled while a cold wash of ice shot down my spine, and suddenly I was moving. I didn’t remember crossing the room, or putting myself between him and the button. What I did remember was his wrist in my hand, and the look of utter shock on his face.

  “This needs to be done, Liana,” he said, clearly baffled by my intervention. “You’re not ready.”

  “You gave me a week,” I informed him. “You promised me a week.”

  “I did,” he said, pulling his wrist from my grasp and straightening. “But it’s clear that you—”

  “You gave me a week,” I repeated roughly, not offering much in the way of leniency. “To think it over. You need to honor that promise.”

  He gave me a long, considering look, and it took me a moment to realize that he was impressed. The realization left me feeling a little hollow. Two weeks ago, I would’ve given my right arm for Gerome’s approval. But now he was a murderer, trying to pressure me into becoming a murderer as well. I hated that he looked impressed because of the behavior I was exhibiting—almost as much as I hated carrying on this façade of being a good soldier.

  And I hated seeing Grey in that cell even more, which was what made all of the negativity I was experiencing worth it.

  “Very well, Squire,” Gerome said with a nod. “You have six more days to execute him. I hope, for his sake, that you do so sooner rather than later.”

  I let any retort I had turn to ash in my mouth as I left, barely managing to make it to the lift and away from Gerome before I started running, putting as much distance between me and the Citadel as possible.

  I navigated the halls, bridges, and lifts instinctively. My destination was largely unplanned—I just needed to get away—and somehow, I found myself perched on a portion of the shell that didn’t quite line up with the levels above, creating a narrow, flat ledge that was about three feet deep, and had no railings to prevent the very sharp drop of 156 stories. Zoe, Eric, and I had discovered it after a run-in with a group of Kits—trainees from the Cog department. It was one of the only places you could find complete and utter privacy.

  I anchored myself to the wall using my lashes and then massaged my burning thighs, staring out at the three buildings with my eyes on the Citadel, and focusing on the lowermost level, where Grey was sitting in a tiny cell, waiting to die.

  I pulled out the small silver pill case and opened it up to stare at the small, circular pill inside, then closed it with a snap and slipped it back into my pocket. I was disappointed I hadn’t been able to get in to see him, but I wasn’t ready to give up. There had to be a way to get the pill to him. Maybe there was an access hatch or something.

  It was frustrating knowing that someone was
going to die, and having time to do something about it but seeing the only plan I could come up with fail miserably. The irony that bureaucracy and protocols were costing him his life twice over was not lost on me. But that didn’t help me see a way out of this mess.

  The sound of grating caught my ears and a familiar voice spoke from behind me. “So are you mad, or are you just having a bad day?”

  I turned to confirm Zoe’s presence, and then nodded for her to sit down, still not ready to speak—but grateful that I wasn’t alone.

  I heard the slight squeak of her wetsuit as she moved and dropped down onto the ledge next to me, letting her legs swing free. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I replied automatically, and then flinched. Zoe didn’t take well to being told what she could and couldn’t know.

  It was no surprise, therefore, when she chose to pry anyway. “Yes, you can,” she said, emphasizing the “yes”. “There’s something going on with you, Liana. I’ve noticed it ever since that morning you showed up looking and feeling like your old self. Something is getting you down, girl, and that’s not good for that shiny new nine of yours.”

  “Someone is in trouble,” I blurted out, and then clapped a hand over my mouth in an attempt to pull the words back in. But it was impossible.

  Zoe sat up straight, her pouty lips pulled downward into a frown. “What do you mean?”

  I swallowed and looked at my feet, torn. I desperately needed her help and her advice, but I couldn’t bear involving her in it. She could get hurt—or worse, wind up in a cell much like Grey’s.

  “Zoe, I’m sorry, but I—”

  “You know what? Save it,” she said, climbing back up to her feet next to me. “I’m your best friend, and I know when something is wrong with you. First your drama about that boy and your number, and then you show up a nine. You left class and never came back, and you never netted me to tell me what happened and why Gerome wanted to see you—and you’ve never done that. Is it the Medica medication? Is this Prim 2.0? I was so worried about you after Gerome hauled you out! And you didn’t even let me know you were okay!”