The Girl Who Dared to Think by Bella Forrest (best novels of all time TXT) 📗

all chivalrous,” she said. “Are you using this hero thing to try and romance her?”

“And risk certain death? Pass. I mean, I love you, Liana, but not in the romantic sense. I just wanted to spend as much time with you as I could before you went into the Medica.”

I knew he didn’t mean it—Zoe reached over and smacked him with one of the gray booklets, and the look he gave us was immediately contrite—but it didn’t matter; it hurt all the same, the knowledge that I would be in the Medica in a few short hours. I looked at my friends, and realized what I was about to lose. I felt the pill in my pocket, and thought of the mysteries I would never solve. Inwardly, my mind began to churn, trying once again to find some sort of way out.

Learning Callivax didn’t seem all that important after yet another unsurprising defeat on my never-ending quest to get my rank back up.

6

The Medica was comprised entirely of sheer, curved white walls, brilliantly lit by thousands of lights so that the whole floor was almost glowing. It seemed so pure—a beacon of light in the darkness—but all I felt was dread as I crossed the wide, flat bridge that connected the Medica to the Tower. I’d taken the long way around along the Tower’s inner shell, trying to delay the inevitable.

I lowered my head and looked at my wrist. The red three glared sullenly back at me, chiding me about my inability to make it change, and I suddenly had the urge to try to tear it off with my teeth and throw it over the side.

Exhaling in an attempt to soothe my nerves, I began walking toward the glowing white light. I didn’t really have a choice in this, but there was no reason I couldn’t try to make the most of it. Who knew? Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I was making it out to be.

I tried to hold on to that thread of hope, but it evaporated and died even before it was born. I couldn’t even bring myself to try to believe that I’d come out of this possessing the same traits that made me me. Theo was proof of that.

I have to do this, I thought to myself. It’s this or I lose my home. I was already a three—if I fell to a two, the entire department would drop me, and when I turned twenty-one, I’d have to try to find a new department. If I wasn’t accepted before I became a one, then I’d be locked away deep within the Citadel, and I had no desire to learn what exactly they’d subject me to there.

The queasy feeling in my stomach continued to grow as I fell in with a rush of people, their uniforms a mix of white, crimson, green, gray, blue, and orange—each color representing a part of the Tower. I should’ve blended in, but everyone around me kept a wide berth, the number on my wrist somehow managing to carve out my personal space in a wash of people.

My eyes immediately saw the sign hanging over the wide door on the bottommost level: Ranking Intervention Services—3rd Level, with an arrow pointing at the stairs some hundred feet away. I fingered the end of my lash and sighed; the Medics did not allow lash use on their structure, unless it was absolutely necessary. That meant I had to walk.

I climbed the glass staircase that wrapped around the side, the thing barely shifting despite the fact that it was suspended from the platform above, up to the third level. This level was quieter, the floors deserted. People moved much faster on this level, I noticed. As if they were afraid of being seen there.

The entrance was a wide-open space in the side, and through the glow of the walls I discerned a desk with a woman sitting behind it shimmering into view. Her blonde head was down, her eyes on the screen in front of her while her fingers flew over the glowing keyboard on the desk.

“Name and designation?” she asked when I arrived, not pausing or bothering to take a look at me.

I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “Liana Castell,” I managed, wiping a sweaty palm against my thigh. “25K-05.”

Her fingers flew over the board, and the next thing I knew, my face was being projected on the desk. “Liana Castell,” she announced, finally looking up at me to reveal a set of tired blue eyes. “You have fallen to a three. Medica treatment is now mandatory. Do you understand?”

“I do,” I lied, because no, I didn’t understand why I needed to subject myself to this, and I didn’t understand why people felt they needed to subject me to it either. Why did I have to be positive in order to serve the Tower? Why did we have to use ranks to decide who was worthy of our time and who wasn’t? “My mother made an appointment for me with Dr. Bordeaux.”

There was a flicker of recognition as the woman gave me a considering look. “Your parents must really care about you,” she commented. “Dr. Bordeaux has a very impressive record with helping potential dissidents change their outlook. He’s also notoriously difficult to get an appointment with.”

This was all news to me—my parents had made the appointment with him. I wasn’t surprised he was recognizable; only the best could help salvage their waste of a daughter.

“Oh. What makes his… technique so effective?”

The woman arched an eyebrow at me as her fingers tapped something out, the movement barely making a sound in the stillness of the room. “That information is the Medica’s intellectual property, Squire Castell. My words were meant to offer you solace, not incite conversation. Please follow the lights, and, as always, have a good day.”

Her fingers came to a sudden stop, and an excessively cheerful noise sounded, a series of green dots appearing on the