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

didn’t help me. Could it be an early assessment? Was he recommending that I be promoted to full Knight? A rush of excitement went through me at the thought. I looked down at the nine sparkling on my wrist and felt the corners of my mouth quirk up. But I quickly forced them down. Nines did not smile that often.

The guards loomed ahead, and I turned my wrist out as I approached, watching their recognition turn stupefied as they took in my new number. As if they had never expected me to reach that rank.

“Your number has risen so much, Liana,” Gerome said as we entered the main terminal—the centermost levels in the Citadel, reserved as offices for receiving complaints and running missions. “I was satisfied when you had increased to a five, but when I heard from your parents that you had reached nine, I knew you were ready for this. Ready for the chance to serve Scipio properly.”

I thought about the possibility of a promotion and found myself smiling again. “It’s my honor to serve Scipio in whatever way I can,” I informed him, and he gave a tight nod. He ushered me onto an elevator—we actually had to wait a minute for a group of Hands heading to another level—and then we were descending.

“So where are we going?” I asked, the breeze of displaced air from our descent causing my hair to blow around my face. I gathered it and twisted it into a ball, securing it with a band, and looked over at Gerome, who was watching the numbers descend.

“To the prisons,” he replied, and I frowned. Why would we be going there?

Because this is a ruse, a scared voice inside me whispered. He’s leading you like a lamb to slaughter, and you’re falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.

I pushed through the fear and propelled myself forward off the lift as soon as it hit, trying not to gag at the stale scent of dried sweat already radiating from the dimly lit tunnel. This part of the Citadel was different from the rest; instead of dark, mottled metal, the walls were grated, with thin slits of red light coming through them and washing everything with the color. Exposed yellow bulbs in the ceiling glowed dimly, but it made the entire area seem grungy, and a foreboding feeling settled at the base of my spine. I suddenly did not want to be here.

Gerome continued forward, oblivious to my hesitancy. I watched his departing back, considering the elevator behind me, and managed to talk myself out of the urge to run away. Running would mean guilt. Running wouldn’t be something a nine would do.

We were halfway down the hall when the first glass window appeared. I looked through it, curious, and paused when I saw a medical table inside, covered in straps, with long, mechanized arms that held gleaming needles ominously hovering over it. The table was, thankfully, empty, but I cringed to think about the views ahead. Were they going to be empty as well, or... were there going to be people in them?

“Gerome? What is this?” I asked, unable to help myself.

Gerome paused, some ten feet ahead of me now, and turned back, looking at me. “I know you’ve never been here before, Liana... but surely you know what we do down here.”

Restructuring. The final process to try to salvage the best traits possible in a one or two. The process was a secret, known only to the highest-ranked members of the Citadel. My stomach roiled as I eyed the table in the room, the mechanical arms holding long needles poised and ready over the headrest, and I was suddenly grateful beyond words that Grey had given me that pill. A three had been too close to this fate. Far too close. I looked down the hall past Gerome, at the windows ahead, and he, for once, seemed to understand what I was feeling.

“It’s okay to be nervous, Liana,” he said. “I was too, when I first came down here. Be that as it may, I made sure to schedule this for a time when treatments weren’t happening. All the rooms are empty right now.”

I exhaled, and was suddenly grateful to Gerome. Grateful, and surprised—it didn’t seem like him to protect me from anything. That also meant there was a reason he had done so. And that meant, whatever restructuring entailed, it was pretty awful. I shuddered and moved away from the window, eager to be out of this hall.

I kept my eyes down as we walked, only glancing ahead and not through any more windows as we moved. I couldn’t bear to see those tables, imagining myself on them, let alone any of the people I cared about. If I stared, it would stop me cold. I would look just the way I felt, which could clue Gerome in that my nine might not be as genuine as he thought. The door at the end of the hall was wreathed in red lights, and Gerome came to a stop in front of it.

“Knight Commander Gerome Nobilis,” he announced.

There were a series of beeps and chirps from an unseen machine, and then the lights turned green one by one as the doors slid apart.

“Welcome, Knight Commander Nobilis,” said a voice. I frowned when I realized it was the same clipped, regal-sounding voice they used for Scipio. If this machine was using Scipio’s voice, did that mean it was networked with Scipio? But that shouldn’t be possible—there were interdepartmental rules against it, so that no department could gain influence over another. I must have been mistaken, but I filed it away to bring up with Alex later.

The door slid open and Gerome stepped in, me close behind him, eager to get away from the hall. This room had to be better than the hall, at least.

The hope died almost immediately as I turned and took in the room. It was divided into two areas—a viewing chamber