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

on one side, our side, and a cell on the other, a thick layer of glass separating us. There was a door on the viewing side—off to the left—that presumably led into the cell. Inside the cell, a woman was propped up in a corner.

She looked small. She was thin, her arms and legs curled in upon each other like roots seeking nourishment and finding only air. The dirty skinsuit covering her form was shredded down to rags and stained with blood and grime, so much so that it was hard to make out the color. Her hands flopped weakly against the wall, and I realized she was using her own blood to draw something on the wall behind her. Her mouth moved as she smeared her blood around, but whether she was singing or talking, I couldn’t tell—there was no sound.

I could see the one on her wrist, plain as day. And suddenly Grey’s voice was back in my head.

The Knights killed Roark’s wife.

“Gerome,” I said softly, questioning. I needed to remain calm—I couldn’t give myself away—but I needed to know. “What are you doing to her? Is this part of restructuring?”

Gerome didn’t seem to be listening. He stared into the cell, his eyes hard and merciless.

“These people,” he said, approaching the glass until his breath fogged it. “These... ones. They are a rot upon our Tower. Have you ever spoken to your farmer friend about what rot does to a tree, Squire Castell?”

I shook my head, walking up to the glass.

“It gets inside,” Gerome said. “It gets in deep. There comes a point when cutting it out would cause the whole thing to collapse.”

The woman was crying. Tears spilled down her cheeks, leaving trails in the dirt, her hand slapping against the ground now. Was she tapping out a beat? Humming a song? There was no sound coming from the other side of the glass—the devices that normally enabled communication had been shut off.

“Scipio invented the ranking system to help us find the darkness in our society,” Gerome said, and as he looked at the woman, he was his usual self. No pity. No empathy. No emotions. Just Gerome’s stark, unflinching face. “He invented it so we could be safe. Strong. Before, we were left to deliver justice based on crimes, evidence, and arbitrary things. Now we have the justice communicated to us by something greater.”

But I could barely hear him. The woman’s body had begun to shake with sobs. I could see now that the tattered rags upon her frame were gray beneath the muck. A mechanic, then. I looked at her long fingers and saw that at least one was broken.

“What are you going to do to her?” I asked.

Gerome ignored me. “Your remarkable climb has been going so well,” he said, and there was real pride in his voice. “With your skills and improved mindset, you stand a chance of becoming the very best of us. That is why we decided to show you this early, Liana. That is why you are here. Why we are all here.”

I gave him a look. “What are you going to show me, Gerome?” I asked, my mouth dry and my instincts pleading with me to just turn away, to run and hide. But I couldn’t listen to them; I had to know what was going on.

The woman clutched her knees to her chest, and I could see long marks, burns, running up and down her pale skin. What had they done to her? How could they treat another person like this and not feel anything?

“Ones are a threat to the Tower, Liana,” Gerome said, finally meeting my gaze. “We have to remove the threat.”

There was a click.

I spun, and saw Gerome pressing a red button beside the viewing glass, his eyes fixed on the woman.

“They’re rot,” he said. “And unless rot is rooted out, it will topple the whole tree.”

I turned back to the cell and watched in horror as white gas began to pour from the vents in the ceiling, curling down like tendrils of sentient smoke and reaching for the woman. Her mouth opened, but I couldn’t hear her scream as she scuttled toward us, pressing herself against the glass. I pressed my hands against it too, trying to reach for her, but the pane of glass didn’t evaporate.

“Gerome!” I cried. “What are you doing? Stop this.”

What are we doing?

“Keeping the Tower safe,” he said. There was no emotion there. No humanity. “At any cost.”

The woman’s eyes were inches from mine. Panicked. Desperate, as she clawed against the divide. I saw the gas swirling around her head, coiling down her arms and midriff in languorous tendrils. I had to stop this. I had to do something. I was a nine, now. Didn’t that count for anything? Wasn’t that supposed to mean that things were different?

I whirled, intent on stunning Gerome with my baton and getting her out, when she collapsed, her body jerking and shaking in seizure. It lasted for a moment, resulting in her going rigid, her back bowing as her limbs quivered. Lines of blood snaked from her nose, eyes, and ears, and when she opened her mouth, foaming red spittle burst out in a pop.

Then she fell silent. Still. Eyes wide open and staring at me with hollow accusations.

You let this happen to me, they said. And I couldn’t disagree. I took a step back, and then another, horrified and unable to tear my gaze from her lifeless eyes.

Gerome pressed another button, and there was a humming sound as the gas was sucked from the room. The woman’s hair fluttered as the vacuums did their work. Behind me, a pair of Knights entered, speaking in hushed tones as they opened the side door dividing the viewing room and the cell. Moments later they entered the cell and, with practiced efficiency, lifted the corpse and carried it from the room.

I hadn’t moved an inch through the entire process, merely watched it, an odd numbness