The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

As she spoke, Thomas slowly pulled a book out, and as soon as the glossy, colorful, and clearly paper-made rectangle came into view, I stepped forward and snatched it out of his hand, my fingers eager to touch something so precious and rare.

The cover was cool and slick to my hands, and I had a childish urge to press it to my chest and hug it. Using wood for anything other than growing food or producing air was scandalous, but these people clearly came from a place where they had wood in great abundance. I turned it over in my hands, feeling the soft touch of the fragile pages inside. The entire book was flexible, like the journals, but also looked incredibly new.

Unlike the journals, there was a painting on the front, of a girl with rich, brown, wavy hair and silver-gray eyes. She was standing in relief against a large gate that led to a city beyond, with massive mountains in the background. The likeness between Thomas and Melissa and the girl on the cover was uncanny, except that the girl had a hardness in her eyes that theirs lacked. Well, maybe not lacked, but certainly had to a lesser degree. The title read The Gender Game, and underneath it was a small note of Annotated Edition, followed by the author and illustrator, Owen Barns. I drank it all in with my eyes, trying to absorb every detail.

My hands had a mind of their own, however, and were gently flipping open the thick outer cover to the page inside.

I blinked in surprise and looked up at them, then back down. The book… wasn’t a book. It was filled with little rows of separated rectangles with more illustrated designs inside. Text was given through small bubbles that were coming out of the people’s mouths in the illustrations. I cocked my head at it, utterly confused.

“What kind of book is this?” I breathed, unable to keep my bewilderment off my face.

Melissa and Thomas exchanged looks. “You’ve never seen a graphic novel before?” she asked.

I shook my head and looked back at the page, only removing my attention from it when Maddox and Leo stepped closer to have a look. Maddox reached out to run a finger over the page, and I had to resist the urge to slap her hand away, knowing that paper was very fragile. Besides, I had been doing the same thing seconds ago; I couldn’t begrudge her the chance to know what it felt like.

“It’s a comic,” Leo suddenly announced in delight. “Lionel used to tell me about these all the time. They combined pictures and words to create a story, just like a fiction book would. He even drew me a few. But it’s clear he wasn’t the artist this man was.”

“Owen’s our uncle,” Melissa said. “Kind of. He was with our mom and dad for a lot of the mess that happened. Just like Amber.” She paused and suddenly shook her head rapidly, as if clearing her head from a smart punch. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. This book is for you, and explains who we are as a people. We hand it out to civilizations and cultures when we first meet them, so they can understand what we represent.”

I frowned, looking up from where the young woman—Violet Bates, according to the text—was smuggling her brother in a box, depicted by a pair of wide eyes floating in a dark void, and tried to focus on what Melissa was saying. “Why would you want to tell other cultures and civilizations about yourself?” It seemed pretty dangerous from where I was sitting. Going out and meeting new people was a good way to get yourself killed, especially if you knew nothing about their culture.

Then again, I could already tell that these people’s lives were very different from our own.

“How else would we meet them?” Melissa replied with a smile. “We figure out very quickly if they are people we want to build a relationship with, based on how they react to us and the story. And it helps them understand where we come from, and how resourceful we can be in times of trouble.”

I raised an eyebrow, a slow smile growing on my lips. So it was informational and a deterrent. That was smart. “Fascinating,” I replied with a smile. “So I can keep this?”

“Absolutely,” Thomas said. “Sorry we don’t have the full edition, though. Our uncle got a little carried away when he started making it. And there were things that Mom and Dad thought it was better to keep out, for… security purposes.”

Even smarter. Although, this particular display of intelligence left me mildly disappointed. I wanted to know about the story, more about her time here, because I was pretty sure that something had happened during that time that changed the legacies, making them more aggressive in their attempts to gain control. It could’ve just been about the intrusion from the outside world—learning that there was, in fact, an outside world—but I had a feeling it was more than that. I just didn’t know what, and I couldn’t access the records of the event without asking permission from the council—and telling them why I would want the information, along with how I even knew about it.

Suddenly, a concerning thought popped into my head. If this was their mother’s story, and she’d come to the Tower, then that meant the Tower was in the book somewhere. And they were handing it out to random civilizations.

“So wait, the part about her visiting the Tower is in here?” I speared them both with a wary and alarmed look, letting them know that this was a serious question for me. “Are you saying you’ve been passing out information on our location and lives?”

If they were, then they had potentially put us in grave danger. I wasn’t sure about the other surviving civilizations, but I knew our system had food, water, and energy, as well as thick walls to protect us from the outside world. Anyone ambitious enough, who didn’t have anything to lose, could turn their eyes on us and take what they wanted.

“No,” Melissa said, shaking her head. “We didn’t reveal anything about the Tower other than that it exists. We didn’t include any specific directions or times or anything that would give away your location. Mom and Dad didn’t think it would go over well, if you guys ever decided to rejoin the outside world.”

“Rejoin?” I asked, surprised and almost amused. “We don’t have the technology to fly, and everything around us is a radioactive wasteland! I mean, how did these other civilizations survive? How did you survive? The fallout must’ve been—”

“Different in different places,” Thomas cut in. “The north is still mostly decimated from the Fall, and—”

“The Fall?” Leo asked. “Do you not call it the End?”

“Uh… no,” Melissa said. “Everyone has their own name for it wherever we go, but yeah, the big event approximately three hundred years ago that changed civilization as we knew it forever. Blah blah blah. Look, there are pockets of survivors everywhere, and as for your radiation problem…” She trailed off and looked at her brother. “Can we tell them that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’m a little surprised they don’t know.”

I sighed and closed the book with a loud snap. Scipio knew that my brother and I could be like this too, but we didn’t have time for it, and I wanted some honesty.

“‘They’ are standing right here, and we’d appreciate a little directness. We’re taking a big risk even talking to you, and if anyone on the council finds out that I’m here, and plan to let you go, then all of us will be executed, plain and simple. So how about this. Instead of beating around the bush about what you can and can’t tell us, let’s just be straight with each other. You tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine, and maybe we’ll find some middle ground and some trust.” I paused at that and decided to be fully honest with them right off the bat. “There aren’t a lot of people I can trust at the moment, so I’m hoping that I can trust you. Because I’m tired of making enemies and playing games. I want answers, and you might have some. So I’m asking you, please, will you just tell me what’s going on?”





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