The Girl Who Dared to Think (The Girl Who Dared #1)

I nodded, still too numb to do anything but sit there.

“Liana.” I looked at him again and blinked. “This will fix you,” he said.

And the bottle seemed to grow heavier still.



My parents were waiting for me when I exited the Medica, the pills still in my hand, my palm sweating around the bottle. At first I didn’t see them. I was so wrapped up in my own apprehension and suffocating fear of the pills that I nearly walked right by them. My father, his Knight Commander coat slung over his shoulders, caught my arm with one meaty hand and brought me to a stop. I turned, saw the concerned look in his eyes, and almost broke down in tears, the urge to beg him not to make me do this sitting thick and acidic on the tip of my tongue.

I pushed it back, stamped it out, and looked up at him. “Dad?”

“Hey,” he said softly, his eyes flicking to the pills. “We wanted to be here to show our support. You okay?”

I nodded and held out the bottle. “This is Peace,” I said. “Dr. Bordeaux gave it to me. Two pills in the morning, two pills in the evening.”

I licked my lips, and my dad pulled the bottle from my stiff fingers, giving the case a good shake and nodding at the heavy rattling sound. I suddenly wished I hadn’t told him that, but it was all I could think to say. If I hadn’t, maybe I could’ve taken less, started out more slowly. Now that I had blurted it out, they’d make sure I took the dose. No more, no less.

“I know you’re nervous, but this really is a wonderful thing,” my mother said, one slender hand coming down on my shoulder. I was sure she meant it to be a loving, reassuring gesture, but as soon as she touched me, all I could feel was revulsion. They were on board with drugging their child and killing off enormous parts of her personality until she became an empty shell like them.

“Dr. Bordeaux is supposedly very good,” my father added. “His work with threes and twos is unparalleled.” He fiddled his thumbs, seeming to wait for a response from me. When I offered none, he continued on his own. “Do you want to take your first dose now? It’s close enough to the evening that I think it would be okay.”

“I’m supposed to take it with food,” I mumbled, trying to stave off the inevitable.

“Well… why don’t we head over to the Lion’s Den, and we’ll use our ration cards to get some fry-bread for dinner. You love fry-bread.”

“Sure,” I replied numbly to my mother’s suggestion.



The Lion’s Den, an open market in front of Greenery 10, was perpetually busy, people moving through the tight alleys around produce stalls and food carts with small tables and chairs parked around them. We managed to find a table that was unoccupied, and my father collected our ration cards so that he could order. My mother tried to engage me in conversation, but all I could do was stare out at the crowd, too depressed to even pretend to care. Eventually she gave up trying.

Later, after my fry-bread had been cooked, served, and largely uneaten, my father placed the pill bottle in front of me, my mom setting a cup of water beside it. My hand moved, but it felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone else poured two of the pills into someone else’s palm. Someone else lifted them to my mouth. Someone else swallowed.

Someone else got up from the chair.





7





I rolled over in bed and stretched, slowly coming awake. A yawn cracked my face, and I peeled back my mutinous eyelids to peer around. It took a second for my brain to identify my surroundings as my room. It was just a clean version of it.

I sat up, confused by its tidy state. Gone were the clothes that normally formed a massive pile on the back of my old, beaten-up stuffed chair. The debris of pens, maps, doodles, and homework had vanished from my workspace, and only a pad and stylus remained, set just so on the surface.

Slipping gingerly out of bed, half expecting some sort of neat-freak monster to grab me, I pressed my feet to the cold metal floor, letting its chill assure me that this was real. The juxtaposition was too jarring. I couldn’t seem to remember how I’d gotten here.

I looked up at the display over my door, staring at the date and timestamp lit up in green numbers. Staring at it. Because I couldn’t seem to make sense of the numbers. They were wrong.

Yet deep down, I knew they weren’t. I combed through the broken bits of memories I could conjure in my mind, trying to explain what could’ve happened to me. I had been at the apprenticeship classes, then we had gone to Water Treatment, and then… The Medica. The pills. My parents. My eyes darted back up to the display, and I felt my stomach sink.

That was why the numbers looked wrong—a week had passed. A whole week since I had taken those first two pills, and I didn’t remember a single moment of it. Something, someone, had hijacked my body and taken it over, and I had no memory of anything I’d done.

Nauseated, I looked over to the small nightstand next to my bed, and saw the bottle of pills, two already set out and waiting next to a tin cup containing water and a wrapped nutrient bar. I stared at the pills with revulsion, then quickly scooped them into my shaking hands, deposited them into the pill bottle, and threw the thing as hard as I could, desperately needing it not to be in my hands anymore. I heard the bottle hit something and then land on the floor, spinning across it and rolling toward the closet at the foot of my bed. I curled up in a ball and pulled the blanket over my head, trying to calm the rising tide of panic threatening to tear through my chest.

A week. An entire week, I thought, fighting back tears. I had no idea what I’d been like—who I’d been like—and that terrified me. I could’ve done anything and never known.

Why was I suddenly me again? Had I missed a dose last night?

Or was this what it was going to be like? Brief periods of lucidity during which I was in my body, but looking at the life of a stranger?

I shuddered, a burst of anger at the injustice of it all making me throw back my blankets and look around. If this girl was taking over my life, I might as well get to know the new Liana.

No, I thought to myself, perhaps a bit maliciously. Her name is Prim.

I got up and moved over to my desk, intent on checking the pad. It was password-protected, but my usual password worked—thank God. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like waking up and knowing that a version of myself had changed my passcode.

I went to run a nervous hand through my hair, and paused when a flash of orange at my wrist caught my eye. I focused on it, and was momentarily shocked by the number emblazoned there.

Five.