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

I heard the slight squeak of her wetsuit as she moved and dropped down onto the ledge next to me, letting her legs swing free. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t tell you,” I replied automatically, and then flinched. Zoe didn’t take well to being told what she could and couldn’t know.

It was no surprise, therefore, when she chose to pry anyway. “Yes, you can,” she said, emphasizing the “yes”. “There’s something going on with you, Liana. I’ve noticed it ever since that morning you showed up looking and feeling like your old self. Something is getting you down, girl, and that’s not good for that shiny new nine of yours.”

“Someone is in trouble,” I blurted out, and then clapped a hand over my mouth in an attempt to pull the words back in. But it was impossible.

Zoe sat up straight, her pouty lips pulled downward into a frown. “What do you mean?”

I swallowed and looked at my feet, torn. I desperately needed her help and her advice, but I couldn’t bear involving her in it. She could get hurt—or worse, wind up in a cell much like Grey’s.

“Zoe, I’m sorry, but I—”

“You know what? Save it,” she said, climbing back up to her feet next to me. “I’m your best friend, and I know when something is wrong with you. First your drama about that boy and your number, and then you show up a nine. You left class and never came back, and you never netted me to tell me what happened and why Gerome wanted to see you—and you’ve never done that. Is it the Medica medication? Is this Prim 2.0? I was so worried about you after Gerome hauled you out! And you didn’t even let me know you were okay!”

I let her rant, watching as she spoke passionately, with the snappish temper that ran in the Cog-bred part of her, and all I could feel was tired and depressed. The problems between us were insignificant compared to what I had seen, and I felt as if I couldn’t even pay much attention to them.

“Zo, you don’t understand,” I tried again, and I could already see the dark storm clouds of her retort beginning to build. I paused and then looked away, letting whatever sketch of an idea I had about what to say evaporate.

“Explain it to me,” she demanded, dropping back down next to me and craning her neck and head out into open air to get a fuller view of my face. I slid a long lock of hair over my ear and sighed, meeting her gaze.

“It’s dangerous.”

“More dangerous than hacking an elevator?”

I nodded.

“How dangerous?”

“Very.”

“Is it those pills?” she asked, her brows furrowing. “Did you get involved in something illegal?”

I kept my mouth shut and my jaw tight, but the words were there, threatening to spill out of my mouth. I wanted so badly to tell her everything I’d seen since last night. She was my best friend—and I needed to talk to someone.

“They’re killing people,” I whispered, and all the emotions that I had been holding inside spilled out in hot tears. My anger at my parents, my fear for Grey, my frustrations with Roark, and the feeling of being completely untethered and out of control. I sobbed into Zoe’s shoulder, and she clutched me close, patting my back as I explained the whole situation. It took a while, and by the end my eyes felt red and raw, and I was hiccupping.

Zoe was quiet for a long time. “The Knights are killing the ones?” she finally asked, her eyes glancing over to me.

And I could see the hope there, begging me to tell her it was all a sick practical joke. “Yes.”

There was another span of silence, and a glance at Zoe told me she was struggling to process this. Eventually, she said, “And they want you to do it as well, and it just so happens that the man they picked out for you is Grey.”

“Yes.”

Another long, halting silence. Then, “And you have a pill that could get his number up, but you don’t know how to get it to him?”

“Yes,” I grated out, trying not to grow impatient with her and her need to fact-check every point I’d told her. I dried some more tears while she stared off, deep in thought. “Look, I need a way to get this pill to him, but they won’t let me into his cell before I’ve killed him.”

“Which would be counterproductive,” Zoe said hollowly. “What about his food?”

I met her inquisitive gaze with an angry one of my own. “They’re not feeding him.”

Zoe paled. “That’s unconscionable,” she declared.

“That’s an understatement,” I replied. “And a big one. It’s awful. That woman... she looked so thin it hurts me to think about it. There’s no way of knowing how long they kept her alive before they killed her—but it seemed like a long time.”

Zoe turned even whiter, her lips losing color, and I reached out and took her hand. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” I said.

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. I mean... No one in the Tower would ever believe... Do you think your parents have—”

“They have,” I said harshly, my hand cupping my cheek, feeling the phantom sting of my mother’s slap.

“Oh.” She fell silent, and I did as well, still scrambling around for an idea.

“You said there was a white mist?” Zoe suddenly asked.

I blinked. “Yeah. Why?”

“How long did it remain in the room?”

“Gerome had it sucked out a moment or two after she... stopped moving,” I replied, my voice coming out strangled at the end.

She rolled her lips between her teeth, her expression thoughtful. “What did they do with her, after they... after she... after—”

“They came in and dragged her out,” I said, trying to understand why she was asking all these questions. “But what does that have to do with—”

“How fast?” she asked, interrupting me, and I frowned, trying to remember. Most of the details stood out with perfect gut-wrenching clarity, but my perception of time was odd—I had only been down there for a little over six minutes, but it had felt like eternity.

“Fast,” I said, finally able to remember, and she smiled. “What?”

“I think I know a way to help you,” she said. “But it’s tricky.”

“What is it?” I asked, allowing the thin thread of hope to rise up inside me.

“It’s really simple when you think about it,” she said with a small, sad smile. “You’ll have to give him the pill after you press the button.”





17





I blinked at Zoe’s words and then gave her an incredulous look. “That kind of defeats the purpose, Zo. If we let them gas him first, then the pill won’t exactly be effective.”

She grinned at me, revealing white teeth, and shook her head. “It will be,” she announced as she pulled herself back up. “C’mon, we gotta stop by my house. I need a pipe chart.”

I retracted my lashes and let them pull me up before disconnecting them, still mystified by her statement. “Zoe, stop planning and start telling me what your plan is before you go running off the deep end.”

“I always run off the deep end,” she replied as she hit the button to the access hatch. It grated as it slid open, and she cast an eye at it as she passed through. “This door needs to be oiled,” she chided.