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

“Well, thank you,” he said, his eyes studying me. “It means a lot that you’d risk yourself like this.”

“The risk isn’t over,” I pointed out. “And we’re all at risk. I mean, what’s your plan here? What are we going to do now? Sure, you’ve agreed to give me the pills, but that’s just a stopgap, and people are dying. The Knights are probably tearing apart that cell to find out if anything went wrong, and guess what—something did go wrong! It’s only a matter of time before they figure it out. Hopefully later, but with the number of prisoners I... heard down there... it won’t be long. If they catch us, we’re going right back into the cell.”

Roark went silent, and then dragged a chair out from the table. “Sit,” he ordered gently, moving away from it and taking the one on the opposite side. I sat down after a fraction of a second, and then looked at him expectantly.

“It’s good that you’re thinking of us as a ‘we,’” he said, “because at this point we are, and we’re all in it together.”

“Yes, but to what end? What purpose? What is your ultimate goal here?”

I knew I came off as a bit angry, but the truth was I was frustrated. My patience was almost gone, and I was scared and tired—a dangerous combination that always led to emotional outbursts.

For his part, Roark didn’t seem to mind my anger. In fact, his face looked almost vacant, lost in thought, and a bit sad. I leaned forward, concerned, but then his eyes flicked over to me and he began to speak.

“Her name was Selka,” he said, and then paused.

I bit back a sigh and leaned back. Why did everyone want to do this kind of storytelling with me, during which I had to participate and ask questions to coax the story forward? Why couldn’t anyone just be direct?

“She was my wife,” he continued, just as I was about to ask the question, and I quickly closed my mouth, my frustration fading somewhat as I remembered Grey’s words. “She wasn’t the most beautiful woman, but I didn’t marry her for that reason. She was fiery, passionate, ambitious... She started training at fifteen, was accepted into the department as a full Medic by the age of seventeen. I thought she was good enough to be the next Chief Surgeon after Marcus Sage—you know, if the old man ever bothered to die—and everyone else thought so, too. I loved her mind and her heart so very much.

“We’d been married for five years when it happened. She discovered something that changed... everything.”

He was silent, and I didn’t dare interrupt. Still, the quiet lingered as the elderly man struggled to get through the rest of the story.

“She was working in one of the Water Treatment health stations when some Knights brought in outsiders,” he said.

I froze. “Do you mean undocs?” I asked. Undocumented citizens did turn up from time to time, but I hadn’t heard of any being found in years. They were almost always the result of a family conceiving, bearing, and hiding a third child to keep it from being killed. Now the net also functioned to transmit biometric data to the Medica, making that impossible. But before, it had been a lot easier to get away with.

Roark shook his head. “No. People living outside the Tower. Beyond our walls.”

I drew in a sharp breath. “That’s not possible. The radiation...” The desert surrounding the Tower was the result of a nuclear detonation some three hundred years ago, during the End. The radiation was toxic, deadly, and kept us confined behind the shielded walls of the Tower. Over the years, the radiation levels had dipped low enough that we could go outside onto the wings for brief periods of time, but the ground was still too radioactive to even attempt to cross without an exposure suit, and even then, it was only a matter of time. The practice wasn’t even allowed anymore, now that Scipio was fully operational.

Then again... Scipio relied on the Tower’s continued function to keep him alive. He was powered by the hydro-turbines and solar panels. If humans left him, the Tower would fall into disrepair, and he would essentially die.

I looked up at Roark in alarm, and he gave me a withering smile. “How would we even know?” he asked, echoing my thoughts. “Anyway, the girl Selka treated was like nothing she had ever seen. The Knights told her the young woman was an undoc, but there had been procedures performed on her that no doctor of the Tower would ever consider, healing methods that were antiquated and barbaric. Her broken arm left to heal over the course of weeks, causing her pain, holes drilled into her skull for no good reason... and she had a genetic profile completely divergent from that of any of our citizens. She was alien, but just like us also—which means life does exist beyond these walls. No matter how many questions my dear Selka asked about the alien, she was met with lies.”

I already knew where this story was going: Selka had made a mistake by asking questions, and I identified with her intimately. I didn’t say anything, though, knowing the emotional turmoil the story was creating in Roark, and understanding that he needed to be the one to tell it.

“Questions,” he said, “are bad for a person’s number. Hers, once so high, dipped, then plummeted. She became obsessed with learning more about the outsiders, about how we might survive beyond the Tower. That was when I began developing Paragon, the pill you, Grey, and I are taking. A drug that could bring my wife’s number up. Save her from scrutiny. Allow her to find her answers.”

I let out a low sigh. “You were too late, weren’t you?” I asked.

He nodded, a small movement that filled me with sadness for him. He had to be hurting so much right now. “I was,” he said. “Her questions were too dangerous, drew too much attention. They came for her in the night, beating me half to death with their batons when I tried to protect her, and Selka... I never saw her again. I received notice from the Medica that she had died sometime in the night, while I was unconscious on the floor of our bedroom.”

I swallowed. “Who came for her?”

Roark’s eyes glowed with the slow burn of hatred. “Knights. Champion Devon was there, and a few others. I don’t remember their names, but I’ll never forget their faces.”

Devon had been there. That was odd—why would the Champion show up for the collection of a one? It wasn’t exactly a job requirement for him anymore, and I’d never heard of him doing fieldwork like chasing down criminals. Not since he’d won the Tourney.

“When Selka first met the girl... who brought the girl in?” I asked, curious.

“Some Knights at first. But she passed Champion Devon and Head Farmer Hart in the hall on her way out.”

I frowned. “Head Farmer Hart?” I asked. “Did he come before Plancett?”

“She,” he corrected. “And yes. Died... around the same time as Selka, now that I think about it. Damn shame, too, as she ran her department compassionately—accepting anyone, no matter their ranking. I think she would’ve let ones in there, if the laws had allowed it.”