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

Testing them out would keep me distracted until we got to wherever we were going, to speak to whomever Cali’s contact was in the Eyes. The one who was going to help me find a way to Zoe. He had to.

I finished getting ready and hurried to meet Cali up front. She was already waiting there, Maddox standing next to her with her arms crossed, a displeased expression on her face. As soon as Maddox saw me, her eyes narrowed into slits.

“I should go with you,” she snapped, her head swiveling toward her mother.

Cali’s mouth pressed into a thin line that reminded me of my mom when she got angry, but, to my surprise, her voice was soft and patient. “Three have a bigger chance of attracting attention, and you know it. Liana will back me up if anything should go wrong.”

Maddox’s bright green eyes found mine and stared at me, hostility glistening in them. “She’d better,” she said, not even bothering to disguise the threat in her voice.

I blinked as she stalked by me, turning on my heel to watch her go, and then turned back to Cali.

“I’m, uh, sorry if I caused you two to fight,” I said, feeling a bit awkward. I didn’t feel bad about going with Cali—I needed to hear whatever her contact had to say—but causing strife between mother and daughter wasn’t my intention, and I did feel bad about that.

“Don’t be,” she replied, smoothing her clothing. “I tried to raise my daughter to have more fun, but she’s got too much of her father in her. He doesn’t trust easily, either.”

I frowned. I’d assumed Maddox’s father was dead, since he wasn’t a fixture, but she’d just referred to him in the present tense. Which meant she thought he was still alive. Maybe she’d had to abandon him when she and Maddox had fled?

It was hard to tell; while I had gotten closer to Cali, she was tight-lipped about her past. I had tried asking her a few questions about her experience in the Tourney—after all, she had won a few of her own battles (not that that had affected much, as Devon had still become Champion over her). There hadn’t been a real Tourney in my lifetime, and it was unlikely there would be one either. I had hoped she’d want to talk about it, but she didn’t, much to my disappointment.

Cali began climbing the ladder leading back up to the entry, and I waited a few seconds before following so I could collect myself.



Outside, it was dark, the glow of the moon barely penetrating the deep shadows below. Soft lights ran along the handrails of the catwalks, helping to illuminate the path, but their light was muted and practically non-existent after a few feet. The visibility out here was downright dismal.

I looked at Cali, ready to ask her about it, when I noticed her pulling something from her coat that flopped around in her hand. She took hold of it with both hands, and a second later the one thing became two as she pulled it apart.

As she held one up to me, I realized they were goggles—much like the ones Quess had been wearing, but with red lenses. I took the pair she offered and followed her lead, fixing them over my eyes.

The haze immediately lessened, and my vision improved dramatically. The lights were brighter, clearer, burning like little white suns in the night. I tilted my head around, amazed, and then noticed something bright green from the corner of my eye. As I adjusted my gaze, I realized that it was a mark, and that there were several of them, not just in green, but also in pink, purple, and blue. I looked over at Cali in question, and saw her smile knowingly.

“Tian’s a living and breathing map,” she told me as she pulled her lash ends. “I swear, she never gets lost, no matter where she is. As a result, she paints directions for us, so we can find our way more easily and not get lost—the blue is for where we’re siphoning our water from, pink is for heading inside, green is for the nearest greenery, and purple is for the safe routes in and out of the Tower.”

I blinked, and studied the little marks. “So anyone can see these?”

“Not without the goggles. Quess designed the paint she uses to be visible only through these. It’s also a way for us to leave signals for each other, in case we need a safe place to hide. So keep the goggles with you, okay?”

“Okay. So where are we going?”

Cali’s answer was to whirl her lash once and launch it at the ceiling overhead as she leapt off the catwalk, trusting that her aim was true. I watched as she plummeted down another ten feet, and then the lash caught, arresting her fall and turning it into a graceful arc. I gathered my own lashes quickly and moved to follow her, praying that Quess’s modifications held.



Thanks to Quess’s goggles, I was able to keep pace with Cali fairly easily, although I held back some, letting her lead the way rather than attempting to catch up. The modifications Quess had made to my lashes seemed to be holding all right, although the amount of moisture in the air made me considerably twitchy at first. But after a while, I began to trust them more and more, and took the chance to really stretch out some stiff lashing muscles.

We lashed for fifteen or twenty minutes across the bottom of the Tower before Cali slowed to a stop and began retracting herself up to the structure above. As I watched, she pressed something, and suddenly a section of the ceiling drew back, revealing a dark hole above. Cali pulled herself through it, and then held out a hand for me a second later.

I drew close and grabbed it, and she heaved me up and in with a grunt. I grabbed onto the first stationary thing I saw, and helped her heft my body up farther, relaxing when I slid my hips into the room. She relaxed as well, and then stood upright and disappeared into the darkened room. Even with the goggles, I couldn’t see where she had gone, or anything at all really—the room had no discernible light anywhere.

Then I heard a click, and a light blossomed, nearly blinding me with its proximity and brightness. I took off the goggles and gave my eyes a second or two to adjust, letting Cali’s blurred form come into focus as she moved around. The light was being generated by a small lamp over a workstation—a workstation at which Cali was now sitting.

The rest of the room was fairly cramped and compact, rife with wires, conduits, circuit breakers, and pipes everywhere. There was maybe enough room to stand ten feet apart, but that was about it in terms of the size of the place.

She bent over and pressed something underneath the desk, and immediately the terminal turned on, the screen glowing white. Cali touched the screen, and began typing something into it.

“So this is a relay station?” I asked, looking around. “What’s it relaying?”

“Orders from Scipio, ranking adjustments, location updates... As much info as they can possibly collect on the people who live here.” She continued to type as she talked, and I saw screen after screen come up.

“Are you former IT or something?” I asked, impressed by how quickly she seemed to work.

“Ha, that’s a funny joke. I’m no better at computers than Maddox is at making friends, bless her heart.”

“But you—”