Unraveling Eleven: 2 (Eleven Trilogy) by Jerri Chisholm

Author:Jerri Chisholm [Chisholm, Jerri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Teen & Young Adult Action & Adventure, Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction & Dystopian Romance eBooks, Teen & Young Adult Coming of Age Fiction, Teen & Young Adult Emotions & Feelings Fiction, Teen & Young Adult Fantasy Action & Adventure, Teen & Young Adult Loners & Outcasts Fiction, Teen & Young Adult Romance eBooks, Teen & Young Adult Runaways Fiction, Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction Action & Adventure, Escaping Eleven, Entangled Teen, Jerri Chisholm, Young Adult Fantasy, YA Fantasy, Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction, YA fiction, Social Classes, Near Future Young Adult Fiction, Stand Alone YA Romance, Enemies to Lovers YA Romance, Enemies to lovers Young adult romance, Unraveling Eleven, The Eleven Trilogy
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2021-11-15T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

I don’t bother with dinner that evening. Instead I head straight for the one place where I know I can clear my head. The one place where I feel peaceful, maybe even content.

The kitchen is crammed as I slip through, and I’m sure people notice me—my cuts and bruises, being where I shouldn’t be—but I don’t slow down enough to notice. Probably I look too frightening for them to say anything at all.

The climb up is easy, but I’m more careful when I leave the outbuilding. Minutes pass, motionless ones, spent peering around the door in the direction of the Oracle. When I’m sure that it’s empty, I edge outside. All at once I notice the way the fresh air feels against my skin, the way it pushes through my hair, and against the odds I find myself smiling.

Eventually I find movement—I must, because I am running, and this time it’s in the opposite direction as before. This time I sprint up the hill toward the solar panels that power the compound beneath my boots. The wall of rock sits off in the distance, sparkling under the sun.

The solar panels seem to stretch forever. My fingers brush over cool metal, they graze smooth glass. Then without thinking I am running again—I run at top speed until my breath grows short and my quadriceps burn. I run with my arms spread wide until I am through to the other side of the panels and the earth drops off into oblivion.

But it isn’t oblivion, I soon see. It’s a hill, though not a gently sloping one. This one is steep, with exposed tree roots and jagged rock. If I’m careful, I think, I might be able to scale down it, so I take a step, and another. Then something catches my eye.

It’s off in the distance. It’s so far away, my eyes must strain to see—they even water a bit. I guess I’ve never asked so much of them. I wipe them dry then shield them from the sun, but they still can’t decipher what it is. Not fully.

It’s unnatural—an abomination among the trees, that much I know. Straight lines, right angles. No arching beauty. No graceful movement. Instead it looks like blocks stacked together, all different shapes and sizes, except for one that is twice as tall—its top whittled to a point like a sword.

I have seen this sort of thing in the books below my feet. A city. Or at least what remains of one.

With a wild feeling in my chest, I remind myself that I should appreciate its strange and sinister beauty from here. I should enjoy the way the late-day sun warms the apples of my cheeks, then venture carefully back downstairs. Certainly I shouldn’t set off for that faraway city, through the unknown, where beasts with knives for teeth lurk, where I could easily become lost—never to find my way back again.

But my body has always had an unfortunate habit of disobeying my brain, hasn’t it?

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