Watchers by Kate Madden

Author:Kate Madden [Madden, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kate Madden

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“I sneak Erica into my room every night,” Taylor says.

This confession is met with absolutely zero enthusiasm. Everyone in the room except Daniel and Sasha seem well aware of this fact, but Taylor pinches the bridge of his nose as he delivers the second half of his confession.

“And she’s my little sister.”

Now there’s a reaction - a few surprised gasps, lots of wide-eyed looks, and Brody says with a snort, “Oh, that’s sick.”

“Ooh, a deviant,” Rob croons. “I love it!”

Taylor’s number starts ratcheting up on the screen in front of them - he’s in the hundred-thousands by now, putting him in the bottom three. Daniel is creeping up on 700,000, and Melody beside him is at 302,458, perhaps for her ruthlessness in the first challenge, or maybe because people have gotten sick of her, as Francie suggested earlier.

Taylor flicks the notecard at Brody irritably. “You’re the sick one for thinking like that. She sleeps in the bed and I sleep on the floor - get your head out of the gutter.”

He flops back down in his seat and Erica keeps her position on the floor. This revelation doesn’t appear to have had an effect on their relationship, but everyone else is still staring back and forth between the two of them.

Francie asks, “Is that why you volunteered?”

Sasha remembers what Francie said when they were outside, about how Taylor is the only contestant to enter the house voluntarily since Ruby Watson died. It makes sense now - if Sasha had a sister in a place like this, she would have done the same thing.

Rob and Meredith kindly give everyone in the room a few minutes to bicker back and forth over the new information they’ve been given. Some of them decide to stick with the news about Taylor and Erica, figuring out just what they were both doing on the Elimination Game.

But some of them switch back to Daniel and his history in politics. They have questions for him and so does Sasha. She doesn’t ask any, though. She just sits back and listens while Melody needles Daniel about his decisions.

“Why would you even consider going into politics?” she asks. “After the Massacre, and after what happened to your mother?”

His mother? Daniel never said anything about his mom and Sasha wants to rise to his defense, but she’s got no words. She’s conflicted because she also can’t understand why Daniel would want to be a politician.

“Despicable,” Melody continues. “Clearly a moral inadequacy on your part.”

“What’s inadequate is the healthcare system in this country,” Daniel says, but he’s talking to Sasha, not Melody - trying to explain himself. “And the job pool, and services for the poor - we’re living in a totalitarian system where the people at the top don’t even see the people at the bottom as people anymore. The system leaves behind everyone like us-”

“Us?” Sasha asks. “You mean like me. You are one of the people at the top, Daniel. Spending a few months on the street doesn’t change that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.