Project Snow by Cherita Smith

Author:Cherita Smith [Smith, Cherita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YA sci-fi, dystopian science fiction, the snow queen, dark science fiction, dark YA sci-fi, dark fairy tale, speculative fiction, snow white, dark speculative fiction, dark science fantasy, YA science fiction, genetic engineering, dark YA urban fantasy, teen sci-fi, retelling, teen science fiction, science fantasy, teen urban fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, Science Fiction, fairy tale retelling, dark sci-fi, dark urban fantasy
ISBN: 9781536526332
Publisher: Pronoun
Published: 2016-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

III.

FINGERS SNAP NEAR Amara's face. Glass crunches. A powerful scent rises up to her nostrils, acrid and biting. Medicinal. A distant voice calls her name.

Amara... Amara—get up!

Amara opens her eyes. Hunter's face swims into view, his wheatish skin and gold-flecked green eyes blurred at the edges like a water-logged dream. He leans over her with a small vial in hand, his jacket off, the sleeves of his uniform rolled up. Is it odd that she notices the light brown of his skin, the lean corded muscle and veins? She tries to sit, but falls back. Hunter pulls her up, his face flooded with relief.

"Is that it?" she slurs, grogginess weighing her down like a brick. She hadn't expected it to pack such a nauseating punch, that last scan. But confirmation is worth it. Her eyes open wider at the thought. "Am I confirmed now?"

Hunter answers with a grim smile that matches the dire look in his eyes. He applies a clear plaster strip to her chest. Cold gel oozes against her skin, shocking her fully awake.

Amara scans the room slowly. She finds it like before: stark and white, minus the dark windows of the observation deck. Metal cart topped with supplies. But Dr. Bannerjee is nowhere to be found. She struggles to make sense of the fact that it is Hunter, and not the doctor, who applies a new-skin plaster to her still bare chest.

"There," Hunter says, tamping down the edges. "It's only a surface wound, and we got the plaster on in time. It won't even leave a scar."

"What? Why would it—who gets scars?" Amara looks down at her chest, and her eyes widen with shock. A thin line of charred flesh runs from her sternum to her belly. She looks around again, observant and anxious. A dark red spray of droplets stands out on the white floor, chilling her to the bone. "Hunter... where's the doctor?"

Hunter pulls off the medical gloves he's wearing, tosses them on the cart. He pulls up her exam gown and snaps it closed, delicately covering her, then takes her face in his hands.

"Amara..." Hunter contorts her name into the sound of gut-wrenching agony. "We don't have a lot of time, so I need you to listen. The whole point of today, it wasn't... it was..." Hunter takes a very deep breath before he continues. "The point of today was... you. Your heart. To cut it out and deliver it to the Queen."

He says it so matter-of-factly, his face so straight and solemn and sad, it must be a bad joke. Amara cocks her head, waiting for a punchline that never comes.

"But that's... ridiculous. Cut out my heart? I suppose you have a secret holo explaining that too, right?"

A rough whisper. "I do, yes."

Hunter pulls an aetherpad from his jacket and inserts a disc. 3D icons float on the screen. He scrolls through them quickly, until a tiny cyclone of holotext appears, ready for uplink as it swirls around one hologram of a face she sees every day: her own.

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