Qualify by Vera Nazarian

Qualify by Vera Nazarian

Author:Vera Nazarian
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: teen, dystopia, atlantis, dystopian, competition, colonization, romance, science fiction, grail, rivalry


Moments later two guards return and I am taken outside into the empty hallway, and made to walk about fifty feet to another door. A guard opens it, and I am pushed inside.

This room is a replica of the first, an exact square, except it has a narrow cot against one wall, topped only with a thin mattress, a pillow and blanket. A toilet stands in the corner.

The door shuts behind me.

Oh, great, this is my first actual, honest-to-goodness real prison cell. Congratulations, Gwen Lark, terrorist conspirator and Criminal Mastermind—at last, you’ve arrived. So, looks like I am going to be here for a while.

I sit down on the cot and stare at the four walls around me. I rub the back of my hand across my nose and wipe the sticky residue of drying tears and yeah, snot. So not attractive.

Then, it occurs to me, pretty soon, at some point, I am going to have to pee. In the presence of surveillance cameras. . . . Ugh.

I have no idea how much time passes, but it feels like at least an hour.

All along, my thoughts race deliriously, and I think of my brothers and Gracie, and Mom and Dad. . . . I guess I’ll be going home now. Or, maybe not—Disqualification is only one of my current problems; I might be greeting the asteroid apocalypse in a prison cell.

Or worse—depending on the severity of the Atlantean criminal system and corresponding punishment for my alleged crimes, I might not even live long enough to see it.

Shivering, I get up, trying to shake off the despair. I stand, stomp my feet, move around, sit back down again. There are absolutely no sounds outside the long hallway corridor, not even rare footsteps.

What feels like another hour passes. Or maybe it’s only been fifteen minutes. I have no idea—it’s all hell.

At last there are footsteps and someone comes to the door.

The door opens, and a guard walks in, followed by my brother George. “You have ten minutes,” he says, then steps outside again, locking us both in.

George looks nervous and very grim, as he immediately moves toward me.

“George!” I exclaim. And then my tears start pouring again, like a gusher.

My older brother puts his arms around me and I smell the sweat and faint aftershave from his familiar clothes as I bury my face against his jacket front.

“Okay, Gee Two, what the hell is going on?” he mutters. “What have you done? Or better to say, what did you get yourself into?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” I say, moving back to wipe my face again with both hands. And then I grab George by the jacket front and hold on for several breaths until I regain my ability to speak instead of blubbering like an absolute wreck.

“What’s that on your cheek?” He frowns, examining the side of my face with its dark bruise. “Did they do this to you?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s just from sparring in Combat. It’s nothing. Just stupid—”

“Okay, let’s breathe. .



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