Rebel by Marie Lu

Author:Marie Lu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

DANIEL

Maybe it’s still the same night as when I was having my illusions of memories about June. I can’t tell.

My lips crack from thirst. My eyes can focus only on a gray line of sparse embroidery along the edge of the floor’s rug. The guards near the door shuffle their boots against the floor.

They sound like they’re about to switch out. The two women are still here. There are other guards now too, just arrived, and in the exchange between them, I listen for clues.

“The boy’s been working on the site,” one of them says in a low voice. “He’s good, from what I hear.”

“Yeah?”

“It sounds like Hann has really taken to him.”

Another sighs. “Great. But what about us? How long are we going to sit around with this one?”

The woman shrugs. “As long as it takes.”

As long as it takes. Through my thirst-induced weakness, I attempt to concentrate. Are they trying to break Eden? Has he not already offered his help?

I close my eyes, trying to stave off the nausea that bites at my insides. My hands twist quietly behind my back. I’ve been tightening and loosening my hands against the ropes for hours now. My wrists are scraped down to the flesh, and I can feel the blood trickling wet down my hands, probably soaking crimson into the rope fibers. But it’s not for nothing; the rope has loosened slightly since I first started working on it. Another couple of hours, and I might be able to slip a hand through one of them.

After that, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. But I’m used to taking crises one step at a time.

Near the door, the women switch out with two male guards. I see them turn their heads in my direction, but my figure stays limp against the chair. After several long minutes, they lean idly away and against the doorframe. My last round of guards make their way down the hall outside that I’ve never seen, their boots echoing against marble.

I listen closely to them until they fade away. It takes a long time. How big is this place? The hall they walked down seems to continue forever, and only after long seconds have dragged by am I no longer able to hear their echo at all.

My wrists keep twisting. The pain of it makes me clench my jaw, but I fight to keep the grimace off of my lips. The metal of my artificial leg cuts cold through my pant leg as I keep my ankles crossed.

The new guards don’t pay me any attention. They must have been warned about the way I bit the first man, but they haven’t seen it, and as far as they’re concerned, I look pretty harmless.

My wrists keep twisting. Fresh blood flows down my hands. I can feel it dripping silently down my fingers to the rug behind me. The slickness of it makes my hand slightly more mobile within its bond. I tug slowly, careful not to show my arms at work.

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