The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, Book 1) by Alexandra Bracken

Author:Alexandra Bracken
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Young Adult Fiction, Action & Adventure, Dystopian, Thrillers & Suspense, Juvenile Fiction, Contemporary, Fantasy & Magic, General, Romance, Fantasy, Love & Romance
ISBN: 9780730499381
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO TURN TEN YEARS OLD, THE MOST SIGNIFICANT THING ABOUT THAT NUMBER WAS THAT IT WAS DOUBLE-DIGITS. It didn’t really feel much like a birthday, anyway. At dinner, I sat bookended by my parents at the table, moving peas around my plate, trying to ignore the fact that neither of them were speaking—to each other, or to me. Mom’s eyes were rimmed with red and glassy because of the argument they’d had a half hour before; she was still valiantly trying to gather up kids for a surprise birthday party for me, but Dad forced her to call and cancel. Said it wasn’t the kind of year to be celebrating, and, as the last kid alive on my block, it would be cruel of us to hang the birthday banner and tie up the usual cluster of balloons outside. I heard the whole thing from the top of the stairs.

I didn’t really care about the birthday either way. It wasn’t like I had anyone left I really wanted to invite. What was more important to me was the fact that, at ten, I was suddenly old—or rather, would be old soon. I’d start to look like the girls in the magazines, be forced to wear dresses and high heels and makeup—go to high school.

“In ten years from tomorrow, I’ll be twenty.” I don’t know why I said it out loud. It was just this profound realization, and it had to be shared.

The silence that followed was actually painful. Mom sat straight up and pressed her napkin to her mouth. For a moment I thought she might stand up and leave, but Dad’s hand came down to rest on top of hers, settling her like an anchor.

Dad finished chewing on his barbecued chicken before giving me a smile that quivered at the edges. He leaned down a ways so our identical green eyes met. “That’s right, Little Bee. And how old will you be ten years after that?”

“Thirty,” I said. “And you’ll be . . . fifty-two!”

He chuckled. “That’s right! Halfway to the—”

Grave, my mind whispered. Halfway to the grave. Dad realized his mistake before the word fully left his mouth, but it didn’t matter. All three of us knew what he meant.

Grave.

I knew what death was. I knew what happened after you died. At school, they brought in special visitors to talk to the kids that came back. The one assigned to our room, Miss Finch, gave her presentation two weeks before Christmas, wearing a bright pink turtleneck and glasses that covered half of her face. She wrote everything out on the whiteboard, in thick, capital letters. DEATH IS NOT SLEEPING. IT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE. IT COULD HAPPEN AT ANY TIME. YOU DO NOT COME BACK.

When people die, she explained, they stop breathing. They do not have to eat, they no longer speak, and they cannot think or miss us like we miss them. They do not, ever, ever wake up. She kept giving us more

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