The Girl Who Dared to Think by Bella Forrest (e reader for manga TXT) 📕

I winced. The words felt harsh, like salt on an already festering wound. “That’s pretty condescending coming from a guy who used to say Scipio made his number low because he was so much handsomer than everyone else,” I snapped defensively, not needing him to point out the flaws I was already beginning to pick apart.

“Things change,” he said. He raised his wrist, and I saw the number there. A crisp eight, purple and gleaming. “I was young, irresponsible, and foolish when I was at the academy. My thoughts were naïve, but insidious; I was everything a Knight should not be.”

I took a deep breath, putting my burst of anger aside. “I thought you were fantastic as you were,” I admitted after a moment. “I… Well, when we were at the academy, I had a huge crush on you.”

“Perhaps that is why you are a three now.”

I blinked at his response, a surprised laugh escaping me. I didn’t know why I sometimes did that, only that it happened at the worst possible moments. Theo gave me a disapproving look, and suddenly the urge to get away was overwhelming. I was about to make an excuse to leave, when a chime sounded and Theo looked down at the indicator on his wrist.

“Excuse me,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

He pulled out a bottle of pills, each one bright red, with “MSM-7” printed on the side, and I cringed as he shook two pills into his hand, knowing I would soon be taking something similar. I couldn’t look at his face without seeing my own future burned there, and I hated it. It was like watching one of the Water Treatment people getting sucked into a pipe: it was terrifying, yet I couldn’t look away, even as a queasy feeling began churning in my stomach.

“You’re on Medica pills?” I said, the question more a statement.

“Yes,” he said. “They saved me, Squire. I am… better, now, than I was.” He looked me up and down. “As you will be, soon.”

I don’t want to be like you, I thought, my hands shaking. I want the number… but not like that.

He wasn’t just changed. Theo, as I knew him, was gone. Soon, there would be another stranger walking around. A Liana who was pert and prim and obedient, doing everything right. She wouldn’t be me, though.

“I have to go,” I said, a numb fear settling deep into my bones.

Theo inclined his head, and I stepped away, the people parting quickly to let me pass, fear and disgust on their faces. I could hear a mother whispering to her child as I left, her fearful words catching my ears.

“Psychological contamination,” she whispered, and inside, my conflict raged. How could I be better? How could I avoid the Medica? How could I get my number up without losing who I was?

It wasn’t anything I did that was the problem, it seemed. It was my mind. My mind, which was so treacherous that it could infect the minds of others without so much as a glance. Because I asked questions. Because I just didn’t understand.

I looked up at the spires of the Citadel. The Tower was massive, but it was nowhere near big enough for me to ever be able to hide from my problems. I kept combing through my mind, trying to tease out ideas on how I could fix this by tomorrow. The only thing I could settle on was to pray that Scipio found some shred of mercy for me tonight. Or developed a sense of humor. Possibly even grew a soul or two.

My thoughts invariably brought me back to Grey, his miraculous nine, and the pill in my pocket. I pulled it out and stared at it, thinking. What if this was a pill that could change your number?

After all, that was what the Medica gave out, wasn’t it? But why was it different? How was it different? And how did Grey get his hands on it?

What if it was a new pill that the Medica was trying out? Ones had occasionally been used as test groups for new medications in the past; maybe this was a new pill they were developing. Something that corrected our emotional imbalances without taking away our personalities.

Still… the possibility existed that this had been created outside the Medica. It just looked so different from any of their pills—plain and without any serial numbers. They wouldn’t make something like that without marking it… which meant the pill was contraband.

Could this really be a way to cheat the system? It was preposterous—there was no way to escape a system that was literally seated inside your brain. I had never heard of such a thing. It couldn’t be possible, could it?

I stared at it, weighing the options. If I was honest with myself, however, it wasn’t much of a decision to make. After a couple of minutes, I tucked the pill back into my pocket.

It was simply too dangerous to take a pill I knew nothing about. It was too dangerous to assume that it did what I thought it did. I was desperate, and my mind was trying to fabricate a way out—the perfect mental state to do something really stupid that could even turn out to be life-threatening.

Once I’d thrown out the notion of trying the unidentified pill, it didn’t take long to come to a conclusion about everything that was about to happen. All the pieces of my messed-up life were pointing to one very upsetting but not entirely unexpected conclusion: I was going to the Medica tomorrow, whether I wanted to or not.

5

Thankfully, I managed to buy myself more time by scheduling my appointment to the Medica for after my bi-weekly apprenticeship lessons. My parents had considered making me skip them, citing my shameful number as a reason, but it seemed I had been on the ball this morning, and had cleverly delayed my sentence by reminding