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

It was a marked improvement over wanting to have me killed at birth, so…

“I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I could think to say in that moment.

“Roark took me in,” he said with a shrug. “And things have been fine. Good, even. I feel like I have a purpose here, and my number is high enough now that nobody even bats an eye at me. It’s funny—I don’t do anything different, but nobody cares. All anyone ever cares about is the number.”

That, too, rang true. I found myself leaning in a bit, drinking in his words. After hearing about positivity for so long, and moving forward with your chin held high, no matter how much you were hurting, it was refreshing to see someone so down to earth. So real.

He looked at me, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I snapped my eyes away.

Don’t be stupid, I thought. You don’t even know him.

“Roark and I,” he said, seeming not to notice my embarrassment, “we want to help people, like he helped me. But he has a grudge against Knights, and honestly it’s hard to argue the point with him.”

I scowled. “Why? What did we do?”

Grey’s voice was soft as sunlight, and cold as wind. “The Knights killed his wife,” he said simply.

I sat there, my head already shaking in outright denial of his words. Knights didn’t kill. We just didn’t. We captured, guarded, and protected. To kill a person was to break one of Scipio’s cardinal rules. It was to instantly reduce yourself to a one, and be tagged for arrest and exile.

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“Tell that to Roark.”

“I will. Right after I call him a liar.”

“Wait—are you mad?” he asked, leaning back onto the palms of his hands and eyeing me. “Why are you mad?”

“Because that was a lie,” I said, still upset. “The Knights don’t kill. If he says they killed his wife, then he is a liar.”

“Whoa! Roark might be a bit touchy, but he’s not a liar. Besides, if they were killing people, do you think they’d let a Squire know that?”

“My parents are Knight Commanders,” I said. “They could never have killed anyone. They couldn’t.” Except for me, that was.

“You also said they were tens,” he fired back. “You think they’d clue you in to something that’s probably a secret?”

I glared at him, my jaw clenched so tight that it ached. “I want to go. I want to go right now.”

I began pulling my lash out, intent on swinging out of Cogstown if I had to, but he reached out and laid a hand on my wrist. “Wait.”

Looking over at him, still seething that someone was going around accusing Knights of murder, I was surprised to see a contrite expression on his face.

“I’m sorry. This is clearly a sensitive topic for you, and I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

I pursed my lips at him, considering him for a long moment, and then sighed. “Why did you come after Zoe and me? Was it really just to walk us out?”

He sighed too and pulled something out of his pocket, cradling it between his hands. It rattled, and I realized he was holding a bottle. Our gazes met, and there was a stillness between us, so intense that I was afraid to breathe—or maybe the air was too thick.

“These are for you,” he said hoarsely, offering them to me. I hesitantly held out my own hand, and he dropped a bottle into it. Pills: small, white, and unmarked.

“Take these,” he said. “You might find them a more palatable alternative to the Medica drugs.”

I looked between the bottle and him, something warm curling up in my throat.

“But Roark said he—”

“Roark’s not here,” he said, rising to his feet. “And one benefit of being dropped is you develop sticky fingers.” He held his fingers up and wagged them back and forth, then stepped out into the air. I reached for him, but somehow he twisted and caught the edge of the beam with his fingertips before dropping the remaining three feet to the ground below. He moved over to the elevator and inserted his chip, and I used my lash to lower myself gently to the floor, the pills clenched between numb fingers.

“This is you,” he said, guiding me onto the waiting platform. “See you later, Squire Castell.” He gave me a sweet smile as the elevator began to rise. “Oh, and only one a day!”

“Goodbye,” I said, still stunned by the change of events. I looked down at the bottle in my hands and felt the weight on my shoulders lighten significantly. “And thank you!” I shouted as an afterthought.

Belatedly, I wondered if he had, by filching these pills, gotten himself into trouble with Roark… but then decided that if he had, I would do something to help him out of it. Even if it meant going down and talking to Roark again—although I wasn’t sure I could do that and let his insidious rumors about the Knights slide. But I was willing to give it a try.

Especially if it meant having access to more of this medication in the future.

I looked at my wrist, and was unsurprised to see a four gleaming there. Only this time, I smiled at it. But it was more like a baring of teeth, really.

11

I stayed away from home for as long as possible, taking time to net Zoe just to tell her that I was okay—I didn’t want to say anything more yet. The walk back to my room was a silent affair. My number, which had since dropped even further to a three, drew stares, and people muttered as I passed. Strangely, I felt more at home this way. At least it was honest. At least it was me being judged.

I stopped outside the door leading to my quarters, knowing my mother was waiting inside, and took a deep breath. Under no circumstances could I let her see the new number—not before I got a