Deviants Read Online Free PDF Page A

citizens can afford more than one weak bulb, and with Management controlling and limiting energy from the windmills and solar panels, the Hub is the only bright place in Haven.
    Above us, neon billboards blast messages from the Communication Department: Haven Equals Safety, Compliance: Your Key to Happiness!, The P&P—Your Safety Guarantee. The last ad has an image of two young men, one choking on dust and the other being chased by a Shredder. Its eyes bulge from its skull, and its human-shaped body is near skeletal and covered by skin scabbed with dried blood.
    I wrinkle my nose in disgust. All around us people are grinning, talking loudly. The air’s charged.
    “All this for a lottery?” I say to Jayma and she shrugs.
    Scout bounds up to us. “Someone’s getting exed.”
    My stomach clenches. I’m so repulsed I can’t look at Scout—excited when he should be appalled.
    “Come on,” he says. “We’ve got a great view of the screens from the line.” He points ahead, and I turn to see Cal staring right at me. My body temperature rises, and I look down to my feet.
    “Did you know?” I ask Jayma.
    She shakes her head, and then turns to Scout. “Can you go back to the line and give us a minute? We’ll join you guys soon. We’re not finished with our girl talk.”
    Backing away, he lifts his hands, then heads for his older brother.
    “I didn’t know.” Jayma grabs on to my arm and squeezes. “I’m sorry. I know you hate seeing these. Do you want to come back tomorrow instead?”
    “We’re here now.” I smile to cover my churning nausea. “It’s okay.” It’s not—at all—but it took us nearly an hour to cover the distance from home to the Hub, and now I know why so many people were crowding our route. An Expunging.
    Jayma hugs me and I try not to stiffen.
    “I’m so glad you’re my friend,” she says, and her body’s so thin, I fear she’ll snap if I hug her as hard as she’s hugging me.
    “Thanks. Me, too.”
    “Seriously.” She pulls back and looks me directly in the eyes.
    I let my gaze drift to the side but she dips her face around, forcing me to maintain eye contact.
    “Tell me what’s wrong,” she says. “Let me help you for once. If it weren’t for you, I’d be curled up in a little ball and crying half the time.”
    “You’re the happiest person I know.”
    “Because I have you. Because you’re so strong and brave, and you’re always there for me.”
    I pull her into another hug. “You’re always there for me, too.”
    The crowd roars, and everyone turns toward the huge screens that surround the square. I don’t want to look up. I know I shouldn’t, yet I do.
    The man being exed is short and thin, his clothes embedded with grime. Over the booming speakers, the announcer tells us this man’s a Parasite, having walked away from his work assignment four months ago—probably because he was asked to do something dangerous like external dome repairs. But the announcer doesn’t mention the reasons and instead tells us how the man’s been hiding, stealing food, and generally undermining Haven’s economy, our safety. To hear the crowd’s reaction to the man’s crimes, you’d think he’d committed mass murder.
    Expungings are televised in the Hub as a deterrent, but a good number of those exed are Deviants. Our crime is existing. Witnessing an expunging, the only thing I’m deterred from is admitting what I am.
    Like everyone else, I grew up believing what I’d been taught: that all Deviants are a threat to Haven. And after my father attacked us and I learned he was a Deviant, I hated them more than most. But then I discovered Drake’s Deviance, and later my own. . . . Now all I want is to learn there’s a cure, and failing that, to stay hidden. If there were any way to get rid of my curse, I would.
    Up on the screens, the cameras, mounted on the outside of the dome and on nearby poles, capture six Compliance Officers wearing dust protection suits and sealed