False Sight Read Online Free PDF Page A

is locked to itself with a thick padlock. Seeing the chain and the pillar gives me that trapped animal feeling. The drug makes it worse.
    I close my eyes for a full minute, trying to will the drug out of my system. When I open them, two vibrating images of the ceiling meld into one. Cobwebs cover the exposed support beams.Theconcreteflooriscrackedandcantedinplaces.The air smells like wet mattresses. I sit upright and wrap my arms around my knees. Blood rushes to my head, and suddenly I feel a bruise on my right cheek, the scarred one. I focus on the pain. I don’t know where I am.
Breathe.
    I’m still wearing my homecoming dress. Blood stains the front.
My hands shake and I shut my eyes. Tears leak out and roll down my cheeks and there’s nothing I can do to change what happened. Nothing. My throat makes a high sound I can’t stop. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to breathe. I want to stay here and suffocate so I can see Noah’s face again.
I explode upright and put one foot flat on the pillar. I wrap the chain around both hands and pull back with everything I’ve got, picturing Noah on his side. The chain bites into my fingers. The links scrape and slide on the padlock. I strain so hard, capillaries burst in my eyes, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. If I stop, that’s it. I’ll never have the strength I do at this moment, right now.
I stop.
And collapse, spent, heaving, sick. The chain claps back to the floor. My palms are orange-red, smeared with rust and dried blood. I rub them down the front of my dress, but it doesn’t come off. I rub and rub and it just smears the blood deeper into my skin.
I sniff a few times and pretend this isn’t the end. I just have to try harder. In a few minutes, I’ll give it another shot. Yeah, I’ll just rest for a minute. Maybe I can climb the pillar and try to break through the wooden support beam at the top. It would help if there were some other noise down here, maybe a faulty furnace ticking and coughing, so I could hear something other than my frantic heart and raspy breath.
Seconds pass, and reality sets in. The others will have to fight on without me. I think I’m saddest about that part most of all.
I stand up for another try anyway. As I do, a slow clap comes from the darkest corner of the room. I spin around and almost trip myself on the chain.
“A for effort. But a D for logic. Even a Rose isn’t strong enough to break iron.”
Nina steps out of the darkness. She replaced her dress with one of our formfitting suits. The suit is layered in black scales, like a fish. It covers her fingers and toes and ends below her jaw. Her short, clinging black hair looks like part of the suit, a cowl.
Her right hand holds a gun.
I put a hand against the wall, prepared to fight if I can.
Something changes from one second to the next—her eyes. Not blank and soulless, but horrified. She looks down at the gun in her hand, like Where did this come from?
She’s Sequel again. Not Nina—whoever Nina is. There is no faking the revulsion on her face.
“I feel her inside me, you know?” She shakes the words out. Her eyes are shiny with tears.
Whatever she has to say, I don’t care. I tell myself that because I want it to be true.
“Feel who?” My voice is dry.
She squeezes her eyes shut, quaking. A tear wells in her right eye, slips down the side of her nose. “I’m so sorry, Miranda.”
“Feel who, Sequel? Who?”
“Nina.”
“Who is Nina?”
“North Iteration 9-A. I can feel her.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know .”
She grips the side of her head and squeezes so hard I wince. She’s only five feet away. A little closer and I could reach out and grab her.
“She keeps making me watch when she takes over, and I—I don’t know. When I cut . . .”
When I cut Noah.
“Don’t cry for him,” I say. She isn’t allowed to feel anything. I don’t care who takes over and makes her watch. I don’t care I don’t care.
Her eyes flare red, literally. She’s not