Genesis Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

operations, Fatima was a mess for weeks. Every night in our cloister, I’d hear her crying on the bunk right above me. I’d climb up with her and lay my head on her pillow.
    “It’ll be okay,” I’d say. But Fatima would sob and sob.
    “I’ll never have children,” she’d weep. “I’ll never be a mother.”
    “That’s not true,” I’d whisper. “When you’re harvested, your company will assign a family to you. Someday they’ll harvest a Vestal for you and then you’ll be a Vestal-mom.”
    “To a teenager, not a baby!”
    I never knew what to say to that. Sterilization is for our own good, Barbelo Nemo wrote, but Fatima didn’t care. So I would put our wrists together and say the Vestal blessing.
    “Fatima, you have a hard road. In so many ways it’s difficult being you. But I know that you can do it . You have everything you need to achieve happiness.”
    I wonder if the blessing would help Seth too.
    “Can’t you drop me off on some corner?” he begs.
    “So you can go online? You’re so desperate to get your finger-chips charged that you can’t spend five more minutes in the car with me?”
    Seth laces his fingers around my hand. I feel his sweaty arm press into mine. He stares at me with glazed eyes. “Please, Blanca. I need to see what’s happening with my site. I need to see my hits.”
    I try to let go of his grasp, but I can’t. “Fine. I’m due at McNeal Manor anyway. Cal will miss me.”
    I rap on the divider with my free hand, but Seth stops me. Muscles rope through his neck, and he takes deep breaths through his nose.
    “Who’s Cal?” he asks, his voice rising.
    “My purchaser, Calum McNeal. What’s the matter, Rex?” I’ve been very careful to call him “Rex” and not “Seth.”
    He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Seth stares at me, examining my every inch, right down to the yellow specs in my green eyes. I fight the urge to grab my scarf, to wrap myself up in fabric so I can’t be seen anymore.
    “You were bought by Calum McNeal?”
    “Harvested,” I correct. We’re still holding hands. I wish I could let go, but Seth’s grip is strong.
    “And you’re happy?”
    “Happier than I ever thought possible.” I smile knowingly.
    Seth slumps back in his seat. His shaking has stopped, but I can feel his pulse pound through his fingertips.
    Now’s the perfect time to turn the screw.
    “Cal is wonderful,” I say. “He’s so kind and generous and attentive. He makes me feel like a princess.” I lean in close to Seth and whisper in his ear. “Thanks to you, I’m a happy woman.”
    When the car stops at a random corner downtown, Seth is still. He turns and looks at me with eyes filled with so much kindness that I can almost overlook the ugly snake inked across his face. “Be careful,” Seth says. “The world isn’t made for Vestals.”
    “I don’t want to be part of the world. Cal provides everything I need.”
    Seth swallows hard. “Like I said, be careful.” He holds my hand for several moments too long before finally letting it go.
     
     

     
     
    “Thank you,” Cal says to me when I tell him the whole story. “I know that must have been difficult.” We’re in the dining room, eating a cozy dinner for two.
    “I’ve never been so close to tech-addicts before,” I say. “Seth and that precinct officer could barely function without their finger-chips.”
    Cal laughs. “It’s how the world works. Everyone’s a tech-addict.”
    “You’re not!”
    “Of course I am. I’m just not as bad off as a Virus.”
    “That’s not true. You don’t have finger-chips anymore.”
    “But I’m totally reliant on my chip-watch. Without the Internet, my entire company would go under.”
    I take a knife to my lamb. The mint sauce is disgusting.
    “You’re nothing like Seth at all,” I say, “despite your chip-watch. He destroys people’s lives for a living. He digs up dirt. He publishes secrets. Veritas Rex is the dirtiest virtual tabloid I’ve