Inside the Palisade Read Online Free PDF Page B

my eyes a tiny crack and watch her through slitted lids.
    She punches me in the shoulder playfully. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’d
pay
for eyes like that. How did they get that way?”
    “I don’t know.” It’s true, but will she believe me? Realizing there’s no point in hiding them anymore, I open my eyes.
    “Are we in the lockup?” I ask her.
    “Good one!” She slaps my back as if I’ve made a joke, the motion releasing another barrage of coughing.
    When I recover, I try again. “No, seriously. I seem to be having trouble remembering how I got here.” Actually, I’m having trouble remembering much of anything. It’s as if I left my quarters this morning, passed out, and woke up here. Wherever
here
is. I pull the blankets tight around me.
    “The Med-Techs brought you.” The girl pats my ankle through the covers. “You were asleep, which I thought was weird. I mean, most girls are excited to be here, but you were out like a light.”
    “Most girls? What are you talking about? Where are we?”
    “The Nest, of course.”
    “The Nest?” I sit bolt upright, shoving her aside. “
This
is the Nest?” I gaze around the cramped space trying to make sense of it. That can’t be right. Whatever tricks my memory is playing, there’s no way I’m supposed to be in the
Nest.
    “Where did you think you were?” she asks, indicating her swollen belly. She’s an Expectant, but she seems so young, even younger than me. I know that some girls discover motherhood as their Calling pretty early, but she’s only a child herself. “You didn’t really think we were in the lockup, did you? Why on earth would you think that? Why would they put a bunch of Expectants in the lockup?”
    “This is a mistake,” I insist.
    “Did you have a bad Procedure? Is that what’s upsetting you?”
    “I didn’t
have
the Procedure.” I run my fingers along my flat belly to convince myself.
    “Maybe you blotted it out. Repressed it.” She stumbles over the word.
    I draw my wrists to my temples and am assaulted by a pain in my right arm. I jerk up my sleeve to reveal a neat dressing, taped securely over my arm, the blue and purple edges of a bruise blossoming around it. I press it experimentally. It throbs in response. It can’t be more than a day old. I probe the skinaround it with my fingertips. It’s a real injury, even though I have no recollection of how it happened. But if there’s one thing I know about the Nest, it’s that no one gets hurt here. That’s its purpose. To keep all Expectants safe and sound. To protect the next generation of our dwindling population. I couldn’t have been here when this happened
    Then, I notice something else: My communicator is missing. I check both wrists, and the pockets of the robe before scanning the surface of the bedside table. It’s nowhere. I look at the other girl’s wrists. Her communicator is right where it should be.
    “Where’s my communicator?” I ask her.
    She looks around, opening and shutting a drawer in the night-stand that I had failed to notice. Empty.
    “That’s odd,” she says. “I guess you didn’t have one when they brought you. Where did you see it last?”
    I try to remember, but my mind is a blank. “I don’t know.”
    “Seriously? Amnesia?” Ace’s voice has lost none of its cheeriness. “That’s great! A mystery to solve! It gets so boring in here sometimes.”
    I run my thumb and forefinger over my brow, trying to remember anything. An image of a woman in white scrubs flickers into my mind. A Med-Tech? Ace perches beside me on the bed, her toe tracing circles in the carpet. I force myself to stand up, recoiling when my leg gives out. I half-sit, half-stumble back on to the cot. Raising my hem, I’m shocked to discover a thick elastic brace over an obviously swollen knee. I raise an eyebrow and glare at Ace. “This didn’t happen in the Nest, did it?”
    She bends down to examine it.
    “Maybe we should call someone?” I indicate her