Naturals Read Online Free PDF Page B

question that dominates my life.”
    “I’m not sure.”
    I sighed. “Yeah, me neither. When I think of what he’s been through, I can’t blame him for being so mad. Can anyone come back from that?”
    “You did.”
    I shook my head. “Too early to say that for sure. Besides, I don’t know that it’s fair to compare my pain to his,” I replied.
    “Fair enough. You’ve both been through more than anyone your age should have to.”
    I picked up a rock that lay nestled in the ground between my feet and tossed it from one hand to the other. “Can I ask you something?”
    “Of course.”
    “Did you love Emma because my father saved you, or did you love her for her?” It was something I had been wondering ever since I found out that Robert had been the chosen one I saw my father save when I was a child.
    “Ah, that. Don’t fool yourself, Tess. You’re a truth seeker.”
    He didn’t want to answer my question. That could only mean his affection for my sister was out of some sort of hero worship for my father. Which meant she died for nothing. All the anger I had been working on keeping down came rushing back. I clutched my hand around the rock and held onto it as hard as I could, letting the ragged edges dig into my skin.
    “When your father broke me out of the compound, I was sure I’d be dead in a week. I was sick. I’m a first generation, but even then they didn’t keep the sick ones long. We’ve always been expendable.”
    I continued moving the stone from one hand to the other, afraid that if I stopped, he would, too. Robert was the closest thing I had to feeling for even one second that I could have Emma back. If there were any reasons to settle our differences, it would be for our continued love for Emma. He was all I had left of her now
    For now.
    Because I would get Louisa back. I wouldn’t let another sister go.
    I was wrong to have tried to trade Robert for James when I first heard of the plan to go to the Isolationist camp. It was a futile attempt at controlling things I had no power over. Robert was the key. Robert and Henry. One had the skills of the chosen ones; he could lead the men into the compound. The other had the passion.
    I would convince them.
    “Your father was always kind to me,” Robert continued. “The workers weren’t really supposed to talk to us, but he would tell me about you and your sisters. At first, I didn’t understand what I felt as I listened to him speak, but I realize now I was jealous. I couldn’t quite grasp the concept of family then, but I wanted it. I wanted it without even knowing how to say I wanted it.”
    I wanted my family, too.
    Robert picked up a rock from the ground and began to copy my movements. “He showed me pictures of his daughters, and when I first saw her—Emma—I needed to know her. I felt weak. It went against everything the council taught us; I knew it was wrong to feel anything at all, but I couldn’t help it. And even though it meant the council didn’t want me, that I could die any day, when your father took me and I woke up in your house, I knew what it was to feel happiness.”
    “You loved my sister because you wanted a family?” I asked.
    “No. I didn’t love her then. I thought she was beautiful, but I couldn’t love just an image. I had heard so many stories about how kind she was. I didn’t think naturals could be like that—it wasn’t what we were taught. I mean, I knew your father was a good man, but some days he was angry or distant.”
    I nodded. This was not the father I knew growing up, but the father I met and learned about through reading the letters he left to me after the council took him, letters I had given to James in hopes that by seeing the man who helped shape me, he could hold on to a part of me.
    “I was in and out of consciousness the brief time I was in your house, but I remember thinking it was real, all of it. The naturals. Their homes and families. It wasn’t just something the teachers made