Remnants 13 - Survival Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Katherine Alice Applegate
Mother’s reaction.
Nothing. Tate might as well have been back in LA., sitting in her grandfather’s La-Z-Boy.
<> Yago pleaded tensely.
Tate’s body twitched with nerves. The silence stretched on. She began thinking about Alberto. About the way he’d drooled and babbled.
“Maybe — maybe this isn’t such a good idea….” Tate tried to get up and found her muscles wouldn’t move.
Yago began to whimper low. <> he said. <>
There came a sudden noise — like a freight train in the distance, coming closer fast. The sound grew in intensity until it blossomed into a screaming wail that threatened to burst Tate’s eardrums.
Tate felt something like a pinprick in her head. She tried to relax, tried to show Mother she was a friend by thinking friendly thoughts, but — the sensation was growing in force, setting her teeth on.
Mother was poking at her brain. This — this wasn’t what she’d imagined. She’d expected a deluge of data She’d •expected – it was hard to explain, the presence of a rational consciousness. She’d expected to somehow have a conversation with Mother Bargain with her Negotiate.
But Mother didn’t seem rational. She wasn’t efficiently accessing Tate’s memories — she was banging around like a tired child having a screaming fit in a filing cabinet.
Brutal scenes flicked to life for a split second — a bloody battlefield strewn with dead Riders, Amelia disintegrating into a puddle of decay — before Mother tossed them aside.
<> Yago said. <> Different scenes now. More personal. Lasting longer
Tate’s mother weeping at her mother’s funeral.
A small, scabby-kneed Tate hugging a lamppost as Jennifer Taylor Smith’s parents packed their meager belongings into a U-Haul.
A goldfish floating belly up in a slimy-looking bowl.
Tate got the message: grief, loss, abandonment. Billy. Mother missed Billy. Tate understood. She hoped Mother knew she was innocent — she had done nothing to take Billy away from her.
But Mother wasn’t into subtlety.
Or perhaps she just didn’t like suffering alone.
She did something to Tate’s body and suddenly Tate was overwhelmed by a sadness that was like a wet cloth dragging down on her head. She dwelled on all she had lost to the Rock: her home, her family, her dog. Poor innocent Lily. She’d never hurt anyone.
She was powerless to control the sobs racking her body. Yago was weeping, too. A pitiful sound.
The grief finally drained away.
Mother toyed with Tate’s mind. Called up another emotion.
Anger.
Now the adrenaline pumping through Tate’s veins was accompanied by images of all the bullies who’d made her long life miserable — playground bullies whose names she had forgotten, the Meanies, 2Face, Yago. How she hated them! Rage consumed her until —
It was replaced.
Replaced with pain.
CHAPTER 6
TIME CEASED TO EXIST.
Mother knew pain. She enjoyed pain, appreciated it. She slowed her frantic march through Tate’s emotions, seemingly having found a theme she wished to dwell on.
She dredged up memories from Tate’s mind one by one, turning them over, examining them carefully, playing them out in lavish detail. They say the human mind cannot remember pain. Tate was sad to learn this was apparently not true —
Bright lights. The orthodontist who smelled strongly of mouthwash tightened Tate’s braces.
Twist, twist, twist with his glittering metallic instrument — until Tate could feel the roots of her teeth all the way up into her sinuses. Until the weight of her tongue resting against her bottom front teeth was enough to make her weep and she was scared to close her mouth —
High-pitched giggles and a huge pink-and-white object rushing toward her face. Tate had just enough time to identify it as her little cousin Gaby’s pink Stride Rite sandal before it smashed into her nose with enough force to
Nothing. Tate might as well have been back in LA., sitting in her grandfather’s La-Z-Boy.
<
Tate’s body twitched with nerves. The silence stretched on. She began thinking about Alberto. About the way he’d drooled and babbled.
“Maybe — maybe this isn’t such a good idea….” Tate tried to get up and found her muscles wouldn’t move.
Yago began to whimper low. <
There came a sudden noise — like a freight train in the distance, coming closer fast. The sound grew in intensity until it blossomed into a screaming wail that threatened to burst Tate’s eardrums.
Tate felt something like a pinprick in her head. She tried to relax, tried to show Mother she was a friend by thinking friendly thoughts, but — the sensation was growing in force, setting her teeth on.
Mother was poking at her brain. This — this wasn’t what she’d imagined. She’d expected a deluge of data She’d •expected – it was hard to explain, the presence of a rational consciousness. She’d expected to somehow have a conversation with Mother Bargain with her Negotiate.
But Mother didn’t seem rational. She wasn’t efficiently accessing Tate’s memories — she was banging around like a tired child having a screaming fit in a filing cabinet.
Brutal scenes flicked to life for a split second — a bloody battlefield strewn with dead Riders, Amelia disintegrating into a puddle of decay — before Mother tossed them aside.
<
Tate’s mother weeping at her mother’s funeral.
A small, scabby-kneed Tate hugging a lamppost as Jennifer Taylor Smith’s parents packed their meager belongings into a U-Haul.
A goldfish floating belly up in a slimy-looking bowl.
Tate got the message: grief, loss, abandonment. Billy. Mother missed Billy. Tate understood. She hoped Mother knew she was innocent — she had done nothing to take Billy away from her.
But Mother wasn’t into subtlety.
Or perhaps she just didn’t like suffering alone.
She did something to Tate’s body and suddenly Tate was overwhelmed by a sadness that was like a wet cloth dragging down on her head. She dwelled on all she had lost to the Rock: her home, her family, her dog. Poor innocent Lily. She’d never hurt anyone.
She was powerless to control the sobs racking her body. Yago was weeping, too. A pitiful sound.
The grief finally drained away.
Mother toyed with Tate’s mind. Called up another emotion.
Anger.
Now the adrenaline pumping through Tate’s veins was accompanied by images of all the bullies who’d made her long life miserable — playground bullies whose names she had forgotten, the Meanies, 2Face, Yago. How she hated them! Rage consumed her until —
It was replaced.
Replaced with pain.
CHAPTER 6
TIME CEASED TO EXIST.
Mother knew pain. She enjoyed pain, appreciated it. She slowed her frantic march through Tate’s emotions, seemingly having found a theme she wished to dwell on.
She dredged up memories from Tate’s mind one by one, turning them over, examining them carefully, playing them out in lavish detail. They say the human mind cannot remember pain. Tate was sad to learn this was apparently not true —
Bright lights. The orthodontist who smelled strongly of mouthwash tightened Tate’s braces.
Twist, twist, twist with his glittering metallic instrument — until Tate could feel the roots of her teeth all the way up into her sinuses. Until the weight of her tongue resting against her bottom front teeth was enough to make her weep and she was scared to close her mouth —
High-pitched giggles and a huge pink-and-white object rushing toward her face. Tate had just enough time to identify it as her little cousin Gaby’s pink Stride Rite sandal before it smashed into her nose with enough force to
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