Search (SEEK Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

laying four fingers over my heart, the traditional SEEK solute.
    Harnel grins, looking pleased and points to the envelope. “Do not share this information with anyone. Your eyes only. And remember, normal society will look different now. You can’t go around shooting at invisible shadows. Out there, Khayal don’t exist. Dismissed,” he says.
    As I turn to go, he adds one more thing to my list.
    “Oh, but, Donavan, first get some girl clothes. You’re trying to appeal to him, not make him feel sorry for you.”
    “But there’s nothing wrong with my…” I glance down at the state of clothes. Holes in my jeans, holes in my SEEK hoodie. I hang my head in defeat and shuffle away.
    ***
    Clearly Harnel is serious about new clothes because he’s included the address to the Fayette Mall in Lexington, Kentucky. Hopping into the driver’s seat, I flip the roll of bills under my thumb. “Where am I supposed to shop, Saks Fifth Avenue?” I mutter, stashing the cash and the envelope in the empty console.
    After programming the GPS, I scoot the seat up as far as it can go and turn the key. The engine purrs as I ease the massive Hummer carefully through the gates, feeling anxious. I turn onto the highway heading east and punch the accelerator.
    It doesn’t take long for the freedom of the open road to awaken a restlessness I hadn’t known I’d felt. I roll down the windows and crank the radio, pounding on the steering wheel. The weather is warm and sunny and the air smells of magnolias, but I’d rather be back in my dark squashy forest hunting shadows with Cord instead of galloping around in a shiny-black Hummer like some spoiled party girl.
    And then some female artist singing about being bullied by mean girls comes on the radio and I begin to relax.
    The mall is no Rodeo Drive, but a mall is mall as far as I’m concerned.
    It’s been well over a year since I’ve been shopping. Way before Captain Roselle came to my school looking to recruit potential hunters and computer programmers. All under the guise of a college scholarship program for gifted teens. It was the brochure on clone harvesting—which promised to help people in need of a new organ or spinal cord – that caught my attention. Back then, I thought the world was normal. Before I learned Khayal existed. Since then I’ve been tucked away on one compound or another.
    Inside the mall is loud and busy. It’s easy to understand why people don’t feel the Khayal. There’s so much going on. No one stands still long enough to notice the shadows are moving. But even I, a trained professional, can’t feel them out here.
    By the time I leave I match every other mallrat strutting around like a glam-doll on parade for boys to gawk at. With my nails done, new highlights in my hair, and a wardrobe any nineteen-year-old girl would be jealous of I have to admit it, I do look pretty.
    As if on cue, a group of rowdy guys whistle and stare as I wobble across the parking lot in three-inch cork wedges. And they’re still watching as I unlock the car, shove my horde of shopping bags in the back, and climb in the driver’s seat. I hit the blue OnStar button for directions to Sandy Hook and catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. A total stranger stares back me. My heart beats furiously, like a hummingbird trying to escape my chest. I gawk at the image that should be me, but isn’t.
    It’s not the sea foam-green eye shadow, or the blonde highlights in my russet hair. It’s not even these fun-n-flirty clothes. My eyes have completely changed color. They’re supposed to be blue-gray and instead they’re extraordinarily brilliant neon-green.
    The color of something radioactive.

Laurel Gorge
     
    Blood pumping like a gong in my ear, I blink. It’s a trick—it has to be. Then I think maybe the girl at the cosmetics counter who did my makeup slipped contacts in without me noticing and I stick my finger in my eye.
    “Ouch!” I gasp, wiping running mascara off my