The Brothers Read Online Free PDF Page A

kitchens after hours. My babies liked to eat!” She pats a flat stomach under her gray coveralls. “Now it’s two thousand calories and no more! Balderdash.”
    The elevator hums as it rises, and I lean into the cool metal wall. All I want to do is go to my bedroom and cry until I’m empty. I want to rid myself of this sickness that clings to every movement, every thought.
    “What’s wrong with you?” Nanny Bell’s voice draws me back from swirling images. Her gaze zeroes in on me like a laser. “There’s a bee in your bonnet. I can see it.”
    I wring my hands, wanting to keep my misery to myself.
    “What is it?” she says, stepping closer, her voice melting into worry. She flicks her eyes to the elevator’s corners. “There are no cameras in here. You can tell me.”
    Her words tug a brick from the bottom of the pile, and the wall that has kept my tears at bay crumbles. The sobs start. I hear a ding and the elevator lurches. Bell has used her key to activate the emergency stop. She strides over and throws her arms around me.
    I cry into her chest until her coveralls are soaked with my tears. How will she explain the stain on her shoulder when we get to the nursery?
    Nanny Bell’s strong arms wrap around my back like steel cables, holding me together. Her voice whispers in my ear. “I have to start this car moving or they’ll ask questions. If you want this load off your chest, you need to start dumping it now.”
    I nod, my forehead rubbing against the rough fabric of her shirt. “Dr. Houghton says I have endro…metriosis. I can’t have babies. That’s why none of the treatments have taken. It means…” A sob cuts off my words.
    “Your seventeenth birthday is in two months,” Nanny whispers.
    I pull back and look into her face. “What do I do?”
    The lines on her face deepen as her frown settles. She offers me no smile, no uplifting anecdote. And I shouldn’t have expected one. This is Bell. The woman who values truth above all.
    “What you do is you solider on. It’s all you can do.”
    “But there has to be—”
    A tone sounds, loud and crisp, above us. An announcement. My body freezes.
    “Attention, residents,” a tin voice blares from the speaker above us. “All R.P. girls must report to their common room immediately for further instructions. I repeat, all R.P. girls must report to their common room at this time. Floor Nannies, please report to your assigned stations. Thank you.”
    The voice cuts off. Nanny Bell and I are left in silence. I pull back and wipe my face. Bell hits the button and the elevator starts moving again. She punches the number five, my floor, with her finger.
    “Do you know what this is about?” I ask, trying to see my reflection in the elevator’s brushed metal walls. My face is red and blotchy.
    Bell shakes her head. “Haven’t heard. A lockdown drill?”
    The elevator dings and the doors pull back. I stride toward the doors and the bright white light of my floor, but Bell’s hand around my wrist stops me. When I turn, she begins a message in sign language, her fingers dancing inside my palm. I struggle to decipher it.
    Tell . She pauses to make sure I understand. I nod, and she continues. No one .
    She’s right. If the girls or the staff find out, I’ll be lower than useless. I’ll be prey.
    Before I can look into her face for comfort, she strides around me and toward the common room, barking at girls going this way and that. Nanny Bell is as strict as they come with everyone but me.
    I stand in the open elevator doors until they shut and spring angrily back open when I stick my arm out. My eyes travel down the sterile white hallway toward the noisy common room. I’ve been instructed to go, but my legs won’t move. This day’s been too much.
    I take a deep breath and step out of the elevator.
    Something hits me on my right shoulder, throwing me forward. I stumble and almost fall. Staggering up, I turn around and wish I hadn’t.
    Two feet from me