The Girl Who Wasn't Read Online Free PDF

Titus. Not much, but some.
    We take a curving hallway and I wonder
if this apartment is rounded. If there’s a room somewhere that
makes a circle instead of cornered walls. I wonder if I’ll be
allowed to see it or if this place will be just as much a prison as
the home I’ve left behind.
    Gus wears boots that clomp against the
flattened carpet of the hallway, so even with my head down, I hear
when he stops. He turns the knob on a blue door and shoves it
inward, flicking a switch before stepping aside. I stop, one foot
in the doorway, one foot on the honey-colored carpet, and stare at
my new accommodations. I was right to assume my Authentic is
accustomed to niceties.
    The room is almost as big as the
sleeping room back in Twig City—a space that holds twenty bunks,
sixty girls. There are no fluorescent lights here, no pipes humming
with power, feeding Imitations as they slumber in incubators
underneath heat lamps and microscopes. The sleeping room in Twig
City is drafty and above all, loud. Other than my own intake of
breath and Gus’s impatient huffing, there is no sound
here.
    The room has the same plush carpeting
as the one where I met Titus. Only this carpet is a rich brown,
like chocolate—a luxury item I’ve only heard of, never tasted. The
thick rug sweeps in all directions, uninterrupted until it
disappears underneath a bed with wooden columns rising from each of
its four corners.
    The furniture is similarly colored and
cut, a matching suit. Above me, illuminating the entire space is a
chandelier dripping with what looks like icicles, though I’m almost
positive they can’t be made of real ice, since the temperature in
the room is comfortably warm compared to the air
outside.
    I’ve never seen amenities so luxurious.
It takes me a full minute to realize it is meant for only me. I
will sleep in a room alone for the first time since I awoke from
the incubator. I’m awed and nervous at the thought. For a second, I
miss the humming pipes and the room full of even breathing and
sleepy mutterings.
    “ Is there a problem?” Gus
asks when I don’t move.
    “ No—no problem,” I
say.
    “ Good. Someone will come get
you in the morning. Sleep tight.” He shuts the door and there is a
decided click as a lock only accessible from the outside is
turned.
    I am a prisoner.
    I am Raven Rogen.
    I am here to die.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    A maid brings me dinner on a rolling
tray. Other than her, I see no one. I hear nothing outside the door
of my room. I can only assume that means they have some device set
up to monitor me from inside. I’m not surprised. Or deterred. Being
watched is inevitable in Twig City; it’s no different
here.
    After eating, I spend a full hour
reveling in the silkiness of the sheets on the bed that I’m sure
would sleep five comfortably. When I sit up, a carving made in one
of the posts catches my eye. I lean closer and run my fingers over
it, trying to identify the shape. The lines are rough and jagged
close up, as if they’ve been carved by hand with a dull knife or
some other blunt instrument. Small shavings come away when I brush
my hand over it, and I wonder how recently this cut was made. It
looks like a version of my own mark but this tree is different,
with branches sprouting into the trunk instead of around
it.
    I change into the pajamas laid out—a
silky, smooth fabric that feels amazing against my abdomen and
arms. I am reminded of the chafing cotton I wore just last night
and try to take comfort in the benefits, small as they are, of my
new life.
    The luxuries of this place, combined
with the utter silence that rings in my ears, has me wide awake. I
decide to explore my expensive prison. I find a refrigerator
stocked with bubbly water that sighs when you twist open the lid
and some sort of creamy frozen treat in the freezer. The box says
“ice cream,” though it tastes nothing like any ice I’ve ever had.
It’s sweet and milky, competing with honey for my