The Unspoken: Book One in the Keres Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

always in the same succession. Frehn, Harc, me, Merit, Doe. Everyone, expect you. I never heard you scream or cry out. ”
    “ No, ” I breathe, “ No, they never came for me. ”
    Wex sits back down. “ Exactly. I thought at first that you must have been moved, you couldn ’ t still be on our block. I had to find out. So I began to respond to The Mothers sycophantic simpering when they came in to switch out food trays or change my sheets. I allowed them to feel like they were soothing me, calming me. I let them clean the layers of sweat and pus off me. I started paying close attention to the Pedagogic lectures piped in over the television and asked for materials for study. Because of that the torturing stopped. Gradually, I stopped hearing the others being tortured as well. ”
    “ They cut my fingers to the bone with a slaughter knife. A finger a night, ” Harc spits out. “ They poured some kind of liquid on them, until I couldn ’ t keep the screams down any longer. When that wasn ’ t enough, they broke the bones with heavy irons. They moved on to my hands when there wasn ’ t anything left of my fingers. I wasn ’ t as smart as Wex, I should have just pretended to respond to The Mothers ’ kindness in order to avoid the torture. Instead, I gave in to the pain. When I started crying instead of screaming The Mothers swooped in gushing and kissing and cleaning my hands. ” Harc swallows hard, looking sick, “ I let them wash and bandage me, and I thanked them. After that the five in black didn ’ t come back. ”
    I look at Harc ’ s delicate fingers. There were so beautiful once. Now rows upon rows of ugly scars fill each one. A mutilated finger a night. And where was I when she was being sliced to pieces? In bed. Crying because I was alone. I almost vomit again but put my head between my knees instead.
    “ We all went through... something, ” Wex says quietly, “ But we found a way to appease The Mothers. After that, things became surprisingly easy. I began searching my room for ways to communicate, to discover where you were, Keres. I figured out I could talk through the vents as long as the air was moving. I made contact with Frehn first, who was still receiving visits from the five. The stubborn mule wouldn ’ t let The Mothers touch him. ”
    “ No, and it took a massive amount of convincing from you and Doe to make me, ” Frehn says almost proudly. “ But I saw reason. If we were going to come up on top, find out where you were, I had to give in. ”
    “ I tracked the air currents and we worked out a relay system to communicate with each other through the vents and not be overheard, ” Wex continues after giving Frehn a look.
    “ And that ’ s when I pulled the television off the wall, ” Harc says.
    “ You- what? ” Somehow this is what makes me raise my head. She pulled the television out of its encasement in the bookshelf with her broken fingers and hands. “ What did The Mothers say to that? ”
    “ Oh, they never knew, ” Harc says with a shrug, “ I had it all back in place once I got what I needed from the back. It ’ s remarkable how much waste there was back there. Lots of wide plastic tubing covering the wires to keep them neat, I guess. Once we got all of it off our TVs, I was able to connect everything into kind of a network. That tube was just enough to connect all our rooms to each other and to reach from Wex ’ s vent straight to yours. If we could figure out how to get it there. ”
    “ It took a while but we managed to hear what was happening in the common room. We heard The Mothers going in and out of your room but couldn ’ t hear anything inside it. Finally, Merit was able to get his vent cover off and squeeze through the ducts to look into your room. He saw you, on the bed, and looking in relatively good physical condition. We were all relieved at first, that you had either overcome any physical torture or that you were spared all together. ”
    “ Then we