Unawakened Read Online Free PDF Page A

after the next best high to cause trouble.
    The new drug could keep workers high without affecting their jobs. Until a test was developed to detect the drug, anyone from any caste could use it without fear of consequence.
    I sat back and stared at my hands. They stung and burned, but there was no visible sign of the drug’s influence. My pain was in my head, strong enough to make me want another hit, but not so strong I couldn’t work through it.
    Kenneth Smith had found the perfect drug, and with one unwilling dose of it, I desired another. The memory of the way it made my body sing with the lightest caress against my skin haunted me.
    “I’m not going to let you get hooked.”
    Why was speaking the truth so hard? I already was, and there was nothing he could do about it. I sighed and shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”
    I hated myself for my inability to confess how much I wanted to get high again and spend it with him. I had talked the talk so much, but it had only taken one hit to destroy all of my hard work.
    “I’m up for an energetic argument about who is to blame for what Kenneth Smith did to you. That said, there’s a difference between craving something and choosing to satisfy your craving. You’re not hooked unless you take it again. Maybe right now you want it, but unless you actually go to Mr. Smith, get the drug, and take it, you’re clean as far as I’m concerned. You getting hooked again is a choice, and it’s one I have no intention of letting you make. If I have to stay by your side for days until those urges fade, so be it.”

    The crash lasted as long as the high. When it finally wore off, exhaustion weighed me down, but I was wide awake. Without the pain distracting me, my determination to get a healthy dose of revenge and free myself from Kenneth Smith surged. My personal laptop was at least as old as I was, but it did what I needed when I couldn’t risk using my newer tablet or the college’s laptop.
    I booted it up, cracking my knuckles one by one.
    If sleep was going to evade me, I’d make the most of the time.
    “If you go to sleep, that means I can go to sleep,” Rob grumbled. I glanced at him. He was sprawled over the other half of the couch, as he had been for hours. “Do you have an off switch?”
    Despite everything, he made me laugh. “Maybe.”
    “What are you doing that can’t wait until after we’ve gotten some sleep?”
      “This is bothering me.”
    Rob lurched upright and stretched with a groan. “What’s bothering you?”
    While waiting for my antique computer to boot, I drummed my fingers on the coffee table. “I’m talking about the relationship between Kenneth Smith, Dean Lewis, and Terry Moore. Terry Moore was a key player, but I don’t understand the relationship between Kenneth and the dean. Kenneth wants me to sniff out information on the dean. Why would he do that to one of his partners? When I saw them together in the dean’s office, it was pretty obvious they had arrangements for working together.”
    Rob leaned forward and turned on his laptop, which was ready for his use in a couple of seconds. “They’re elite. Most of the elite have some form of relationship with each other, Alexa. It’s how the system works. They may not like each other, but they work together to prevent the lower castes from overthrowing the system. If the lower castes manage to coordinate themselves in a rebellion, they’ll win by numbers alone.”
    The thought had already crossed my mind, and I had spent many a sleepless night wondering why the lower castes didn’t turn against the elite and take back the rights they had allowed the government to take away from them.
    Then again, many people weren’t aware of America’s history and the rights they had lost. Those who did kept quiet in fear of disappearing one night, never to be seen or heard from again.
    “I know. Do you think Kenneth knows the dean was paying Terry Moore to kill women?”
    “I am of the