Unawakened Read Online Free PDF

opinion even if Smith knows, he simply doesn’t care. They’re the same breed. So long as their wealth, power, and rank grow, they don’t care.”
    “What makes you different, then? Why do you care?”
    The question had been bothering me for weeks. What made Rob so different? If it wasn’t for his suit, his contacts, and the way other elite tiptoed around him, I wouldn’t have believed he was an elite.
    If it wasn’t for the way the other dae cowered from him when he scowled, I wouldn’t have believed him a dae, either. I knew he fed from me, basking in the strength of my emotions for his sustenance, which was the only real difference between us.
    In all other ways, Rob wasn’t so different from me, an unawakened human. I really wanted to know what set Rob apart as a dae , but I didn’t have the courage to ask.
    For a long time, Rob stared at me, his eyes narrowing. The subtle way his gaze unfocused warned me he was lost in thought, probably trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable.
    “Do I need a reason to care?”
    I straightened, and my puzzlement turned into dismay.
    I had spent so long fighting for survival and climbing the social ladder for a better life. All my focus had been on advancing myself. Did anyone need a reason to help someone?
    Maybe Rob was a dae, but he was also a far better human than me.  

    Rob slept beside me on the couch while I worked. I was relieved the dae wasn’t watching me. His ability to sense my emotions was limited when he slept, else he’d be getting a heavy dose of self-loathing and disgust served with a helping of guilt.
    Everything had been so much easier when I hadn’t put much thought into the consequences of the things I did. I stared at my hands for a long time, remembering how I had pulled the trigger of my gun, ending Lily’s life to protect my own.
    We hadn’t liked each other, but I wondered. Was my life really worth more than hers? I doubted I’d ever know.
    All I could do was try to make my life worth something more than just another fringe rat scrambling for the scraps offered by the upper castes.
    My first step was to untangle the mess created by Terry Moore, Dean Lewis, and Kenneth Smith.
    I didn’t want to watch the murder videos again, but if I wanted to find the invisible ties binding Terry Moore and Dean Lewis together, I needed to know who the women were and why the dean had paid so much for them to be drugged, raped, and killed.
    I had put off the uncomfortable task for far too long.
    With the Dawn of Dae, the government’s information structure had crumbled. The police no longer had an updated list of missing people, which hampered my efforts to get a positive ID on the women. So many people from all castes had disappeared in such a short period of time it would probably take months to untangle the mess.
    I browsed the law enforcement websites open to the public, wondering how I’d be able to sniff out information on anyone with the government in such a state of chaos. Even the government acknowledged the problem.
    For the first time in my memory, the police were recruiting from the general public, and even those from the fringe could apply for admission into training. The list of open positions was staggering, ranging from paper shufflers and secretaries to supervisors.
    They’d even accept the unawakened among them, although the positions were limited to internal roles within law enforcement.
    Infiltrating the police had been something Kenneth had considered time and time again, but ultimately decided against as too risky—or too far out of reach. Fringe rats like me couldn’t apply; no matter how far I climbed, my history was a black mark against me.
    The police couldn’t trust someone from the lower castes to protect and serve those of the upper castes.
    Before the Dawn of Dae, information had been easier to acquire. I considered my employer, wondering how far he would go to ruin the dean of my college.
    If his thirst for revenge