The Girl Who Dared to Think Bella Forrest (best classic literature txt) 📖

doctor. He works in solitude, creating new drugs for the Medica all the time, and I deliver them. What you found was one of the pills I was transporting.”

“That’s a lie,” I said angrily. “You were a one. The Medica would never have trusted you with that job before you miraculously became a nine.”

Grey sighed. “Fine,” he said after a moment. “Ease up a little, and I’ll tell you. For a price.”

I took a step back, eyeing him warily. “What price?”

His answering grin was slow, giving him time to smooth out the wrinkles in his clothes. “A kiss.”

I felt my face go instantly scarlet. I had only ever kissed one boy before, and believe me when I say that it wasn’t on a whim. I had agonized for weeks, building up to it. Picked the right time and moment. Here, surrounded by pipes, did not seem like the right moment. Grey didn’t even seem like the right person.

“Oh, wow,” he said with a whistle. “That’s an impressive shade of red. Don’t tell me you’ve never been kissed before.” The teasing note in his voice threw me off, and I took another step back, decidedly uncomfortable.

It had taken so much courage to build up to my first kiss, and in the end it hadn’t mattered. He had not shared my attraction. And this felt even less comfortable—the location was all wrong, murky and loud, and Grey was… mysterious. Adventurous. It made me want to know what he was hiding, and why he would demand a kiss for it.

I was actually considering this, I realized with a nervous flutter in my stomach. As odd as it was, I really was—because I needed answers. Needed a way to avoid becoming Prim again.

I reached out and grabbed Grey by the front of his shirt.

“Hey, wait,” he said, the smile vanishing from his face. “No, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up,” I said as I took a step into him, my eyes on his lips. “I accept your terms.”

“Right, but I think I should—”

I lifted up onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips against his in a chaste press, cutting off whatever he was saying.

He grew very still for a long moment, and then his arms came up and slid around my waist, dragging me close. The kiss changed, grew hungrier, and I broke away and took a step back, my hand going to my lips in shock. I’d never been kissed like that before.

I met his eyes, and noticed that his cheeks were flushed. “Now,” I said, panting slightly as I brushed a lock of black hair from my face. “Tell me.”

He spread his arms, looking embarrassed. “I told you,” he said, his cheeks growing darker. “I didn’t mean it. I meant what I said earlier: I can’t—”

“Are you joking?” I exclaimed, taking an aggressive step forward. “You told me you—”

“You were holding me against my will,” he pointed out, his embarrassment fading. “You weren’t taking no for an answer. I just thought it’d get you to back off… I didn’t know you’d take it seriously.”

I flushed, embarrassed that he’d seen how far I was willing to go, and suddenly the urge to get out was upon me. I couldn’t have felt more vulnerable, desperate, and exposed if I had walked into the Knight Commander’s office and declared Scipio’s programming to be filled with some pretty serious flaws.

“You’re an ass—and you deserve to be a nine,” I spat, turning and breaking into a run to get as far away from him as possible.

“Wait, Squire… I’m sorry!” he called behind me, but I ignored it, throwing my lashes up to move away from him even more quickly.

I made my way to Zoe’s quarters, my bleak outlook turning downright dismal after my encounter with Grey. Zoe’s quarters sat over the massive turbines below, in the bottommost level. In fact, the first time I had been there, I’d expected the entire floor to vibrate from the force of the machines below, but it was surprisingly silent, and still.

Diver sections all looked the same: brightly colored murals decorated the walls, depicting scenes significant to the Water Ways. From the eradication of the great cities to the history of the Tower, the murals all showed a river of flowing water—the Tower’s lifeblood. I stepped gingerly through the offerings of specially crafted incense and bits of food left in front of them, and continued through the halls until I arrived at her quarters.

I pressed a button and waited. A moment later it slid aside to reveal Zoe, her blue eyes narrowed suspiciously at me.

“What do you want?” she demanded. “Here to tell me to try treatment again?”

I swallowed. “Uh, no,” I replied. “I didn’t actually tell you that, did I?”

She frowned. “Three times,” she said. “You also told Eric that he was ‘very sweet,’ but that ‘associating with low numbers would be harmful to possible futures in the Tower.’”

I buried my face in my hands. “Ah, hell.”

Zoe examined me for a long moment. “That’s really you, isn’t it?” she finally asked. “Not the princess?”

“I’ve been calling her Prim,” I said dryly. “Her hobbies include studying, cleaning, making my parents love her, and now, apparently, doling out unsolicited advice like an elevator computer.”

“Now you see why I don’t take the elevators,” she said with a grin, stepping aside and ushering me in.

Zoe’s house was different from mine, but then again, Divers were deeply religious people. Furniture was absent, replaced with colorful and intricately embroidered pillows and mats, to separate them as little as possible from the Tower. The sitting area surrounded a small fountain that shot a stream of water a foot off the floor, backlit by blue lights, which served as the family altar. The altar was adorned with small offerings, placed on the rim of the bowl the water spilled into—half a pear, some more incense, a wedding band. A glowing image of Zoe’s father filled the wall behind the fountain, his eyes watching us both.

“So,” Zoe said as she waited