Four unmarked survivors. One totalitarian government. A fight to keep their humanity intact.
100 years into the future, the E-91 virus has thrust the world into chaos.
For Rachel Wilson, survival hasn't come easy. For the last fifteen years, she's...
She'd imagined her capture a million different ways.
It wasn't always the same scenario but it always ended with a Mark on her forehead.
Rachel wondered what that would feel like, not the Mark itself, but the lack of feeling that came with it, the lack of personhood.
What would it feel like to lose yourself?
She shut her eyes and focused on the forest with its buzzing of animals preparing for winter.
There was the tune the wind whistled between the tree branches and standing alone in the middle of the forest, it was easy to picture them sneaking up behind her, clad in their standard gray city uniform.
If she tried hard enough, she could even hear the sound of twigs breaking under military boots, as if they were really coming for her.
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She could almost, but not quite, taste the leather of their gloves as they clamped over her mouth.
Would she kick and scream?
Or would she go quietly?
She'd like to imagine she'd be brave, maybe all the compounders did, but she was smart enough to know that bravery didn't gain you much, not against the capital.
When they kicked her feet out from under her and shoved her face into the earth, would she cry?
If so, what would she cry for?
Maybe she'd cry for the loss of her freedom but mostly she thought she'd cry in relief because hiding was exhausting.
And maybe giving up was easier.
Her blue eyes flung open and she realized, not surprisingly, that the only thing she cried for now was Jed.
Her little brother, who had run away to the city to be Marked exactly two weeks before, had he thought giving up was easier too?
She tried not to imagine Jed with empty eyes.
Jed as one of them.
But it was difficult.
Once the capital had their hands on him, a strong, unmarked boy, she knew there was no hope of them ever letting him go.
That funny notion of bravery snuck up on her again.
She shoved down her sob, wiped her face and picked up her bucket of berries, determined to snap out of her grief.
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