Burn by Julianna Baggott Read Free Book Online Page A

outside the Dome—as a hunter, a scavenger. He might actually do well out there, but then he picks up the broken orb—her Christmas gift from Partridge—and she notices how soft and pale his hands are. He holds the orb so delicately that she knows he’s afraid—of her? He showed up so fast that her request must have gone through some special channel. Does he know that she’s Partridge’s…what? Lover? Mistress? What is she?
    She knows the words people have used for pregnant, unmarried girls like her—ruined, disgraceful, pitiful… These girls had supposedly fallen in love, gotten caught . Lyda only heard the rumors. Certain girls disappeared from the academy, and if they came back, they wore shiny wigs, as their heads had been shaved, and they looked pale and frightened—like shrunken porcelain-doll versions of their former selves.
    They’d been locked up at the rehabilitation center. Lyda remembers it well—her lonesome cell with its fake light, the rows of pills, the specialists with clipboards, including her own mother who worked there and could barely look at her because of her burning shame. What does her mother think of her now? She hasn’t come to visit though surely she knows Lyda’s here in this apartment that Partridge has set up for her, Partridge with his newfound power.
    And Lyda has a strange power too, she realizes now, looking at the shaking hands of the repairman, but she doesn’t understand it. Maybe girls who are ruined, as she is, are known to be wild, to have broken from society in a way that can’t be fixed, and therefore the rules no longer apply to them. Is there some freedom in her ruination—even though she’s locked up here out of the public eye? Or is it simply her connection to Partridge that gives her power? She can’t read the repairman’s nervousness.
    Lyda’s hair is growing back. She tucks just a small bit behind each ear. “Thanks for coming so quickly,” she says, testing him a little. “Do you respond to all complaints this fast?”
    “These orbs are special!” he says holding it up. “Don’t get many calls for them. I actually worked on the prototype for these.” Boyd is his name. It’s printed on a tag pinned to his shirt. “My first job out of the academy.”
    The orb is a small electronic device that allows Lyda to change the decor of the room—even the images that appear as views from the bank of windows—so that the apartment can suddenly feel like it exists in some version of Cairo, Paris, the Canary Islands, or the Swiss Alps, and on and on—all during the Before. “You know how this thing really works?” Lyda asks.
    “Sure. Yeah. The corrections should be pretty simple.” He takes the orb to the small glass-top table in the dining room, pulling out a small set of tools. “Mind if I work on it here?”
    “It’s fine by me,” she says. “Do you want something to drink?”
    Boyd looks up at her quickly and then away. “No—no thank you. Nice of you to offer, but no thank you.” He sits quickly, blushing, and bows his head to the orb.
    He’s so flustered that Lyda wonders if he thinks she’s flirting with him, trying to seduce him. Maybe others think of her not as pitiful so much as dangerous. She prefers that.
    She gets herself a glass of water and sits across from him at the table. “Tell me how it works.”
    “It’s really complicated. Maybe you should watch the broadcast of the memorial service. We were all watching it at work, but then I got this urgent call, so…”
    “Urgent? I don’t know about that.”
    “It’s the only reason I’m missing the broadcast, which is mandatory. It’s running live in every home right now. I think you’re supposed to—”
    “I don’t have to do what I’m supposed to do anymore. That’s the upside of being a social outcast.”
    He jerks his head, nodding quickly. “Still, we should probably have it on. They know, you know, what’s on and what’s not. I’d just feel more comfortable