inDIVISIBLE by Ryan Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

tell.”
                  “And don’t leave the house. We’re containing everyone who’s caught it so it doesn’t spread.”
    Icy eyes stared through me and the hair on my arms rose.
    The screen went black and I pressed the power button on my PCA to shut it off. I only had a few more minutes before someone arrive d with the booster and they’d want to watch me drink it so they could check it off my chart. I knew how this worked too well, and it annoyed me that they could control even the medication I took. The problem now was that I didn’t need the booster and something inside me demanded I avoid it.
    I opened my father’ s first notebook and scanned a page, the next, then the next. My mouth gaped and my breathing became shallow.
    He was far deeper entrenched than I’d ever realized, had more anger toward the Alliance than I could ever have guessed. I closed the book and opened the second to discover similar writings, cryptic like he enjoyed speaking at times.
    The third focused on me and his concerns about my welfare. A bulleted list caught my attention, the first being to remove the sensor.
    It was settled. I shoved the books into a backpack and took it into the kitchen with me, grabbed a butcher knife and set my right hand on a cutting board.
    My stomach squirmed and I gagged for real.
    I took a deep breath and gripped the knife tighter, my knuckles whitening on the handle.
    My PCA beeped, my five minute indicator to be waiting at the entry. I had to get away instead but I couldn’t leave with this tracking device still in my body. That would alert them and give them a reason to take me in or take me out sooner than I could afford. Besides, five minutes always meant thirty where medical concerns were involved.
    I p lunged the knife downward, through the skin near my thumb, just below the sensor. Blood spurted across the cutting board, leaving droplets fanned over the counter. Then the pain hit. I clenched my teeth together and vomited in the sink.
    My skin flopped .
    I yanked the knife from the cutting board, knowing I had to either dig into my flesh to get the sensor or make another cut.
    Blood gushed onto the cutting board when I pressed on my skin, pushing at the sensor to slide it from the now gaping hole, but it didn’t move, it stayed in my skin as if anchored there, pain searing hot when I tried to push it free.
                  My PCA beeped again, a warning they waited at the door. Any other day I’d have to wait in line for hours for treatment—and today they decided to be prompt? I couldn’t stop now. I plunged the knife a second time and groaned. The vomit hurled from my throat and I barely made it into the sink as my hand was now pinned to the board.
    The entry door opened and footsteps descended the spiral staircase just ten feet away.
    The doctor’s office had used the override feature? Really? I wasn’t sick enough to warrant that type of treatment.
    My hand trembled, the knife wedged so deeply in the board I couldn’t pry it loose, my skin stuck between the metal blade and plastic board. Feet on the steps turned into legs in white scrubs, hand on the railing.
    “Brynn Aberdie,” the nurse called, her voice low and hypnotic, trained to put people at ease. I picked up the cutting board and held it against my thigh behind the counter, blood running down my bare leg and pooling on the floor.
    She made her descent with a plastic smile, one hand clutching a PCA, the other holding a bottle of medicine. At the bottom of the steps, she reached down, grabbed a medical mask and pulled it over her nose and mouth, the smile disappearing, even from her eyes.
    I puked again, the pain in my right hand so bad I thought I might black out. The room swayed but I placed my left hand on the counter and held myself upright.
    She set the bottle on the counter, either not noticing or not caring about the blood splatter beyond. I braced myself aga inst the countertop—my left hand