Reboot by Amy Tintera Read Free Book Online Page A

bright eyes bored into mine.
    “Ever?” I whispered.
    She lunged at me and I scrambled out of bed and across the room. She bared her teeth as she turned to look for me.
    I pressed my back to the wall as she approached, my heart beating faster than the time twenty townspeople had chased after me with lit torches and various kitchen knives. I’d been stabbed multiple times before I managed to outrun them, but somehow a weaponless, growling Ever was scarier.
    “Ever!” I said, louder this time, and I ducked below her arm as she lunged at me again.
    I ran across her bed and dove for the call button. I pushed it repeatedly, frantically, until Ever threw herself on top of me. Her fingers closed around my neck and I gasped, pushing her off with all my strength.
    She slammed into the glass wall and sprang to her feet, tilting her head to the side as if examining her prey. I balled my fists, the heat of a fight bursting through my body. She charged at me and I dropped to my knees, grabbing one of her ankles.
    She smashed to the ground with a yelp and I twisted her leg until it cracked. She let out a scream that must have woken the whole wing. She came for me again, trying to balance on one leg, so I broke that one, too.
    She collapsed flat on her back, whimpering slightly. I sat down on my bed, looking at the door. The humans must have been on their way.
    But by the time both of Ever’s legs had healed they still hadn’t come. I broke them again before she could get to her feet, covering my ears with my hands when she began yowling.
    They never came.
    They must have known. Those human bastards must have known that Ever was losing it, that she attacked me, that I would have to stay up all night, again, to watch her, even after she passed out.
    They knew and they didn’t care.
    I shouldn’t have been surprised—Reboots were property, not people—but I felt the anger clenching at my chest anyway. I had always been afforded a little more leeway, a little extra respect because of my number and my track record.
    But they didn’t care what happened to us.
    The people of the slums knew HARC didn’t care a lick for them. I’d known it, as a child. HARC might have been a “savior” to the last generation, to the humans they’d helped fight the Reboot war, but not to those of us starving and dying in the slums.
    After I became a Reboot, they fed and clothed me and I thought they respected me as the best. I thought maybe they weren’t so bad.
    Maybe I was wrong.
    When morning came I left the room before Ever stirred, but as I walked into the showers after my run I found myself searching for her in the sea of Reboots. A few gave me odd looks, which I ignored. I needed to talk to her and this was the only way.
    Ever wouldn’t know that I broke her legs four times last night. She wouldn’t know what they did to her.
    Not unless I told her.
    She came out of the changing room wearing only a towel. She stopped and looked at me curiously. I gestured for her to continue and she did, stepping behind a curtain and snapping it closed.
    I took a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching and darted behind the curtain with her.
    She turned around and arched an eyebrow at me, a little smile at the edge of her mouth. I blushed as I took a step back, hitting the curtain.
    “Hi,” she said. It was more of a question, and her smile grew as she hiked her towel farther up her chest.
    “There’s something wrong with you,” I blurted out.
    “What do you mean?” Her smile faded.
    “You . . . you’re having nightmares or something. You’ve been screaming at night and you attacked me.”
    A gasp escaped her throat just before she hit the ground. Huge sobs racked her body as I stood there frozen. I didn’t know what to think of that response. It seemed a gross overreaction.
    Unless she knew what was going on.
    I knelt down beside her. “Ever.”
    She continued to cry, rocking back and forth on her knees with her hands over her