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Chapter 1

I wait They keep us in the dark for so long that we lose sense of our eyelids We sleep huddled together like rats, staring out, and dreairls reaches a wall She begins to pound and scream--there’s one too long without speaking, and all we do is bury ourselves more into the dark

The doors open

The light is frightening It’s the light of the world through the birth canal, and at once the blinding tunnel that coirls in horror, not wanting to begin or end

We stus How long has it been--days? Hours?

The big open sky waits in its usual place

I stand in line with the other girls, and ray coats study us

I’ve heard of this happening Where I co time They disappear froirl in hborhood Her whole family disappeared after that, moved away, either to find her or because they knew she would never be returned

Now it’s s could come after that Will I becos have happened There’s only one other option I could become a bride I’ve seen thee brides, on the are of twenty-five

The other girls never make it to the television screen

Girls who don’t pass their inspection are shipped to a brothel in the scarlet districts So, staring into the searing sun because the Gatherers couldn’t be bothered to deal with theirls disappear forever, and all their fairls are taken as young as thirteen, when their bodies are h to bear children, and the virus claieneration by twenty

Our hips are th, our lips pried apart so the irls voirl who screa, terrified I stand firm, determined to be anonymous, unhelpful

I feel too alive in this row of irls with their eyes half open I sense that their hearts are barely beating, whilein the darkness of the truck, we have all fused together We are one nae hell I do not want to stand out I do not want to stand out

But it doesn’t matter Someone has noticed me A man paces before the line of us He allows us to be prodded by the htful and pleased

His eyes green, like two exclaold in his teeth, indicating wealth This is unusual, because he’s too young to be losing his teeth He keeps walking, and I stare at e color ofanyone ever notices

He says soray coats They look at all of us, and then they seeold teeth sain, and then he’s taken to another car that shoots up bits of gravel as it backs onto the road and drives away

The voirls with her; a ray coat follows theirls still between us The ain, and then to us "Go," they say, and we oblige There’s nowhere to go but the back of an open liravel We’re off the road sohway I can hear the distant sounds of traffic

I can see the evening city lights beginning to appear in the distant purple haze It’s nowhere I recognize; a road this desolate is far from the crowded streets back hoirls et into the lilassthat separates us from the driver Just before so inside the van where the reirls were herded

It’s the first of what I knoill be a dozen unshots

I awake in a satin bed, nauseous and pulsating with sweat

My first conscious e of the mattress, where I lean over and vo when so

"Everyone handles the sleep gas differently," he says softly

"Sleep gas?" I splutter, and before I can wipe my mouth on my lacy white sleeve, he hands me a cloth napkin--also lush red

"It coh the vents in the limo," he says

"It’s so you won’t knohere you’re going"

I re us frouely I reh vents in the walls

"One of the other girls," the boy says, as he sprays white foam onto the spot where I vomited, "she almost threw herself out the bedroom , she was so dis-oriented The ’s locked, of course Shatterproof"