The Girl Who Dared to Think 2: The Girl Who Dared to Stand (The Girl Who Dared #2)

The Girl Who Dared to Think 2: The Girl Who Dared to Stand (The Girl Who Dared #2)

Bella Forrest





1





Before the Tower, history was riddled with stories about humanity defying the status quo. Regimes would come and go, nations would be united and then divided, treaties would be brokered and broken… The list went on and on, each generation inventing new ways to seize power, fight power, restructure power. The goal was always the same: change what you didn’t like into something you did.

Before the End and the Tower, humanity fought against tyranny, battled their oppressors, and their tales and deeds became noteworthy enough to survive despite the history we lost—kept alive by people who didn’t seem to want to fight anything anymore.

But I sure as hell did.

I swung helplessly between several sets of hands, unable to tell if there were only two people carrying me, or four, thanks to the black cloth bag covering my face and neck. The sound of heavy boots on the metal floor of the halls I was being unceremoniously slung through told me there were too many to fight.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to.

I had been in the middle of trying to wrap my head around the fact that my boyfriend was now being inhabited by the AI predecessor to Scipio—the master AI that controlled most of the day-to-day life of the Tower. My version of the AI—not that I could claim ownership in any way—was one I had discovered in a sealed office after narrowly avoiding death (or worse) at the hands of Devon Alexander, Champion of the Knights. Who had just been killed by Leo (my AI). Who was currently living inside of Grey’s (my boyfriend’s) body.

It had been a busy day. Days. Weeks? Scipio kill me, had this mess been going on for months?

It was hard to even remember at this point, so much had happened. And was still happening.

I shifted and wriggled. My knees, hips, and shoulders were all beginning to feel the strain of being dangled between people like this.

“Be still,” a male voice said.

“Then let me down to walk,” I grunted, continuing to struggle. “C’mon, Lacey, this is ridiculous. And it’s starting to hurt.”

I didn’t use her honorific, although I should have: she was the head of the Mechanics Department, which meant I should refer to her as Engineer Green. And I knew she was there—only a few seconds had passed since I heard her voice telling me to calm down. Or at least I thought it had only been a few seconds. To be honest, my head was still reeling from the fight that I’d just been a part of back in the Medica.

Devon had almost killed me. I shuddered, recalling the violent and angry look in his dual-colored eyes, and tried to steel my stomach against the creeping anxiety. My neck ached, and I knew I was going to have bruises there, imprints of his fingers that would remind me of how close I had come to death. Even after they faded, I knew the memory would continue to haunt me for a long time.

Scipio help me, I wanted nothing more than to curl up in Grey’s arms and cry on his shoulder. He’d listen—he was good at that. I craved the warm feel of him against me.

But even that thought broke my heart. Devon had shorted out Grey’s net in the fight, using his baton to fry the strands of silicon fibers that stretched over Grey’s cerebral cortex. I’d seen the brain scan afterward—the black, cracked tissue that should have been a bright, shiny pink. It had looked like cracks radiating around the outside of a bowl. Cracks wide and cavernous enough that it seemed like it would never be reassembled.

Leo said that he could repair the damage, using the special net that Lionel Scipio—his creator, and founder of the Tower itself—had designed. He’d downloaded himself into Grey’s net to help heal the damage to Grey’s brain and recover his mind. He’d done it to save Grey, and I appreciated the gesture, especially since he’d potentially sentenced himself to death in the process—because if we couldn’t find a place to put him once he was done healing Grey, he would die.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t wish that Grey were with me right now, instead of Leo wearing Grey’s body.

“Lacey’s gone,” the voice said, and I blinked away the tears that had started to form. I had gotten caught up in my sadness and fear—and had forgotten that I was still in the middle of being kidnapped. There was a keen sense of disappointment, followed by irritation, both caused by the same thought: Lacey being gone did not help get any of my questions answered. Nor did it tell me where they were taking me—or what their plans were.

And why was she gone? What was she doing that necessitated her attention while her people were moving a known fugitive and murderer across the Tower?

“Just let me stand up and walk,” I replied, recalling the thread of conversation. “And seriously, if this is all meant to help us, can we lose these black bags? We’re enemies of the Tower. We’re certainly not in a position to reveal your identities and have it be believable.”

There were a few chuckles at my statement, and I smiled in response. If I could get these guys to laugh, then that meant they had a sense of humor. People with a sense of humor were good people, but rare in the Tower. The ones I knew from experience would generally see reason. I just hoped my hypothesis proved to be correct.

“Well, no. The bag is there to keep our identities from you entirely,” the voice replied, still thick with wry humor. “If we have to follow you in the future, it’s better you don’t know our faces.”