Author:
M.J. Swenson has been writing stories since elementary school and earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota. Besides writing and reading, M.J. also enjoys playing music and video games.

I woke up feeling that something had changed.

I blinked twice, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and glanced at the clock beside my bed. It read 6:38, as it did every morning. I slid out of bed and moved to my dresser, where I opened the third drawer and pulled out a dark blue V-necked shirt with short sleeves and a dark blue pair of pants. I changed in front of the mirror and examined myself. I looked just as I had the last time I’d looked in the mirror: long, straight, dark brown hair; blue eyes; an absurdly straight and narrow nose; the slight scar at the edge of my eyebrow. The scar whose origin I still couldn’t remember.

Familiar Assassins

A voice in my ear startled me, and I had to keep my hand from flying to my sword once again. "Don't pay any attention to her," the voice said. "She's liked causing trouble since before we rescued her from Hex."


I turned and faced Dalton, scars and swords and all. "You rescued her from Hex?" I asked.


"Sure did," he said. "She got there because she liked breaking rules. Not because she felt it was morally necessary to disagree with them, but because she found it fun to break them."


"That doesn't make sense . . ." I glanced across at Amabel, who had moved farther from me and was now engaged in a conversation with some of the other rebels.


"Yeah, I think there's actually a condition that causes it," Dalton sighed, following my gaze. "But even though it's likely that the System knows about that, they insist on treating it like serial crimes. Amabel finally got locked up when she was twelve. She's been with us since."


Chapter 45