Chapter 47

Inside, my emotions raged. Wasn’t that what everyone else did in the Colony? What I had done before I stopped taking the pills? Just sat and waited for life to be handed to me, waited to do as I was told. If the Colony’s Code wasn’t enforced here, of all places, why couldn’t I stop living by their rules here, as well?

With a sigh, the Overseer sat back and crossed his legs. He looked at me in an unsettling way, and I let my gaze roam around the featureless room just to avoid meeting his eyes. Finally he spoke again. “Ask me anything,” he said. “Anything at all. Nothing is off-limits here.”

Off-limits.The word made me think of the Elder log I had been scrolling through just moments before the Officers took me from my class. So, despite all the questions inside me, the one that made it out was, “What does the X mean?”

His brow furrowed and he frowned. I could tell my question unsettled even him. “What?”