Free Naomi Grim: Complete Novel (Parts 1-4) (The Silver Scythe Chronicles) by Tiffany Nicole Smith

we have to."
         "Why
do you need me here? Why was it so important for Colden to bring me back?"
         "You
should get a good's night rest. You can sleep in my bedroom, I'm pulling an all-nighter,"
Dunstan replied.
         He
clearly wasn't going to answer my question, and I was too tired to argue with
him. I turned to leave the room.
         "By
the way Naomi, you're never going back there. We're your family now."
Dunstan closed the door behind me and he and Colden stayed in there talking for
a long time.
     
     
        

Chapter 4 4
     
    The
next morning, I woke up early to take a walk. The place was flooded with new
faces, all the prisoners and Mill workers who had survived the riots. I heard
around seventy of them had been killed the night before. It occurred to me that
the Outskirts or Litropolis had been their home to begin with. I imagined that
many teary-eyed reunions had taken place that morning.
         I
saw two men pulling a cart full of guns and other weapons."Where did those
come from?" I asked Nigel, who stood on the road with me.    I liked Nigel,
and I was glad he had escaped from Gattica. He didn't belong there.
         "The
prison and Nowhere's weapon collection," he answered.
         "Wow."
         "We
also got some lifestones, but not very many. They had the Mill pretty heavily
guarded."
         I
would imagine so. It was the most important place in Nowhere. Lifestones—I
could sure use a few of those. I'd never known that feeling before—the need to
have the lifestones so I could live, yet it was how the Foragers felt all the
time. I made a promise to myself that I would stop using the term Forager.
         "If
they try to come over that wall, we'll be ready," Nigel said.
         I'd
come to the conclusion that I wouldn't be going over the wall anymore either.
         "So,
we're just going to wait and see what happens?" I asked.
         Nigel
nodded. "Dunningham needs to negotiate. We haven't given him a list of
demands. We only want one thing, to be assigned deaths so we can collect
lifestones, too. It's our right. All we want is what we should have in the
first place." Nigel patted me on the back. "So, this is home for you
now. It's not so bad. You might even meet yourself a nice fellow."
         I
laughed even though that was the last thing I was thinking about.
         "Naomi,
walk with me," Dunstan said from behind us. I hadn't even noticed him
approach. I said good-bye to Nigel and followed Dunstan.
         "Where
are we going?"
         "I
have something I want to show you."
         As
we passed, everyone stopped and respectfully acknowledged Dunstan. It was
nothing compared to the way the Grims of Nowhere acted around Dunningham, but I
could tell the people revered him. It occurred to me that this was the first
time I'd seen Dunstan leave his cottage since I had been in the Outskirts.
         Dunstan
brought me to the same building Colden had brought me to the other day—the one
with the dying hybrids. I had no desire to be in that place again, but I
figured Dunstan might tell me more about this experiment he needed me for.
         The
stench of rot hit me as soon as we stepped inside. We walked quickly past the
cots filled with the dying. A man in a white coat who was walking around
checking for pulses greeted Dunstan and nodded at me. Dunstan returned the
hello.
         We
walked into a part of the building I never knew existed, filled with all sorts
of monitors and screens. Glass cabinets were stacked with medicine and medical
supplies. It looked like the hospitals I'd seen in the human world. I had been
to plenty of those.
         Dunstan
took some kind of card from his pocket and slid it through s metal object with
a slit. The door slid open revealing a white, cold, and sterile room. Two beds
with white sheets stood in the middle and several metal stands with bags
hanging from them. It looked like a quarantine room.