Free The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett

energyof our new world, and it is different, better, yet exactly the same as they had imagined. Everything we learned in the cottages to survive—how to hunt, to cook, to be self-sufficient—must now be hidden in the real world. We are not supposed to be able to take care of ourselves. Kids our age are not even supposed to want to. There are high fives and hurrahs. I hear someone in front say that our real test isn’t our ability to kill; it’s our ability to make friends, to pretend to care about our clothes, our homework, learning how to drive cars, and thinking about colleges.
    â€œHere’s to our pretend futures,” Davis says, raising an imaginary glass in his hand.
    â€œTo our pretend futures,” everyone echoes.
    The bus roars with laughter.
    This is it. This is everything , and I make myself smile with them, press my face to the window. I want to be as happy as all the other sleepers. I don’t want to sit here missing the familiarity of the past.
    When we first found out we would be sleepers, I used to imagine a horror story. It was always the same one, which left only one version of me alive, but it was the wrong one. There would be a battle of good and evil, and the good one of us would prevail. She, and never me. I was always dead, but thatwas not the worst part. In my story no one would ever know. She would go on living, and I would be the one forgotten, lost, because there was never enough of me to begin with. I had not left enough of an impression in the world. I would think these things and then shake my head quickly mid-thought. “My name is Lirael Harrison,” I would say, snapping my fingers. “I am fourteen years old.” My name is Lirael Harrison.
    I think that sometimes we walk toward the stories we have already written for ourselves, or perhaps they are forewarnings of the things that are coming. Perhaps, deep down inside, we already know how our whole lives will play out, everything has been decided, and I am already dead somewhere.
    I jolt awake when Gray says, “Lira,” softly on the bus. I open my eyes, see him turned around in the seat in front of me, concern making his eyebrows furrow. My look must be the same as the one he gave me in the training room because for the longest flicker of a moment I do not understand who he is, and then I do. I get the impression that this is not the first time he has called me either. He looks tired, but he leans in closer, as if he has forgotten all about yesterday, as if I am in a bad enough state for this moment alone to matter. Edith is staring at me, too, and that is when I notice how cold I am. That I am shaking. The hand wearing the wire shudders themost, as if it might be trying to remove itself because it already knows that it will kill another girl today. It might as well be screaming: “You are afraid.” I’ve been twirling the wire on my wrist so hard and for so long that there is a bruise forming.
    â€œWhat should we do?” Edith asks. They’re talking about me as if I am not here.
    â€œShe’s fine,” her brother says, but he doesn’t turn back to the front, just watches me. “Think about something else, Lira.”
    Except that there’s nothing else to think about.
    I sit on both my hands. I stare straight ahead and pretend that that is all there is: the road and the journey without any destination. About five kids are left on the bus when it finally stops for me, and this is what I want to be able to say: that I found her in a tree, in a green dress and black rain boots. She did not see me coming. She did not notice the way I slid the wire from my wrist and unwound it until it was long and strong enough to wrap around her neck. I want to say that there was murder in my eyes. I want to say that I did not feel fourteen for the first time in my life. But I did. I did, and I do.
    My training never presented the possibility that my alternate would see my face