Defy the Dark Read Online Free

wouldn’t have gotten this chance to rewrite our history in the dark, the way it was supposed to be.
    My fingers curl around the rock. It feels good and heavy in my hand.

Aprilynne Pike
    Nature
    I n the end, it’s because of my hips.
    The nurse doing my physical looks up from the icy calipers pressing against the skin fold at my waist. “When did you eat last?”
    Caught.
    â€œMonday,” I mumble. When scores were released. There’s no reason to lie; it’s too late to change anything.
    â€œI want you to go right to the cafeteria after this, do you understand? Eat something soft—yogurt, soup—otherwise you’ll have a terrible bellyache.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I whisper.
    She’s still for a few moments before she loops a cold, plastic tape measure around me, pulling it firm but not tight across my navel. “You know,” she says without looking me in the eye, “it’s not about fat; it’s your pelvic bones. They’re perfect for a Nature.” Her hands find my pelvic ridges and grip them almost possessively. I suppress the urge to pull away, to get her hands off me. “Good oblong girdle, wide, but with a generous depth—we’ll have to do some measurements via ultrasound to be sure, but I predict a perfect-sized outlet.”
    â€œMy scores are high,” I blurt, not wanting my fate to be fixed yet.
    â€œNot sure it matters,” the nurse says, and marks down numbers for my waist, my bust, my hips. “These hips are going to subtract a lot of points.”
    â€œThey’re very high,” I insist. It’s a lie.
    She laughs. “Please. Can’t be all that high if you starved yourself to get your measurements down, can they?”
    My face burns red and I want this physical over. I just want to leave.
    And my stomach is growling.
    Traitor.
    Three and a half more minutes drag by before the nurse smiles. “You can go now,” she chirrups in a tone that makes me want to strike her.
    I grit my teeth, hating that I’ve succumbed to these violent feelings again. I’ve had a lot of them lately—it wasn’t something I ever struggled with before.
    Before the scores.
    â€œI don’t know how you did on your exams, of course,” the nurse says, distracted as she writes more numbers on my chart. “But I suspect we’ll see you tomorrow for that ultrasound. Don’t fill up your schedule, just in case.” Her busybody hands sweep me out the office door, quickly but not unkindly, and I shift to the side as another girl from my class gives me a nervous smile and takes my place in the examination room.
    The door closes and I’m alone in the foyer. “They’re quite high,” I whisper to no one.
    But the nurse is right—they’re not high enough.
    Last year I was fifteen, top quarter of my class, headed straight for the life of a Nurture. I had just finished a growth spurt that stretched me tall—five nine, with a slim, boyish figure I expected to keep. Everything was perfect.
    But evidently my growth spurt was just the beginning, and I learned firsthand the definition of “late bloomer.” In the last six months I’d gone from flat and skinny to curvy. I didn’t think much about it until I couldn’t zip up my jeans and had to go to the clothing emporium for new pants for the second time in three months. I had to fill out a special form and get my nutrition and body fat analyzed. But my fat percentage had barely changed. I just had hips and breasts now.
    With the new clothes came the realization that those hips could ruin everything.
    It’s been almost a thousand years since the Bust, when birth rates in the more developed parts of the world dwindled to the point that societies could no longer support themselves and collapsed. The economic devastation that followed was nothing compared to the war for resources that wrecked the environment and