Outcast: A Corporation Novel (The Corporation) Read Online Free

someone who's following me. I've been carrying that feeling around with me whenever I step outside. Every time it tickles my neck, I search the shadows, the dark, the streets, the faces of the people around me for anything out of the ordinary, out of place, or overly familiar. Every time, I come up empty-handed. Just like now.
    Papa was right, but I’d never tell him so. It’s not safe for me to be out alone right now. It’s not safe for anyone. People have been going missing. At their work shift one day, and then, overnight, just gone. It’s the strangest and scariest thing. It’s only been men, but it has everyone on high alert. There are more Guards present, making our lives hell, trying to find out what’s going on. If anyone has any theories, they’re keeping their mouths firmly clamped because I haven’t heard any—not even from my sewing circle.
    I can't see far, but I can't see anything in what I can see. I roll my shoulders back a few times, trying to get rid of the feeling. 
    I weave around chunks of fallen buildings and skirt darker stains in the already dark road—I know they're potholes. What I don't know is how far down they go. I try to avoid the crunch of glass when I see the jagged angles and edges glint with captured moonlight.
    Finally, I'm here. The same Gate I waited outside when Journey went to pick up Kerick's Jatis gift. That feels like a lifetime ago. Someone else’s lifetime.
    I stare up at the large, stone and metal structure. The pale blue light pulses brightly in the inky predawn morning. My skin prickles as the small hairs all over my body tingle and lift. But not from the electricity. I don't even register that anymore. This jolt pulsing through my body is pure adrenaline. My breathing quickens and my mouth becomes too wet but at the same time, unbearably dry. I purse my lips and clench and unclench my fists a few times, trying to pump up my courage.
    I have an untested theory. I think that when I almost died from my faulty Mark, it changed. I don't think it works the same way anymore and I have yet to decide if that's good or bad. And to what extent it’s “broken” I have no idea. But I'm not here to test just my Mark.
    Not soon after I woke up from being sick, a small package was delivered along with our firewood one day. It was nestled into the stack, it's brown, inconspicuous paper wrapping the perfect camouflage against a sideways glance or brief scan. I'm always the one who brings the firewood into the house after the ration delivery, it's my chore. Papa never did it. Neither did Ajna. It's always only been me. That’s how I knew the present was mine.
    I slipped it into my pocket, put the firewood in the corner of our living room, and hurried into the bathroom, where I locked the door behind me. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I looked at the parcel carefully; turning it around, end over end, looking for clues. I couldn’t find any. No writing, no name.
    The paper was wrinkled and blotched with what looked like oil smudges. I ran my finger along the seam on the underside, splitting the paper apart, and gently lifted the lid. A folded piece of paper rested on top. I opened it. “For your endeavors, as fruitless and suicidal as they may be.” I set it aside and looked at the thin paper that wrapped whatever this gift was. The palms of my hands had begun to sweat and my neck was getting hot. I rubbed my thumbs over the pads of my fingers and slowly peeled back the paper.
    Sitting in the box, wrapped and displayed as if it were a priceless gem, was a rough cut piece of what looked like leathered human skin. I knew it was human because I was staring down at a Mark. And not just any Mark. By the swirls and lines, this was an Upper Caste Mark. It had been on the wrist of someone important. And now it was sitting in a box on my lap.
    There were a handful of people who knew I had a Black Market Tattoo, and even fewer who knew it had been faulty. Whose arm had this come from? I