Savage Run Read Online Free Page A

chances.
Riding by the lavender field, we come to the fresh food market that
borders on downtown—canopy tents with tables lined up along Main
Street. These shops are owned and operated by Advisors, like so
many other small businesses in town. The main difference between
them and Masters is that they can’t vote, they can’t hold political
positions, and they can’t own property. Most Advisors run
businesses, like these, become teachers or work in the service or
hospitality industry.
    Riding past the Culmination Justice
Building—a structure built in the same fashion as the Parthenon,
but made of nothing but glass— I see Savage Run protesters camped
out on the stairs. I recognize several of them—Masters I have at
one point or another delivered medication to.
    Laborers shadow behind their Master,
carrying groceries or their Masters’ personal items. Just as we’re
approaching Michelangelo Street, we bike past a Master beating her
Laborer with a Palka—a short, flexible iron rod commonly used to
remind us of our place. Another Master Douglas. I feel the iron
against the palms of my hands, but like anyone else passing by, I
don’t interfere.
    I steer down a dark side alley: our first
safe place. I can hear glass breaking beneath my tires, but it’s
difficult to avoid. The overhang is making the whole passageway
really dark. We pass an abandoned transporter, and I jump when I
think I see a rat scuttling deeper into the darkness. The closer we
get to the dumpsters, the stronger the smell of rotten fish and
moldy bread becomes, and the harder it is to see even the large
pieces of trash in my way.
    Gemma’s muffled sobs echo against the gray
concrete walls. Once I reach the dumpsters, there’s a narrow ray of
light that shines from above. I stop the bike, and hop off.
    “ Your hands,” Gemma gasps,
climbing off the bike. “And your leg!” I look down at my leg and
the bottom half of my black pantleg is saturated with
blood.
    “ I’m fine.” I stoop down
beside her to look at her wound. The bite isn’t too deep; I’ve seen
much worse than this one. From the looks of it, she probably won’t
need stitches. Not that we’d be able to find a doctor for her. “We
just need to clean it, or it could become infected. Are you hurt
anywhere else?”
    She shakes her head as she wipes a tear from
her bruised cheek.
    “ We’ll be fine.” I say with
a thin smile. I don’t know what possessed me to say such a thing
because I really don’t know that at all.
    “ No, he’ll kill us!” She
buries her face in her hands and moans.
    I wrap my arms around her, noticing that
she’s a mere ghost compared to before, so thin, so fragile, so
weak. When Gemma lived at home with her mother, she was sturdier
and carried a constant smile on her face. Her hair was thick and
golden, but now it’s thin and matted and her cheeks are
sunken—pallid. “The worst is behind us.” But I get a sinking
feeling that we’ve only seen the first of many evils.
    I open my mouth to tell her what I have
planned but words fail me. Gemma has always been the type of person
who knows exactly what to say—just like how she knew what to say
the first time I met her.
    That day I had been delivering medicine for
my father. I was ten, and new to the job. And I didn’t really
understand all the crazy long codes or colors or different types of
bags. Though my Pharmaceutical Scantron did help a lot. Don’t get
me wrong, the training was extremely thorough—a Master would never
send out anyone to another Master without it being up to standards.
Impossibly high standards. Keeping up with all the biking and never
receiving enough food to have the strength when I needed it, I felt
like I was falling farther and farther behind. Yet, there was
simply no other choice than to keep moving and hope—pray—for the
best. If I asked too many questions, I’d receive an angry reprimand
from my supervisor. If I, heaven forbid, was late for a delivery,
and my