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BY LAUREN NICOLLE TAYLOR
CLEAN TEEN PUBLISHING, INC.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Woodlands
Copyright © 2013 by: Lauren Nicolle Taylor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any ma
Clean Teen Publishing
PO Box 561326
The Colony, TX 75056
www.cleanteenpublishing.com
For more information about our content disclosure, please utilize the QR code above with your smart phone or visit us at www.cleanteenpublishing.com.
For my friend Chloe,
without whom The Woodlands would never have
made it out of the desk drawer.
And for my husband Michael,
you are my Joseph.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
BEFORE
When I was eight years old, I got the distinct and unsettling impression I was unsuited to life in Pau Brazil. That my life would go off like the single firework on Signing Day. A brilliant burst of shimmering color and noise that exploded in the sky momentarily, then disappeared into the black night air.
A slip of yellow paper shot under the door in the evening, spi
Citizens scrambled to make their lawns more perfect than they were before. Uniforms were pressed and cleaned. All the children were expected to line up around the edges of the center Ring and await the great man himself.
I was excited, but my excitement had an edge of terror to it—this was a Superior. My father warned me to not get my hopes up.
“He’s just a man, like the rest of us,” my father said as he knelt down to adjust my oversized uniform and tighten my ribbon.
My mother tsked and fussed around in the kitchen. “Pelo, don’t say things like that to her. I don’t want you filling her head with your ridiculous ideas.”
His eyes darted to her for a second but then he locked on me. “Ideas are never ridiculous. Ideas are just that, ideas. Putting them into practice… now that’s when things get ridiculous,” he smirked.
I drew my eyebrows together, confused. He patted my head and took my hand. “C’mon, let’s get this farcical procession over with.”
“Pelo!” My mother’s angry foot stomp clacked on the tiles.
He put his hands up in the air in surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll behave,” he said, and then he winked at me. I beamed up at him. He was a shiny hurricane and I was happy to be swept away.
They were going to choose a child to come forward and ask Grant a question. Our nervous teachers had given each student a card with an i
In my mind the Superiors must have been super-people. Beautiful, tall, and powerful.
I could barely contain my disappointment when Superior Grant stepped out of the helicopter. He was regular sized and a little overweight. He was handsome, but not like my father. It was the kind of handsomeness that required maintenance. Grey, slicked-back hair, manicured beard. He had the black military uniform on. Gold tassels swung festively in the wind created by the slowing chopper blades.
Despite this, I still wanted him to pick me. I leaned into the circle, standing on my tiptoes. My parents were a few rows behind me, heads bowed solemnly.
I kept my eyes down when Grant came close, trying my hardest not to bounce up and down like some of the other kids who were reeling with nervous energy. When the boots stopped in front of me, I stopped breathing, still staring at my feet.
A policeman tapped me on the shoulder sharply with a baton and said, “You. Ask your question.” I couldn’t believe it. And very suddenly didn’t want to.
I rubbed my shoulder and looked up into Superior Grant’s face, taking in his tight forehead and even tighter jaw. I tipped my head to the side, wondering what made him so special. When I realized I shouldn’t be staring, I cast my eyes towards my shaking cardboard question, barely able to see the typed words that seemed to want to jump off the page. I opened my mouth to speak but the way he was eyeing me made me freeze, the question sitting on my lips like an un-blown bubble. It was like I had suddenly grown extra limbs or had spots all over my face because his nose scrunched up and his eyes watered like he thought I was diseased.
He took a step closer and peered into my face. I leaned away, the musty, vinegary smell of his breath overpowering. “What’s wrong with her eyes?” he said in a strange drawn out twang, like ‘whaat’s wrawng with her eyeees?’
I felt anger rising inside me like an over-boiling pot. I glared at him. My father had taught me that my eyes were nothing to be ashamed of. It was uncommon but it didn’t mean there was anything wrong with me. I had one blue eye and one brown. So did my father. Grant raised an eyebrow, unperturbed by my narrowed eyes and reddening face. He placed his hand on my eyelid and lifted it, straining my eye socket. Then he moved to the other eye and did the same. I shook my head free of him and before I knew what I was doing, I smacked his hand away.