Deviants
Authors: Maureen McGowan
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Science Fiction, #Paranormal, #Dystopian
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2013 by Maureen McGowan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skyscape, New York
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477810323
ISBN-10: 1477810323
Book design by Jeanine Henderson
This book is for Tracy Caryl McGowan, taken way too soon
.
Contents
Acknowledgments
I am so lucky to have many fabulous writer friends whom I’ve met online, in writers’ groups, and at conferences. Your support and guidance have been immeasurable. The full list of everyone who’s impacted my publishing journey would require ten pages, but know that I love and appreciate you all. It really does take a village to keep my chin up and my fingers on the keyboard some weeks.
There is no chance that I would have been able to write this novel without the undying support, tough love, and inspirational pushing delivered daily by my awesome critique partners and best buddies: Molly O’Keefe and Sinead Murphy. Ladies, you make every word I write better, and make every day I have you as part of my life a whole lot more fun. You two are my rocks. Thank you to all my critique partners and beta readers who read drafts of the manuscript in whole or in part, especially: Michele Young, Mary Sullivan, Stephanie Doyle, Joanne Levy, Danielle Younge-Ullman, and Bev Katz Rosenbaum. And a special thanks to Kelley Armstrong for agreeing to read a not-yet-polished manuscript.
I will be forever grateful for my fabulous agent Charlie
Olsen at InkWell Management. He was enthusiastic about the project right from the query stage—and wasn’t afraid to tell me. He’s become a better cheerleader/supporter/partner than I ever could have hoped for. Thanks go as well to everyone at InkWell, especially Kristan Palmer, Nat Jacks, and Alexis Hurley. I can’t describe how wonderful it feels to know you’re all in my corner.
A huge thank you to everyone at Amazon Publishing: first and foremost to Terry Goodman, for his unending enthusiasm for this series, and for so graciously giving me up for adoption to the east coast. And to Lindsay Guzzardo for her fabulous help in shaping the book and making it stronger. Thanks also to everyone at Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books, especially Margery Cuyler, for her enthusiasm, patience and hand holding through this process. And finally to Jon Fine for offering support and indulging me with 1970’s song lyrics.
While we writers are focused on the words, it’s often a fabulous cover and the design that drives readers to pick up or download the book. To that end, many thanks to Anahid Hamparian and Alex Ferrari for their work on the cover and internal design.
And finally, many thanks to my family and friends for their support and for putting up with me when I’m so buried in my made-up worlds that I disappear into them for weeks on end.
CHAPTER ONE
T
HE AIR AT
the uppermost reaches of Haven is hot and thick with the stench of rat droppings. Small price to pay for free food. Normal girls run screaming when this close to rats, but I can’t afford luxuries like fear.
The sky looms close to our building’s rooftop, and I duck to avoid cracking my head on a beam. If this section of the dome was ever painted blue, the pigment wore off long ago, leaving barely reflective metal panels.
Bent at the waist, I creep forward and scan the less-than-five-foot gap between the roof and the sky. Heat and darkness press in from all sides and sweat trails down my spine. I wish I could carry some form of light, but a lantern would make the rats run. Behind me, something moves.
I crouch deeper and spin.
“Who’s there?” My voice comes out higher than I’d like, and the rats echo with screeches.
A large shadow slides across the roof near an air vent, and I press myself down, gravel digging into my knees and palms. The shadow’s too huge to be cast by a person, but my pulse engulfs my senses, blurring my eyes, filling my ears, clouding my judgment.
I blink and the shadow’s gone; all that’s left is the undulating wave of rats over rats.
Shielding my nose to block the smell, I draw in long breaths.
You’re okay. You’re safe. No one knows
.
If the shadow was a Comp, he’d arrest me, not stalk from the shadows. And by living inside Haven, we’re safe from the Shredders that roam outside the dome.
I’m crazy to imagine danger around every corner, but this sense of being watched has haunted me for the three years since my brother Drake and I became orphans. Growing taller and nearing puberty, my brother’s become thin and needs more meat, so I return to my task.
Focusing on the scritch-scratch of rat claws, I home in on individual rodents—sense each body, each breath.
One skitters into a sliver of light and lifts its head to make eye contact.
Big mistake, Mr. Rat
.
Held in my gaze, the rodent can’t look away. Emotions heighten my senses, and soon I can feel the rat’s rapidly beating heart, hear its blood coursing as adrenaline floods its veins. It’s as if my fingers are pressed to its pulse, my ear to its chest. But they’re not. The sensations build until the rat’s completely under my control.
Crushing my instinct to release the poor creature, I dig
for more useful emotions than pity, emotions I’m certain can kill. I think of the person who hurt me most, who shattered my childhood, who betrayed my trust—who murdered my mother.
I think of my father. I think of the blank look on his face three years ago when the Compliance Officers, in their black masks and body armor, took him away.
Hate and anger crash through an inner door and sizzle like water hitting hot oil. Just the fuel I need. Locked on the rat’s glare, my eyes tingle and sting. My emotions build, and my curse sparks to life at the back of my eyes.
Focusing my power, I picture the rat’s heart, sense it compressing, and will my emotions to squeeze.
The rodent’s eyes widen, its whiskers glisten with humidity, and it opens its mouth to reveal needle-sharp teeth. A shudder traces through me but I can’t back down. I will do this. I must. Drake needs to eat.
The rodent seizes, every muscle stiffening at once. Its heart rate slows, then it gasps and falls on its side, legs twitching in death throes. Sympathy creeps up my throat, but I push it back down; one rat won’t fill Drake’s belly for long. When I’m sure it’s dead, I pull our dinner forward by the tail and find another victim—then another.
I sway forward, nearly losing my balance. To regain control, I close my eyes and rub my thumb along my mother’s wedding band, worn low on my index finger since the day she died. My curse passes, and I slump down to sit. At least this time I didn’t pass out.
As useful as it’s proved for rat hunting, I hate that I’m a
Deviant. Hate it because it makes me dangerous yet puts me in danger. Hate it because it make me different and lets me do things I can’t understand or control. Hate it because it links my DNA to Shredders. But most of all, I hate it because it connects me to my father.
But I’m luckier than most. At least my curse is easy to hide. When my brother’s hits, his skin changes, and I once saw a woman, cornered by the Comps, whose hair turned into barbed spikes. Management believes Deviants threaten the safety of Haven, that we’re one step away from being Shredders. They want us all dead.
I reach for my knife to skin the animals but hear scuffling behind me.
I am being watched
.
Spinning, I back farther into the shadows under the sloped girders of the sky. My ponytail brushes the back of my neck—or was it a rat?—then the light from a portable lantern rises above the roof’s edge, followed by a small body climbing over the side from the rope.
“Glory, you up here?” my friend Jayma whispers.
“Over here.” Relaxing, I creep forward, dropping my dinner, hoping it’ll go unnoticed. Not that I’m afraid she’d report me for contraband rat meat. She’d never do that. She doesn’t like seeing dead rats.
“Wow, nice haul.” Scout steps into her lantern light. Raising my eyebrows, I shoot Jayma a questioning look, and she smiles softly. Scout pulls his hands from his hoodie pockets and rests them on lean thighs as he crouches to examine my catch.
“I got lucky with my net today.” I shift to put the rats in my shadow. “Want one?”
“No thanks.” Scout straightens as far as he can. “I can catch rats on my own. Bigger rats. Those don’t have much meat.”
“Scout has very good aim.” Jayma looks at him like he’s the god of all rat catching, and he puffs out his chest as much as is possible in his hunched-over position.
“Happy hunting then.” I gesture toward the fugitive rats that must have escaped from a farm factory, where rats are raised and slaughtered for food. Or they may have breached the dome from Outside. Out there rats are the only animals that can survive the dust. Rats and Shredders.
Scout pulls out his slingshot, turns, and shoots a small stone into the darkness. Based on the squeaks and skitters, he’s hit something, but it’s not clear whether his strike was lethal. After pulling a crank torch from his pocket, he winds its handle until a faint light glows, then moves forward to investigate. The rats scatter.
“Isn’t he great?” Jayma tucks hair behind her ear, and then turns her lantern’s handle a few times before setting it down on the rooftop between us. She’s got a smudge on her pale, freckled cheek, and I reach over to wipe it with my thumb. It smears.
“What’s on my face?” Her eyes cry distress, then she brings up her sleeve to rub her cheek. “Do you think Scout noticed?”