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I’m interested. What format is the arc in?!
Great! The format is digital - I have epub, mobi and PDF, all available here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/qp6cj4wcx9
Download your copy: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/qp6cj4wcx9
Tonight, seventeen-year-old Evalee is scheduled to die.
She’s planned her celebration for weeks, and other than leaving her sister Gracelyn behind, she’s ready. The Directorate says this is how it should be, and she trusts them, as all its citizens do. So tonight she dresses up, she has a party, and she dances. Then she goes to sleep for the last time … except, the next morning, Evalee wakes up.
Gracelyn is a model Directorate citizen with a prodigious future ahead. If she could only stop thinking about the shuffling from Evalee’s room on her departure morning. Even wondering if something went wrong is treasonous enough to ruin her. If she pulls at the thread, the entire careful life the Directorate set for her could unravel into chaos.
Swept away by rebels, Evalee must navigate a future she didn’t count on in a new, untidy world. As the Directorate’s lies are stripped away, she becomes determined to break Gracelyn free from its grasp—before Gracelyn’s search for the truth proves her to be more unruly than she’s worth to the Directorate.
CHAPTER 1
This is how I hope they remember me. Bathed in rainbow-bright lights, dotted in glitter, the tulle of my favorite dress swooshing around me as I bound through the pounding music on the dance floor. My cheeks flushed. Heart thudding. Alive.
That’s the point, after all.
Tonight is my departure party.
We’ve finally gotten past the terrible, emotional departure rituals – the look back at my life’s highlights, my speech of goodbyes. My final hours are passing too fast, but I’m relieved these rituals are behind me – I had to fill them out with fudged memories to draw out softened, saccharine sentiments, the edges sanded down. I had to stretch out my short life to fit the typical time frames. Most departure parties have to encompass a rich long life of a hundred years plus. Tonight, all I’ve got to cover is seventeen.
It’s not enough.
But what do you do?
I know what you don’t do. You don’t sulk on your last night on this planet. Not when it won’t do you any good and only devastate the few people you really care about. No chance. You take your remaining fun where you can get it. Or at least, you try not to ruin it for everyone else.
So I dance. I let the thudding bass roll over me and drown out my thoughts.
The lights of the Quad’s event center are dimmed, transforming the great room and its arched white beams into splashes of moving colors. Rainbow-bright lights drift from floor to ceiling to windows, blocking out the Quad beyond, pink fading to purple, fading to blue, fading to green. The music turns up – never more than the maximum recommended volume, of course, careful to stay within Directorate recommendations for optimal health. My guests – neighbors, former teachers, my peers from across our Quad – stand from their tables on cue, and the dance floor begins to fill. Glitter drops over us like the night mist that keeps the plant life within the Quad dome green. Everyone smiles and bobs along to the beat. I mirror them, determined to keep my own smile in place, no matter what.
My little sister Gracelyn – the one person I actually want here right now – weaves through the shuffling crowd until she finds me. She smiles too, though her eyes glisten with a hint of tears at their edges. No, don’t cry. That’s what kills me the most about all this. I can’t stand to see her hurting. I take her hand and squeeze it, pulling my smile even bigger, and twirl her around. When she turns back to me, the light is back in her eyes, even if a hint of tears still glistens in the corners. We jump and twist to the beat through the glitter raining from the ceiling, both of us determined to make the most of every minute I have left.
Too soon, curfew nears. The music turns down. The people settle down in response, and the Quad’s mayor takes the mic.
“Thank you, Evalee Henders, for the gift of your presence in this Quad,” she says, following the script of the ritual. As I take my place next to her on the stage, I look out at the event hall. Expressions have turned somber. “We have one last gift to you. May your passage be as peaceful and painless as your life.”
She hands me a small white box. I open it and look at the translucent pill every citizen takes to trigger their departure, the serum sloshing inside it. A quake of fear washes over me, and I hope no one can tell. The whole point of departure is to avoid all that, the pain and struggle of whatever death would have waited for me around the next corner. Departure isn’t the thing to be afraid of, I remind myself. Not departing is.
All the same, my heartbeat speeds up until everything starts to turn blurry. I blink hard, trying to push the panic down. Young as I am, this night will be talked about for years. The last thing I want is for something bad to be said about the way I went. I want to be remembered as strong. Brave.
I force my fear deep into my gut, nod in acknowledgment of the gift, and push it into my mouth before I can think anymore. Even as its sweetness dissolves on my tongue and the serum releases, a calming buzz quells my anxiety – the first taste of its promise to slowly pull me into a deep, everlasting sleep over the course of the night.
Hands raise in applause and everyone cheers, a final affirmation of my life. Then, the normal overhead lights switch on, and the magic of the color-bright dance floor dies. Like a spell has been lifted, my guests turn away, gathering their things and chitchatting politely as they file towards the exit.
After all, everyone else – whose lives will go on tomorrow – must get their full night of sleep to maintain optimal health and happiness.