The Bleeding Crowd
Read The Bleeding Crowd Online
Authors: Jessica Dall
Tags: #drugs, #battle, #survival, #rebellion, #virgin
by Jessica Dall
Published by
Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
The Bleeding Crowd
Copyright 2012 by Jessica Dall
ISBN: 978-1-61235-458-3
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this
book are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover Art by Becca Barnes
The Bleeding Crowd
Jessica
Dall
At 20, Dahlia has never seen a man, let alone
talked to one. And why should she want to? Society has been rid of
them for hundreds of years and things have never been better. When
she meets Ben, however, it seems more and more like the society she
knows has been based on a lie. Pulled into rebellion brewing not
far under the surface, Dahlia is forced to rethink everything she
ever thought she knew, as her world turns more dangerous that she
ever thought it could be.
To Kristin and all our late-night
plots for world domination.
Table of Contents
Prologue
The investigator bit back the bile in her
throat. She had seen some gruesome deaths in her line of work, but
the late Prime Director’s death was something else entirely.
Suspended in the air from one of the beams in his study, Thomas
Dumas was run through with a sharpened broom handle piercing the
center of his chest. The investigator had to look away, navigating
around the puddle of blood collecting on the floor, still dripping
slowly off the back of the handle.
Her co-worker didn’t seem as phased. “That
took a whole lot of force, getting a broom that far into a grown
man.”
She grunted, not trusting herself to
talk.
“It was planned. I can tell you that much,”
her coworker said.
“Have we had any luck reaching the First
Lady?”
“She’s at some spa or something.” The
co-worker waved his hand dismissively. “They’re sending someone to
pick her up now. How much to do you want to bet this was
political?”
“I don’t like to bet on murder victims,” the
investigator clipped her words.
“But, if you did, totally political,
yeah?”
The investigator sighed. “He was the PD. I
think that’s a pretty safe bet.”
“Question is, why a broom...?” the coworker
began.
The investigator looked up, her stomach
twisting. She turned towards the door. She just wasn’t hardened
enough.
Chapter One
The alarm bells changed from their soft
tinkling to a persistent ring.
Dahlia released a heavy breath, turning over,
trying to gather the willpower to actually get out of bed. Whoever
had thought to put the alarm controls across the room had been a
genius. An evil genius. She would be asleep again by now if they
weren’t.
She levered herself out of bed, reaching the
pad on the wall faster than she’d have thought possible. She hit
the off button for the alarm and then pressed the button for her
curtains to open and to lighten the glass without thinking about
it. The gauzy white curtains slid open with a soft mechanical buzz
while the glass behind them changed from the smoky tint she kept
most the time for privacy to a clear view of the courtyard.
Outside the world looked exactly the same as
it did every day. Dahlia sighed. It figured. A few more buttons and
the window turned pale silver; a picture of a sun partially hidden
by clouds appeared,
28 C
showing up in royal blue text next
to it. She pursed her lips. Mild for August.
Another bell chimed.
She was already running late, but she just
couldn't bring herself to care. The large chest of drawers sitting
against the wall seemed to mock her. She flung open the closet
doors, glancing at the mirror before looking at the cyan-colored
clothes. Grabbing the outfit closest to her, she moved into the
bathroom and checked the time illuminated in little blue numbers in
the bottom right corner of her mirror.
Dahlia released another sigh. It was late and
getting later. If they’d give her slack one day a year, this would
be it. She examined herself, but she didn’t look any older. A year
had passed, so she had to be, but she looked about the same as she
had the day before. And the day before that, if memory served. She
was still the same average girl, with her blue eyes and straight
brown hair. Cassandra insisted that she was prettier than
‘average’, but with any objective measurement—height: 174cm,
weight: 62kg—she was exactly average.
Heat hit her as she stepped out the door, not
scorching, but still uncomfortable and sticky after being in her
climate-controlled room. She had to admit she wouldn’t be sad when
autumn returned and cooled things off again. Cutting across the
grass, Dahlia skirted the perpetually broken fountain in the center
of the courtyard and stepped onto the street.
The door to the villa across from hers
opened, and a familiar redhead in emerald green waved. Cassandra
walked across the street with quick steps. “Happy, happy birthday,
from all of us to you—”
“Shove off.” Dahlia rolled her eyes.
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the
bed.” Cassandra looked Dahlia over. “And here I got you a present
and everything.”
“As long as it’s not age related, I’m more
than happy to open it,” Dahlia said.
Cassandra forced a pout. She always was one
for melodrama. “Aw, are you not happy to be a big girl, Lia?”
“I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday,”
Dahlia replied. “The weather is still hot and unbearable. I’m still
heading off to work. I’m still standing here every morning talking
to
you.
I don’t see how the 365th day after the day I turned
nineteen is any different from the 364th day—or how the 365th day
after I turned eighteen was any different than the day before that,
for that matter.”
“Or how your birth was important?” Cassandra
raised an eyebrow.
“Well...” Dahlia considered the question. “I
suppose that was important. At least to me. In the grand scheme of
things, I doubt my birth is all that—”
Cassandra sighed loudly. “Only you could be
this depressing on your birthday.”
“What can I say? I have developed a sincere
dislike for pomp and circumstance as of late.”
A smirk answered that. “This dislike wouldn’t
have come from nerves about tonight, would it?”
“Nope,” Dahlia clipped her answer and looked
down the street.
Cassandra was an interesting friend if
nothing else. Where Dahlia averaged out to be pretty much, well,
average, Cassandra couldn’t help but stand out. She was tall, and,
with her orange-red hair, it was impossible to miss her.
Her friend studied Dahlia for a long moment,
still unable to fully hide her smile. “How long do you think you’re
going to be picking herbs today?”
Dahlia slid her eyes over to Cassandra, not
amused. “It’s my birthday. You really want to get into this?”
Cassandra held her hands up. “I’m just
thinking, the girls were all sort of planning a big lunch thing for
you, so if you could maybe make it a half day... You have all those
vacation hours stockpiled, yeah?”
“You didn’t think about asking earlier in the
week? Or yesterday, even?”
“You know what a crap planner I am.”
Cassandra smiled, shrugging.
The slight squeak of a brake was the only
hint the tram was nearing.
“I’ll consider it.” Dahlia looked up the hill
that led away from the flat plateau they had leveled out for this
level’s villas.
“Come on, Lia.” Cassandra pushed Dahlia’s
shoulder. “You and your lot have already cured cancer, what else do
you really have to do?”
Dahlia smiled to herself. “Find a way to cure
all mental diseases and put you out of a specialty again?”
That made Cassandra laugh. “Well, then it’s
my professional duty to save my specialty and take you out for some
fun long enough to make you forget about whatever you’re stewing
over.”
“It’s your professional duty to heal the
sick.”
“Psh.” Cassandra waved her hands in front of
her. “Don’t get all job description-y with me.”
The tram pulled up with a squeal, the round
silver roof glinting and seeming to hover above the ground.
Supposedly the tram ran on a track, according to the engineers she
had talked to, but it was magnetic or something of the like. They
were just happy to pretend they had made a “hovercraft” it seemed.
A little too happy, in Dahlia’s opinion.
Cassandra stepped onto the tram, taking a
seat near the front. “So you’ll come?”
“Well it’s my party, isn’t it?” Dahlia sat
next to her with a thump. “It wouldn’t be much of a birthday party
without the birthday girl.”
“That’s the spirit,” Cassandra reassured her.
“It will definitely help you get rid of some of those nerves before
tonight.”
“I’m not nervous.” Dahlia stared out the
window.
“Sure about that?”
She didn’t dignify that with a response.
* * * *
By the time Dahlia managed to pull herself
away from the party Cassandra, Audrey, Zoë, and Claire had pulled
together at the last minute, the sun was already low. A light
breeze helped to move some of the moisture away so it didn’t stick
to her skin. She pressed her keycard against the reader outside the
door and walked into the much cooler and drier room. Kicking off
her sandals, she removed her dress to free herself from the sweat
that had soaked through the fabric despite her best efforts on the
walk home.
She hardly ever walked home. Going to work
was no problem, but coming home was a fifteen-minute walk almost
exclusively uphill. Apparently, the party had muddled her thinking.
Tossing the dress into the laundry chute, she opened her closet and
did a double-take. After twenty years, it should not have come as
such a surprise, but the sudden appearance of emerald green in her
previously cyan closet still threw her. She released a breath. Yep,
she was officially twenty.
It was a common enough, if slightly
intrusive, event in her life. It had happened when she had gone
from White to Silver at five, and then to Rose at ten, and then
Cyan when she moved into medicine. Now she would be in Emerald
until she retired. At least they wouldn’t be going through her
things anymore for decades. Unless something went horribly
wrong.
She tossed her underwear into the chute with
the dress and checked the time. The sun was still above the far
wall of the villa. It wasn’t quite sunset.
The pale numbers on the pad stared at her.
19:27.
She debated it in her head. She had time
enough to shower to get rid of the sweat of the day. She moved
quickly, barely feeling she had gotten wet before stepping out, but
by the time she finished the sun had dipped below the far wall.
Braiding her hair quickly, mostly to give her
something to do, she waited for the rest of the orange-yellow
streaks of light to disappear in the courtyard. Butterflies started
low in her stomach. She shivered, trying to shake the feeling away.
She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t. It was just hard not knowing what
to expect.