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Divided (Dualed Sequel) - Softcover

Buch 2 von 2: Dualed

Chapman, Elsie

 
9780449812983: Divided (Dualed Sequel)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0449812987 ISBN 13: 9780449812983
Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The hunter becomes the hunted. . . .
 
West Grayer is done killing. She defeated her Alternate, a twin raised by another family, and proved she’s worthy of a future. She’s ready to move on with her life.
 
The Board has other plans. They want her to kill one last time, and offer her a deal worth killing for. But when West recognizes her target as a ghost from her past, she realizes she’s in over her head. The Board is lying, and West will have to uncover the truth of the past to secure her future.
 
How far will the Board go to keep their secrets safe? And how far will West go to save those she loves? With nonstop action and surprising twists, Elsie Chapman’s intoxicating sequel to Dualed reveals everything.
 
Praise for Dualed:
 
“The kind of book Katniss Everdeen and Jason Bourne would devour.” —Andrew Fukuda, author of the Hunt series
 
“Full of unexpected turns. . . . Fans of the Divergent trilogy will want to read this imaginative tale.” —VOYA
 
“A fast ride from first to final pages, Dualed combines action and heart.” —Mindy McGinnis, author of Not a Drop to Drink
 
“Romance and action fans alike will love it.” —Elana Johnson, author of the Possession series
 
“Stylish, frenetic, and violent . . . the textual equivalent of a Quentin Tarantino movie.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“A double dose of intensity and danger in this riveting tale of survival, heartache, and love.” —Kasie West, author of Pivot Point
 
“A fast-paced, wild ride of a book. This thought-provoking survival-of-the-fittest story will leave you breathless for more.” —Ellen Oh, author of Prophecy
 
“Clever suspense—here, stalking is a two-way street.” —Kirkus Reviews

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ELSIE CHAPMAN is a Canadian living in Tokyo with her husband and two children, where she writes to either movies on a loop or music turned up way too loud (and sometimes both at the same time). Visit Elsie at elsiechapman.com and follow her on Twitter at @elsiechapman.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1
“If you don’t watch my every move, you’re going to die,” I say to the girl at the end of my sword.
Naya’s eyes--clenched shut as she flinches away from the swing of my arm--flash open at my words. Dark gray, and not nearly determined enough. She wavers, slashes back at me, but it’s too late. Her balance is off, and it’s easy for me to sidestep her sword.
She swears under her breath and tucks her hair behind an ear. “I was only . . . squinting.”
I shake my head. There’s less than a minute until the bell, so I let my arm drop to my side. End of weaponry class for the day.
“Sure,” I say. “But remember, no matter how skilled you are in hand-to-hand combat, what good is that if you keep backing away from blades?”
“I know, but I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it.”
I look at her more closely. She’s my last student of the day, and the one who never fails to frustrate me--which she knows. Naya’s seventeen. Three years and counting until her assignment goes active, and like most Alts from Jethro Ward, she has no training outside of the Alt Skills program offered through the public school system. But she moves as fast as one who has, born with reflexes others spend years developing. This would make her one very lucky Alt--except for the fact that she’s afraid.
“Naya, if you just quit worrying about getting hurt, then the motions will come more naturally and you won’t get hurt.”
“I can’t help it if I pass out at the sight of blood.”
“Does anyone else in your family faint?” I ask. “Could you maybe ask them how they deal with it?”
“Not anyone I know.” Naya shrugs, a touch of coldness in her voice. “Not someone from my family, anyway.”
So perhaps someone from her Alt’s side, then. “What does the school counselor say? If the regular sessions aren’t helping, you might want to consider exposure therapy.”
“No, the talks are helping. They are, I swear.” Distaste at the thought of sitting through hours of bloody images on a screen has her making a face. “Just not as quickly as I was hoping, I guess.”
For a second I almost slip and say, You too? I thought maybe it was just me who was taking so long to get better. That maybe there was something wrong with me, when my counselor’s words don’t stop my nightmares.
“Well, how much time are you going to give it before moving on?” I wonder if I’m asking for her sake or for mine.
Another shrug, this one a touch more defiant. “I still have lots of practical instruction time with you.”
“I’m not the one who wants to kill you.”
She gives a narrowed glance at the sword in her hand. “So when are we going to be done with these things, anyhow?”
I pick up the two sheaths I left on the floor nearby and pass one to her. “Curriculum calls. Besides, as quick as a gun is, it’s bloody, too.” I know she understands this. But not in the same way I do. In the deepest recesses of sleep, images still surface in my dreams--my brother Luc’s gun, painted with swirls of his blood and all our fingerprints, the faces of the Alts I killed so I could learn how to stay alive. My Alt.
Naya sheathes her sword. “If there has to be blood, I hope it’s at least painless, if she really is going to be faster than me.” She. As an idle, Naya’s got her own shadow lurking in the corners, her Alt getting ready to come out and play when the time comes. When their assignments go active.
“Don’t do that,” I say to her, sounding more anxious than I mean to be.
“Do what?”
“Talk as though you’ve already lost.” There’s a ring of familiarity to what I’m saying, and it takes me a few seconds to realize where I’ve heard those words before. Chord said them to me right before I faced my Alt, and I wonder what he would say if he were to hear me now. Gloat, probably, but in a playful way. “You don’t know what she’s going to be like, right?” I continue. “What if actually believing you’re the worthy one is the only difference between winning and losing?”
“Mind over matter.” Naya nods, looking far from convinced.
“Completions can be just as much a mental game as a physical one.”
“Okay, Grayer,” she says, calling me by my last name as all the students under my instruction have taken to doing. “You’ve said that before. I haven’t forgotten.”
“You should really consider exposure therapy if the regular counseling’s not getting you anywhere.”
She exhales heavily. “Fine, I’ll look into it.”
Her agreement is exactly what I was hoping to hear, and it makes me glad for her. But, really, our situations aren’t that much alike. And just because counseling hasn’t worked for her doesn’t mean it still won’t work for me. Nightmares are intangible, far from real, nothing like blood. They should be easy to conquer. I just need to try harder.
The bell rings, and Baer calls for class weapons to be collected at the front. All around me students break form as they start leaving the skill stations arranged throughout the room. Each station is set up for a different kind of weapon. The area should be bigger than it is, considering that the number of accidents goes up when training space is tight, but that’s a luxury not easily found in Jethro Ward.
The three students assigned to floor duty this week start sliding apart the dividers between stations and wheeling them to the walls on one side of the room; three more on setup start carting desks back to the center of the room. The fading echo of steel clanging against steel dissolves into the softer rhythms of human sounds, ones far less urgent--conversations injected with laughter, the rustle of backpacks being thrown on.
Naya gives me a quick nod before returning her sword to the cabinet. Soon enough the classroom’s empty except for Baer and me.
At his desk, the school’s weaponry teacher is carefully inspecting a sword that’s been set aside. Probably looking for signs that repairs are needed. Since we’re in Jethro Ward, we’re expected to milk as many uses out of as many weaponry pieces as we can, for as long as we can, before submitting them for overhaul. His posture is at ease and close to a slouch, making him appear small. But Baer’s strength isn’t in bulk or stature, anyway. The guy moves as fast as a whip, his power the lean, wiry kind. He reminds me of a cat that pounces only after much planning--quick and efficient.
I sheathe my own sword. I don’t doubt its beauty or its lethalness--only the class time spent on it. In a world where stealth is everything, swords are far from practical.
“I know what you’re thinking, Grayer,” Baer says to me as I put my sword away and shut the cabinet. “And I’ve already explained why I’ve included swords on the curriculum this year.”
“What?” I protest. I grab my bag and jacket off the top of my desk and turn to face him. Beneath the overhead lighting, the scars on his skin stand out more than ever, stripes of pale silver. Baer’s gaze is a cool, flat blue. I do my best to hide the smile wanting to peek out. “I didn’t even say it. You heard me back you up.”
“As well you should. A sword might not be Naya’s weapon of choice--”
“Or any Alt’s, maybe?” Nearly three months of having Baer for a boss means not having to tread so carefully...

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Verlag
Random House Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0449812987
ISBN 13 
9780449812983
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
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