Wordless by AdriAnne Strickland Page A

She shrugged her slim shoulders. “But I don’t care where I go, as long as it’s as far away from Eden City as possible.”
    So Khaya really didn’t care about herself or her future. As a tool in the hands of someone else, she was dangerous, and all she wanted to do was get away. I found myself wishing she would think about herself a little more; never mind that I had accused her of selfishness earlier.
    As for myself, I didn’t know where I wanted to go. All Drey had left me was an address, an escape pack, and a whole ton of questions. But maybe that place held the answers.
    The city lights parted around us, dropping back as we entered Lake Eden and passed the lit-up fountain shooting hundreds of feet into the night sky. Eventually, the north shore of the city receded into an indistinct glow. We were almost out; it was the farthest I’d ever been from home. I’d always wanted to leave and see a new place, but I didn’t feel as eager now as I’d imagined I would be. I felt sick.
    I knew we would need energy so I tried to get some sleep, dozing on and off for a few hours. The lights on the shore dwindled to sparsely scattered clusters, while foothills rose into dark mountains looming above the shimmering black lake. I was so tired, but too scared to really close my eyes for more than a few minutes at a time.
    “Why would they do this?” I muttered at one point. “The Athenaeum already has so much power.”
    “They want more,” Khaya said simply—awake, like I was. “Just like anyone else in the history of humankind. The City Council isn’t content to rule only Eden City, even though they already run the show, behind the scenes, on the world stage. They want it all outright. They want to rule the world as if they were the Gods themselves.”
    “Drey always said no one should have the power of the Gods.”
    Khaya hunched forward, hugging herself as if she were cold. There was a breeze playing over the lake, but it was warm. “He must have been wise. Whether or not the Words should have these powers, at least we’re still human. It could be much worse. We were about to be the last generation of free-thinking Words. We weren’t going to have children this time; we were going to pass the Words on to automatons, killing ourselves to do it. And they weren’t going to wait for us to turn forty. They were going to do it as soon as they could. Then the Words truly would have become tools, no longer sustained on the breath of true life.” She paused. “I’m the only Word, aside from Cruithear, who knows their plan, since we were the only two necessary to implement it. The Godspeakers didn’t want the others to rebel. But a will—saying no—is what makes us alive. Even if I’m a tool, I’m also human.”
    “So you said no.”
    Khaya smiled at me, and it was so surprising I almost jumped in shock. But then I saw strange lights reflected on the water behind her, off the port side of the barge where it had been dark a second before, and I jumped because of that. Flashes of yellow and green were flickering over the waves.
    Keeping low, I scrambled over plastic jugs, cardboard boxes, and other, slimier things to the gunwale, where I lifted my head enough to peek over.
    The lake behind us had come alive with several speedboats. Their green and yellow lights identified them as law enforcement. While they were too far away to tell, I guessed there were gold pyramids emblazoned on their sides.
    Khaya scooted up behind me, her sharp intake of breath a hiss in my ear.
    “Even if you say no,” I said without turning to look at her, “I think they’re telling you otherwise.”
    “They’re only double-checking because of the barge’s suspicious route. If they’d seen us board, they wouldn’t have let us motor for thirty miles,” she said, her voice low and tense. “Tavin, do you know how to swim?”
    “Yeah.” My voice came out choked, and my stare dropped from the speedboats to the wide black water, swirling