The Bleeding Crowd Read online

  The Bleeding Crowd

  by Jessica Dall

  Published by

  Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.melange-books.com

  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

  Book Summary

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Previews

  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 m
iss 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.

  The knock at the door made her jump, but she grabbed her keycard and stuck it in her back pocket, leaving the rest of her things behind in the room. The two couriers who collected Dahlia smiled and made polite conversation. She did her best to smile back and pretend her stomach wasn’t trying to worm its way out of her body. Apparently, she managed to do a pretty good job of it or the couriers were just used to vaguely nervous women, because they didn’t seem to notice.

  Though all the villas were beautiful, filled with marble and art from the newest artists, the government pavilion was something else. Like most of the town, it was primarily classical with a bit of romanticism thrown in just for good measure. It would be far too masculine to have just straight lines and columns.

  Invisible speakers pumped light instrumental music into the hallways, making echoing steps on the marble sound less menacing.

  They let her off on the third floor, nodded to an older woman in the hallway, one of the county magistrates based on the indigo she was wearing, and pressed the button to go down.

  She didn’t move toward the woman.

  “Dahlia.” The magistrate smiled. “You must be excited.”

  She pressed her lips together before talking. “In all honestly, no, ma’am, I’m not.”

  “Nervous then?” the magistrate asked, not waiting for an answer. “Don’t let yourself get worked up. There’s nothing to it.”

  Giving her a quick smile, Dahlia let the woman lead her into a side room just off the third floor hallway. The room didn’t appear to be anything special, just another oak door like any of the others on the hall. Inside, it was small. Just big enough for three to four people. Maybe five if you were really comfortable with each other.

  The magistrate motioned her to a small loveseat against the wall across from a window that didn’t seem to look onto anything, leaving just a large black rectangle cut in the wall. She waited until Dahlia had taken a seat before opening a control pad hidden by the right armrest.

  “When I leave the room, the light will lower here and other lights will turn on in the room behind the window. You don’t have to worry. It’s a one-way mirror so they won’t be able to see you. The pad will have their stats, all you have to do is click the one you want, and then you’re done.”

  Dahlia offered a terse smile, eliciting an annoyingly understanding smile from the magistrate.

  “Take your time.”

  The door closed before Dahlia’s leg started tapping nervously. She had never been able to control it. Whenever she got nervous, her leg would start up. It gave her away to just about anyone who knew her. She crossed her legs at the knee, consciously taking a deep breath and wrapping her hands around her knee to stop it from shaking.

  The light slowly dimmed until it was just high enough to keep the room from being pitch black. Behind the window, the light clicked on, not a gradual lightening like normal, but a harsh light flicking on before her eyes could adjust. A line of five people—five men—filed in and the pad on the armrest lit up. Five ovals took form:

  1. Peter. Age: 16. Height: 160cm

  2. John. Age: 27. Height: 179cm

  3. Simon. Age: 19. Height: 192cm

  4. David. Age: 30. Height: 174cm

  5. Benjamin. Age: 24. Height: 184cm

  Dahlia studied the names for a long moment, looking in between the pad and the window at the men, a number on the glass glowed in front of each man, just so there was no confusion about which man was which. The shortest, youngest man looked terrified. The third in line looked happy. However, the rest of them looked rather uninterested. She threw out the two who looked to
o involved and studied the last three. Finally, she sighed and just went for the closest in age. It was as good a criterion as any. She pressed five and the light turned off. Her stomach flipped, feeling as if she had just compromised some moral value she couldn’t identify. Like when she was in school and didn’t correct her teacher for not marking a question wrong.

  Maybe that wasn’t a moral value. She didn’t often consider herself plagued with overreaching morals.

  The lights in her room slowly rose to full power again and the magistrate opened the door.

  * * * *

  Dahlia somehow sat through the rest of the drawn out ceremony without rolling her eyes, fidgeting much, or even running out the door as soon as they said she was free to go.

  She opened the small metal fence to her villa and moved into the courtyard, smiling at the service workers who were once again trying to figure out exactly why the fountain wasn’t running. As long as she had lived in the villa, that fountain had never worked for more than a week at a time. There wasn’t even any water in it now. Too much standing water was a health hazard. Last thing they needed was some pandemic to break out. Or for her to get sick for that matter.

  Still, they never stopped trying to make it work. It was sort of a comforting constant.

  She pressed her keycard to her door and it slid open. The lights came on automatically. The man started, spinning around from where he was at the desk.

  Dahlia frowned, pushing the button for the door to shut it behind her before looking at him again. “Should I even ask what you’re doing?”

  He looked at her and then glanced back at the desk.

  She waited another moment. “Do you speak English?”

  He twisted to face her. “Of course I speak English. What else does anyone speak around here?”