The Line Book One: Carrier by Anne Tibbets Page B

except when they got fed. If they got fed. Many kids died from neglect. And if the child was disabled in any way, he or she was euthanized.
    I knew I wouldn’t abandon my babies there, or anywhere. But the scope of my information was limited. What did I know about Auberge and how to live in it, really? All I knew so far was what I didn’t want.
    I had to do better than that.
    I vowed right then, my head resting on the grey wall behind my one-twenty-a-day cot, that in the morning I’d figure out how to get a job.
    I could wash dishes, even though the idea made me sick at the memory of my time in the restaurant. I could also cook, which I hadn’t done in years but had always loved doing.
    I had to do something. Trying only to find a replacement, and not thinking further along in my life, was a mistake.
    “You deaf? I’m talking to you.”
    I hadn’t noticed, but one of the ladies was standing in front of me. It was the pony-tailed woman, Shirel. She surveyed me up and down.
    “Leave her alone, Shirel,” one of the other women said.
    “What?” I asked. Shirel seemed high-strung and hardly had a muscle on her body. Her cheek bones stuck out so far they looked sharp enough to cut right through her skin.
    “Where you work? They hiring?” she asked.
    I sat up. “Oh. No. I don’t have a job.”
    “How you pay for the bed then?”
    “I saved up some credits.”
    “How’d you do that?”
    “I was on the Line.”
    Silence.
    The two women who’d been talking in the dark corner of the room went dead quiet. Every eye was on me.
    I waited for someone to speak, but no one did.
    Shirel lifted her chin and peered down at me. “Didn’t realize they let girls off the Line.”
    “They said I had a ten-year contract.”
    “You lasted that long?” One woman gawked.
    “Is that where you got beat up?” asked the little girl.
    I’d forgotten about the condition of my face. The bruises from Lover Boy had likely faded by then to a nice shade of green. No wonder the shopkeepers wanted nothing to do with me.
    “Yes.”
    “What you going to do now?” asked a woman in the corner.
    I debated my next words carefully. These were not my friends. Maybe telling them I was off the Line had been a mistake, but it was too late to take it back. “I don’t know.” And even if I did, I wasn’t about to share that information with them.
    The woman with bright orange hair sitting next to the girl nodded in agreement. “I hear that.”
    “I need a job,” I said, hoping that would spark a debate and take the spotlight away from me.
    Shirel looked sympathetic. “Don’t know many places that would hire a girl off the Line.”
    “Why not?” I didn’t like being the center of attention. I felt sweaty.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “People talk. Say the girls off the Line are unclean.”
    “Yeah, I’d tell people you’re a runaway,” said the orange-haired woman.
    Shirel reeled on her. “That’s stupid, Oliv. They’d send her back to the Line with all the other runaways.”
    “They won’t take me back,” I said.
    Oliv leaned forward. “Why not?”
    “I’m pregnant.” It was the first time I’d said it aloud. It felt like I was talking about someone else. Still, it made it seem real.
    Shirel shook her head. “Damn. Thought they made sure that didn’t happen.”
    I shrugged, not wanting to get specific. “It does.”
    Oliv pushed her eyebrows into each other. “So they give you some credits and kick you out?”
    The girl was visibly upset, but I was glad to see she didn’t burst into tears again.
    “They said my contract was up anyway.” I left out the part about how I found that suspicious.
    Why question it? I was free now, sort of. Did it really matter why they let me go?
    The two women in the corner commented about how messed up my situation was.
    “So, what you been doing this week?” Shirel asked. She sat on the bunk next to me. It creaked under the weight of her bones.
    “Looking for