Nothing Out There (The Ellington Project #1)

Chapter 1

POISE. OBEDIENCE. PURPOSE.

The organization saved me.

That’s what they said, and I believe them. I have no reason not to. They said I was lucky. Special. Chosen. That I had been given a second chance.

I don’t remember the first.

They say I should be grateful. That my past is irrelevant. That whatever came before this place wasn’t worth keeping.

So I don’t ask about it. Not out loud, at least.

It’s easier when everything is clean and simple. The girl I was before was…complicated, or so I’m told.

I wake before the lights most days—if I even sleep at all. I dress before the chime can tell me to. It’s safer that way. I smooth my uniform again and again, fingers tracing each pleat of my skirt. It’s white today. That means something is happening.

I’ve only been alive for 183 days. Before that, I was someone else. Brielle thinks she was a dancer. June says she’s ridden a horse. I’d like to think that I used to swim in the ocean, losing myself in the endless expanse of cerulean waves.

We don’t know, of course. But sometimes it’s fun to imagine something beyond drills and classrooms and perfect manners.

I’d never tell my mentor that.

I walk to the mirror like they taught us. Back straight, eyes calm, smile passive but never soft. The small plaque above the mirror is engraved in gold. On it lies the mantra I’ve repeated every morning for the last 183 days.

Poise. Obedience. Purpose.

I recite the words softly, studying the way they feel on my lips.

Poise. Obedience. Purpose.

Twice for good measure. Then, I add my own.

I am becoming exactly who they want me to be.

The girl in the mirror says them too. She smiles back at me, but something in her tone is off. Her hands fidget with the hem of her dress, and this morning—just for a second—I think I see a bruise on her throat.

When I blink, it’s gone. The words still linger on my tongue, now metallic and wrong.

I am becoming…

Something I don’t remember choosing.