Flawed

  Alpha slowly breathes out, trying to calm herself. “Carrick’s was an unfortunate case.”

  My heart is broken for him. “Yes,” I say sadly. “Yes, it was.”

  She views me again in her studious way, as if realizing what I am slowly learning myself. “You two were close?”

  I feel my cheeks go hot and I look away. I’ve felt a connection to Carrick ever since he walked into that cell and turned his back on me. I felt it every second that he was beside me and every moment he was behind me in the courtroom. It seems ludicrous to feel like this about someone I didn’t know, but we experienced something so intense and were the only two people at any time, in any room, who knew how each other felt.

  “Tell me about the institutions. He didn’t talk about them very much.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she says. “Though they’re not horrible places. In fact, they’re probably quite the opposite, state-of-the-art facilities, greater luxuries than most people ever know. The state supports these institutions because most of our greatest athletes have come from them, some of our greatest recent scholars were educated in these places. Despite that, there is no hiding from the fact that all these children have been taken from their parents from birth, never allowed to see them or hear from them again. That is cruel, that is wrong. Carrick’s situation is slightly different, though,” she says. “As you know.”

  “How is it different?” I ask, confused.

  “Well, because of the age he was taken. It probably explains why the brainwashing didn’t work so well on him. He had memories of them, which couldn’t be taken away. Carrick was taken as a young boy, at the age of five. His parents had managed to hide out when they had him, but he was found, unfortunately,” she says sadly.

  “I don’t know which is worse,” I say, thinking of him as a young boy knowing what was happening as he was taken away, torn from people who loved him.

  “So”—she straightens up—“that is why I have tried so hard to fight for adoption rights for F.A.B. children.”

  “F.A.B. children can’t be adopted?”

  “Of course not. It interrupts the brainwashing process, and, anyway, the Flawed community isn’t allowed to adopt at all,” she says. “My husband even suggested divorcing me just so I could adopt a baby, because he knows how much I want it. Only on paper, of course. He wasn’t intending on leaving me. Where’s the logic in that, Celestine, you tell me that? Modern laws tell me I could adopt a child on my own but not with my Flawed husband.” She sighs. “Sorry. It’s just a subject that angers me.”

  “I can see that,” I say softly, relieved to finally hear somebody speaking out against the Guild. “How do you know so much about Carrick?” I ask, still not completely trusting her rage against the Guild. “His file didn’t reveal very much about him.”

  “So you saw his file,” she says, amused. “My, my, Celestine, you have more access than I thought.”

  I don’t respond to that. It takes great nerve to hold my tongue.

  She continues.

  “All Flawed files are a matter of public record, available through citizen information, because everybody is entitled to know if they are living near a Flawed person, unless of course you are a Flawed person and you, therefore, have no access to these files.”

  I swallow hard, caught out.

  “However, to receive the files, you must submit a form to the Guild requesting access, and this raises alarm bells. And on top of that, Carrick’s files aren’t as readily available as yours are. The Guild doesn’t like to admit that the system has failed, or at least that the brainwashing has missed a brain or two. So to answer your question of how do I know so much about Carrick? I have a large organization. When a case like Carrick’s reaches the courts, people tell me. I went to his trial.”

  I’m immediately envious of her. I wanted to be at his trial. I wanted to stand in the back and be his pillar of support as he was for me. I wonder if he had anyone, or if he went through it all alone. I feel more urgency to find him.

  “How … how was he?” I ask, feeling my body starting to tremble.

  “Remarkably strong,” she says with a fond smile on her lips.

  “Did you go to the Branding Chamber?” I ask.

  She nods. “Because of my charity foundation, I was allowed. The Guild understands that it’s important for me to witness events such as those to help the families and Flawed community in counseling.”

  I think of him in the Branding Chamber, remember how hot it felt with the bright ceiling lights on me in the chair, picture him in the red gown feeling the same thing as I felt. My eyes fill with tears. “How was he?”

  She takes my hands, and I feel the tears slip down my cheeks.

  “Celestine, you’ll be proud to know, he was remarkably quiet. I’ve never attended a branding where there was such … silence.”

  Inside, I feel broken, but I also feel like dancing. He did what I did. He followed my lead. He wouldn’t let them hear him cry.

  “Have you seen him lately?” she asks as I wipe away my tears.

  I smile, a knowing smile, like I know where he is but won’t say. “Do you know where he is?”

  She laughs. “Actually, no. He’s doing a good job of hiding. To escape undetected from the Whistleblowers is a rare and difficult thing.”

  I nod in agreement.

  “He must have help.”

  I know she wants to say more on that, but she doesn’t. Instead, she changes tack, and I now know why she’s really here. “When you next see him, please tell him that his support would be greatly appreciated. The organization needs as many Flawed who are willing to share their stories with us and speak out. Doing it alone doesn’t give us the weight we need to make a difference. To have a child of two Flawed parents, who was raised at an F.A.B. institution, who wanted to find his parents, whose only flaw was to break F.A.B. rules and try to find his parents, would be a real bonus for my campaign for F.A.B. Adoption. You’ll tell him that, won’t you?”

  I nod. Whenever I see him again. If I ever see him again.

  “I’m holding an event tonight. A small gathering for those who need support. It’s at five PM. You’ll have time to get there and back for your curfew. Here’s the directions,” she says urgently, pushing a folded piece of paper into my hands. “Come speak for us tonight. I know you will inspire the people. Move them to action.”

  “Action?”

  “I call it a support group.” She raises an eyebrow. “But really what I’m trying to do is make something happen. Bring an end to the Guild. What the Guild knows is that I work with the Flawed, with their families, providing a counseling service for those affected by it. I arrange fund-raisers for families. The F.A.B. Adoption campaign is supported by many in the government and the Guild. These institutions are costly, and adoption would help their budgets greatly. They always have their eye on the bottom line, of course. So I have many of them on my side. That’s how I can make this work. And not just the adoption campaign. They know that my counseling work with the Flawed and their families is vital in maintaining calm in society.”

  Even hearing that she is supported by the Guild makes me distrust her again, despite what she’s saying. “Alpha.” I barely look at the crumpled paper in my hand. “I appreciate your support, but I’m not a speaker. I don’t even know what I would say.”

  Her eyes linger over me for a moment as though she’s trying to figure me out. “I often think you’re more clever than you let on, and other times I think you’re a child who has found herself in a situation that is so much bigger than she and has no idea what to do.”

  I don’t answer her. It’s not for me to help her analysis of me. Understanding myself doesn’t keep me awake at night, but I’m still not used to people airing their opinions of me so boldly like that. Any thoughts I have of her I have politely kept to myself, though some people, like her and Pia, have found that it is their right to express their opinion of me freely, as though it can’t hurt or alter me. I
t’s the branding that does that, and I know it. It dehumanizes me in a way to others. I’m to be stared at and talked about as if I’m not here.

  “My work began as a charity, counseling, and fund-raising, but since your case, the numbers have grown. I see a rise in our donations. Privately, of course, but there are some big names. I feel a change coming, and you have started that change. Of course, much of it is political. My organization can do so much more. It’s time. Try to bring your friend Carrick if you can. It’s time to urge the people into action.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  THAT AFTERNOON, KNOWING that I have a week of confinement to the house ahead of me, I pace my room like the caged lion Carrick always seemed. Even if I could speak at Alpha’s gathering, which I wouldn’t, I can’t leave the house. How empowering is that to people?

  Home from school, Juniper walks by my open door. She looks lost and as though she has been crying. I’m glad. She stops and looks at me. She’s back in her own clothes, head to toe in black. Apart from my brandings, there’s not much to tell us apart.

  “Nothing ever happened with me and Art if that’s what you’re worried about.” She sniffs. “All we ever did was talk about you.”

  I want to slap her hard I feel so angry, but instead I calmly raise my hand out and push the door closed in her face. It is a gratifying feeling, but it doesn’t do anything to fill the emptiness inside me. I know she hasn’t left the house at night since I stumbled across them together. I know because I lie awake in bed, unable to sleep, and listen for her. I think of all those nights she went to meet him on the summit while I was trapped inside on curfew, in agony, healing, and my heart pumps with rage. I don’t know what I think about something happening between them. When I found them, they were sitting side by side and laughing. If it hadn’t happened already, it might have. It is the sound of their laughter that haunts me, particularly as I was running for my life. I will never forgive them. But it doesn’t mean I can stop myself from caring about him. I wonder who is helping Art now that Juniper isn’t. I wonder if he has run away for good, if he has had the courage to leave Humming, even Highland altogether, and live somewhere far from the reach of his dad. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. I shouldn’t care about him and I shouldn’t worry about him. But I do.

  I’m summoned to the kitchen because Mary May has paid me a surprise visit and apparently has an announcement. I’m immediately terrified. I’m guessing it has something to do with the alcohol test I took Friday night that tested positive. Despite Colleen, Gavin, and Natasha being unable to escape the situation as Logan had, the three of them had categorically denied drinking any alcohol, which made it look like it was an act I had done on my own, which is against Flawed rules. Though how I, tied up and locked in a shed, had happened upon alcohol all by myself is too stupid for even the Guild to pin on me. Though I’m sure they spent the weekend trying.

  Mary May produces some documents from her satchel. Looking at her, I feel the sting of her leather glove on my cheek and I see the woman who reported her entire family to the Guild and watched them one after another be branded for life. Who knows what else she’s capable of, and my life is in her hands.

  “Your detention this week has been withdrawn,” she says in a clipped voice, and I can tell she hates delivering this news. I can tell she hates even opening her mouth wide enough in this house to breathe in the Flawed air. She’s appalled by it, yet she’s drawn to it. “An anonymous source submitted the photograph in its entirety to the Guild. The Guild had it tested for Photoshopping or meddling of any kind and is satisfied with the claim that it is original and is the image of Juniper North in her art class. On your separate charge, the Guild has also ruled to drop the alcohol charges. Colleen Tinder’s testimony matches with the amount of alcohol found in your bloodstream, which was minimal.”

  To my utter surprise, Mom, who is wearing dungarees and a plaid shirt, punches the air close to Mary May’s face and hisses, “Yes!” Then she throws her arms around me in a tight embrace so that I can’t see Mary May’s reaction. Mom warned me only days ago not to test Mary May, but she is playing a dangerous game herself. I hear the door slam as Mary May leaves.

  Feeling victorious from my double win, I feel like I can take on the world, that I can go further to righting more wrongs. Now I am free to investigate as I planned. Leaving everybody to celebrate without me, including Juniper, who looked genuinely pleased for me but knew not to come near me, I go to my bedroom. I take out Mr. Berry’s business card from my pocket and dial the number written on the back.

  “Hello?” a quiet voice answers.

  “Hello, is that … Mr. Berry’s husband?”

  “Who’s this?” he says, even quieter, so that I have to strain my ear to hear.

  “My name is Celestine North. He represented me in—”

  “I know who you are,” he interrupts quickly, but not rudely. “You shouldn’t be calling here.”

  It sounds like he’s moving around. Distracted. Something brushes against the phone.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that Mr. Berry provided me with this phone number in the invoice, and I thought that he wanted me to call here. Can I speak to him, please?”

  Silence. At first, I think he’s gone, but I can hear him breathing.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes,” he says quickly again, so quietly it’s as though it’s a bad line and he’s a million miles away. “He’s not here,” he says, and my heart falls. “She already called looking for him.”

  I’m confused at first, unsure of whom he’s talking about, but then I remember Pia and note that he doesn’t want to mention her name. He thinks people are listening.

  “You don’t need to worry about … her,” I say. “She says she’s trying to help me.” He must be afraid she’s going to write an article about Mr. Berry. Of course he would tell her he’s not there. They’re all afraid of Pia. Who would speak to her? I would insist on her honesty, but I can’t do that when I’m not completely sure myself.

  “He can trust me,” I say.

  “He’s not here, I told you,” he says, more impatient and a little louder. Then quietly again he adds, “He had to go away. He didn’t tell me where. He was in a hurry. He knew about the others.”

  That startles me. So Mr. Berry wasn’t taken by Crevan. He is in hiding after what happened to the guards.

  “Okay…” I think quickly. He doesn’t want to give names away, any information away. How can I say what I want to say? “I’m looking for something—do you know what it is?”

  “Yes,” he practically whispers.

  He knows about the sixth brand.

  “Did you see it?” I ask, not wanting to mention the video directly. If Crevan’s people are listening, I don’t want to make it too easy for them.

  There’s a long silence again, and I know my patience is being tested. This is like pulling teeth, but I must stick it out. I know he won’t answer the phone to me again. It’s now or never.

  “Yes,” he says, finally, so faintly. “I saw it. I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

  I try hard not to cry. “Do you have it? Do you know where it is?”

  “No,” he says. “I told the other woman already. I don’t have it.”

  I collapse back on my bed, so disappointed, so angry, my eyes fill up.

  “But I didn’t tell her this,” he adds quickly. “You have it. He told me you have it.” He hangs up.

  FIFTY-SIX

  I SPRING UP to a seated position on my bed and stare at the phone in shock, goose bumps all over my body.

  I have Mr. Berry’s video?

  I redial his number. It rings and rings, no answer.

  I have it? Mr. Berry says I have the video? How? When? Where? I look around my room, my head spinning, trying to think where it could be, how he could have given it to me, trying to remember those final moments when I was removed from the chamber and taken to the ward. Did I see him then? Did he slip his phone to me? But I was just wea
ring a gown. Where would I have put it? Did he visit me afterward? I was so heavily drugged, and in such shock, I remember very little. I remember Tina. Tina cared for me mostly while the nurse tended to me. But I don’t remember anyone else. Mary May already thoroughly searched my room. Was that what she was looking for? If she was, did she find it? I doubt it. I believe she thinks I have only five brands—she has referred to that fact enough. I don’t think she has any idea of what happened in that chamber, and I won’t make the same mistake I made with Pia, blurting it out just to show I have the upper hand. I know now that this information is highly sensitive.

  And then I realize. Carrick is the only other person who was in that room with him. Carrick must have it.

  I need help. Pia is gone on her mission and will report back to me who knows when, and the only other person who has been able to give me any information whatsoever on Carrick is Alpha. I decide I’m going to Alpha’s meeting, but I’m not going alone. I dial another number.

  “Hello?”

  “Granddad, I need your help.” I was never ready before, I never believed him before, I thought that he was a conspiracy theorist and that he was too irrational, but I know now that he was right about everything. I am ready now.

  “Ah, she finally calls,” he says, a cheery sound. “And so it begins.”

  * * *

  The positive outcome from the week’s house arrest is that the press have disappeared from outside of the house, and they haven’t yet learned that the punishment has been withdrawn. If I’m not coming or going, there’s nothing for them to report, so I successfully manage to get to the local ice-cream parlor, my meeting point with Granddad, because that’s where he always used to take me and Juniper after Ewan was born to give Mom a break from us. Granddad is waiting in his dusty pickup truck with two ice creams.

  “Showtime,” he says when I sit inside, and it’s the best I’ve felt for weeks.

  After driving for almost an hour, during which I’ve filled him in on everything that has happened to me since we last met, including Alpha and her charity for the Flawed, the guards’ going missing, Pia’s helping me search for them, and my mission to find Carrick, especially now after Mr. Berry’s husband has told me that I have the video. Granddad listens intently as we drive, sometimes pulling over and asking me to repeat what I’ve said, listening to every word and, most important, believing me.