A Girl Undone (37 page)

My legs trembled. I was too terrified to move. I wished I knew what Hawkins was thinking, but he was honed in on Deeps.

“Hands on your head,” Deeps ordered.

Jouvert placed his hands on his head, but he stood straight and as tall as he could even though he was on his knees. “Kill me, and you will not leave this room alive.”

“Acknowledged.”

“What’s your goal, soldier? You were a soldier, right?”

“Yes, sir. Marine Corps.”

“What do you hope to accomplish today? What is your mission? Get your name in the history books?”

“Not at all, sir. My goal is justice.”

“That’s not your job. That’s the job of the courts.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot rely on the courts to bring you to justice. You betrayed your country when you sold it to a foreign power.”

Jouvert shook his head. “I saved our country, soldier.”

“I cannot allow a traitor to become commander in chief.”

I saw a calm, almost peaceful expression come over Deeps’ face, and I knew. “No!” I cried.

Bam!

The sound almost knocked me into the wall. Blood sprayed across the shiny steel, and Jouvert hit the floor face-first.

I screamed, my hands flapping uselessly.
Oh God! Deeps just killed the vice president. He shot Jouvert.

Hawkins clamped his hand over his arm and blood streamed through his fingers. The bullet that hit Jouvert must have passed through him and then ricocheted.

Deeps turned to us, his gun hand still raised.

“No, Deeps!” I begged as Hawkins moved in front of me.

“Deeps, let’s find a way out of this mess,” Hawkins said quietly.

“It’s too late for that.”

Jouvert’s body lay between Deeps and us, and one of Jouvert’s hands seemed to reach for Hawkins’ foot.

“Please move to the right, Mr. Hawkins. You saw how, at this distance, a bullet can go completely through a body.”

A look passed between Hawkins and Deeps, and Hawkins moved toward the far wall.

What? What’s going on?
I looked to Hawkins for some clue.

“Now kneel,” Deeps said, “with your hands on your head.”

My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I realized,
There’s no way out. This is the end.

Hawkins lowered himself to the floor where a red pool of blood haloed Jouvert. I began to kneel, too, but then I saw Hawkins shake his head at me.

“Not you, Avie,” Deeps said.

I stood there, confused and disoriented, the front of my white dress splattered with brilliant droplets of blood.

“Tell me the combination, Avie,” Deeps said.

The door code?
My mind was a blank. “I don’t remember.”

“Sure you do. You said it five times today.”

I swallowed, and pulled the numbers from the corner of my brain.

Then Deeps took his phone out and tossed it to me. “My confession. It clearly states I acted alone.”

I closed my hand around the phone, and the truth of what was about to happen slammed me:
I am the only person who’s leaving this room. Hawkins is going to die.

“No, Deeps. Stop,” I said. “Please don’t kill him.”

“He’s a lying, scheming Paternalist politician, and I’m sick of watching him treat you like crap.”

“But he—”

Hawkins cut me off. “Avie, don’t try—”

“Shut up, Mr. Hawkins.” Deeps kept his gun trained on Hawkins, but he looked at me. “I don’t have sympathy for men who hit women.”

I had Hawkins’ life in my hands. “Yes, he hit me, but he apologized, and he hasn’t hit me since.”

“If he hit you once, he’ll do it again. He’ll abuse you and he’ll do the same to this country.”

“No, he wants to reform the Paternalists. We had a long talk last night—you saw us out on the terrace—and he told me his ideas.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the video screen and the agents in the hall outside, trying to reach us. If I could only stall Deeps, keep him talking.

“Jouvert is dead, Deeps,” I pleaded. “And soon Fletcher and the rest of the Gang of Twelve will be gone, too. Jessop Hawkins can turn the Paternalists around.”

Deeps’ mouth twitched, but he kept his gun aimed at Jessop.

“You should put Aveline in the bathroom,” Hawkins said. “The steel can protect her if your bullet ricochets.”

Deeps nodded. “He’s right. Go in the bathroom, Avie.”

As soon as I did, he would shoot Hawkins and then himself. I shook my head. “No.”

“Avie, go in the bathroom,” Hawkins ordered.

“No.” I kneeled down next to Hawkins, and looked Deeps in the eyes. “Please don’t kill him. Too many people have died.”

“You’ll be free, Avie. You won’t have to put up with his shit any longer.”

I swallowed. “Please put the gun down.”

Deeps began to lower the gun, but before I could even blink, he shoved it up under his chin and fired.

50

Someone brought me clothes.

The door of Hawkins’ office was shut, but the ringing in my ears made it hard for me to hear the officer taking my statement. Across the room, another officer interviewed Hawkins and a paramedic stitched his arm.

“Ms. Reveare, what happened after Mr. Talcott put the gun to his head?”

I flinched as a flock of paper napkins flew past the window. “Jessop Hawkins and I unlocked the door.”

I kept the rest to myself: me trying to step over Jouvert, and my shoe slipping in his blood, then my tumbling onto his still warm body. And then crawling off Jouvert and over Deeps, while I forced myself not to look at the bloody mess that used to be Deeps’ face or the clots and splatter on the wall behind his head.

I wrapped the string of my hoodie around and around my finger. “Are we done?”

“Just one more question. We’ve talked to the members of your immediate staff, but we haven’t been able to locate Sigmund Rath. When did you last see him?”

“A few minutes before the ceremony. He helped me get ready.”

“Hmm. Yes, well, those are all the questions we have right now, but we’d like you to remain here for the time being.”

“Okay.” I stared at the floor, trying not to show how I felt. Helen must have known what Deeps planned to do. Fragments of scenes and conversations from the last few weeks flew through my head, and I realized: Helen wasn’t surprised or innocent. She’d been in on it with Deeps from the very beginning. In fact, Deeps might even have been the one who brought her into Hawkins’ circle.

And I could never tell anyone what I knew. Anyone.

Outside Hawkins’ office, the house echoed with the sounds of footsteps, phones, and people talking into communicators. I wondered if Dad was still here. Police were questioning guests in the party tent then releasing them, and I hoped I could see him if he was.

First, the paramedic packed his bag, and then the officer questioning Hawkins got up and walked out behind him.

Hawkins came over to the couch where I was sitting. The sleeve had been cut off his blue shirt, and his wound was wrapped with gauze.

“You could have been free,” he said, lowering himself beside me. Flecks of blood dotted his shirt, his neck, and his left cheek near his hair.

I shrugged. “Not that way. That’s not being free.”

“I was so angry when you didn’t sign the Contract,” he said, shaking his head. “Here I was in front of hundreds of people I needed to impress, and you showed me once again that I
did not own you
.” He laughed to himself. “And then you saved me.”

“I couldn’t let Deeps kill you.”

“A few nights ago, I said we could have a life together if you’d give up your undying devotion to Yates Sandell, and you told me ‘that’s not how love works.’ That’s not how love works.”

I didn’t know where Hawkins was going with this. “Jessop, I—”

“He’s been waiting by the gate for hours, Avie. He told Adam he wouldn’t leave until he knew you were safe. I think you need to go to him.”

“O-kay?” This was Hawkins’ way of thanking me, I guessed, giving me a face-to-face with Yates. I started to unfold myself from the couch. “I won’t be long.”

He stood up. “No, Avie, you need to be with
him.
All the Contracts in the world couldn’t change that.” Hawkins let the forever sink in.

“Are you setting me free?”

“Some would argue you did that yourself.” He leaned over and helped me to my feet.

My head swam, wondering if this was real or some kind of bizarre test, but then Hawkins plucked his baseball cap off the shelf and handed it to me. “Here. The media are out in droves. Good-bye, Avie.”

In that instant, I saw a glimpse of who he must have been once, the man who Livia could have loved. The brother who’d tried to protect Marielle.

I walked to the door. “Good luck, Jessop. I mean it.”

The house smelled of burnt beef, alcohol wipes, and plastic sheeting. I walked with my head down, a hand clamped over my nose as I dodged members of the Secret Service, coroner, and forensics teams.

I was sure that Ho could appear at any moment and tell me Jessop had changed his mind, so I turned and headed for a side door. My heart was racing as I threw it open and burst out into the clean night air.

I stood in the shadows, breathing deeply, before I fixed the baseball cap and hoodie over my hair. A long line of news trucks hugged the compound wall. If Jessop had told me the truth, Yates was somewhere in the noisy crowd gathered by the open gate.

Police cruisers, ambulances, and a coroner’s van choked the driveway near the house. I threaded my way through them, trying to pick Yates out of the swarm. I didn’t want to walk up into the floodlights only to discover he’d gone.

Everything looked bleached out and distorted in the harsh white lights. But as my eyes adjusted, I thought I spied him leaning over a metal police barrier, trying to get an officer’s attention.

The light carved out his cheeks and his deep-set eyes. I felt myself begin to smile and walked faster.

Yates shifted from leg to leg. Then the officer spoke into the communicator on his shoulder and I saw Yates’ head snap around so he was looking right at me. Then the officer motioned Yates over the barrier.

And that is the moment I broke into a run.

From “Malibu: One Year Later”

New York Times,
December 23

One year after Vice President Mark Jouvert was assassinated at the home of California Governor-elect Jessop Hawkins, the political landscape of the United States has shifted. Paternalist leaders are under fire, and many like former senator Harry Fletcher, the highest-ranking member of Congress, have resigned, facing allegations of influence peddling, kickbacks, and coercion of governmental and nongovernmental entities.

Much of this change is owed to two intrepid
Washington Post
reporters, Jay Fleming and Mustafa Homa, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation into the self-immolation of Sparrow Currie on the U.S. Capitol grounds revealed Vice President Jouvert’s secret deals with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that linked the deliberate, systematic curtailment of women’s rights in the U.S. to trillion-dollar, no-interest loans.

But credit is also due to the fearless action of Ms. Aveline Reveare, who at the Signing of her now-cancelled Contract with Governor-elect Hawkins posed for the media in the outfit now known as the Dress That Launched a Thousand Indictments …

The Paternalist Party has entered a period of self-examination, spurred in part by Jessop Hawkins’ attempts to lead a nationwide dialogue about the future of the party and to assist the political campaigns of young, reform-minded candidates …

While American colleges and universities have remained for the most part closed to women, California institutions Stanford, Pomona, and UC Berkeley have announced plans to reopen their campuses following the pledge of additional funds for student safety from Governor-elect Hawkins. Ms. Reveare is expected to join the Stanford freshmen class next fall.…

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Do you think it was selfish or selfless of Avie to leave Yates at the hospital when the police arrived?

  2. Avie hesitates about carrying the evidence against the Paternalists. Do you sympathize with her? What would you do in her situation?

  3. Avie and Luke are helped by numerous strangers during their journey, but by accepting help, they put innocent people in danger. Do you feel Avie and Luke are justified in doing this?

  4. Streicker smuggles girls to Canada for money, while Father Gabriel does it because it’s morally right. If both risk their lives to save girls from unwanted marriages, aren’t they both heroes?

  5. Why do you think Avie stays with Luke when she’s convinced they can’t succeed in getting the evidence to Maggie’s contacts in Washington?

  6. Avie finds herself pulled between her first love, Yates, who she may never see again, and Luke, who offers her love and a future in the mountains. Who do you think Avie should be with and why?

  7. On this part of her journey, Avie witnesses girls being auctioned in various ways. How do these auctions differ, and which are better or worse for girls?

  8. Avie is forced to choose again and again whether to save herself, save someone she loves, or fight for a cause greater than herself. When does she make good calls, and when does she make the wrong choices?

  9. Why does Avie blame herself for what Zara does to her father? What do you feel Avie could have done differently?

10. When Avie arrives at Hawkins’ compound she thinks she has him figured out, but she discovers things about him she never expected. What were you surprised to learn about him? Did it change your opinion of him?

11. Avie’s mother once told her, “Loss makes some people more human, and others less.” How has loss affected the main characters in the story?

12. Helen, aka Sigmund Rath, tells Hawkins that “Fashion is message.” What are some of the ways that clothing is used to communicate ideas in the story?

13. When Hawkins retrieves Avie, she’s not the same girl he first met. How is Avie different, and how does that affect their relationship?