Flawed (31 page)

Now she has my attention.

 

FIFTY-FOUR

“HOW DO YOU
know about Carrick?” I ask, suddenly suspicious.

I begin to question my instincts again. Is this a setup to try to find Carrick? Crevan has managed to somehow make Mr. Berry and the guards disappear, and now he's searching for Carrick? Are they using Alpha to find out the information from me? I can't trust her. This all could be a trick, a trick to catch Carrick, to catch me. I'm not as gullible as I once was. If anything, that attribute was my main flaw. My eyes are open now, wide open to everyone around me, but I also know I need to be smart and try to learn as much about Carrick from her as I can.

“You're right to be suspicious,” she says. “That's good. You're wondering how I know all this. Carrick didn't receive much, if any, coverage in the wake of you, Angelina Tinder, and Jimmy Child, and it's safe to say the Guild doesn't like stories of Flawed At Birth children searching for their Flawed parents.”

Flawed At Birth children? I try not to react to this news, when inside my mind is whirling, my stomach churning.

“I'm sure you know the children are not allowed to search for their biological parents. First, they're taken away from their Flawed parents and locked up in an institution for eighteen years to ‘teach' the Flawed out of them. As soon as they reach eighteen years of age, they are released. If they search for their parents, even so much as
think
about it, they're branded Flawed. Loyalty to their own flesh and blood is seen as disloyalty to society.” She shakes her head, the anger causing the veins in her neck to pulsate. Despite my fear that this is a setup to locate Carrick, Alpha's anger on this subject is certainly not fabricated.

I think of Carrick's file and remember the F.A.B. beside his name.
Flawed At Birth
. The file also said Carrick received a brand to his chest for disloyalty. This would add up if what she's saying is true. I decide to believe her, but I'm still not sure if I can trust her.

“Carrick should have waited a few months,” she says angrily, almost as if she's directing it at me and it was my fault he did this. “They always keep a close eye on their students for the first few months to make sure they don't search for their biological parents, but he searched for them too soon, almost like he
wanted
to be caught.…” She trails off, eyes studying me for my reaction. I don't respond to her. I'm too stunned by what I hear, too moved, feel too sad for Carrick. I want to find him and hug him right now. I wish I'd known this when I was in there, when we were sleeping side by side in our glass cages. I thought he was a soldier, somebody who had done the worst possible act, but really all he had done was the gentlest. The caged animal who paced and fought and looked like he wanted to fight the world had merely tried to find his parents, who were forced to give him up as a child because they were Flawed. Does knowing that Carrick is the son of Flawed parents change my opinion of him?

Yes, it does.

He'd spent years being endlessly brainwashed, being told that his parents were worthless, that he was better than them, only to search for them too soon after his release. His love couldn't be broken; he won. He is even braver than I'd thought. He
is
the soldier I believed he was.

The comments Tina made about him in the cells now make sense to me, that he was a “bad egg,” and Judge Crevan's flippant comment about his being “Flawed to the bone.” It's true. He never even had a chance. His trial must have been a joke. He was branded as soon as he was born. He was never going to lose that. Maybe Alpha's suspicions are right, maybe he did deliberately want to become Flawed. Maybe he wanted to be who he really was for better or for worse, and not somebody the Guild had reared him to be. The more I think about him, the more he goes up in my estimation.

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. It'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.