Flawed (32 page)

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“Your detention this week has been withdrawn,” she says in a clipped voice, and I can tell she hates delivering this news.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 wearing 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.

“What makes you think this lad Carrick has the video?” he asks.

“Well, it just makes sense,” I reply.

“But Berry's husband said that
you
have it. Not anybody else. That
you
have it.”

I nod, hearing him but thinking it couldn't possibly be true. I would have remembered being given it.

“Did Berry send you anything since you've been home? Think about it, Celestine.”

“Granddad,” I say, holding my hands up to my pounding head. “I haven't been able to do anything but think about it. But there's nothing. Apart from an envelope with an invoice, there was nothing. He left his home number for me, and I called his husband. That's the only message he left for me.”

He goes silent. “Don't worry, we'll figure it out.”

“Thanks for your help, Granddad. I appreciate it. I don't want to get you into trouble, though.”

“Trouble?” he barks. “I've been trouble since the day I was born. You're not cutting me out of this excitement.”

I smile, feeling grateful.

We turn off a country road onto an even smaller track, and Granddad slows.

“This can't be right,” he says, confused, squinting out the windows at the view of fields around us. We're surrounded by thousands of acres of wind turbines, and a liquid-air storage plant rises from the horizon, enormous though it's miles away. “Let me see the directions again.”

I hand him the crumpled slip of paper with Alpha's handwriting. It's a messy scrawl, something I think she did deliberately so nobody else could decipher it.

“Hmm,” he says, face screwed up in concentration as he reads. Then he looks up and around. “Looks like we're going the right way,” he says, but he sounds uncertain. “This woman, do you trust her?”

I look at him. “I don't trust anyone anymore.”

“That's my girl.” He chuckles. “Well, we'll soon find out.”

He continues driving down the narrow road, on the hunt for Gateway Lodge. I'm expecting a hotel of some sort, a conference room with a dozen or so people all talking about their experiences, but this doesn't seem like the place anybody would come to to stay in a hotel. It's too remote. My stomach tenses. Becoming lost is a concern of mine now, as is running out of gas. I worry about a random event occurring that will stop me from returning home in time for my curfew. Even worse, I'm afraid Mary May will orchestrate something to deliberately get me into trouble. She can't be happy with the outcome of the photograph and alcohol charge, and I'm expecting trouble. I must beat this fear. I thought the Guild couldn't do anything to hurt me anymore, but I was wrong—targeting my family would be an unbearable pain, a guilt I don't think I could live with, and it's the fear that they instill in us that is the continuous punishment for what we've done. I trust Granddad. I trust he will make sure I get home. But he's old. What if he has a heart attack, what if he passes out…?

The road gets increasingly narrow as we delve deeper. The branches of the trees are now brushing up against our windows. Just when I think we'll be crushed by branches and overgrowth, a gate appears after the next bend in the road. The gate is enormous and towers over us with multiple security cameras covering all angles. A twenty-foot wall hides whatever is behind it. The plaque on the wall announces it is Gateway Lodge.

We've arrived.

 

FIFTY-SEVEN

WE LEAN FORWARD
and strain our necks to look up at the height of the walls.

Before Granddad even has a chance to reach out the window of the truck to press the buzzer, as if hearing our conversation, the gates suddenly open. Granddad moves the truck forward, and after following a mile of driveway, surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns and sloping hills, which block what's coming up next, as though driving through a golf course, finally, we are faced with an enormous mansion. “Lodge” did not accurately describe it. There are dozens of cars parked in front of the house and a series of minibuses that must have had a hard time squeezing their way down the country roads. As we park, the front door of the mansion opens.

“That's not her,” I say, walking toward our greeter.

Granddad immediately speeds up and almost blocks me, reaching the woman first.

“You made it,” a timid, but polite, woman says excitedly. It's pulsating from her, her smile so enormous it is contagious. “I'm Lulu,” she says, her voice high-pitched, but soft, like a cartoon character. “Alpha's assistant. I've held you a seat. Two, just in case.” She smiles and gives Granddad the quick once-over.

Granddad always receives these looks from people. For someone with a soft heart, he does a good job of scaring everyone off with his deeply lined, scrunched-up, grumpy face.

“This is my granddad.”

“Oh my,” Lulu says, her voice going up an octave as she gets excited. “It's an honor to meet your family.” Lulu pumps his hand up and down enthusiastically. Then she turns to me. It hasn't been long, but I instinctively know not to offer my branded right hand to her to shake. She reaches for it instead herself and holds on for dear life, looking at me expectantly. I'm not sure what she's waiting for. I look to Granddad uncomfortably.

“Okay, okay,” Granddad barks, and she jumps a little.

I finally free my hand from hers, which seems to break her from whatever spell she's under.

“I'm sorry.” She blushes. “It's just so nice to see you in the flesh. I'm a big, big fan of yours.”

“We all are,” Granddad says proudly.

“Follow me,” Lulu says, and we make our way through endless halls and corridors. “All of us are thrilled you're coming today. It will mean so much to everyone. A boost. These are such hard times, and you mean so much to them.” She stops walking and clasps her hands together at her chest and gazes at me.