Tarnished (21 page)

“Just lie low and celebrate,” she said. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

The phone went silent and I laid it back on the table. On the television screen, the news was showing footage that must have been shot from the night before. Throngs of people had taken to the street, dark except for the fires that raged in the buildings behind them. An angry-looking woman waved a flaming flag above her head. The camera zoomed in and it became clear that the fabric she was burning wasn’t a flag. It was a ball gown.

Heat traveled up my neck, engulfing my cheeks until it felt like I was the one being burned alive. It wasn’t right. They should be burning suits and ties. They should be burning fat wads of money and big fancy cars.

We weren’t the ones to blame, but I worried that didn’t matter.

W
e didn’t move from the couch. After a while I lost track of time. My eyes grew tired from staring at the same terrible images of rioting and fires and angry mobs of people. The news broadcast them in a continuous stream as if a cut had been opened and these ugly pictures had spilled out. Sometimes I wondered if they were actually just showing me the same three scenes over and over again or if the events were actually changing, the way they said they were.

Each hour or so, someone would interrupt with a new bit of information: five more women had come forward claiming to have seen the babies they carried killed by NuPet; the breeding facility in California had been overrun by protestors; a retired senator from Texas admitted to taking bribes from NuPet to help speed up the legislation in his state.

Each new bit of information spurred another almost identical story, a mad avalanche of evidence crashing down around us.

A little before five o’clock the urgent drumbeat of a special report interrupted a channel three newscaster interviewing a man who claimed to be a former NuPet worker in charge of recruiting.

The music swelled and the bold red words that I’d come to recognize as “Breaking News” scrolled across the screen, and then the camera flashed to a newscaster sitting behind his polished desk. I’d seen him before, but something about him was different this time, his hair not quite as tidy as it had been before, his shirt not as crisp.

“This is Grant Peterson, Eyewitness News, coming to you with breaking news. NuPet has announced that it will be holding a press conference addressing the allegations that have surfaced over the past twenty-four hours. In a little less than five minutes the CEO of NuPet is scheduled to give a statement outside the company’s headquarters in Florida. It’s unclear at the moment whether he’ll be accepting questions from the media.”

Missy scooted closer to my side, pulling a blanket up over the two of us. Over the past few hours she’d amassed almost every blanket and pillow in the house, tucking them around us on the couch like she was building some sort of fortress.

“What could they possibly say to fix this?” Penn asked.

A huge crowd of reporters had gathered outside of the NuPet headquarters. There were hundreds of people, all of them holding cameras and microphones and notebooks. They stood shoulder to shoulder, packed around the base of the wide granite steps that led up to the giant block of a building that housed NuPet’s corporate offices.

At exactly five o’clock, the front doors opened and a group of men in dark suits descended the stairs, fanning out at the bottom of the steps while a tall man stepped forward to the tangle of microphones. He was an older man with thinning hair and a jowly neck that hid what had probably once been a strong jaw. He looked out over the crowd with calm indifference that reminded me of the men that Congressman Kimble had brought to the house.

The kind of men who acted as if the world belonged to them.

“Thank you for coming out today,” he said. “Here at NuPet, our mission for over thirty years has been to find a way to strengthen the connection between people and the companions with whom they share their homes. For years, people turned to domesticated animals as companions and faithful friends, but the lifespan of these sweet animals could never be extended beyond a decade or two. The loss of what could be considered members of the family left great holes in the lives of their owners, and led us here at NuPet to create a companion that could stay with a family for a lifetime. We wanted these companions to be as interactive as possible, someone to enrich the lives of the families that they lived with. In creating the Humana Karaspa, we believed our genetically modified girls would be the perfect answer to this need.”

“God,” Penn said, shaking his head. “It’s like he’s still trying to sell them.”

It was true. Nothing that the man had said so far even addressed the swell of anger that was surging through the country. If anything, it sounded like an advertisement.

“But over the past twenty-four hours, it has been brought to our attention that many people are upset to learn how our facilities operate. While I do want to assure the public that the practices we’ve used have been approved and practiced in the scientific community, we also want to promise the American people that we’ve heard your concerns and we’re going to do everything we can to rectify the problem.”

“How could they possibly—” Missy started to say.

“This is why, effective immediately, we are complying with the government’s demands for a national recall of all pets that have been bred and sold under our current program.”

“A recall?” Missy asked. “What does that mean?”

“Shh,” Penn hushed, not taking his eyes from the television.

“We ask that these pets be returned to our facilities immediately,” the man went on. “Our clients will be issued a full refund and will be the first to receive our new product once we can guarantee that no surrogates have been used in their creation.”

I cringed. Products? Did he really think that’s all that these girls were?

“Our teams are currently formulating a plan to recondition existing pets once they’ve been returned to our facilities. We will comply with government mandates so that they’ll be able to live free and fulfilling lives.”

Free?

“Free!” Missy yelled, jumping to her feet. “Oh my God! Are they serious? Penn! Are they serious?”

I turned to Penn, who sat still, staring at the TV as an explosion of questions erupted in the crowd. “I…I don’t know,” he said, flustered. “Something feels…off.”

He turned to face me and my throat tightened around the word…

Free
.

I wanted to say it out loud. I wanted to scream it. But it had lodged itself too deeply inside of me. I wanted so desperately to believe it was true, but Penn was right.
Reconditioned.
That’s what they’d said. Pets were to be sent back to the kennel for reconditioning.

“Penn?” I whispered. His name contained the world. Everything I wanted to say but couldn’t. Every word. Every thought. Every hope. Every dream.

Every fear.

His eyes met mine and he gave his head one small shake.

“Missy,” I said carefully. “Maybe we shouldn’t get our hopes up yet.”

“Are you kidding? Did you hear what they said?” Missy asked, collapsing back onto the couch. She sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “This is it! I can feel it.”

“When have you ever been able to trust anything the kennel says?” Penn asked.

Missy glared at him. “Why are you trying to ruin this?”

“I’m not! I’m just…cautiously optimistic.”

On the television, reporters had begun barraging the executive with questions. What about the babies? Could they guarantee that no more infants would be harmed? Would the girls really be able to be assimilated into society? Did the government mandate mean that the law would be overturned? What would the repercussions be for families that didn’t want to give up their pets?

Missy hopped up and switched off the TV.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “We can’t just sit here when there’s something like this to celebrate!”

She pulled me to my feet.

“What if someone sees us?” I asked.

“No one is going to notice,” she said. “Not with all that’s going on. Come on. I’m sick of being trapped in here. How can we sit inside one more cage when the world is calling to let us out?”

Chapter Twenty-One

M
issy was still wearing the pajama pants that she’d found in the closet upstairs, but she didn’t seem to care. Already she was slipping on her shoes.

“Ms. Westly said to stay here,” Penn said.

“But that was before the press conference,” Missy said. “Everything has changed.”

She grabbed a wad of cash out of her backpack and headed for the door. “I can’t believe you two. You’ve been fighting for freedom and when someone gives it to you, you’re too afraid to enjoy it.” She shook her head, slamming the door behind her.

I slipped on my shoes, rising to follow her.

Penn grabbed my arm. “No, Ella. Something’s not right. I know you feel it, too.”

I did. I didn’t care what the kennel promised about freedom, about reconditioning, about giving pets a real life like any other human. There was no way I was ever going back there again. Never. “We can’t let her get too far,” I said. “Someone will see her. She’ll get caught.”

A minute later we were out the door. On the street, a car drove by, startling a flock of pigeons that had been pecking at the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps. The birds started, all taking flight at once. Their wings beat, filling the air around us with sound as they filled the sky. The pale underside of their wings caught the light, glinting as they all turned together.

We glanced down the street. At the end of the block, Missy was disappearing around the corner.

“Where is she going?” Penn asked as we raced after her.

“Who knows? She’s probably going to spend that whole pile of money on chocolate cake and filet mignon.” I kept my tone light, but all I could think about was the number of people she’d pass on the street. How many we were passing trying to catch up to her. They were less likely to notice a boy and a girl holding hands, but Missy would stand out on her own.

We neared the corner and Penn stopped abruptly. His face grew serious.

“Listen,” he said.

I paused. The sound of voices rose over the noise of traffic and car horns. We turned the corner and froze. At the end of the next block, a large crowd surged against the side of the building. They were yelling something, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Tu-Nu-Rin. Tu-Nu-Rin.
It sounded like a guttural chant.

Penn shifted uneasily on his feet. “Maybe we better go back.”

“What? No! We can’t leave Missy!”

Penn stayed rooted in place, shaking his head. Ahead of us, Missy made her way toward the crowd.

“Come on,” I said. “I’m going after her.”

We crept closer to the crowd. There was an energy in the air that I hadn’t noticed before, but I felt it now, like the chanting and shouting of all those people had charged it with an electric current that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. This wasn’t something good. This was something animal. Something dangerous.

“This is a bad idea,” he said. “We need to get back to the house. Now.”

“I’m not leaving her!” I broke free from his grasp, moving briskly toward the crowd.

The swarm of people spilled down the steps of the nicest house on the block. There must have been close to a hundred of them, most dressed in worn sweaters and jeans. You could tell at a glance that they weren’t the sorts of people that belonged at a house like this. It was a polished-looking stone building with intricately carved details around the windows and two tall, trimmed topiaries standing on either side of the door.

I raced forward. Missy had already reached the edge of the crowd and wormed her way inside it, disappearing in a mass of angry red faces.

Penn grabbed my hand. “I’m serious, Ella. This doesn’t look good.”

He was right. There was no denying the reek of anger and rage that billowed off of the mob.

“Burn in hell you rich bastards!” someone next to me yelled.

“Turn her in! Turn her in!” another person yelled, and I realized that this must have been the phrase that I’d been hearing since we turned the corner.

“What’s going on?” Penn asked a short, wild-haired woman in a knobby sweater that stood at the edges of the group near us.

“Some bigwig asshole lives here with one of those pets,” she said, raising her voice over the noise.

“What are they doing?” I asked. Could she tell from looking at me that I was a pet, or was she too distracted?

“They’re going to get her and turn her back in. There’s a huge government recall,” she said. “Didn’t you hear about it? They’re baby killers, you know?”

Before I could protest that we weren’t the ones killing babies, a group of men tipped over one of the home’s large topiaries. They grasped the huge cement pot and bashed it against the front door. Again. And again. And again. With each thud, the chanting reached a fevered pitch.

“Missy!” I screamed, knowing she couldn’t hear me.

Behind us, more people pressed in, shoving us forward, and I lost sight of Penn.

There was another loud crash as a stone hit the large bay window, shattering it. Glass sprayed down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Far away, I thought I heard the high-pitched squeal of a child screaming.

“Get it!”

“Burn the place!”

“Turn her in!”

The words rose together, tangling and knotting into a furious growl. There was another large bang and through the mass of heads in front of me, I saw the front door finally crash open.

I turned around, struggling through the throng, pushing against the arms and chests that fought to drive me closer to the door. I broke free just as a cheer went up through the crowd, and I turned around in time to see a small black-haired pet being pulled from the arms of her family.

In the doorway a man in a ripped dress shirt cradled his arm as he shouted into the crowd. A thin woman and a little boy crumpled against him, sobbing.

The pet struggled, too, clawing and kicking at the man who dragged her away. He picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder as he stomped toward a car idling on the curb.

My stomach lurched. “Stop!” I yelled. “Leave her alone! Can’t you see you’re hurting her?” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the madness.

I slumped down onto a set of steps a few doors down, biting back the anger that boiled up inside me too. It felt contagious, this rage. I’d breathed it into my lungs and now it burned in my gut, filling my chest with heat.

And then Penn was beside me.

He knelt down in front of me. “Are you okay? I lost you.”

“They can’t just take her like this,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fists in my lap.

“They’re trying to help her.”

“Like that?” I yelled, pointing to the open car door where the girl still struggled against the people. She was just a tiny thing, like Missy, like me, but she was fierce. Blood oozed from the nose of the man carrying her.

Maybe we were all a lot stronger than anyone realized.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t worry about that now,” Penn said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Down the street, Missy pushed her way through the crowd. She paused at the edge of the group, her face stunned. When she saw me, the strong mask she wore fell away and her face crumpled as she raced toward us.

“We have to do something, Ella,” she said. Up close I saw that her face was smudged with dirt along her cheek.

My knees shook with fear and adrenaline. “What? What exactly do you think we can do? We can’t even stay in a house when we’re told to.”

The group of people surged around us, a noisy, pulsing monster. I couldn’t push my way back through that crowd. Not even if I wanted to.

“I don’t know.” Missy shook her head, not bothering to wipe the tears that fell down her cheeks, streaking the dirt. “I don’t know.”

And I didn’t know either. I didn’t know how to help or how to feel. I didn’t know anything anymore. I wanted some sort of truth that I could grab onto, something real and right, but I couldn’t find it here. All these choices only felt like mist, foggy and intangible.

“I want to go back,” Missy finally said. “I don’t want to see any more of this.”

“Stay by me,” Penn said, as he turned to usher us back toward the house.

His face was pained. It wasn’t hard to guess why. He’d just watched our dreams for the future dragged from the safety of loving arms by the very people we’d expected to set me free.

There was no hope of that now.

I
t didn’t take long to make our way back. But in the short time that we’d been gone, the street felt different. Dark. Dangerous. The birds were gone and with them, the feeling of hope, fleeting as it was. Something gloomy had taken its place and I moved closer to Penn, as if the solidness of his body could protect me from this feeling.

“Let’s go around the back,” Missy said as we neared the building. Maybe she felt it too, the uneasy sense that we were being watched.

The back alley was hidden in shadows. The evening light that had spilled down the street out front was now blocked by the tall brick buildings. The three of us dashed up the back steps and crashed through the door, slamming it behind us.

We took a collective breath, silently staring at one another. Even in the dim light of the kitchen I could see the dark smudge on Missy’s cheek. I knew that it wasn’t a wound, only dirt, but still it frightened me.

Penn crowded Missy, cornering her in the entryway. “What were you thinking?” he demanded. “You could have gotten hurt. You could have gotten
Ella
hurt. Do you think stuff like that is—”

“Shh,” I interrupted, holding up my hand to silence him. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled.

“Ella, what—”

I shook my head and he closed his mouth.

“There’s someone…” My voice trailed off.
Someone here
, I wanted to say. I could feel them. A presence. My legs went weak. What if it was the congressman? What if he’d found us? We needed to go. We needed to run. To get out of here. To get away. But where?

“Ella?” Penn started to ask again, worried, when from the other room we heard the groan of a loose board on the stairs, followed by the undeniable thud of footsteps against the hardwood floors.

My mouth went dry and I clutched the counter. I tried to form the word
run
, but it felt shriveled and small on my tongue.

“Thank God!” Ms. Westly said, appearing in the doorway. “Where were you? No one answered when I rang the bell so I let myself in. I thought maybe—”

“We just stepped outside for a little fresh air,” Penn lied.

Missy’s brow furrowed, and I could see the question in her eyes. Why lie for her after everything that had just happened?

“Thank goodness you didn’t go far,” she said. “I… It’s just that…damn, I never imagined that things would happen like this. It was a big story, but it wasn’t
this
big. I don’t even know what this is. It’s like our country has been leaking some sort of toxic gas for too long and we made the mistake of striking a match. Now the whole thing has exploded.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“No, I’m the sorry one,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s so much worse than I could have guessed. NuPet is a deceitful, greedy company.”

“But maybe they’re changing,” Missy said. “They can’t keep doing the same horrible things anymore without any consequences.”

“No, now they’re just finding new ways of lying,” Ms. Westly said. She looked at our hopeful faces and the angry scowl on her face dissipated into a look of pity. “It isn’t true,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“The story they’re telling the public. It’s just a story.”

“They aren’t taking pets back?” Penn asked.

“They
are
taking them back. But it’s just to divert the public’s attention from the real allegations. These men aren’t fools. It’s a pretty story they’re telling until people forget and things die down.”

“But they can’t say it if it isn’t true, can they?” Missy asked.

Ms. Westly frowned. “Why not? It’s all they’ve done so far.” She paused. “Did you hear about the news conference?”

We nodded.

“We watched it before we left.” How else would we have heard the news about NuPet?

She looked at her watch, confused. “The one with your father?” she asked Penn.

“My father?”

“He scheduled a press conference. A local one, but he must have known he’d get national press.” She walked into the family room, her heels clicking across the floor as she headed for the television.

I stood rooted in the doorway.

Ms. Westly switched on the TV and there he was, the congressman. The camera was zoomed in on his freshly shaven face as he adjusted the microphones in front of him, getting ready to speak. Even with the warning that I was going to see him, I wasn’t prepared for the sick lurch in my stomach or the cold fear that trickled down my limbs. To anyone else, he must have looked like a handsome, responsible civil servant: clean-pressed, calm, composed, just the sort of person you’d want to represent you. But that’s not what I saw. I saw a man who had sculpted the most beautiful mask he could wear for the sole purpose of getting what he wanted.

Penn stared down at the television. His face was stiff, unreadable, as he watched his father, but when the camera panned out, Penn’s fist slammed down on the end table. “He brought them to our house? Is he insane? I swear to God, if Ruby’s still there—”

Behind the congressman, the front door of Penn’s house looked out of place. Familiar, but no longer home.

“Oh, you can be sure he thought that one through,” Ms. Westly said. “The last thing your father needs right now is to seem any more distanced from the public than he already is. The thing he needs right now is to look like a family man. I’m surprised that he isn’t sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of hot chocolate and a plate of cherry pie.”

Penn couldn’t seem to see past the fact that his father had brought the press to his house, but I hardly noticed the whitewashed brick or the gravel driveway that the crowd of reporters stood on. The thing that caught my eye was small and shiny, glinting in the congressman’s tightly clenched fist: my pendant.