Flawed (Flawed, #1)(58)

“There weren’t any reports of incidences of the guards’ bad conduct,” Pia says. “There were no warnings before they were let go. No reported incidences. No budget cuts. No contracts that had come to an end. It was very sudden. All gone. On the same day. The day after the Branding Chamber. As far as I can see, they’re not currently employed elsewhere. I rang Tina’s house. There was no answer. She has a daughter, so she must know something. I think I’ll take a drive out to her tomorrow.”

“So you believe me,” I say nervously.

“No, I’m not saying I believe you,” she says quickly. “I mean, I don’t know, but, maybe, I think that I have to cover all areas before … you know. It’s a very serious thing, and if he did it, then…”

“Then what?”

“Then…” She sighs. “Then it calls a lot of things into question.”

“It calls the entire system into question,” I say.

“Unfair treatment in the Branding Chamber doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not Flawed, Celestine.”

I roll my eyes. I can’t win with her. “No, but it means he is. And what happens if you have a Flawed person at the head of a Flawed court?”

She goes quiet. “I heard the school won’t let you attend.”

I feel the anger rising within me. “Because of your article, with the photograph of my sister.”

Her guilty look tells me all I need to know. But it also shows me that perhaps there’s a conscience knocking around in there that I never knew existed.

“Isn’t it better to be at home?” she asks. “So that you’re not the only Flawed in the school. That can’t be easy.”

“Are you trying to convince yourself you’ve done me a favor? Because you haven’t. I wanted to be at school. It’s my right.”

She looks confused and thinks about it. “What’s it like to be Flawed at school? The only Flawed person.”

I can’t find any hidden agenda with this line of questioning, but she’s never asked me questions like this, about how it feels, because the readership isn’t supposed to care about how it feels for a Flawed, unless it’s to scare them.

I sigh. “I don’t know what it’s like when you’re older, but every teenager wants to be perfect. Nobody wants to stand out, at least I never did. And the people that do stand out, they’re just being themselves. Everybody wants to look like they know what they’re doing, when really most of the time nobody has a clue. Maybe it’s different with adults.”

Pia smiles. “Not really that different with adults at all. It’s not easy being a journalist,” she says, and I throw her a bored look. “No, seriously. Not everything we write is published the way we want it to be. We don’t always have control over our voice.”

She’ll never apologize for the article that got me thrown out of school, but perhaps this is the closest she’ll come to it. Today her article is about whether Angelina Tinder “coached” me to become Flawed and questions who else she taught piano to. She misquotes me a few times from previous interviews, twisting my words to fit into her context. There is a photograph of Angelina before the Ousting and a photograph of my startled face leaving her house. The headline is FLAWED PIANO TEACHER RECRUITS.

I study Pia, and I know what she’s struggling with: tell the sixth-brand story or not. Bring down Crevan, or not.

“So tell them you want it to be said your way.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Yes, it is.”

“They don’t listen.”

“Then leave. Go work somewhere else.”

“The world doesn’t work like that, Celestine.”

I shrug.

“So if I left this extremely well-paid job, where I might not get to report everything in the way that I want, but I get to report it—I have my own show, my own column—who would feed my two children?”

“Lies wouldn’t.”

This strikes her, and she’s silent some more.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to call Tina’s house today, ask some questions. Can we meet later tonight?”

“I won’t be here.” On her look, I give her more. “I’m going to a party. Someone from school.”

“Good for you,” Pia says.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was almost happy for me. But I can’t trust her fully. What if she is working with Crevan to find out what my plan is? What if she finds the guards and talks them out of telling the truth? Threatens them with a story or with accusing them of aiding a Flawed? And if I tell her about Mr. Berry’s recording of the Branding Chamber, what if she destroys the video? No, I can’t trust her. She is too close to Crevan, and she has done little so far to earn my trust. I can’t tell her about Carrick or Mr. Berry’s video.

I’ll just have to get to them before she does.





FORTY-TWO

“SO WHOSE PARTY are you going to?” Juniper asks me at breakfast, after Pia is gone.

“Logan Trilby’s.”

She stops chewing her cereal, her sugary cereal that she continues to eat while I’m limited to oatmeal. “Logan is the biggest * going.”