Flawed (Flawed, #1)(76)
“Why was the Guild so threatened by him?”
“Interesting, Celestine. You asked why the Guild was so threatened.… You recognize that’s what’s happening. That’s good. Let’s continue.”
She continues showing me the landscape, which she believes has been opened up because of my actions on the bus and my responses on the stand.
“Compassion and logic. I loved that,” she says, banging her hand down on the table and grinning. “Did it take you long to come up with that, or did someone else write it for you? Was it that Mr. Berry? Some believe that, but I don’t. It’s not his style.” She moves in, hanging on my every word to come. “Who wrote that line?”
I frown. “No one wrote anything. It just came out.”
She shakes her head, incredulously. “Marvelous. We need more of that. You know word is that Enya is going to use that as the Vital Party’s campaign logo. Compassion and Logic: The Perfect Partnership. Vote Vital Party.”
I shake my head in disbelief.
“I know. It’s a lot to take in, but we need more of that stuff; and if you think of any more like that, just write it down. I can find a way to use it. So what else … you’re looking a little dazed, maybe I’ll move on to math, something you’re familiar with. For now, anyway…” She rummages around for the schedule. “We better do something on this list today, to help you out with dear sweet Mary May’s lie detector test.”
“You know her?”
“She was responsible for my sister-in-law and her husband going to prison for aiding my husband. They helped him break a couple of rules, and they’re locked up for four years each. I wouldn’t mess with her. She looks like a bird, but she bites like a lion. They mean business when they place her with you. She’s the most senior in her position. She eats, sleeps, lives being a Whistleblower. Knows more than any of them put together, which isn’t a lot, but she’s the control center.”
This is the first I’ve heard of people going to prison for aiding. Before this, it was just a threat. And it was a very real threat to me. Two years for aiding Clayton Byrne to his seat, or Flawed. “I’m sorry to hear about your family.”
She waves her hand dismissively again and doesn’t even look up from the paperwork.
“Is there a reason why you tattooed your stomach?”
This unsettles her a bit, but she rises to the challenge. “I’ve had six miscarriages in four years. My womb won’t carry a baby, not full term anyway. Believe me, we’ve tried. And don’t say sorry again, it’s not your fault.” She looks at the schedule again and then drops it and slows down. I know she’s going to open up. “The tattoo is there not because I believe there is something wrong with me. It’s there to remind me that our flaws are our strengths. It was this that made me start my foundation. Not being able to conceive my own, I looked into adoption. Specifically, I’ve tried to adopt an F.A.B. child over the years, but I have been unsuccessful. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” she says. “You know all about this from your Flawed At Birth friend, I’m sure. Carrick, isn’t that his name?”
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?