A TV screen flickered in the corner. The sound was off, but I recognized the aerial shot of Salvation, the cabins scattered over the snow and the church covered in ripped strips of black solarskin that flapped in the breeze.
“Luke,” I whispered. “We should leave.”
“No, it’ll be fine.”
The man peered at us over his wire-rimmed glasses. “Can I help you?”
Luke stepped forward. “Mr. Beaufort?”
“Yes?”
“Beattie sent us.”
The woman’s mouth fell open. She glanced from us to the TV. “When did you talk to her last?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Is she alive?”
“She was when I left.”
She dropped her head. “Ah, my baby!”
The man squeezed her shoulder. “Vera and I’ve been so worried. We keep waiting to hear.”
Beattie was older than my mom so it was hard for me to imagine her being Vera’s baby.
“The church walls are real thick,” Luke explained. “And the windows are bulletproof. There’s a bunker under the church where everyone can take refuge if the church is breached.”
“And the rest of the family?” the man said.
“Keisha was safe in the bunker, and Cecilia was away. I wish I could tell you more.”
The man came over and shook Luke’s hand. “Thank you.”
Vera stumbled around the desk, walking as if one leg was shorter than the other. “It’s a shameful thing the government did—attacking its own people. Children. Innocents!”
She took me in from the scarf over my hair down to my boots. “You were there. You’re the girl that sent out the distress call.”
I looked to Luke, and he nodded.
“Yes, that was me.”
The man’s face went pale.
“Harris,” Vera said. “We’ve got to help them.”
Harris wiped a hand over his face, and I grabbed Luke’s sleeve. “We should leave, and get the car before it’s towed.”
“No!” Vera said. “Harris Beaufort—we’ve waited days to find out about our daughter. We have to help them.”
“Vera. Settle down, my flower. Of course we’re going to help them. I’m merely trying to think through how we’re going to do it.”
“They need to get someplace safe.”
“I know. I know.”
Luke nodded at a construction-paper sign saying BARGAIN SHOP, taped to a nearby door. “Could we buy some new clothes from you?” I asked Vera.
Her eyes formed a question that she didn’t ask. She fumbled in her sweater pocket and came up with a set of keys. “Come with me, the both of you.”
We clambered after her down some narrow stairs, closing the door behind us. Luke leaned over my shoulder. “See, what did I tell you?”
“I hope you’re right about this.”
The stairs ended in a basement room filled with circular racks of used clothing and smelling of old carpet. “Men’s sizes on that wall. Girls’ in the middle. Don’t even think of paying,” Vera told us. “Just hang your old coats on the rack and we’ll call it even.”
We heard the basement door open. “Vera,” Harris called down. “June from the ladies’ league is here.”
She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Now of all times. You stay here till I come get you.”
Vera walked up the stairs and flicked off the light. The key turned in the lock, and light filtered in through three small windows near the ceiling.
“Did you hear that?” I said, scurrying over to the stairs. “She locked us in.”
“Locked us in or locked somebody else out?” Luke unzipped his jacket as he strode over to a rack of parkas.
I could hear muffled voices through the floor. “Not sure.” I climbed up on a rickety table and tried the latch on one of the windows. “Okay, we’re fine,” I said, feeling it give.
Luke was going through the men’s coats, but there weren’t many to choose from, not like the racks of girls’ and women’s clothing that filled the room. Prom and wedding dresses lined the far wall, while more everyday things filled the center racks.
Lots of the clothes looked barely worn and some still had price tags attached. I pictured hundreds of fathers emptying out their wives’ and daughters’ closets after Scarpanol ripped their families apart.
And that thought carried me back to the line of Dumpsters outside the Rose Bowl back home buried under mountains of clothes that families couldn’t bear to keep.
My throat tightened. You can’t go there now. You need to focus on changing your appearance.
I found a powder-blue ski jacket, but before I hung my black one in its place, I retrieved the Canadian passport that Maggie’s assistant, Helen, gave me in Vegas.
I peeked inside the cover, thinking I should toss it. I didn’t look anything like the photo. The customs agent who saw this would have to be a fool to believe it was me.
It’s a long shot, but it’s the only one I’ve got, I thought, and zipped it into my new jacket.
From a shelf piled with knit scarves, I picked a fuzzy white one with a matching hat and mittens. Snowflakes embellished with silver sequins were embroidered on the creamy wool.
I pulled the hat over my hair and pouted in a nearby mirror. I looked like a soft, sweet kitten, not the dangerous revolutionary the media was spinning.
Behind me, I saw Luke take off his cowboy hat. His blond-brown hair was tied into a short curly tail at the base of his neck. He stared down at his hat, holding it in both hands almost as if he was saying good-bye.
I threaded through the racks until I stood beside him. “That hat must be special.”
“Yup. My dad bought me this hat.”
Dad or adopted dad, I didn’t ask. All I had left of home was the silver dolphin hanging around my neck that Becca, Yates’ sister, gave me. “Then you have to keep it,” I said and plucked a hat band with a big, flashy spray of brown feathers off a Stetson. “This look like something you’d wear?”
“Never in a million years.”
“Perfect.” I fastened it to his hat. “People will be so mesmerized by this stupid thing, they won’t bother to look at your face.”
He smiled at me with gratitude and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. The back of my neck prickled. “I need to go pick out a shirt,” I said.
Luke sorted through a case of used paperbacks while I found a shirt I’d never wear in real life. Lilac gingham check to go with a pale pink sweater. I made sure Luke’s back was turned, then peeled off my old shirt and put on the new one.
A few minutes later, a car pulled away and Vera cracked the door. “You can come out now.” She locked the basement behind us.
“Where’s Harris?” I said, seeing that he’d gone.
“He’ll be back in a minute.”
Then I realized both Luke’s and my packs were missing, too. “Wait, where are our packs?” I demanded.
Vera started, and pointed under the desk. “Harris tucked them out of sight when June drove up.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little jumpy.”
“It’s all right. No harm done.”
Luke held up a yellowing copy of Killing Lincoln. “How much for this?” he asked Vera.
She waved him off. “That? It’s on the house. Sorry to say, we don’t get many readers here anymore.”
“Holy—” Luke crossed the room in two steps and squatted in front of the TV. Vera gasped, and I wheeled around and saw what they saw: an aerial shot of a line of men, women, and children marching out of Salvation’s church, hands over their heads.
State troopers flanked both sides of the road. “Looks like they’re letting them go back to their houses,” Vera said.
I crouched down beside Luke. “Do you recognize anyone?”
He followed the line of people on the screen with his finger. “That’s Jemima’s family but I don’t see her. There’s Ramos and his wife and kids—”
Vera wrapped her hands together and
began to pray.
I couldn’t tell who the people were. The shot was from far away and even Luke was guessing, counting how many adults and children went into each house.
Come on, where’s Beattie and Keisha? I thought. Where’s Sarah and Jonas, Luke’s little brother and sister, and Nellie and Rogan, the mom and dad who raised him?
We watched over a hundred people come out of that church, before the doors closed. Luke bowed his head. I twisted my fingers, wishing I had answers.
“Where’s my daughter!” Vera cried. “Where’s my grandbaby?”
“There’s forty people missing,” Luke said.
I went through everyone I could remember before it clicked and I stood up. “The Council. The Council members and their families are all still in the church.”
Vera looked at me, panicked.
“I think it’s a good sign,” I said, wrapping my hand around hers. “I think it means they’re probably alive.”
“Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord.”
Luke got to his feet. “I think Avie’s right. We should assume the people still inside are being questioned.”
He sounded like Barnabas, the same calm under fire, but his jaw was clenched. He was trying not to freak Vera, but he didn’t believe his family was safe.
The door swung open, and the smell of hot eggs and onions blew in. “Who’s hungry?” Harris called.
“I know I am.” Luke walked toward him, faking a smile. “Whatever that is smells good.”
Harris handed Luke a burrito. “What about you?” Harris asked me.
“Yeah, thank you.” I tore back the foil and bit into the first hot food I’d had in four days. The cheesy eggs melted in my mouth as I watched Luke wolf down his, grateful he had something to take his mind off Salvation.
Harris sipped his coffee. “You know your way around livestock, son?”
“Yes, sir. Horses, and goats, mostly. I don’t know much about cattle.”
“That’s all right. I thought we might hitch you two a ride with a rancher needing to haul some stock.”
“Sounds good.”
“You know where you’re headed?”
“Laramie,” Luke said.
“Laramie? We’re not going back to—” Boise.
Luke silenced me with a look. No Boise. Don’t even ask.
“What about Canada?”
Three sets of eyes landed on me. “Canada would be safer,” Vera murmured.
“That’s not the direction we should be headed,” Luke said.
I stared right back at him. Luke hadn’t been on the run for as long as I had. If he had, he’d think twice about dodging the feds for two thousand miles so we could hand over the evidence personally, and instead come up with a way to get it there without getting us killed.
The room went silent while Luke and I pretended to be absorbed in what we were eating. Meanwhile, Vera rifled through a shoe box on a shelf.
A moment later, she handed me a gold ring with a dusty chip that looked like a diamond. “Since you two are traveling together, you better look like man and wife.”
The gold was scratched like someone had worn it a long time. I slid it on my ring finger and held up my hand so Vera could see it fit.
“A little toothpaste will shine that right up,” she said.
Luke frowned into his coffee. Maybe it was me disagreeing with what he wanted or maybe it was his family still trapped in Salvation, but he wasn’t happy.
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A GIRL UNDONE. Copyright © 2015 by Catherine Linka.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Designed by Anna Gorovoy
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (TK)
ISBN 978-1-250-06867-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03932-3 (e-book)
St. Martin’s Griffin books may be purchased for educational, business, or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or write [email protected].
First Edition: June 2015
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CATHERINE LINKA was almost thrown out of boarding school for being “too verbal.” Fortunately, she learned to channel her outspokenness and creative energy into writing. A passionate traveler who has visited Iceland, the Amazon, and the Arctic Circle, Catherine has seen five types of whales in the wild, but no orcas. Yet. She doesn’t believe in fate, but she did fall in love with her husband on their first date when he laced up her boots, because she had a broken hand.
Visit her Web Site at www.catherinelinka.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A GIRL CALLED FEARLESS. Copyright © 2014 by Catherine Linka. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Danielle Fiorella
Cover photographs: Los Angeles © Albert Valles/Getty Images; girl © Coniferine/Shutterstock.com; glass © Olegusk/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Linka, Catherine.
A girl called Fearless / Catherine Linka. — 1st Ed.
p. cm
ISBN 978-1-250-03929-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03930-9 (e-book)
1. Science fiction. 2. Arranged marriage—Fiction. 3. Runaways—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction. I. Title.
PZ7.L662816Gi 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2014000128
e-ISBN 9781250039309
First Edition: May 2014
A Girl Called Fearless: A Novel (The Girl Called Fearless Series) Page 34
