Perfect

by Cecelia Ahern

  “You think a piece of video holds that much power?” He laughs.

  “I know it does. Because I know what’s on it. I was there, remember? And because you’re going out of your way to find me, hunting me down. You’re panicking. You know you can’t talk yourself out of this one. When people see this footage, they’ll see what an animal you are. A monster who’s out of control, who can’t be trusted with the power he’s been given.”

  He swallows, pretending not to be bothered by my words, but I know that he is. Nobody in his life speaks to him like this.

  I take a deep breath. “I can make it all go away. I’ll give you the footage if you admit that I’m not Flawed. That what I did on the bus wasn’t wrong. Repent, Crevan,” I say, repeating the word he said to me in the chamber.

  He looks surprised. “I’d never do that. If I do that, then every Flawed will demand the same thing.”

  “That’s the deal.” I shrug.

  He sighs. His shoulders slump, and he pushes one hand in his pocket while the other rubs his face tiredly.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  I’m taken aback by the haste of his agreement—Raphael’s advice worked, but I need to continue while the going is good. “There’s one other person you need to do the same for. Carrick Vane.” Carrick may have lied to me about his involvement with Enya Sleepwell, but it doesn’t change what happened between me and him, what we shared in the castle and what we shared in his cabin last night. He may owe me an apology, but he is the one who believed in me more than anyone, which has led me to this point right now, and I owe him this.

  He looks at me and narrows his eyes, and I try to stay strong. A part of me is panicking that I’ve given up Carrick’s name, that I’ve linked us together.

  “You give me the footage, all copies, and I’ll do that for you and your friend. But here’s my part of the bargain. You must both leave the country. I don’t want to ever hear from either of you again. If you set one foot back in Humming, then you’ll find yourself in the same situation.”

  I’m so shocked that it has worked. Leave the country? No problem. Be free? Yes, please.

  “But the deal remains private,” he continues, explaining the terms. “Nobody can know that your verdicts have been reversed. You live in freedom, and the powers that be here will be aware, but the public won’t. We keep this quiet.”

  This is exactly what happened with Raphael Angelo’s winning case. Agreeing to not being able to speak about the overturned verdict publicly would mean that I could never truly clear my name and nobody else could use my case to fight for their own freedom. We couldn’t accuse Crevan of being Flawed. Enya Sleepwell couldn’t use me for her campaign, and Flawed rights would suffer. Sanchez wouldn’t be able to remove Crevan from power.

  But I’d be free. And so would Carrick.

  I think of what Cordelia said to me in Vigor. What kind of leader sacrifices others for their own gain?

  “No,” I say shakily. “I can’t agree to that.”

  Crevan tuts. “And you were so close, Celestine.”

  I’m not alert enough. I’m too lost in the repercussions of the decision I’ve made that I’m slow to react. I thought I was smart, but I’m not smart enough. When he takes his hand from his pocket, he reaches out and sticks a needle in my thigh.

  I crumple to the ground.

  FORTY-TWO

  I WAKE UP in a hospital bed. I’m surrounded by a white curtain, white walls, white ceiling, white bedding, bright strip lighting. I wince against the light. I’m wearing a red gown.

  I try to sit up but I’m stuck. My upper body is stiff but it moves, my arms and upper torso will do what they’re told, but from the waist down, absolutely nothing happens. There’s no movement. I’m paralyzed.

  Feeling trapped, I start to whimper with the effort. I throw off the covers and try to lift my legs with my hands. They’re heavy and I can move them, but I can’t feel a thing. I thump them, slap them, try to wake them up, force them to obey.

  The curtain is pulled back and I jump, startled. Tina appears.

  Tina. The guard who was with me during the branding, the guard who disappeared. The guard who I thought had disappeared, along with all the others. She’s wearing her Whistleblower uniform and everything I thought I knew dismantles in my mind. The neat little theory that she had been on my side, that she’d smuggled the footage to me, that Crevan had hidden her away, all disintegrates. She is the enemy.

  She holds her finger to her lips conspiratorially.

  “He gave you some kind of injection to paralyze you,” she whispers. “They plan to do a skin graft to remove the sixth brand.”

  “What?” I hiss.

  “Shh,” she says loudly. “Dr. Greene has been brought in by the Guild to carry out the surgery. I’m sorry, Celestine, this is a mess.”

  “I thought you were missing. I was actually worried about you.”

  She comes closer, takes my hand. “He threatened me and my daughter. I saw what he did to the others. I couldn’t…” Her eyes fill. “I tried to help you as best I could. Did you find the USB I gave you?”

  “In the snow globe?” I ask.

  She brightens with relief. “Bark added a fake base. I wasn’t sure you’d figure it out, but he thought you would. She’s a clever girl, he said.” She smiles sadly at the memory of him. “I thought I should write it down but then I didn’t want a paper trail, or for it to fall into the wrong hands. I couldn’t contact you; I wasn’t sure if you would find it.”

  “I didn’t realize it was there until too late. Mary May removed everything from my bedroom. I don’t think she knows it’s in the snow globe, though, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Where would she have put it?”

  “I don’t know.” She thinks, eyes panicking. If they find the footage in the globe, it will land her in a lot of trouble.

  “Please, Tina, I need to know. Please find out for me.”

  The door opens.

  She reaches out and I think she’s going to slap me but she pushes my head back down on the pillow and places her hand over my eyes so that I instantly close them.

  “She’s still sleeping, Dr. Greene,” Tina says quietly.

  “Goodness, I’ve never known somebody to sleep so heavily.”

  “I suppose she has been on the run for quite some time. I imagine she’s exhausted,” Tina says, and I hear the pity in her voice.

  “Hmm.” Dr. Greene doesn’t sound so certain. “Are you sure she’s not on any medication?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Doctor,” Tina says carefully. “I’ve just been asked to keep an eye on her.”

  “Usually I prepare for weeks in advance, to make sure the medication doesn’t interfere with the blood’s ability to form clots.” She talks to Tina like she distrusts her, like she is giving her a chance to fess up to drugging me.

  There’s an awkward silence. They’re watching me.

  “I’m afraid Judge Crevan is the person to ask about that.”

  “I already did.”

  And they both know that they can’t ask him twice.

  I try to keep my breathing steady. I’m reminded of being under the ground in the cooking pit. At least now I can breathe. Things are looking up. Though the paralysis is a new one.

  “Have you seen the brand?” Dr. Greene asks in a hush.

  “I was there at the time, Doctor.”

  “I can’t believe that the girl would do this to herself. How did she get the branding tool from the guard in a moment like that? Aren’t the Flawed supposed to be restrained in the chair?”

  “Excuse me?” Tina asks, surprised.

  “Judge Crevan tells me you were all unable to stop Celestine from branding herself.”

  Silence.

  “It’s important that we remove it immediately. Her accusations against Judge Crevan would have serious repercussions. You know she’s telling people that he did it to her? No wonder he’s been going out of his mind to find her.”

  Tina is com
pletely silent.

  “It is what happened, isn’t it?” Dr. Greene asks uncertainly.

  “Is she awake?” Crevan’s voice booms as he bursts into the room.

  “Not yet, Judge,” Dr. Greene says, startled.

  “Call me as soon as she is. I don’t want her talking to anyone, spreading more of her lies.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tina says quickly.

  “All is in order? The operating room is to your satisfaction, Dr. Greene?”

  “Yes, Judge, thank you. May I ask, what is this facility? I wasn’t aware of its existence.”

  “This section is new. Secret government stuff, Dr. Greene.” I hear the smile in his voice and imagine his face. I used to think he was handsome, too, before the mask came off.

  “I’d like to take a look at the scar before surgery, if I may,” Dr. Greene says firmly.

  Tina and Dr. Greene roll me to my side. I hope that Crevan isn’t standing by and watching. Dr. Greene sucks in air.

  “Gosh, that looks painful. Like torture. Why would a young girl do that to herself?” she asks.

  “Who knows what goes through the mind of a Flawed? We’ll reconvene after surgery, Dr. Greene,” Crevan says. “I’m afraid I must prepare for this dreaded interview that the prime minister has asked me do ahead of the election. I must prove to the public I’m not the big bad wolf the Vital Party is making me out to be,” he jokes again, trying to play it down.

  If the government has asked him to do this interview, then he is in a lot of trouble indeed. Damage control.

  “Oh, indeed, a sit-down with Erica Edelman. She’s”—the doctor stalls—“an efficient interviewer. I wish you luck.”

  “Luck indeed,” he says. “She’s out for my blood, I think, but I’ll get around her.”

  His footsteps die away as he leaves the room.

  “What is entailed in the surgery?” Tina asks in a small voice.

  “When Celestine wakes we’ll place an IV in her arm, to administer the general anesthetic and fluids. I’ll inject medicine into the IV and she’ll go to sleep; she won’t feel any pain. I’ll be doing a split-level thickness graft; I’ll remove skin from her inner thigh, then I’ll fix it to the brand with stitches. I’ll cover the donor area with a dressing. We’ll take her back here to recovery, where we’ll administer her pain relief, anything to make her feel comfortable. I’ll need to observe her for a few days to make sure both the donor site and the graft are healing well. She’ll have to avoid strenuous activities for three to four weeks and the donor site should heal within two to three weeks.”

  “She’s been there before, treating her wounds,” Tina says quietly.

  “You seem … forgive me for saying this, but you seem concerned about her. Fond of her, perhaps?”

  “My daughter is her age,” Tina says.

  “Interesting,” Dr. Greene says. “You sound just like her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I watched Celestine’s trial. She said the reason she helped the old man on the bus was because he reminded her of her granddad.”

  “I believe it’s called empathy,” Tina says gently. “We may have lost that as a society.”

  “Not all of us,” Dr. Greene says.

  Her footsteps squeak on the linoleum and then it’s just me and Tina.

  “You’ve got one hour at most to get yourself out of here,” Tina says quickly in my ear. “Any longer and Dr. Greene will start asking Crevan questions and then she’ll be in a world of trouble. I’m going to take a coffee break. I’ve left my car keys beside my bag on the chair in the corner of the room. My car is outside in the parking lot. I’ll distract the others. But that’s all I can do for you, Celestine,” she says, almost apologetically. She leaves quickly, before I beg for more. Which I would.

  I don’t waste any time. I use my elbows to sit up. I reach for the curtain to use it to ease myself to the floor but I’m too heavy and it comes away from the rings on the rail. I topple to the floor with a grunt, hurting my side, and doing who knows what to my legs, but I can’t feel them as they bang to the ground. I roll onto my belly, trying to ignore the pain, and pull myself on my front, using my elbows, dragging my legs behind me.

  My body feels heavy and sluggish, like it’s dead; it won’t listen or obey my commands. Sweat breaks out on my skin immediately from the effort and my skin slides along the polished floor. I can’t feel the floor against my legs. It’s as though my body has been halved, I’ve no feeling at all below my waist. I have no idea where I am; I’m wearing just my underwear beneath the red gown; I can barely make it to the door of my hospital room, never mind attempting to escape the building. I know that I’m not in Highland Castle anyway.

  I get to the chair with Tina’s black leather bag and reach up to grab the set of car keys.

  I have visions of Crevan walking in on me, finding me sprawled on the floor, moving like a slug at his feet. Helpless and at his mercy, right where he wants me. This thought gives me more strength and I increase my pace, pulling myself along faster.

  The door has been left ajar, enough of a gap for me to reach my hand in and pull, thankful I don’t have to stretch to the handle, which would have been impossible. Tina has given me more of a chance than I’d thought. I look outside to the corridor. It’s empty. I hear voices down the hall, from a staff room.

  “Jason, can you come over here? Judge Crevan instructed me to go through this security manual with you all,” Tina says, and I see a Whistleblower at the end of the hall monitoring the security cameras abandon his station.

  “We received that weeks ago,” he says, pulling up his trousers over his gut as he makes his way to the small group of Whistleblowers.

  “Yes, well, apparently he’s not happy with how we’ve been following it,” she says, to groans from the others. “Let’s just get it over with. Why don’t we brew some coffee?”

  “Good idea,” Jason agrees.

  “Page one,” Tina begins.

  I’m about to pull myself out to the corridor and turn right toward the exit stairwell when I hear Flawed TV blaring from the room across the way. It’s the much-talked-about live debate between all the party leaders.

  “Compassion and logic is the Vital Party’s campaign logo, proving that ‘a good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination,’” Enya Sleepwell says from her podium.

  “Which are words straight from the mouth of a Flawed, proving that Enya Sleepwell is in bed with the Flawed population,” Prime Minister Percy says.

  “Interesting you should say that, Prime Minister. I was quoting Nelson Mandela.”

  Score one to Enya.

  I crawl across the hall to the room opposite and see armchairs. More people, patients, all in red gowns. More Flawed. They’ll be able to help me.

  “Excuse me,” I whisper, pulling myself into the room. “I need help.”

  Everyone has their backs to me, they don’t turn around. Perhaps I should leave, but if, as Carrick said, all you have to do is change one mind, then maybe we can help one another out of here. I don’t imagine I’m going to have much success driving with my legs as they are, though I’ll try if I have to, but assistance would be safer and quicker. I call to them again, louder this time, but they either can’t hear me or are ignoring me and don’t want to help. I pull myself up to the nearest armchair, the sweat from the effort trickling down my face and back.

  “Excuse me, I need your—” I stop immediately.

  The hairs stand up all over my body.

  The man in the chair is Mr. Berry.

  FORTY-THREE

  “MR. BERRY.” I shake his arm lightly, trying to get his attention. His dead eyes don’t move from the television and I don’t think it’s because he’s engrossed in the live debate. He has that drugged look about him. He looks old; his face is younger than the rest of his body, but less so without his usual blush and concealer, and it’s like his neck can barely hold it up.

  I look to the chair beside him and I se
e Pia Wang. Beautiful Pia Wang who was trying to help me, she has the same distant look, hair tied back and greasy, as if it hasn’t been washed in weeks. I’m afraid to look around any more, but I have to. I pull myself up to the next row, and I see the guards. Bark, who branded me; Funar, June, and the security guard Tony, who all witnessed it.

  In the front row are the kids from school, Natasha, Logan, Gavin, and Colleen. I watch them in their red gowns, powerless, not at all like the last time I saw them, when they tied me up and stripped me to inspect my brands. The smell of peppermint in the air makes me queasy, that same smell that came from Crevan.

  I’m ashamed of myself for the sense of satisfaction I feel looking at the kids who bullied me not so long ago and took photographs of my brands. It was that evil act that sealed their fate. I do feel something for Colleen, who I grew up with. She lived across the road from me all my life and was a family friend, someone I have memories of playing with as a child, up until the fateful day her mom, Angelina Tinder, was taken away and branded Flawed. On the last Earth Day gathering that changed all our lives. It doesn’t make what she did to me right, but Colleen targeted me from a place of hurt, not from pure menace, like the others. I’m grateful not to see Granddad, any other members of my family, or Raphael Angelo in this room.

  None of these people can help me—they can’t even see me. I’ve stayed here too long. I hear the Whistleblowers’ voices in the corridor, telling Tina they refuse to listen to any more.

  “He won’t know, Tina. We’ll tell him we read it again,” says one, while Tina desperately tries to win their attention back. She loses the battle, their coffee cups have been drained, the guards start to disperse.

  I’ve run out of time.

  FORTY-FOUR

  THE DOOR TO this bizarre television recreational room opens and a guard steps in. I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the television, trying to mimic the others. My heart is pounding from the effort of climbing up onto the spare armchair, the sweat rolls from my temple and down my back, I’m not sure if I imagine it, but I think I feel it drip past my waist, tickling. Is the injection wearing off? I can’t test my legs to see, but I feel the beginning of pins and needles in my thighs. I’m out of breath from the effort it took to sit here and I hope they can’t see my chest heaving up and down beneath the red gown. I try to control my breathing and what I imagine is the wild look in my eyes, a stark contrast to the others, who are like couch potato zombies. What has Crevan done to them? How long have they been here, and what does he intend to do with them?