I wake up in the cabin to a nightmare, as usual. They haunt me. I’m always on the run from Crevan. Sprinting, leaping over walls, but I’m never fast enough – it’s like I’m on a treadmill, running and running but not getting anywhere. It’s exhausting and it continues all night, like it’s on a loop. The only difference between this nightmare and every other night is a new addition: my granddad being tortured in the Branding Chamber.
Sweating and panting in the early hours of the morning, I sit bolt upright. I need to speak to Dahy. Even more urgently, I need to call home; I need to know what’s going on.
Morning light streams in through the window of the cabin, and when I look up I see that Mona has left her bed. Probably gone to work. I check my watch and can’t believe that it’s midday.
There’s a knock on the door.
I wrap myself in the bedsheet, lifting it to cover the brand over my heart, and open the door.
“Hi,” Carrick says, swiftly looking me up and down, and his eyes on me send goose bumps rising on my skin. “Brought you this.” He hands me a steaming mug of coffee and a chocolate muffin. “I’m on a break from my shift.”
“I can’t believe I’ve slept this long.”
“You needed it.” He looks at me intensely. “You’ve had a tough time.”
I cup my hand round the mug and feel the warmth. “Thank you.”
“The others wanted me to tell you to come to the rec room when you’re ready. Most of them are on a lunch break; they want to show you something. Don’t look so worried.” He offers a rare smile.
“Okay, I’ll be there soon. Carrick … you found your parents!” I grin at him, in celebration.
“I know,” he says awkwardly, face scrunched up in thought. “It’s weird. It’s new. It’s been only a few weeks. I barely know them. But they know me – my mum, more so; it’s like she knows everything about me and I know nothing about her.”
“It’s bound to be weird. I was only in the castle for a few days, and when I went back home it felt different.”
It was odd with my sister, Juniper, the entire time; we didn’t get along at all and made up moments before I escaped from the house. She admitted to feeling guilty for not standing beside me on the bus, for not speaking out in court. Bizarrely she felt jealous because, despite my punishment, she felt I’d done the right thing and she hadn’t. I also discovered she was Art’s accomplice in helping him to hide, when I desperately wanted to see him more than anything in the world. So much of what happened between us during those weeks was all due to lack of communication.
“I think when things happen to you, it can … alienate you from people,” I say quietly. I think of my experience of going back to school and having no friends, being excluded from classes by teachers, being captured and locked in a shed by school kids, the end of my relationship with Art. Everything shifted; everything changed, nothing for the better.
He looks at me intensely. “But what happened to us didn’t alienate us from each other, did it?” he asks.
I don’t even need to think about it. “No.”
“It brought us together,” he says.
“Yes.” I smile shyly.
He nods. “See you in the rec room. Make sure you come the route Mona showed you; we don’t want anyone else seeing you here.”
I close the door, my body brimming with energy just from standing next to him, though a little shot down by his parting comment. I use the shower in the cabin and dress quickly, knowing everybody is waiting for me. As I open the door, I come face to face with a knuckle, which at first I think is aiming to punch me and so I squeal and duck.
When nothing happens and the feet haven’t kicked me or run away and are just shuffling in my eyeline, I uncover my head from my hands and slowly look up.
A young man stands there, his fist still in the air, and he’s looking at me, startled. “I was just about to knock on the door.”
“Oh! Oh. Right.” I clamber to my feet, feeling mortified.
“Sorry for scaring you,” he says, embarrassed, as his cheeks start to go the brightest red I’ve ever seen on a human being. “I’m Leonard,” he says, eyes on the floor, on the wall, on the door, flitting everywhere but not on me. “I work here.” He fumbles with the pass round his neck and offers it through the gap in the door. Leonard Ambrosio, Lab Technician. He looks like a choirboy.
“Hi, Leonard,” I say, widening the gap a bit.
I’m afraid he recognises me, but because he’s in this unit, does that mean he’s Flawed too? Can I trust him? Do his eyes narrow a little as he processes me? My name and face is all over the media. Is it the end for me?
“I’m sorry to disturb you; I know you’re new here. My girlfriend used to sleep in this room.” He looks around as though he’s more nervous to be here than me. “Her name is Lizzie.”
I tense up. This is the boyfriend who doesn’t like Flawed.
He looks at me expectantly.
“I just arrived, I don’t know anything about her,” I say defensively, thinking just because she’s Flawed, doesn’t mean that I am.
“No? Okay. Here’s a photo of her.” He studies my face as I take it, hoping a memory has stirred. “And here’s my number.” He hands me a piece of paper with his name and number. “If you hear anything about her, or if anyone else mentions her or where she might have gone, please call me. I really want to find her.”
“For what?” I say, my voice cold.
He seems taken aback by my tone. “What do you mean?”
“Why do you want to find her?” I’m not going to offer up her whereabouts just so he can call the Whistleblowers on her.
“Because I love her,” he says, eyes pleading. “I’m so worried about her.” He looks up and down the corridor before lowering his voice even more. “I know who she is … what she is … you know?” He looks at me intently. “I think she was afraid to tell me, but I wouldn’t have cared, I always knew and never cared. I mean, of course I cared, but it didn’t stop me from loving her – if anything, it made me love her more.” His cheeks pink at that again, as he becomes embarrassed. “I think it’s important that you know that I don’t have a problem with Flawed people …” His eyes dart around the place again. “But mostly I just need Lizzie to know that. Okay?”
“Okay.” I frown, thinking this is the complete opposite to what I’ve heard, but I don’t want to get lost in somebody else’s drama. And in the back of my mind I’m wondering, Is this a set-up? Use me to get her and she gets in trouble? “But I told you, I don’t know her.”
A door bangs shut round the corner. We both look nervously down the hall.
“Don’t, um, please don’t tell Mona, or anyone, that I was here. I shouldn’t be in this section.
