The boy’s brows rise, as if he’s startled to have heard Trigger speak. But then he regroups with a determined smile. “I am Hennessy Chapman.”
He has two names? I try not to let my surprise show. What use has a person for two names? What division would a boy named Hennessy Chapman belong to? And what is his number? How are we supposed to know what class he belongs to if we don’t know his age?
“You’re Waverly’s new man?” he continues, and Trigger’s frown deepens. “Her new security, I mean.” The boy’s face flushes slightly, as if he’s just embarrassed himself, but I don’t really understand how. Yet I understand enough to seize the opportunity.
“Yes.” I nod emphatically, eyeing Trigger, silently begging him to play along because I see no other choice at the moment. “He’s my new security.”
Comprehension washes over Trigger’s face; then his expression goes completely blank. He takes a formal step back from us and clasps his wrists at his back, and though he seems to be staring at nothing, I know he’s seeing everything.
He was made to play this role.
“This is Trigger 17,” I say. There’s no sense lying about his name. It’s embroidered over the left side of his uniform jacket.
The boy throws his head back and laughs. “This is unbelievable, Waverly!” he says, and I can’t help but agree. “The costumes look so authentic! Your seamstress must have…” He shakes his head briefly, as if to clear it of cobwebs. “Wait, you said you stole them, right?”
Seamstress? Costumes? Like Wexler’s, his vocabulary leaves me mystified.
“I’m glad you brought him, for your own safety,” Hennessy Chapman says. “But does he have to come into the party with you? Most of the personal staff members are waiting at the wall—”
“My orders are to stay with her,” Trigger insists, and I glance at him in relief.
“Yes, I need him,” I say, and suddenly I’m blushing from the kernel of truth in this lie I’m telling.
“Of course,” the boy concedes with an almost formal nod. Then he takes my arm and bends his around it in an awkward interlocking motion.
When we step out of the closet, I notice for the first time, now that I’m not running for my life, how thick and plush the carpet in the hallway is. The walls are lined with some kind of silky fabric, which has an elaborate design stitched in a subtle gold color, just a shade lighter than the material itself.
I let Hennessy Chapman escort me down the strange hallway and around a corner, wishing desperately for a chance to explain to Trigger what he’s missed. And to apologize for the role I’ve unintentionally stuck him in. But he follows several steps behind us, just like the Administrator’s private security, and I wonder what Waverly has done to merit her own guard. She’s only sixteen. What could she possibly have accomplished in such a short life? Maybe she is being trained for something special….
I understand nothing about whatever city Waverly and Hennessy Chapman come from, or about the party I’m about to walk into, or about the girl I’m supposed to be.
They’re going to know I’m a fraud.
I must have tensed or done something else to betray my fear, because Hennessy Chapman pats my hand, sandwiching it between his arm and his fingers, and the gesture is obviously intended to be comforting. But in my entire life, Trigger 17 is the only other boy I’ve touched, and I would have been happy for that to remain true. I wish my arm were tucked into his right now. I wish he were close at my side rather than at my back.
“I can’t believe you made it,” Hennessy Chapman says as I fight for balance, walking on stilts in the thick carpeting. “I thought they’d have you on total lockdown.”
Lockdown? Has my secret identical found as much trouble in her city as I’ve found in mine?
Trying to piece together information about the girl I’m pretending to be from the fragmented bits that fall from her friend’s mouth is both frustrating and terrifying. One wrong word could expose me. But silence when she would have spoken up could expose me too.
I am paralyzed by indecision.
“But I wish you’d told me you were coming,” he continues. “I would have left one of my own men to escort you in. Or I could have brought your trunk with me so you’d have your own clothes to wear.”
“Hindsight,” I say with a shrug, and to my relief he seems to accept that as an answer.
Hennessy Chapman stops in front of a heavy set of double doors, each intricately carved into four quadrants of a curving design. He lets go of my arm, and I sway a little on my stilts. “I can’t wait to see their faces,” he says as he throws the doors open with a soft grunt.
Music and aroma and voices wash over me and I stumble backward, stunned. One of Waverly’s stupid spiky heels wobbles beneath me, and only my fresh grip on my escort’s arm keeps me upright.
“You okay?” he whispers.
I nod as I stare into the huge room, but I don’t understand what I’m seeing. There’s too much to process at once. There are so many tables full of foods I’ve never seen before. So much elaborate furnishing. So much light glittering on so many brightly clad bodies. I am overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and scents.
Dozens of girls and boys around my age lounge on clusters of plushy cushioned, elaborately carved furniture, chatting in groups of three or four. Several dozen more bob and move in time to music blaring from two huge boxes in one corner.
The boys are dressed in Management-style suits, but like Hennessy Chapman they wear different muted shades of blue, gray, or brown. The girls all wear lavish dresses in every conceivable color and style, and—Hennessy Chapman was right—no two are alike. As they move with the beat, paired with boys, they look like exotic flowers floating around the room on a breeze no one can see.
Hennessy Chapman smiles at me. Then he turns back to the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, look who I found!”
Conversations end. The rhythmic bobbing stops. Everyone stares.
Goose bumps pop up all over my skin, and I feel horribly exposed. Paralyzed by the attention. For my entire life, the fewer eyes that have lingered on me, the safer I’ve felt. Yet suddenly no one seems to be looking at anyone or anything else.
This is the opposite of hiding.
My chest locks around the breath trapped within it, and my throat aches with the effort of dragging in a fresh one.
I am going to die. This is the beginning of the end. Yet on the edges of that thought, as my gaze falls upon wonder after wonder, I realize I am glad—since I am definitely moments from being caught—to have seen such an extraordinary display before I die.
Yes, this party is exorbitantly extravagant and unforgivably wasteful, and terrifyingly…conspicuous. But it’s also the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. All the colors are bright. All the textures are soft, shiny, or glittery. And the food…