“Fine,” she says, swallowing. “I’ll bury it. So where’s this proof?” She’s trying to act like she doesn’t believe me, but I can see her fear. She’s afraid of the sixth brand being true, afraid that the head of the Guild is a fraud, that everything she believed in isn’t true.
I stand up. I step closer to her, and she pushes her back firmly into the chair, hands on the armrests, and braces herself. I turn around and lift my T-shirt, lower the waist of my trousers so she can see the base of my spine. I can’t see her face, but I can hear her intake of breath. The brand on my lower spine is that disgusting. I squirmed when Crevan seared me. I felt the pain without the anesthetic, and ironically the F is not perfect at all, just red bubbling skin. I lower my T-shirt but don’t sit down again. Instead, I make my way to the door.
“Thank you, Pia. This interview has been highly informative.”
Instead of catching me out, what she’s done is given me an idea. If I have the power to bring down Crevan with my sixth brand, then I will do it. Then Art and I can be together. But to do that, I need more proof and I need help. I need Mr. Berry’s video, and there’s one more thing. I’m not waiting for him anymore. I need to find Carrick.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I HAVEN’T HEARD from Art since we parted in the library. I run through our conversation over and over in my head and try to convince myself I shouldn’t have brought Carrick up. What an idiotic thing to do at such a time. If I hadn’t, Art and I would still be okay. But in my heart, I know we wouldn’t. I can’t play along with his moods just to stay together. It wasn’t the same between us in that library. Everything felt different. He couldn’t even bring himself to kiss me. One thing I’m sure of, though, is that yesterday I wanted to find Carrick to thank him, today I need to find him because I need his help to activate my plan. If there’s one person who would want to take down Crevan as much as I do, it’s Carrick. I can’t do this alone.
My last class of the day is French, but the teacher refuses to teach me, so I will be in the library by myself once again. It is the perfect opportunity to get some time on my own, to be somewhere without anybody knowing. I catch up with Juniper in the school corridor. Everybody makes a wide circle around us.
“Losers,” Juniper mutters.
“Tell Mom I had to go somewhere this afternoon, tell her not to wait for me. You guys go home without me.”
“What? She’ll freak out. Where are you going?”
“Tell her I’m fine. I just want to be independent, get a grip on my new life by myself, blah, blah, blah. She’ll go for that.”
Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “What are you up to, Celestine?”
There’s a standoff between us. Neither of us trusting the other.
“Tell Mom I’m meeting Pia Wang for an interview.”
“Are you really?”
I roll my eyes and walk away. She’s not the only one who can meet people in secret.
*
After Susan, the school secretary who has almost become my baby-sitter during classes where teachers refuse to teach me, has checked up on me, my plan is to escape out the door of the library. I push at it, but it’s locked. I bang at it and kick it in frustration, absolutely nothing going my way.
I slither down to the floor to cry in frustration, and suddenly it opens and I fall backward outside. Mr. Murray is standing there.
I scramble to my feet.
“I didn’t help you,” he says simply, then turns his back and goes about his work.
I don’t step outside. As much as I want to grab this opportunity to find Carrick, I don’t want Mr. Murray to get into trouble. He’s been the school’s groundskeeper ever since I’ve started here and probably even before that.
“It’s illegal for you to help me,” I say, testing him, giving him one more chance to close the door on me.
“No, it’s not,” he says, still not looking at me, scraping his muddy boots on a rug. “There’s a mark on the sole of my foot that says there’s no law against a Flawed helping a Flawed.”
“What?” I look down at his feet, but he continues rubbing the muck off.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“But … but you don’t wear an armband.”
“Exactly, so nobody knows. I’m off the radar.” He finally looks at me.
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“There are cracks that you can fall through. Harder for you, of course, being a household name, but if you look for them, you can find them. They don’t win all the time. Be careful.”