“He must have help.”
I know she wants to say more on that, but she doesn’t. Instead, she changes tack, and I now know why she’s really here. “When you next see him, please tell him that his support would be greatly appreciated. The organization needs as many Flawed who are willing to share their stories with us and speak out. Doing it alone doesn’t give us the weight we need to make a difference. To have a child of two Flawed parents, who was raised at an F.A.B. institution, who wanted to find his parents, whose only flaw was to break F.A.B. rules and try to find his parents, would be a real bonus for my campaign for F.A.B. Adoption. You’ll tell him that, won’t you?”
I nod. Whenever I see him again. If I ever see him again.
“I’m holding an event tonight. A small gathering for those who need support. It’s at five PM. You’ll have time to get there and back for your curfew. Here’s the directions,” she says urgently, pushing a folded piece of paper into my hands. “Come speak for us tonight. I know you will inspire the people. Move them to action.”
“Action?”
“I call it a support group.” She raises an eyebrow. “But really what I’m trying to do is make something happen. Bring an end to the Guild. What the Guild knows is that I work with the Flawed, with their families, providing a counseling service for those affected by it. I arrange fund-raisers for families. The F.A.B. Adoption campaign is supported by many in the government and the Guild. These institutions are costly, and adoption would help their budgets greatly. They always have their eye on the bottom line, of course. So I have many of them on my side. That’s how I can make this work. And not just the adoption campaign. They know that my counseling work with the Flawed and their families is vital in maintaining calm in society.”
Even hearing that she is supported by the Guild makes me distrust her again, despite what she’s saying. “Alpha.” I barely look at the crumpled paper in my hand. “I appreciate your support, but I’m not a speaker. I don’t even know what I would say.”
Her eyes linger over me for a moment as though she’s trying to figure me out. “I often think you’re more clever than you let on, and other times I think you’re a child who has found herself in a situation that is so much bigger than she and has no idea what to do.”
I don’t answer her. It’s not for me to help her analysis of me. Understanding myself doesn’t keep me awake at night, but I’m still not used to people airing their opinions of me so boldly like that. Any thoughts I have of her I have politely kept to myself, though some people, like her and Pia, have found that it is their right to express their opinion of me freely, as though it can’t hurt or alter me. It’s the branding that does that, and I know it. It dehumanizes me in a way to others. I’m to be stared at and talked about as if I’m not here.
“My work began as a charity, counseling, and fund-raising, but since your case, the numbers have grown. I see a rise in our donations. Privately, of course, but there are some big names. I feel a change coming, and you have started that change. Of course, much of it is political. My organization can do so much more. It’s time. Try to bring your friend Carrick if you can. It’s time to urge the people into action.”
FIFTY-FIVE
THAT AFTERNOON, KNOWING that I have a week of confinement to the house ahead of me, I pace my room like the caged lion Carrick always seemed. Even if I could speak at Alpha’s gathering, which I wouldn’t, I can’t leave the house. How empowering is that to people?
Home from school, Juniper walks by my open door. She looks lost and as though she has been crying. I’m glad. She stops and looks at me. She’s back in her own clothes, head to toe in black. Apart from my brandings, there’s not much to tell us apart.