“My granddad,” I say to her, feeling breathless already. “I have to get my granddad.”
“He’ll be fine,” she says dismissively, leading me down from the stage.
“No. He comes, too.” I stop walking.
She tries to tug me again but can see I’m not moving until we sort this out.
“All right. I’ll tell Lulu to bring him to us.” She quickly barks orders at Lulu, who looks on the verge of collapse, but instead pushes her way through the panicking crowd to get to Granddad, whom I still can’t see. I don’t have much faith in Lulu at this point. I think she will be more concerned about saving her own skin than my granddad’s. I can see his cap in the moving crowd. Everyone is trying to make a way to the door, trying to escape.
“Granddad!” I call. He doesn’t hear me.
I start to panic. I pick up the microphone that only moments ago I couldn’t think of a word to say into and shout into it, but it has already been turned off.
“I have to find him.”
“Lulu will get him.” Alpha grabs me by the arm and pulls.
“Forgive me if I don’t have much faith in Lulu,” I snap. “Did you tell the Whistleblowers I was here?” I shout. “Was this a trap to catch Carrick?”
“What?! Why would I do that?” she asks, so alarmed and disgusted that I believe her.
“Lulu thought I was speaking here today. Did you advertise this?”
She looks guilty. “I might have mentioned it to a few people, but I certainly didn’t advertise it.”
“Damn it!” I shout, pulling my arm away from her. “You used me!”
“Let me explain,” she says, changing her body language. She appears panicky. “Come with me and I’ll explain.”
“Where are we going?”
She doesn’t answer—she just moves more quickly. The room is in utter chaos. There are those who want to leave, and those who are strong and firm in their stance and stay where they’re seated, arms folded in defiance.
The speaker from the F.A.B. institution tries to get Alpha’s attention. She runs along the side of the stage, chasing after us. “You said I would be protected!” she says, panicking, as Alpha ignores her and pulls me away with her.
As we reach the back of the room, I hear the whistles, and my heart pounds with the memory of Angelina Tinder and my own experience ringing in my ears. It makes me freeze on the spot, and it has that effect on most people. Caught. The room starts to go silent at the sound. Freeze. Panic. Alpha gets me moving again, pulling me in the opposite direction.
“Granddad,” I say, a sob catching in my throat. I see the red vests swarming into the room, I see a baton swing in the air, and I hear people scream. Alpha pulls me through another door, and we leave the mayhem behind.
“Jesus.” Alpha pants as we start to run now. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
We run faster. She leads me down a corridor and into an elevator. We go down another floor. When we come out, the ceilings are low, the hallways narrow. This part of the house is not so plush. It’s more like a bunker.
“This way.” We can no longer walk side by side in the narrow hallway, so I follow her, her looking back regularly to make sure I’m still there.
“The Guild likes to keep an eye on us, and, more important, lets us know that it’s keeping an eye on us. It sends one or two Whistleblowers. They sit in the back row, listen, and keep an eye on things. This isn’t an illegal gathering. They know about my cause. Usually there’s nothing to worry about,” she says.
“Usually,” I say bitterly. “But you told people I was coming. That I was speaking. And I’ll bet Crevan has introduced a new law against this. He’s going to say you were holding a rally. That I was speaking at a rally.”
She looks at me and swallows. Her look of fear doesn’t do anything to comfort me. “But we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re just sharing our stories. We’re allowed to do that.”
That wasn’t the vibe that I was picking up on as I was encouraged to walk to the stage. It changed from story sharing to a different kind of energy. “The rules have changed,” I say. “Crevan is changing everything now.”
Crevan is scared. He feels his power slipping away. Perhaps he’s heard about the secret committee investigating him, perhaps not, but either way there is enough rising opposition to the Guild among the public and now among the government to make him panic. And on top of that, if I’m right, he’s going to extreme measures to silence the Guild guards and Mr. Berry, if he gets his hands on him. He is panicking.