“We’d better move, in case they try to find another way in here. This way.” He moves and I follow him through a maze that traverses the plant.
Leonard guides me to a safe position where we can see the Whistleblowers gathering in the entrance courtyard. On one side are a dozen Flawed people who work in the factory legitimately, all of them displaying their F armbands on their sleeves. They have been called to witness whatever is about to happen. On the other side a team of Whistleblowers surrounds the discovered evaders: Carrick’s parents, Cordelia and Evelyn, Bahee, and Mona, who thought they were safe in the laboratory. My heart thuds: If they’re here for me, I should give myself up. Me instead of them would be the right thing to do.
Thud, thud, thud.
I move forward.
“What are you doing?” Leonard asks, panic in his voice.
“I can’t let them be taken away. They’re here for me.”
“You don’t know that!” he says. “Celestine! Come back!”
Suddenly Evelyn screams as a Whistleblower grabs her, and I stand up tall and quicken my step. If anyone looks up now they’ll see me. A hand grips me from the darkness and pulls me close. I go to fight it but as soon as our bodies touch I sense it’s Carrick. I can smell him. I squeeze my body tightly to his, and he wraps his arms around me.
“Don’t even think about it,” he says, voice low.
“I can’t let them be taken away.”
“So they’ll take you and them, what good will that do? Think about it, Celestine.”
He’s always calm; even under these circumstances, his sentences are slow, as if he is able to process everything in proper time, unlike me, whose head is jumping around with images and thoughts, panic and fear.
“How did you get away?” he asks.
I quickly tell him, Lennox, Fergus, and Lorcan about what happened with Bahee. Apart from Leonard and Carrick, they’re surprised to hear this, perhaps even doubtful. And they have a point: Bahee locking me out may have been just to save his own skin; we don’t know for sure that he alerted the Whistleblowers. And if he didn’t, there is still a traitor among us. I wonder again about Rogan, who is the only person not present. Or Mona, who may have lied to me about why Lizzie left.
I duck down, staying tight to Carrick as a Whistleblower starts to drag away a kicking and screaming Evelyn. Cordelia is howling with grief as they take her child away and is being held back by two Whistleblowers.
“Oh my God,” I whimper, hands in front of my face. I don’t want to watch but I have to.
“This was not the deal!” Bahee shouts, and everyone, on the ground and in hiding, turns to stare at him in utter shock.
“It was him,” I whisper, shocked, even though I suspected him.
“You arranged this, Bahee?” Mona shouts.
The dozen Whistleblowers clear the way for their leader, a woman, I think, who walks toward Bahee. He quickly backs off, the fight in him gone. The Whistleblower removes her helmet, and to my absolute shock I see it’s Mary May.
I gasp and Carrick blocks my mouth.
“The deal was,” says Mary May, “we leave you all here and we take Celestine. There’s no sign of Celestine and no one mentioned anything about an F.A.B. child on the premises. We must remove her immediately. We must give her the care and treatment she needs, though it may be too late already.” She looks at Evelyn with disgust.
I feel Carrick tense beside me. He knows all about that special-institution care.
“What have you done?” Cordelia screeches at Bahee, who cowers away from her, looking so weak that a light breeze could blow him over.
“You’re lucky I’m not removing you all. Take her away,” Mary May says, waving her hand.
I’ve never seen Mary May in combat uniform. Usually she’s in her Mary Poppins Whistleblower persona, the one who does house calls, who checks to make sure I’ve made my curfews and stuck to my diet and followed all of the daily anti-Flawed decrees. Even the Mary May who came looking for me on Granddad’s farm wasn’t this woman; it tells me that she’s stepped it up a level. It’s as though she has mentally walked onto the battlefield. Riot gear, helmet and all, she will do anything to find me. What chance have I got?
Evelyn puts up a good fight. She kicks a Whistleblower between the legs, and he curses loudly, hunches over, and loses his helmet. My heart stops. I feel Carrick’s grip on me tighten and his hand blocks my mouth for the second time, because he knows that I want to shout out.
The Whistleblower is Art.
TWENTY-SIX
ART’S UNRULY BLOND hair collapses in curls around his face as he holds on tight to Evelyn’s arm, his face an angry mush of pain and irritation.
Cordelia howls for her child.
Some of the other Whistleblowers seem to look at Art and Evelyn in amusement, though they are all human and I hope, behind those helmets, some are finding it heart-wrenching.
“Look, can’t we just take them both together?” Art asks, and his voice breaks my heart. “The mother and the child?”
“Yes! Yes!” Cordelia leaps up from her knees, eager to be taken away, ready to be taken to the ends of the earth if it means staying with her child.
I’d longed to hear his voice for so long and now it’s here, under these circumstances. He looks strange in the uniform. Like a young boy dressing up as a soldier; no wonder the helmet fell off, even with the huge mop of hair I don’t think it fits him. He’s the same age as Carrick but he’s no soldier, he’s baby-faced, never serious about anything. The only time he ever truly concentrated was when he played his guitar, and even then he made up ridiculous songs, his favorite being about the polka-dot zebra. The elephant with no trunk, the tiger that got a manicure, the giraffe that couldn’t find a turtleneck to fit, the broccoli that wouldn’t eat its vegetables. That kind of thing.
This situation isn’t suited to Art, this is too real-life for him. No awkward jokes can get him out of this. He’s ripping a child from her mother. He’s been in that position: He lost his mother. He can’t do it. He won’t do it.
“Take me instead,” a voice suddenly booms from the opposite side of the gate. Rogan appears. He was out; he was free. What is he doing?
The Whistleblowers turn to stare at him.
“I’m an F.A.B. child, too,” he says, voice cracking with fear, but he’s trying to appear strong.
“Rogan! No!” Carrick’s mother screeches.
“What the hell is he doing?” Carrick says, moving from his position, and it’s my turn to pull him down. It takes Lennox to hold him down as well.
“Leave Evelyn here. Take me,” Rogan says, pleading with them all. “I’m fourteen years old. My parents are Flawed. I’ve been living outside the system all my life. Take me!”
Mary May barely glances at him. She gives a signal and the Whistleblowers all move out, ignoring Rogan as they pass him by, some bumping against his shoulders, knocking him about, teasing him as they pass.
“Take me!” he shrieks now in a high-pitched, desperate voice, arms out in surrender.