“We have an exceptional camera system around this house. Our friend Crevan has given us plenty of reason to have them. I saw you arriving from quite a distance away. As soon as I saw you, I instructed my dear wife, Susan, to alert the Whistleblowers.”
Carrick lets out an angry curse and he jumps to his feet, hands making fists. He towers over Raphael.
“But”—Raphael holds a finger up to Carrick—“we’re living out here for a reason. The nearest Whistleblower is one hour away, at best, which gives us forty-five minutes to devise our plan. So”—Raphael looks at Carrick nervously, curiously, slightly amused—“let’s get devising.”
THIRTY-SIX
“COME ON, CELESTINE, let’s get the hell out of here,” Carrick says angrily, giving up on his very visible desire to beat Raphael to a bloody pulp.
“How macho of you,” Raphael says, amused.
“Stop it, the both of you.” I raise my voice. “Carrick, we need his help.”
“His help?” he asks, appalled. “He just called the Whistleblowers on us.”
“Just on Celestine, actually. I didn’t think they’d come any quicker if I mentioned you.”
I look from Carrick to Raphael, feeling torn. We’ve come all this way. This is the only plan I’ve got. Raphael Angelo is the only lawyer ever to overturn a Flawed ruling. I need him. Without him, what do I do? How do I take my case to Judge Sanchez?
“Fine. You stay,” Carrick says. “I’m not sticking around. I don’t trust this guy. One more second here and we’ll land ourselves back in Highland Castle.”
“Carrick, wait.” I turn to Raphael. “Can he and I talk privately?”
“Sure. Tick, tick, tick,” Raphael says, watching the clock over the fireplace, which I notice for the first time is a pair of “human hands” in the pointing position wearing marigold gloves. Raphael leaves the room.
Carrick faces me, arms folded, jaw square. Black eyes. “We can’t trust him.”
“What was he talking about when he mentioned Enya Sleepwell?” I ask shakily.
And even though he’s trying to be cool about it, his body language changes.
“Look, Celestine.” He comes to me, takes my hands gently. “Now is not the time to talk about that.”
“Now is exactly the time. I need to know the truth.”
He sighs, annoyed that I’m killing time. “Enya Sleepwell approached me during your trial—she wanted to contact you. She wanted to help you. She’s running a campaign entirely based on your principles, compassion and logic, those were your words, you’ve seen them on every lamppost and billboard in the city. I told her I’d help her find you, but it was difficult. The press was at your house, your school. I couldn’t get to you. Pia Wang was on your case.”
“You came to find me because Enya Sleepwell asked you to?” I ask, feeling the tremor in my voice. I hear him say those words to me when I was walking down the corridor to the Branding Chamber. I’ll find you. I waited for him in those weeks afterward, thinking it was something else, a connection or a bond of some sort, but it wasn’t. It was a favor to a politician.
“Wait, Celestine, listen,” he says impatiently. “Enya was the one who was at the castle for me when my trial was over and I was allowed to leave.”
“She helped you become an evader?”
He looks around and lowers his voice. “I can’t say that. She guided me. Gave me tips. Who I could trust and who I couldn’t. She received information that my parents were at Vigor, which we now know came from Alpha and the Professor. I didn’t know it then, but he must be funding her campaign. She has a lot of resources. It was through Enya that I met Fergus, Lorcan, and Lennox. She has plans for the Flawed, she puts like-minded people together. There’s strength in numbers. Her campaign just needs you. You’re the key to all this. She wants to meet with you but she can’t, given that you’re wanted. She’s not the enemy, Celestine, she’s trying to help us.”
“Does she know about my sixth brand?”
“No,” he says firmly, and I believe him.
“She was at the supermarket riot. I remember seeing her.”
He freezes.
“Lorcan and Fergus were there, too. You were there. I never thought about it before, but why were you all there?” My eyes narrow suspiciously.
He doesn’t say a word.
“Carrick. Talk.”
“We were told you were going to be at Alpha’s house.”
The revelation leaves me feeling like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Alpha invited me to a gathering at her house, and I felt that she’d tricked me. I was called up to the stage in front of hundreds of people, placed in front of the microphone, and expected to tell my story. Something rousing. Something inspiring. I couldn’t get a word out of my mouth. I choked. I had nothing at all to say to those people who wanted so much from me. The arrival of the Whistleblowers was what ironically rescued me.
“We went there to find you,” Carrick explains. “I thought it was the best chance of me getting to you. Obviously when the raid occurred we couldn’t go inside. After the raid, we followed you and your granddad from the house. We saw you go into the supermarket.”
“You set me up in the supermarket,” I say suddenly, and from the look on his face, I know that’s exactly what happened.
He stutters and stammers his version of events, but it doesn’t matter how much he tries to twist it.
“You set me up,” I say louder.
“I needed to find you, Celestine.”
“You could have tapped me on the shoulder and said, Hi, Celestine, it’s me, Carrick. Remember me?” I say sarcastically, voice trembling. “You didn’t have to start a riot.”
“I needed Enya and everybody else to see how good you are, how brave you are. Under pressure, you’re a real hero, Celestine.”
“I’m not a hero! I’m just a normal girl who did the right thing! There is nothing heroic about anything I did!” I say with frustration.
“We have become so lost in the fear of making mistakes that nobody is acting on gut instinct. You are rare. Celestine, believe me, we need Enya, and she needs you. She needed to see that you’re worth getting behind, that people can believe in you. Fergus and Lorcan believed in you straightaway at the supermarket; they’ve backed you all the way since then. Nobody expected it to turn out the way it did. Nobody expected the police officer to behave the way he did. I just wanted people to see your strength, how you stand up for yourself. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
My head is racing.
“You set me up,” I roar now, and he falls silent. “Because of you, because of what happened in that supermarket, I had to leave my family.” My voice cracks. “I had to run away from the people I love. You got me into this mess.”