“What do you mean?”
“I watched Celestine’s trial. She said the reason she helped the old man on the bus was because he reminded her of her granddad.”
“I believe it’s called empathy,” Tina says gently. “We may have lost that as a society.”
“Not all of us,” Dr. Greene says.
Her footsteps squeak on the linoleum and then it’s just me and Tina.
“You’ve got one hour at most to get yourself out of here,” Tina says quickly in my ear. “Any longer and Dr. Greene will start asking Crevan questions and then she’ll be in a world of trouble. I’m going to take a coffee break. I’ve left my car keys beside my bag on the chair in the corner of the room. My car is outside in the parking lot. I’ll distract the others. But that’s all I can do for you, Celestine,” she says, almost apologetically. She leaves quickly, before I beg for more. Which I would.
I don’t waste any time. I use my elbows to sit up. I reach for the curtain to use it to ease myself to the floor but I’m too heavy and it comes away from the rings on the rail. I topple to the floor with a grunt, hurting my side, and doing who knows what to my legs, but I can’t feel them as they bang to the ground. I roll onto my belly, trying to ignore the pain, and pull myself on my front, using my elbows, dragging my legs behind me.
My body feels heavy and sluggish, like it’s dead; it won’t listen or obey my commands. Sweat breaks out on my skin immediately from the effort and my skin slides along the polished floor. I can’t feel the floor against my legs. It’s as though my body has been halved, I’ve no feeling at all below my waist. I have no idea where I am; I’m wearing just my underwear beneath the red gown; I can barely make it to the door of my hospital room, never mind attempting to escape the building. I know that I’m not in Highland Castle anyway.
I get to the chair with Tina’s black leather bag and reach up to grab the set of car keys.
I have visions of Crevan walking in on me, finding me sprawled on the floor, moving like a slug at his feet. Helpless and at his mercy, right where he wants me. This thought gives me more strength and I increase my pace, pulling myself along faster.
The door has been left ajar, enough of a gap for me to reach my hand in and pull, thankful I don’t have to stretch to the handle, which would have been impossible. Tina has given me more of a chance than I’d thought. I look outside to the corridor. It’s empty. I hear voices down the hall, from a staff room.
“Jason, can you come over here? Judge Crevan instructed me to go through this security manual with you all,” Tina says, and I see a Whistleblower at the end of the hall monitoring the security cameras abandon his station.
“We received that weeks ago,” he says, pulling up his trousers over his gut as he makes his way to the small group of Whistleblowers.
“Yes, well, apparently he’s not happy with how we’ve been following it,” she says, to groans from the others. “Let’s just get it over with. Why don’t we brew some coffee?”
“Good idea,” Jason agrees.
“Page one,” Tina begins.
I’m about to pull myself out to the corridor and turn right toward the exit stairwell when I hear Flawed TV blaring from the room across the way. It’s the much-talked-about live debate between all the party leaders.
“Compassion and logic is the Vital Party’s campaign logo, proving that ‘a good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination,’” Enya Sleepwell says from her podium.
“Which are words straight from the mouth of a Flawed, proving that Enya Sleepwell is in bed with the Flawed population,” Prime Minister Percy says.
“Interesting you should say that, Prime Minister. I was quoting Nelson Mandela.”
Score one to Enya.
I crawl across the hall to the room opposite and see armchairs. More people, patients, all in red gowns. More Flawed. They’ll be able to help me.
“Excuse me,” I whisper, pulling myself into the room. “I need help.”
Everyone has their backs to me, they don’t turn around. Perhaps I should leave, but if, as Carrick said, all you have to do is change one mind, then maybe we can help one another out of here. I don’t imagine I’m going to have much success driving with my legs as they are, though I’ll try if I have to, but assistance would be safer and quicker. I call to them again, louder this time, but they either can’t hear me or are ignoring me and don’t want to help. I pull myself up to the nearest armchair, the sweat from the effort trickling down my face and back.
“Excuse me, I need your—” I stop immediately.
The hairs stand up all over my body.
The man in the chair is Mr. Berry.
FORTY-THREE
“MR. BERRY.” I shake his arm lightly, trying to get his attention. His dead eyes don’t move from the television and I don’t think it’s because he’s engrossed in the live debate. He has that drugged look about him. He looks old; his face is younger than the rest of his body, but less so without his usual blush and concealer, and it’s like his neck can barely hold it up.
I look to the chair beside him and I see Pia Wang. Beautiful Pia Wang who was trying to help me, she has the same distant look, hair tied back and greasy, as if it hasn’t been washed in weeks. I’m afraid to look around any more, but I have to. I pull myself up to the next row, and I see the guards. Bark, who branded me; Funar, June, and the security guard Tony, who all witnessed it.
In the front row are the kids from school, Natasha, Logan, Gavin, and Colleen. I watch them in their red gowns, powerless, not at all like the last time I saw them, when they tied me up and stripped me to inspect my brands. The smell of peppermint in the air makes me queasy, that same smell that came from Crevan.
I’m ashamed of myself for the sense of satisfaction I feel looking at the kids who bullied me not so long ago and took photographs of my brands. It was that evil act that sealed their fate. I do feel something for Colleen, who I grew up with. She lived across the road from me all my life and was a family friend, someone I have memories of playing with as a child, up until the fateful day her mom, Angelina Tinder, was taken away and branded Flawed. On the last Earth Day gathering that changed all our lives. It doesn’t make what she did to me right, but Colleen targeted me from a place of hurt, not from pure menace, like the others. I’m grateful not to see Granddad, any other members of my family, or Raphael Angelo in this room.
None of these people can help me—they can’t even see me. I’ve stayed here too long. I hear the Whistleblowers’ voices in the corridor, telling Tina they refuse to listen to any more.
“He won’t know, Tina. We’ll tell him we read it again,” says one, while Tina desperately tries to win their attention back. She loses the battle, their coffee cups have been drained, the guards start to disperse.
I’ve run out of time.