Juniper out. Everybody safe. You?
The relief floods through me. The good news fires me up and I get an idea. It’s okay for Crevan to now know that I’m no longer in his control. Juniper is safe; Mom is safe; Carrick is safe.
“What are you doing?” Raphael asks as I pick up the phone on Judge Sanchez’s desk.
“Connect me to Highland Castle, please,” I say quickly.
“What are you doing?” Raphael hurries over to me.
I block the cradle, afraid he’ll end the call, and mouth, “Trust me.”
He backs off a little.
“Hello, my name is Celestine North, and I’d like to turn myself in,” I say quickly, while Raphael practically rolls around in horror. He stretches to try to reach the phone but I stand on a chair to get farther from him.
“I’m at Judge Sanchez’s apartment in Grimes Tower, and I would like to be taken away from here immediately. Thank you.” I hang up the phone, my heart pounding.
“Why did you do that?” he asks.
“Judge Sanchez is phoning Crevan. She wants to make a deal with him. Do you think either of them is going to allow us to be officially taken into the Guild’s custody, knowing what we know about them? We would actually be safer if the Whistleblowers take us in.”
Raphael suddenly turns around and sits up. “I hadn’t thought of that. You know what, that might be one of your cleverest ideas yet. It’s my intelligence—it’s rubbing off on you.”
“We just have to hope the Whistleblowers get here first.”
Judge Sanchez checks on us now and then, while desperately trying to make contact with Crevan, dialing every number she can think of. She doesn’t want us to hear her make a deal using my freedom for her own gain, and so she talks in a low voice in another room. Raphael and I sit in the living room awaiting our fate. Within minutes there’s banging on the door. I look out the spyhole and I’ve never been so happy to see red helmets.
“Whistleblowers,” I say.
We high-five.
FIFTY-FIVE
“WHISTLEBLOWERS!” THEY SHOUT. “Open the door!”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” Raphael says, cool as anything, through the door. “We’re locked in and we can’t open it. I think you’ll have to break down the door.”
Despite what’s going on, Whistleblowers about to break down the door to take me away, it’s so easy to be sucked into Raphael’s blasé view of the world. I feel as cool as he is acting. Though I know that is only for appearance’s sake; a man who is vegan and decorates his entire office in faux human trophies just to make a point, and spends his life fighting for justice for others, isn’t blasé about anything. Perhaps that’s why I’m smiling, because I know that beneath all the jokes, he means business.
“Stand back, we’re going to breach the door,” one shouts, and we do.
I expect to hear a mechanical lock pick but instead there’s a bang on the door.
“A sledgehammer,” Raphael says, leaning against the wall, arms folded. “They came prepared.”
There’s a second bang against the door.
“What’s going on?” Judge Sanchez says, firing herself out of her bedroom, and in a flap. I wonder if she got to negotiate with Crevan yet. If my life has been traded for her power.
“Whistleblowers are here,” I explain calmly.
“What?” She looks from me to Raphael in horror. Our calm demeanors are no doubt rattling her even more. “No. They can’t be.”
BANG.
“They are,” Raphael backs me up, and pops a mint into his mouth. “I daresay we wouldn’t hear the whistles from all the way up here.”
Her face crinkles up. “What?”
She is so unsettled, it is amusing.
BANG.
“What are they doing?”
“Breaching the door,” Raphael explains.
“What? Why? Hello! Helloo! Please stop!”
“Because we’re locked in,” I explain.
She attempts her authoritative voice but she can’t be heard from the other side of the door, where the Whistleblowers are concentrating hard on knocking it down with a sledgehammer.
The door finally caves in.
Judge Sanchez jumps back as sawdust, wood, and part of a sledgehammer come flying in on her plush carpet. There are a dozen Whistleblowers outside.
“Judge Sanchez,” one young man says, breaking through the door and stepping in. “We received information that Celestine North is here. Are you okay?”
Judge Sanchez looks at him in disgust, at her carpet, at her silk shirt covered in woodchips and sawdust.
“You broke my door.”
He suddenly looks nervous. “We were told that it couldn’t be opened.”
“That’s right, because I locked them in.”
He reddens.
A Whistleblower behind him bites his lip to stop himself from laughing.
“We’ll arrange to have a new door fitted immediately, Judge.”
“Of course you will,” she snaps, then pinches the bridge of her nose. “Now tell me, why … How … What are you doing here? This is a private matter for Judge Crevan. I was waiting for him to call me back.”
They look at one another, obviously confused. “Somebody called us from this address, and I believe Judge Crevan is preoccupied at the moment with arrangements for the gathering.”
“Gathering?” Raphael asks. “What gathering?”
“All Flawed have been asked to report to their Whistleblowers immediately, where they will be brought to a central location. We have been informed we must take all Flawed to this location, no exceptions.”
“No, but you can’t take Celestine. She’s an Evader. I must speak to Judge Crevan first,” Judge Sanchez says.
“We are following Judge Crevan’s instructions, Judge Sanchez,” another Whistleblower speaks up, stepping closer to me. “All Flawed, no exceptions, are to be brought to this location. Judge Crevan will be informed of Celestine’s capture and we’ll ensure she receives appropriate punishment for her evasion.”
Before he takes me by the elbow, he lifts the red whistle that’s hanging on a gold chain around his neck.
“Block your ears,” I say to Raphael.
He does so just in time, because all twelve Whistleblowers blow their whistle to signal the arrest of another Flawed. Again.
PART THREE
FIFTY-SIX
JUDGE SANCHEZ ORDERS them to take custody of Raphael, too. Despite his profession and our contract, he is seen as aiding an evader.
We’re brought to a warehouse along the docklands where Flawed curfew buses line up.
“What’s going on?” I ask Raphael, who doesn’t answer. He’s too busy looking out the window, trying to figure it all out.
“Were you informed that you were to report to your Whistleblower today?” he asks me finally.
“I wouldn’t know. I’m an evader. I’ve been with people who never report to Whistleblowers.”
“Could someone please tell me what’s going on?” Raphael sits forward and asks a Whistleblower.
“All Flawed are to gather at this address at nine AM sharp.”
“Why?”
“Guild’s orders.”
“And tell me, what do you plan to do with me? I’m not Flawed.”