“You know what’s going—”
“With him,” he shouts, pointing at Carrick. “Did it happen in here? While I was out of my mind with worry, you were in here, cozy with him? Did it happen then?”
“Cozy?” I ask, then laugh. “Yes, because you can see how cozy this is, how much human contact is completely possible in here,” I say sarcastically. “And what exactly do you think could have happened between me and him when I was scared out of my wits after your dad locked me up?”
He paces back and forth.
I take a deep breath. Try to calm down. “It was after,” I say quietly. “After I got out. You weren’t there for me. I had to run away. He was the only person who would help me, the only person who understood—”
“I would have understood. I was your boyfriend!”
“You went into hiding, Art. I had no one.”
“I needed to figure things out.”
“You obviously did. Now that you’re wearing that uniform, I can see you decided what and who was right and wrong.”
“When I came back you were gone,” he says, trying to make me understand.
“I had to go.”
“To him?”
“Art, stop it. It’s not just about Carrick. I had to get away from your dad. He was hunting me down.”
“He wouldn’t have if you hadn’t run. Why do you keep making everything worse? And that speech today, why don’t you just stop? Just do what you’re told. Every time you do something it just makes it harder for…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“Harder for us to be together.”
I’m stunned. For a long time I don’t know what to say. I can tell he’s hugely embarrassed and maybe even close to tears.
“You still want us to be together?”
He doesn’t reply.
“You’re a Whistleblower, I’m Flawed, and you still want me?”
No response.
“Art, you know that regardless of these brands, I’m still the same person. Whatever I do, whatever I say, I’m still me.”
“No, you’re not.” He shakes his head.
“Just like when you put that uniform on, you completely change?”
His head snaps up so fast. “I don’t.”
I leave the silence. Same thing.
“I need some air,” I say, putting my head in my hands, feeling faint, unable to deal with this bombshell. Art still wants me?
“Good idea,” he says. “We can talk more openly outside in the courtyard.”
He opens the cell using his key card and we walk down the corridor. It’s the same walk I took for the first time when Funar pretended he was taking me and Carrick to get some air but then forced us to sit on the bench and witness the screams of the Flawed man being branded.
The second time I took this walk, Carrick was sitting on the bench in support of me as I was branded. I’ll find you. His words comforted me for so long when I got home.
The bench sits empty now. My head whirls with everything that has happened and all that Art has said.
Suddenly I break away from Art. He just misses me as he tries to grab me. I run into the Branding Chamber and lock the door. He appears in the viewing room, angry. I can’t hear what he’s saying but he can hear me. He’s going to have to listen to me now—he has no choice.
“The last time I was in here, do you know what your dad did to me?”
He covers his face with his hands.
“They put me in this chair. They tied me down. Five brands, Art. For trying to help that old man. And in the end the brands weren’t for helping him, they were for lying to the court about it, for embarrassing your dad, for making him look stupid. You might be wearing that uniform, but I know you don’t believe that’s right.”
I open the drawers filled with tools. So many F’s of different sizes, for different parts of the body, depending on the size of the person. I hadn’t realized that, I’d thought one size fit all.
“I kept my anklet on during it all. You’d just given it to me and I wanted to believe that you were still with me and that you still believed I was perfect. Bark let me keep it. It was him who made it, wasn’t it?”
Carrick had told me somebody at the Castle had made it, and I remember the flicker of recognition in Bark’s face as his eyes clamped on the ankle of the person he was about to brand as Flawed, as he battled with the hypocrisy, the irony, the fragility of life.
Art nods, tears welling in his eyes as I relive it.
“At the time I was glad you weren’t in the chamber, but now I wish you had been.” I run my finger along the pokers, which become hot branding tools for the Flawed.
I look at him. “The guards were worried about me. Five brands was a lot to take at once. They wanted to stop, but they needed permission. Somebody called for your dad. He came in here. Instead of stopping it, your dad took the iron and branded me for a sixth time. On my spine, without anesthetic.”
He’s shaking his head. No, no, no. He doesn’t want to believe it.
“He’ll probably tell you that I’ve made it up. That I’m spreading lies about him. They’re not lies, Art. He told me to repent and I wouldn’t, so he did this to me.”
I turn around and lift my T-shirt to reveal my lower spine. “He told a doctor that I did it to myself, but how could I have?”
I hear Dr. Greene’s voice in my head. How could a girl do this to herself?
Art is shaking his head, tears rolling down his cheeks.
I run my hand over the rods again, trying to find the right one, wondering if I could reach around my back, if I could have actually done it to myself, is that what they will try to prove? Will they make me stand up in court and show them that I could do it myself? My hand stops. It hovers over a shape that stands out from the others. The three interconnecting circles of the geometric harmony anklet that Bark made for me, the symbol of perfection, is filed alongside the Flawed F’s. I pick it up and click it into place on the rod.
“What kind of person could do this to herself?” I repeat the words of the doctor, to myself.
I fire up the flame on the burner.
Art bangs on the glass over and over.
I place the poker over the flame.
“If everyone thinks you are something, why not become it? Isn’t that what you did, Art? Become a Whistleblower because everyone thought you were like your dad? You didn’t want to fight it anymore, you wanted to see what it was like. You didn’t have anything else to lose.”
He’s crying and banging on the window, trying to get me to stop.
“Judge Sanchez wants to make a deal with me, did you know that?”
He shakes his head, confused.
“Your dad is out. Sanchez is in. On further review, the Guild thinks they’ve made a mistake. They say they’re going to take my brands away from me.”