Perfect

I look back at Carrick for help, but Kelly takes me by the hand and brings me along with her. Once inside the cabin, I see a roomful of strangers staring at me. Carrick follows us into the room and disappears into a corner somewhere.

Kelly introduces me. “This is my husband, Adam.”

Adam hugs me warmly. “Welcome.”

“Come and meet Rogan,” Kelly says, dragging me away.

In a darkened corner, a younger teen lurks.

“Say hi to Celestine, Rogan,” Kelly coaxes him, as a parent would do with a much younger child.

He gives me a weak wave, like the effort to care is too great.

“Oh, come on,” Kelly says to him, and he slowly stands, shuffles over to me with feet too big for his body, trousers too big for his waist, and reaches out to shake my hand. It’s limp. It’s damp. He doesn’t look me in the eye and quickly scampers back to his bean bag. If I was on the outside I would say he was disgusted by a Flawed, but in here, in the company of so many Flawed and assuming he’s one of us himself, I put it down to shyness. Kelly talks a mile a minute, introducing me to the rest of the group.

There’s Cordelia and her little girl, six-year-old Evelyn, who shows me that her top teeth fell out, pushing her tongue through the holes. I’m surprised to recognise the two men I was standing beside at the cash register when the entire drama started at the supermarket riot two weeks ago. Now I know their names are Fergus and Lorcan. Fergus has stitches across his forehead, and Lorcan is covered in bruises. I meet Mona, a girl around my age, with a smile so bright, and sizzling energy that would light up the darkest day. I immediately like her. There’s an older man named Bahee, a chilled-out dude wearing circular blue-tinted glasses and a long grey ponytail, who’d look comfortable sitting round a camp fire and singing “Kumbaya”.

“And you already know our eldest son, Carrick.” Kelly smiles. Carrick comes a bit closer. “I’m so glad you were with him in the castle.” She takes my hands, her eyes filled with tears. “We know how horrific the experience is. I’m glad you were there with my boy.” She reaches out to him, but he recoils slightly. It’s as though his actions have surprised himself, but it’s too late—the damage is done. Kelly pulls her hand away from him, trying to hide her hurt expression.

“You found your parents?” I ask in surprise.

I look from Adam to Kate, finally and suddenly seeing a resemblance between Carrick and his dad. But he’s nothing like his mother – she’s tiny, birdlike. Carrick towers over her, though he does with most people. She’s more like Rogan, who would barely shake my hand. I look to Rogan then and realise that he’s her son.

“That means you two are …”

I wait for them to say something but nobody speaks. They don’t even look at one another. There’s such an awkward atmosphere, so much tension. But of course being reunited with loved ones after thirteen years was never going to be easy.

“They’re brothers!” Mona suddenly announces. “Yay! Do I get a point for that?” she asks sarcastically, punching the air. “It’s just one big happy family around here, isn’t it, guys?”

“Mona,” Adam says, annoyed, as Kelly turns away. It doesn’t seem to bother Mona in the slightest.

“You didn’t tell her you found us, Carrick?” Kelly asks, confused and hurt.

There’s a long silence as Carrick pulls at his earlobe self-consciously, trying to search for an answer that will help his situation.

“Hey, has Carrick shown you the sleepboxes yet?” Mona jumps in at just the right time.

While I deal with the shock of Carrick finding his parents, I’m dragged away by a chirping Mona, who talks so fast I can barely keep up.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll show you. You can share with me.”

The accommodation is a series of Portakabins piled on top of one another, but not just regular cubic cabins with basic beds inside; these are modern, state-of-the-art. I steal a glimpse inside one of them as we pass and see an entire living space cleverly built in the pod. There’s a bunk bed – single on top and double beneath – built-in shelves, drawers beside the beds. There’s even a toilet and shower. Everything is glossy white.

“Each sleepbox has an en-suite bathroom, air-conditioning, a flat-screen TV and a personal safe,” Mona says in a funny accent, as though she’s my hotel guide. “The rooms all include a double bed and a single bunk bed.”

I laugh. “I’ve never seen anything like these before.”

“Nothing but the best for CCU workers.” She lowers her voice, though the section of non-Flawed living space is so far away nobody could possibly hear us. “The owner of Vigor is sympathetic to the Flawed. None of us have ever met him; he’s a secret shadowy figure,” she says sarcastically, eyes wide and fingers moving spookily.

“Is that Eddie?”

She laughs. “No. Eddie runs the place. I’m talking about the big boss: the owner, creator, inventor, whatever, of Vigor. Bahee claims to know him, but I’m not so sure. Bahee is a scientist; he can sometimes be a little bit …” She whistles to finish the sentence. “Anyway, Eddie knows about us. He keeps us living away from the others, manages shifts to keep us apart most of the time. Nobody but him and us knows that we’re Flawed, and it has to stay that way. Obviously here we’re all evaders.” She rolls her eyes at the term. “So you won’t see any armbands on us. If you have a brand on your hand, you get a job that requires gloves; if you have a brand on your temple, you get a job that requires a hard hat or you find a fancy way of keeping your hair down. Don’t trust make-up to cover it. It gets hot here; it can melt off your face faster than you know. If the brand is on your tongue, you don’t talk too much. Get it?”

I nod emphatically. I have a brand in every place she’s mentioned, and more.

“Cool.” She studies me to make sure she believes me and seems happy with what she finds. “Had a girl in here who fell in love with a scientist. Lizzie. She shared my room. She kept talking about telling him. Needing to share with him her true self because she was so in love.” She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, I had to hear this crap every night. Well, as you’ll see, that didn’t work out too well for her. She told him what she was, he was grossed out, and so she ran off. Could have got us into a whole lot of trouble,” she says angrily, unlocking the door to her cabin and pushing the door open.

It’s identical to the cabin I stole a glimpse of. The single bed above is clearly Mona’s, with posters and possessions, a teddy bear, on the bed. Beneath it is the double bed. It’s just a naked mattress, where Lizzie once slept, where she thought this place was her home, where she was in love with a scientist, and then abandoned it. How replaceable we all are.

I understand how this girl Lizzie must have felt when she wasn’t wanted by her boyfriend as soon as she revealed that she was Flawed. I recall the way Art looked at me in the school library after my brandings, how he couldn’t bring himself to kiss me. I suppose that is the point of a tongue branding. They say it’s the worst of them all. In fact, it turned out to be the second worst. Crevan himself held the hot weld to my spine to show that I was Flawed to my very backbone. But no one here will ever know about that, no one but Carrick, who witnessed it.

“When did Lizzie leave?” I ask, looking at her empty double bed.

“Two weeks ago. No goodbye,” she says angrily. “She left most of her stuff here too. You spend every day with someone and you think they’re your friend … Anyway—” She changes the subject, pretends not to care, though it’s clear she’s hurt. “So ground rules. You sleep here, wash there, and do your thing in there. Depending on your job, you can go to bed and get up whenever you want. There are night shifts and day shifts. You can help yourself to the food in the kitchen in our rec room. The plant has a better cafeteria – more options, tastier food – but it’s harder to avoid people getting too close there. Kelly and Adam work in the kitchen; Bahee is a scientist; Cordelia a computer whizz; I’m a cleaner. You can talk to the other staff, but don’t get too close. No one knows we’re Flawed, but some people ask too many questions, you know? Best thing is to keep to yourself, but not too much, or you’ll stand out. Whatever you do, stay away from Fergus and Lorcan; they’re only after one thing.” She looks at me knowingly.

“Oh, right, sex.”

“No.” She bursts out laughing. “I wish. No –” she turns serious – “revolution. I mean, Carrick probably is too; he hangs out with them, but he’s a quiet kind of a guy, you never know what he’s thinking.” She leaves a silence, while she studies me with a smile. “I see you’ve already caught his attention.” She raises her eyebrows.

“It’s not like that with me and Carrick,” I say, unable to explain how it really is.

Our connection goes deeper than that. We shared something that will link us forever, something I’ll never have with anybody else. Though I don’t know if it’s a good thing, to look at him and always remember that he was the person there in the Branding Chamber during the toughest moment of my life. It causes me to remember it, over and over again. Maybe being away from him would help me to forget.

Mona is looking at me for juicy details, but I’m uncomfortable. To tell her what bonded us would be to tell her what happened, and nobody can ever know what happened.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask, looking around.

“Oh, you’re as bad as Carrick, deflecting the questions. Whatever. Don’t tell me, but watch out, those institution boys are famous for only wanting one thing.” She steps on my double bed with her big black leather boot and climbs up to her bed. She sits on the edge, her legs dangling over my bed.

I think about it. “Revolution?”

She grins. “Nope. Mostly, they want sex.”

I have to laugh.

“I’ve been here one year. To answer your question.”

“You’ve been Flawed for one year?”

“Two years.” She looks away, reaches to a glossy cabinet on the wall with no handle, pushes it to pop it open. She takes bedsheets from the shelves and drops them on to my new bed. Then she stamps on my bed with her big leather boots again and jumps to the floor, where she busies herself with the sheets. I try to help her, but she waves me off, talking as she goes. I can sense it’s easier for her to be busy while telling me her story.

“My family threw me out of the house when I was branded Flawed. Dad said, ‘You’re no daughter of mine’.” She puts on a deep voice and pretends to make fun of the situation, but it’s no laughing matter. “He had my bags packed when I got home from school one day. He walked me out to the taxi while Mum watched from the window. He gave me enough cash for a week and that was it.” Her eyes are distant. “I lived on the street for one year as a fully fledged Flawed. Then I started to hear about these evaders, these magical people who were able to live without having to report to Whistleblowers, without the Guild breathing down their backs. I always thought it was a myth, that evaders were like fairies, but they turned out to be true. I came here finally. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

My eyes widen and I realise how lucky I am to have a family that supported me all the way through. And what my poor granddad is going through now to protect me.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“I spent a year doing this and that, following the rules, doing what I was told by my Whistleblower, but then I got tired of that – it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t get a job; I couldn’t get work, so I couldn’t pay rent. Moved around some homeless shelters. I can tell you it’s bad being Flawed with a roof over your head; you can imagine what it’s like without one.” Her eyes glisten. “So I made a decision and came here,” she replies, eyes back to me.

“What did you do to become Flawed?”

Her tears disappear immediately, her eyes darken, and I learn the first rule of being Flawed. Never ask a Flawed person how they became Flawed.

I wake up in the cabin to a nightmare, as usual. They haunt me. I’m always on the run from Crevan. Sprinting, leaping over walls, but I’m never fast enough – it’s like I’m on a treadmill, running and running but not getting anywhere. It’s exhausting and it continues all night, like it’s on a loop. The only difference between this nightmare and every other night is a new addition: my granddad being tortured in the Branding Chamber.

Sweating and panting in the early hours of the morning, I sit bolt upright. I need to speak to Dahy. Even more urgently, I need to call home; I need to know what’s going on.

Morning light streams in through the window of the cabin, and when I look up I see that Mona has left her bed. Probably gone to work. I check my watch and can’t believe that it’s midday.

There’s a knock on the door.

I wrap myself in the bedsheet, lifting it to cover the brand over my heart, and open the door.

“Hi,” Carrick says, swiftly looking me up and down, and his eyes on me send goose bumps rising on my skin. “Brought you this.” He hands me a steaming mug of coffee and a chocolate muffin. “I’m on a break from my shift.”

“I can’t believe I’ve slept this long.”

“You needed it.” He looks at me intensely. “You’ve had a tough time.”

I cup my hand round the mug and feel the warmth. “Thank you.”

“The others wanted me to tell you to come to the rec room when you’re ready. Most of them are on a lunch break; they want to show you something. Don’t look so worried.” He offers a rare smile.

“Okay, I’ll be there soon. Carrick … you found your parents!” I grin at him, in celebration.

“I know,” he says awkwardly, face scrunched up in thought. “It’s weird. It’s new. It’s been only a few weeks. I barely know them. But they know me – my mum, more so; it’s like she knows everything about me and I know nothing about her.”

“It’s bound to be weird. I was only in the castle for a few days, and when I went back home it felt different.”

It was odd with my sister, Juniper, the entire time; we didn’t get along at all and made up moments before I escaped from the house. She admitted to feeling guilty for not standing beside me on the bus, for not speaking out in court. Bizarrely she felt jealous because, despite my punishment, she felt I’d done the right thing and she hadn’t. I also discovered she was Art’s accomplice in helping him to hide, when I desperately wanted to see him more than anything in the world. So much of what happened between us during those weeks was all due to lack of communication.

“I think when things happen to you, it can … alienate you from people,” I say quietly. I think of my experience of going back to school and having no friends, being excluded from classes by teachers, being captured and locked in a shed by school kids, the end of my relationship with Art. Everything shifted; everything changed, nothing for the better.

He looks at me intensely. “But what happened to us didn’t alienate us from each other, did it?” he asks.

I don’t even need to think about it. “No.”

“It brought us together,” he says.

“Yes.” I smile shyly.

He nods. “See you in the rec room. Make sure you come the route Mona showed you; we don’t want anyone else seeing you here.”

I close the door, my body brimming with energy just from standing next to him, though a little shot down by his parting comment. I use the shower in the cabin and dress quickly, knowing everybody is waiting for me. As I open the door, I come face to face with a knuckle, which at first I think is aiming to punch me and so I squeal and duck.

When nothing happens and the feet haven’t kicked me or run away and are just shuffling in my eyeline, I uncover my head from my hands and slowly look up.

A young man stands there, his fist still in the air, and he’s looking at me, startled. “I was just about to knock on the door.”

“Oh! Oh. Right.” I clamber to my feet, feeling mortified.

“Sorry for scaring you,” he says, embarrassed, as his cheeks start to go the brightest red I’ve ever seen on a human being. “I’m Leonard,” he says, eyes on the floor, on the wall, on the door, flitting everywhere but not on me. “I work here.” He fumbles with the pass round his neck and offers it through the gap in the door. Leonard Ambrosio, Lab Technician. He looks like a choirboy.

“Hi, Leonard,” I say, widening the gap a bit.

I’m afraid he recognises me, but because he’s in this unit, does that mean he’s Flawed too? Can I trust him? Do his eyes narrow a little as he processes me? My name and face is all over the media. Is it the end for me?

“I’m sorry to disturb you; I know you’re new here. My girlfriend used to sleep in this room.” He looks around as though he’s more nervous to be here than me. “Her name is Lizzie.”

I tense up. This is the boyfriend who doesn’t like Flawed.

He looks at me expectantly.

“I just arrived, I don’t know anything about her,” I say defensively, thinking just because she’s Flawed, doesn’t mean that I am.

“No? Okay. Here’s a photo of her.” He studies my face as I take it, hoping a memory has stirred. “And here’s my number.” He hands me a piece of paper with his name and number. “If you hear anything about her, or if anyone else mentions her or where she might have gone, please call me. I really want to find her.”

“For what?” I say, my voice cold.

He seems taken aback by my tone. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you want to find her?” I’m not going to offer up her whereabouts just so he can call the Whistleblowers on her.

“Because I love her,” he says, eyes pleading. “I’m so worried about her.” He looks up and down the corridor before lowering his voice even more. “I know who she is … what she is … you know?” He looks at me intently. “I think she was afraid to tell me, but I wouldn’t have cared, I always knew and never cared. I mean, of course I cared, but it didn’t stop me from loving her – if anything, it made me love her more.” His cheeks pink at that again, as he becomes embarrassed. “I think it’s important that you know that I don’t have a problem with Flawed people …” His eyes dart around the place again. “But mostly I just need Lizzie to know that. Okay?”

“Okay.” I frown, thinking this is the complete opposite to what I’ve heard, but I don’t want to get lost in somebody else’s drama. And in the back of my mind I’m wondering, Is this a set-up? Use me to get her and she gets in trouble? “But I told you, I don’t know her.”

A door bangs shut round the corner. We both look nervously down the hall.

“Don’t, um, please don’t tell Mona, or anyone, that I was here. I shouldn’t be in this section. Lizzie gave me a key card so we could meet. This is just, um, between me and you,” he says.

He looks so earnest, so concerned, so nervous, that I almost believe him. I understand his words to mean: I tell nobody about him, he tells nobody about me. I close the door quickly, unsure whether I should tell Mona. His story clashes with hers, but I’ve just arrived – I really don’t want to be getting involved in a war of words with anyone, especially when it’s none of my business.

Finally, I shrug and make my way to the recreational room, deciding not to give it any more thought.

My first mistake.

“You took your time!” Mona says loudly when I enter the rec room. “Our lunch break is almost over.”

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just been a while since I showered without having to worry about a Whistleblower walking in on me.”

They laugh and welcome me into the room. There are more Flawed here who I didn’t meet last night, and they greet me. Evelyn wants to show me her cartwheels, which she does all around the room while her mother, Cordelia, tries to stop her.

“I’m sorry.” Cordelia sits beside me. “Evelyn’s been here since she was two years old. She’s always excited by new people. It’s a rare thing.”

“It’s okay. She’s sweet.” I smile, feeling sad for the little girl.

“Welcome.” Bahee takes my hands; his are warm. “I hope you slept well.”

“Much better.” I smile. Despite the nightmares, it was an improvement on sleeping in the farmhouse where the fear and anxiety kept me awake most of the night. I feel guilty for sleeping when Granddad is being held in the castle because of me.

“Good. I’m sure you needed it after your recent journey. We’ve all been in your shoes, remember; we all understand how difficult the adjustment is. It takes time, but we’ll help you. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want,” he says, smiling warmly.

“Thank you,” I say.

Bahee claps his hands suddenly. “Okay, my friends. Thank you for gathering on your break, and to those of you who took unofficial breaks: Eddie will kill you, but don’t blame me.” He throws a warning look at Mona, who laughs in her cleaner’s uniform. “Let’s show Celestine North what we do here.”

The couches are moved to form a circle. I sit beside Mona. Carrick hangs back, standing outside the circle, arms folded, leaning against the wall, serious expression, always on alert.

Kelly sits beside me. “You and I need to have a chat,” she says excitedly with a wink. She holds my hand and squeezes it. I can understand Carrick’s discomfort with his mother wanting so much so soon. She is so eager to be back in his life she’s grabbing at everything that’s connected to him. Adam sits beside her and taps her thigh with a hand, a gesture that I read as an instruction to calm herself. She apologises to me and lets go of my hand.

Rogan stays in the same dark corner I met him in last night, on a bean bag, near the computer games. He comes closer to the edge, to see what’s happening, and he ends up glaring at Carrick for most of the time, studying his every move.

“Many people have come and gone from our tribe; all of them have been welcomed in with open arms and love,” Bahee begins. “Before I became Flawed, in my previous life as a scientist I went on many travels, had laboratories and factories all around the world, which took me far and wide,” he says, and it feels as though he’s talking directly at me, that this is all for me. “It’s what I miss most: stepping off a plane, breathing in and smelling the air of a new country, or feeling the heat of the hot African sun hit me.” He seems frozen in a memory momentarily and everyone waits patiently, possibly remembering those moments of freedom, before, when we took them for granted. “But I consider myself lucky to be able to share news of my travels with those who haven’t.” He directs this at Evelyn.

“On my travels I came across the Babemba tribe of Africa, who could teach this nation a thing or two. The tribe believes that each human being comes into the world as good, that each person only desires safety, love, peace and happiness. But sometimes in the pursuit of these things, people make mistakes. When a person makes a mistake, he or she is placed alone in the centre of the village. All work stops and everyone gathers around to take part in a beautiful ceremony where each person of the village shares all the good things that the individual ever did in his or her lifetime. Every positive story, their good deeds and strengths are recounted. At the end, a celebration takes place and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe.”

“That’s beautiful,” I say dreamily. If only.

“These are my favourite days,” Mona says.

“So, Lennox, as a new arrival to our home. Stand up,” Bahee says, and Lorcan, Fergus and Carrick cheer him on. Lennox grins and sits in a chair in the centre of the room, acting as though he’s a rock star taking to the stage, waving as though there are thousands of us in his audience.