Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

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. 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 good-bye,” 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 whiz; 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 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 onto 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 Mom 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 necks. 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 realize 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.

SIXTEEN

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 around the mug and feel the warmth. “Thank you.”