Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

THIRTY-THREE

RAPHAEL ANGELO LIVES in the mountains, a two-hour drive from Vigor, deep in the forests, on mountainous terrain. He is more than off the beaten track: I wouldn’t have found him in a million years. Even finding our way there with Kate’s specific directions is difficult.

While the others use the Jeep from Vigor to get to Alpha and Bill Lambert, Leonard gives Carrick and me the use of his car. I will never be able to repay him for his help, especially as this is aiding a Flawed and carries a prison sentence, but I plan to try to do all that I can for him.

This drive through the mountains is the first time Carrick and I have been alone since the early morning hours. I’ve barely had time to think about it, but now that we’re away from the city and safely in the mountains, mostly Whistleblower-free, we both relax. He rolls down the windows, puts the music on low, avoiding the radio stations that are announcing to the country how I once again evaded the Whistleblowers.

If it’s a Crevan-owned station, the story is that I’m a fugitive to be feared and avoided. If it’s regular stations, then the discussion is why an eighteen-year-old woman is so hunted, and is it that easy to evade the system? Is the system itself flawed? Is there any reason at all for Flawed to be so monitored, if I’m living quietly and not causing trouble? What is the Guild trying to prove? All good questions.

Except that each discussion is shot down by the Crevan media, who pinpoint me as the cause of every single riot that has broken out around the city, using footage of the supermarket riot where I stood up to the police officer as proof.

“Are you okay?” Carrick asks, reaching across and holding my hand in my lap.

“Yes.”

“I mean, after last night … are you okay?”

It was my first time and I’d told him; he was gentle and understanding, constantly making sure I was okay. And though he never said, I know it wasn’t his. Those institution boys have a reputation, at least that’s what Mona told me. And I’ve a feeling she’d known—that she was at least a part of creating that reputation. Not with Carrick, though, I’m sure that nothing ever happened between them.

“Oh, that . Yes, I’m fine, thanks.” I blush and he smiles.

The smile transforms his face. I’m so used to seeing him tense and stern, but his smile makes him look younger.

“How did you know that Professor Lambert owns Vigor?” he asks, studying me curiously.

I laugh. “Carrick, you’re the one who keeps telling people that I have magical powers, and then when I get something right, it surprises you?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I recognized the company logo. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it when I first arrived, but then it clicked. I’d seen it in his office. And it’s typical of his sense of humor, too, to invest in that kind of company.” I laugh.

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Carbon is a waste that pollutes. So Vigor finds a way to use it as a resource.”

“Yes,” he says, still confused.

“And they’re using Flawed to do that. We are the carbon.” I chuckle. “The thing that nobody wants. Turning a problem into a solution. It is textbook Professor Lambert. He gave me some advice, and I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now.” I change my tone. “Bill and Alpha told me that you were placed with them after you left the institute.”

“Neighboring homes, the Institution calls them,” he says angrily. “More like halfway houses where they monitor your every move. Out of one prison, into another. Their job is to help you slide into society under their care. But really it’s to keep an eye on you so they can report back to the institution. If I’d known that Professor Lambert had anything to do with the plant, I would never have gone there.”

“You think that Bill reported you to the Guild?” I ask, surprised.

“I’m not on as close terms with him as you are, obviously,” he says, removing his hand from mine and gripping the steering wheel, face closing back up again.

“I only met Bill once,” I say quietly. “Alpha was my math teacher, the only teacher willing to homeschool me after my school politely asked me to leave for the good of their reputation.” I can’t be bothered to hide the bitterness in my voice.

He looks at me, gentleness back on his face, concern for all I went through after we parted ways.

“Carrick, tell me what happened to make you not trust them,” I say softly.

He takes his time, the anger evident as he retells the story. “I was in their care when I was searching for my parents, it had only been a day, I’d barely started looking around for Mom and Dad, then all of a sudden I was hauled into Highland Castle. There were photographs of me visiting the last place I’d been taken.”

“Photos? That’s all? That doesn’t prove that you were trying to find your parents,” I say, annoyed. “Since when does taking a trip down memory lane make you Flawed?”

“The guy I spoke to at the house, who’d rented us a room thirteen years ago, made a statement to the Guild,” he says, resigned.

“Still, Carrick, that’s nothing . Since when is asking questions—”

“I wasn’t going to deny it, Celestine,” he says angrily, then takes a moment to calm down. “Besides, I enjoyed admitting exactly what I was doing. I didn’t find my parents, but it was as damn close to a success as I could get, just to see the look on their faces when they’d realized they’d failed.”

I examine his profile, adoring his commitment, his strength, even his stubbornness, even if all of those traits got him into trouble. He’d rather be right than safe, and for that we have much in common. “But I don’t see why you blame Bill,” I probe.

“Alpha practically works for the Guild, running her charity to help counsel Flawed people’s families, so it wasn’t difficult to draw my conclusions.”

“That’s what the charity is on the outside; she’s actually using it to gain support for the Flawed cause. She uses it as a way to gather everyone together. She is trying to end F.A.B. institutions. She was trying to get me on her side, and bring you with me,” I explain.

Carrick absorbs this. I see that he is having the same crisis of trust I am. Nothing is simple when you’re Flawed, you become a pawn in many peoples’ games. As much as I feel for him, I’m comforted that what I’m experiencing is not unique to me.

“Bill told me that if you’d stayed with them longer they would have helped you to find your parents. That was their intention all along, but you were with them less than twenty-four hours. You never gave them a chance to prove themselves to you.” I say this as delicately to him as possible, trying to judge his mood before continuing. He doesn’t respond, two hands tight on the wheel, looking straight ahead, an intense look on his face.

“After you were taken to Highland Castle, your parents were brought to Vigor to live safely. Then on your release, you were given a tip as to their whereabouts. When you think about it, I’m sure Alpha and Bill were the ones who orchestrated your being reunited with your parents. I mean, how did you find out about Vigor in the first place?”

He still doesn’t answer me: He’s silent and lost in thought as he tries to figure it all out, moves the pieces in his mind that he was once so sure of. Carrick ran away from Alpha and Bill to find his parents. If he’d just stayed with them, he could have found them and not have been branded. It’s quite possible that his loss of freedom was all for nothing. I don’t push the conversation about his parents any further, but there is something I can’t avoid anymore.