Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

But reality has been brought into Judge Sanchez’s home now. She’s barely awake, the sleep still in her eyes, thanks to us bursting into her home at the crack of dawn.

She is almost unrecognizable without the red lipstick and matching red-framed glasses for which she is known. She wears no makeup, her hair is scraped back in a clip, and she wraps her body in a black cashmere cardigan as if she’s cold, but it’s not cold in here at all.

We stand in an open-plan kitchen/living/dining room; it’s enormous, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass ceiling. She catches me looking at it.

“My son, Tobias, is a stargazer,” she says. “The reason we bought here.”

“I believe the professional word is astronomer,” a teenager says, appearing in the kitchen, looking sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, tightening his robe belt. He looks around the same age as me: He’s handsome, stands tall, with an air of arrogance.

“Only if you’re paid to look at them,” she says, focusing on the laptop computer Raphael is placing down before her.

Her son looks at me, registers me, then looks to his mom in surprise. Celestine North is in his home.

“Coffee, Mom?” he asks.

I find it hard to believe that she could be anybody’s mother. That she would have a heart big enough to love and care for somebody. The mirror has two faces. Though, I suppose Sanchez is trying to help me, even if it’s for her own gain.

She shakes her head to the coffee.

“Yes, please,” Raphael calls to him.

“My mom likes to look down, I like to look up,” he says, brewing the coffee. “Would you like to come upstairs and have a look?” he asks me. “I have a telescope in the atrium.”

I don’t want to see what Raphael and Judge Sanchez are about to watch, but I know I should be here. It’s too important to miss.

“No, thanks,” I say politely.

He runs his eyes over me. I see that his robe bears the crest of the most prestigious boarding school in the country.

“They shouldn’t have found you Flawed,” he says loudly, as if he’s deliberately trying to annoy his mom. “I told her that. It was a preposterous verdict. Something sinister at play, I’m guessing.”

The USB was found, just as Tina said, in the base of the snow globe. The snow globe had been set aside from all my other belongings in the garage; Carrick hadn’t taken long to find it. It was as though Mary May’s allegiance to the Guild had stopped her from even considering that the proof that would destroy her leader could lie in something so close to her heart. The USB was sitting inside the false bottom, which was easily found after unscrewing it. After finding it, we called Raphael from the burner phone we took from Enya’s campaign office, and he collected us from the lake. I didn’t want to view the footage. I left the car while Raphael and Carrick watched it. From their faces afterward I could tell what needed to be seen had been captured. Raphael couldn’t look at me, and Carrick couldn’t stop.

I’d thought it was best not to bring Carrick here with us. Someone like Sanchez uses what she needs and discards the rest. Carrick has no value to Sanchez and could very easily have been sent straight to Highland Castle on first sight. And besides, right about now my mom and Bob Tinder are storming the Whistleblowers’ training center, and soon Crevan will know I’m free. Carrick is safer away from me, and I need him to help my mom and Juniper.

I check the burner for an update from Carrick. There’s nothing.

I look into the kitchen at the television, wanting to see if there’s any news. No surprise Sanchez watches News 24, Crevan media. But there don’t seem to be any breaking news reports about my mom and Juniper, only of course there wouldn’t be, not on News 24. They would bury that detail. Bob Tinder won’t.

Tobias hands me a cup of coffee even though I didn’t ask for one, and one to Raphael, too. I need it, though—I haven’t slept all night and I’m exhausted, running only on adrenaline.

“Thank you.” I take it from him, touched by the simple act of kindness. I smell coffee, I know it’s coffee. I taste. Nothing.

“Tobias, out,” Sanchez says sternly, and her son strolls away, chin up, shoulders back, newspaper rolled in his hand, off somewhere to read it.

I position myself behind Sanchez so I have a view of the screen. Now that I’m with Judge Sanchez I need to see what she sees, and I need to see how she sees it.

“Who else has a copy of this?” Sanchez asks before Raphael plays it.

“This is the original,” Raphael says. “We haven’t shown it to anyone.”

“This was filmed on Mr. Berry’s mobile phone. He must have transferred it to a computer in order to save it to the USB,” she says.

“We believe Judge Crevan found the laptop and memory card when he found Mr. Berry. This is the only footage remaining. The footage he has been searching for,” Raphael explains.

“And you expect me to believe you didn’t make another copy before you got here?” She raises her eyebrows.

Raphael looks at me. “Give it to her.”

My mouth falls open in surprise. “Raphael.”

“Absolute honesty,” he says. “It’s the only way for this to work, Celestine.”

Annoyed, I take the copy we made and put it on the table in front of Judge Sanchez. She pockets it immediately.

They press play and Raphael sits back in his chair, knowing what’s about to come. Sanchez sits forward.

I hover in the back, chew all my fingernails down.

The picture begins. The image is shaky. I see a floor, then it bumps around, blurry, loud voices and commotion. A glimpse of my mom’s shoes, moving away, my dad yelling, the mess as they’re all removed from the viewing room. Sanchez looks at Raphael, annoyed, as if this is a waste of her time.

The camera lifts and the Branding Chamber comes into view. You can see the back of Crevan, in his bloodred gown. He blocks me in the chair.

The phone lowers again, more shouting, more commotion, a blurry picture.

“Oh, come on,” Sanchez snaps impatiently. “So Crevan is in the chamber at the time of the branding, this proves nothing.”

“Keep watching,” Raphael says calmly.

Mr. Berry moves to get a better view. He’s standing outside the door, which is why I never saw him. Crevan moves and I’m in view. I’m strapped in the chair, and seeing myself like that is upsetting enough. My mouth is clamped open. I feel sick at the memory of that horrendous moment.

Mr. Berry seems to get shoved away at this point and his camera drops. We watch his feet. Then Whistleblowers’ boots, a third pair of shoes. Carrick’s sneakers.

“Keep filming,” Carrick says, his voice clear on the tape.

Judge Sanchez’s head snaps up to me. “Whose voice is that?”

We both ignore her. The phone is lifted just in time to see my tongue being branded. And then Crevan starts shouting.

“Repent, Celestine.”

He paces before me in the chair, the picture perfectly clear. “Repent!”

The guards are unstrapping me from the chair. They all appear shaken, including Bark, who branded me, and Funar, who hated me. They are helping me into a wheelchair.

“Brand her spine,” Crevan says suddenly. It’s loud and clear, and I’m so relieved that we’ve got him.

I move away from the computer not because I can’t bear to see it but because I want to see Judge Sanchez’s face. I need to see her witness what happened to me under her power.

Her face is blank, unreadable, controlled. Not a sign of any emotion, no pity, no sympathy, nothing. Her eyes move across the images, processing them all like a robot.

As I hear Crevan shout, the guards putting up a fight, Crevan grabbing the branding rod, and then my own guttural sounds, she doesn’t blink once. Raphael scratches his head, his nose, fidgets in his chair, uncomfortable, and as my spine is branded without anesthetic and I scream out in utter anguish, so loudly that Tobias returns to see what’s going on, she doesn’t even blink.