A Girl Called Fearless (3 page)

“Thanks.” We got in the car, and he steered it out the iron gates.

I slipped the wire through my earlobe. I held my breath listening to Yates' whisper. “Hi, Fearless. I heard about Dayla and Seth. Don't freak. Seth's smart and I know he'll take care of her. I bet they're in Vancouver right now.”

I hoped to God he was right. Dayla's dad had hired Retrievers to get her back. They'd probably staked out every airport and border crossing on the West Coast.

“Sorry I can't be there with you,” Yates said.

“Me, too,” I murmured, but Yates couldn't hear me. To send him a message back, I'd have to pop the earring in the little mint-box recording device Sparrow had assembled.

Roik cruised down Arroyo, and I sat up, ready to wave at Yates, but as we approached the cafe, Roik glanced at me in the mirror. “Is your seat belt on?”

“Yeah, of course.”

He floored the car and tore through the intersection. “Guy behind us has been tailing us for blocks,” he said, and hit Big Black's panic button for Armed Escort Service. We flew past the Lean Dog just as Yates went into the kitchen.
Dammit.
Today, when I needed a friendly face the most, I'd missed Yates completely.

I rolled my eyes as two armed escorts on motorcycles pulled up behind us, but, I told myself, this was better than the time Roik leaped out and pulled his gun on the taco truck tailgating us. Embarrassing.

Roik sped past the turn for Dayla's neighborhood and I slipped the earring from my ear.
Oh, Dayla
.
I hope you and Seth are gazing up at the blue Canadian sky right now, celebrating the rest of your lives together.

The guards at the Flintridge community gatehouse waved Roik through and the armed escort peeled away. Up here on the hillsides, trees still hung over the streets and gardeners still manicured green lawns. We drove past a house where pink balloons arched over the door and a big wooden stork was plunked down in the grass. “It's a girl!”

Poor thing. But she'd probably have it easier than Dayla and me. She'd grow up in this world never knowing what she'd missed.

7

A black Land Rover I didn't recognize came out our gate as we went in. It was followed by the slick Mercedes convertible Dad's lawyer still drove, despite the sick economy.

Dad usually did business at the office unless he wanted to keep a deal hush-hush.

Roik parked in front of the house and I slipped the earring into my pocket. I tiptoed into the foyer, hoping to make it to my bedroom before Dad knew I was home.

Gerard intercepted me halfway up the stairs. “Your father's waiting for you on the terrace.”

“Okay.” I held up my backpack. “I'm just going to stick this in my room.”

Gerard lifted it off my hand. “I'll take care of that for you.” He'd put on a dress shirt and tie, which meant Dad was out to impress whoever'd just left.

“So I guess Dad can't wait to see me.”

“Champing at the bit, so to speak.”

“Fine.” I started back down the stairs. “Looking sharp.” I smiled at him over my shoulder, because even when Gerard annoyed me by enforcing one of Dad's rules, he usually took my side.

I found Dad sitting on the patio, holding a glass of amber liquid up to the light and gazing over the fish pond.

A sleek, inky green helicopter skimmed our neighbor's roof, buzzing like a dragonfly streaking over our pool. Leaves were settling on our lawn where the chopper had taken off.

Dad's face was amped with color. The last few months, his skin had turned patchy and yellow like a lab rat and I'd been worried he was sick, and too scared to ask. But today, even his eyes looked greener.

“Something good happen?” I asked.

“Avie, come sit down.” Dad patted the cover of a thick folder on the table. Three more glasses stood next to it, slivers of ice swimming in the bottoms.

“You seem happy.” Like a deal he was hoping for had gone through. Maybe money problems had been stressing Dad out.

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Regimen Industries has agreed to acquire us.”

“Us? You mean Biocure?” I said.

Dad looked slightly embarrassed as he ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Yes, they've acquired a thirty percent stake, and they've promised to invest whatever's needed for expansion.”

“So now you'll have money to grow the business?”

“Yes, but the best part is what this means for you, honey.”

An electric current ran through me.
He didn't.
“What? What did you just do?”

Dad tried to smile, but when somebody knows they're telling you a big, fat, self-serving lie, the smile never comes out right. “I've secured you a place in one of the most powerful families on the West Coast. I've made sure my baby will be treated like a queen for the rest of her life.”

I leaped out of my seat. “You sold me!”

The smile dropped off Dad's face.

“I can't believe it! You promised me you'd wait. You said I could go to college.”

“I never promised.”

“You did! You promised Mom before she died!”

Dad jerked his head. I'd nailed him, but he shot back, “I'm sure your favorite teacher told you the news. You can't go to school in the U.S. now even if I let you.”

“I could go to Canada. UBC. McGill!”

“Avie, you need to calm down.”

“You've ruined my life!” College. Freedom! In one breath, Dad had torn my dreams to shreds. I started to walk inside.

“Come back here and sit down,” he snapped at me.

I spun around and grabbed the back of my chair, shaking it so hard Dad winced, because he knew that was meant for him. “What am I worth, Dad?”

“You're worth everything to me.”

“No. How much did you get for me? You sold me along with a thirty percent stake. What was my asking price? I want to tell my friends so I can make them jealous.”

Dad stood up and headed for the French doors. I cut him off and ripped the folder out of his hand. “What am I worth? Ten million? Fifteen? Tell me so I can lord it over Dayla the next time I see her. Your daddy doesn't love you like mine does. He only got six million for you.”

“Fifty million.” He paused and I gasped into the silence. Then: “You won't be seeing Dayla again.”

And the way Dad said it, so quiet and controlled, I knew something terrible had happened. “What about Dayla?”

He reached out his hand for the folder and I handed it back.

“She was caught at the border. Homeland Security has her bodyguard in custody and she's been taken to a Fetal Protection Facility, where they'll hold her until the Contract family takes possession.”

“What do you mean? The Contract family won't take her.”

“I'm sure Dayla's father will find another Contract for her.”

I'd heard differently. Families didn't want to take a chance on a girl who ran. “What happens if he doesn't?”

Dad wouldn't look at me.

My life was a car crash with bodies all over the road. Dayla detained. Seth in jail. Me promised to some guy I'd never met.

“So what's his name?”

“Whose name?”

“The name of my beloved. The man who bought me fair and square.”

“Don't you take that tone with me. I'm looking out for you.”

My eyes teared up without warning—my heart wishing that what he said was true.

“No, you're looking out for the company. I'm just an asset.”

Dad frowned at me, but then he said, “Jessop Hawkins. Your Contract's with Jes Hawkins.”

“So when do I get to meet Jes?”

“At the Signing.” Dad tried again to get past me, but I threw my arm across the doorway.

“What do you mean ‘At the Signing'? Dayla met her Contract months before her Signing.”

“He's a busy man, Avie. He doesn't have a lot of time for social pleasantries.”

My arm dropped and Dad escaped into the house.
He called Jessop a man? A busy man who thinks meeting his future wife is a social pleasantry.
“No, wait. Stop. Stop! How old is he?”

I caught up to Dad in the hall, but he stood with his back to me, his hands on his hips. Then he barked, “He's thirty-seven, Avie. And I did consider your feelings, because the other offer I had, he was fifty-three.”

Dad stalked off, leaving me in the hall, my voice as dead as my mother.

8

The hardwood floor swayed under my feet, rolling like a 5 on the Richter scale as I ran into the kitchen and whipped out my phone. “Dad sold me!” I texted to Day and then slammed my phone on the counter. Day had left her cell in the car she and Seth abandoned in Visalia.

Dusty, my dog, came running and I scooped her up in my arms. Her little white paws bicycled the air as she licked my face.

My eyes burned with tears I was too angry to spill. If Day were here, we'd go upstairs and scream and thrash around my room, and she'd call Dad names like “fascist pig.”

And after that she'd pick out a playlist and soundtrack Dad's betrayal. Then she'd curl her arms around me and let me cry until finally she'd say, “Who the hell is this Hawkins guy, anyway? Let's steal Roik's phone and check him out.”

I could barely breathe.

The countdown: six months, probably, before the Signing ceremony, maybe another three before the wedding. I could finish junior year, and then …

Gerard came out of his office. He didn't say a word, but he didn't have to.

“I guess you heard.”

He nodded. “You need anything?”

A life. Love. My best friend. Not a future in one of the most powerful families on the West Coast. Whatever that meant.

“No,” I said, because at that instant I couldn't think of anything Gerard could do or say or give me that would fix a thing.

He headed for the back door. “I'm around if you change your mind.”

I buried my face in Dusty's baby-soft fur.
I can't believe this is happening.

Gerard's cell buzzed on the counter, making Dusty squirm. I went over and pressed Ignore.

His phone didn't have paternal controls, but Gerard would know if I called Yates. I set his cell down, and picked it right back up again. It didn't have purity screening, either. The paternal controls on mine would block all information on Hawkins. Living males were off-limits for searches. Historical figures didn't pose a threat to a girl's virginal status.

I silenced Gerard's ringer, and slipped the phone in my pocket. “Come on, Dusty. Let's go for a walk.”

Dusty did somersaults as we slipped out to the street. I should have told Roik I was going, but right now I didn't feel like making his job easy. Besides, the streets in our gated neighborhood were monitored.

I walked Dusty up the hill, past houses hidden behind hedges and gates, so only the roof or top floor of the Spanish hacienda or Italian-style villa or cutting-edge architect-designed house was visible. Oak leaves littered the pavement, crunching under my feet as I put distance between me and Dad.

I waited until we'd turned the corner before I took out the phone. A few taps and I had a full bio and pic of Jessop Hawkins. He wasn't ugly and he wasn't decrepit. The right schools. Collector of modern art. Major donor to the Paternalist Movement. Majority stockholder in Regimen Industries. Estimated worth: five hundred million.

Five hundred million. It didn't make sense.

Why me? If you could afford any girl in the United States—no, in the world—why spend fifty million on me?
I wasn't that good-looking. I mean, I wasn't a troll, but I didn't have a body like Dayla's or a face like Sparrow's or long ballerina legs like Sophie.

The only explanation that made sense was Dad threw me in as part of his business deal, pure and simple, and Hawkins was such an incredible romantic he went for it.

I heard a car behind me and dropped Gerard's phone in my pocket, just as Big Black pulled up ahead and blocked me. Roik rolled down the window. “What do you mean, running off like that?”

“I didn't
run
off.”

“Get in.”

“Can't I go for a walk? Or does Jessop Hawkins have a problem with that?”

Roik shut his eyes. He was silently counting to ten.

“I won't get in the car. There are fifty cameras on this street. I'm perfectly safe and I'm going to finish my walk.”

“Fine,” Roik said. He threw the car into gear. “I'll be waiting for you.”

He drove off and I didn't even care he was pissed. He couldn't tell me how to live my life.

9

Roik couldn't tell me how to live my life, but Dad could. Apparently, I was now “valuable” and when you're “valuable,” there's a whole new set of rules for you.

I refused to come down for dinner and no one made me. I climbed into bed with Dusty and cried until my eyes puffed up.

“Day at least had a say in things,” I said, stroking Dusty's fur. “Her dad did a Search, and she chose the guy she Signed. Braden was only seven years older than her.”

But not me. Dad went behind my back and chose a guy twice my age, and never even asked once what I wanted.

I sat straight up.
Like the old, rich guy who Signed Becca.

My heart squeezed, remembering. She was Yates' sister, but sometimes she'd felt like mine, too. I got up and went to my closet.

The box I'd stuffed in the back was right where I left it after she died. “For Avie” was scrawled on the packing tape in black marker. I set the box on my desk, fighting the urge to put it right back where I found it.

Why did you do it, Becca? Was being Signed to that man that awful?

I don't know what I expected to find when I cut through the packing tape, but there was nothing very dramatic inside: a stuffed whale, a couple paperbacks with frayed corners.