A Girl Called Fearless (8 page)

If Father Gabe was going to be cagey, I was, too. “A friend told me I should come.”

“Perhaps your friend thought I could help you.” Father Gabe must have seen the big fat question marks in my eyes, because he leaned in. “I understand that your father has written a Contract.”

“Yes.” My mouth went completely dry.

“Perhaps I can help.”

“How?” The word broke as I said it.

“You know what is meant by the Exodus?”

“From the Old Testament?”

“From throughout history. Jews, Macedonians, Tibetans, Italians. Many, many times oppressed peoples have fled their homelands. Now there is a new Exodus.”

My chest squeezed. Father Gabriel's meaning was clear: he helped girls get to Canada. That was why Yates wanted us to meet. He thought I should run.

Run for the border
? The thought sent shivers through me.
Dayla didn't make it and she had Seth to protect her. Yates thinks I should run—alone?

“I don't think you can help me,” I said.

Father Gabe's gentle expression didn't change. “The confessional will open in a few minutes. You should visit it before you leave today.”

He blessed me before he walked away. Out in the courtyard, I saw Yates was gone.

I headed back through the church and was almost out the door when I saw the red light on over the confessional. Father Gabriel was waiting, but I didn't have anything to confess. Sure, okay, so I lied on a regular basis, but I wouldn't have to if I wasn't gated, guarded, and spied on.

Still … I stepped inside and sat down. The shade over the grate pulled back and I heard someone whisper, “Avie.”

My head whipped up. Yates peered at me through the brass grate. “Hi.” His blue eyes were ultramarine in this light.

“Hi.” I leaned in until our faces were only a few inches apart. Yates smelled faintly of coffee and maple syrup.

“So did you meet Father G?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Why didn't you tell me you thought I should go to Canada?”

“I thought you should meet Gabe first. See if you could trust him.”

This was all coming at me so fast. “I'm not sure. I don't know.”

“He helped Dayla.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out.”

“It wasn't his fault,” Yates said.

“Why not?”

“Dayla's father posted a reward. Seth owed money to another bodyguard and the guy gave him up.”

“So they were outed?”

“They'd have made it if it wasn't for that. I'm sure of it.”

I shook my head. Yates acted like this was so simple. “If I run, Jes Hawkins can hire a whole army to track me.”

“Yeah, he's got a lot of money to throw around, but we know how to get girls out.”

Yates didn't get it. “I haven't even turned seventeen yet and you want me to go to Canada all by myself and start a whole new life just like that?”

He dropped his eyes and a moment passed before he said in a too quiet voice, “Don't you remember what happened with Becca?”

Tears blurred my eyes. “Yes.” I'd tried so hard to block it from my mind, how Becca had handed her newborn son to her husband, telling him, “Now you have your heart's desire,” before she went upstairs and threw the rope over the beam in their bedroom.

“I'm not going to kill myself,” I said.

“I'm not saying you would, but the things that happened to her, they could happen to you.”

A shiver traveled up my legs. “Like what?”

“Well, like your fiancé starts scheduling your life. Dress fittings. Sessions with the Signing Planner. Verification appointment with the doctor. Have they sprung that on you yet?”

My cheeks flamed, and I was glad the confessional was semidark. “Yes.” My appointment was tomorrow, and I prayed Yates wouldn't ask about it.

“And when you get tired of all this crap and you tell your Intended you don't like it, he takes you out of school. Now you're cut off from your friends. The next thing he does is move you into his compound, and take away your phone so you can't call your family without permission. He listens in on your calls. He restricts access on your computer. Don't you remember how we could never see Becca? How we could barely get to talk to her?”

Yates' eyes pleaded with me. I didn't remember everything that happened to Becca, but I remembered a lot.

“Becca didn't have any money,” Yates said. “Not one credit card. Her husband wouldn't even let her out to go to the grocery store without her bodyguard along.”

“Are you trying to scare me, because you've succeeded!”

Yates blew out a hard breath and the dark curls on his forehead stirred. “I'm sorry,” he said. His hand hung on the brass grate and he stretched his fingers toward me. “I don't want anything to happen to you, and I can't—you can't pretend or wish it will all go away, because it won't.”

I felt like we were standing together in a cold rain. Okay, so I had to deal with the future hurtling toward me. My first meeting with Hawkins was Saturday.

“I have to think about this.”

Yates nodded. “I know. It's a big decision, so I want you to call me. I'll answer any questions about Exodus you have. You got the phone, right?”

I waved it at him through the grate.

“It works even though the screen is busted,” he said. “And there aren't any patriarchal controls. I'm on the contact list under AP.”

“AP?”

“Antsy Pantsy.”

I smiled. “Mom's nickname for you.”

“I figured if Roik ever found the phone he wouldn't know that name.”

The front door of the church creaked open, and I heard men talking. Roik and another guard.

Yates turned toward their voices. “You're stronger than you realize, Fearless.”

My heart pinched. I wanted to stay, but the voices were getting closer. “Roik's looking for me.”

Yates dropped his voice. “I'm done at work around ten and back at my apartment by ten-thirty,” he said. “So if you want to talk—”

Footsteps passed a few feet away. I nodded, and Yates sat back and disappeared into the dark.

I slipped into a pew and pretended to say penance, but my head was spinning, trying to take it all in: Yates. Father G. Exodus.

If I had the guts to run, Yates would help get me out.

19

The house was silent and dark before I brought the phone out. The screen burst bright and I closed myself in my closet. I scrolled down. There were definitely no patriarchal controls. News, politics, condoms, gambling. Anything a man could want was right here at my fingertips.

And for the first time in my life, I had unlimited phone access. I shot down the contacts list and found AP. I had to be careful. If we got caught, they'd come down on Yates harder than me. Dad would sign me off to Hawkins before even I knew it.

I heard the connection take.
Please let this be Yates, not some crazy.

“Avie?” He sounded like he'd been waiting with his hand on the screen. The cracked screen distorted his face, but I could still see his smile.

“Thank God it's you.”

“So the phone's working okay?”

“Yeah. Looks like it.”

“Excellent.”

I was about to ask where he got it, when he grinned and said, “You know what I was thinking about?”

“No, what?”

“Riding Buddies.”

“Oh, I haven't thought about that in forever.” When Mom volunteered for equine therapy, Yates and I used to go to the stable and help with the kids who had cerebral palsy and Down Syndrome.

“Remember how Bruiser followed you around like a big dog?”

I smiled, seeing this huge Appaloosa horse plodding after me. “It was the carrots. I'd stuff my pockets.”

“And I thought he liked you.”

“The truth comes out.”

Dusty scratched at the door, and I let her in. She settled into my lap and I rubbed her tummy.

“I was remembering your mom, too,” Yates said.

I tensed. It was still hard for me to talk about Mom.

“Your mom was the first person to tell me that people would listen to me, that I could make a difference in someone's life.”

“Yeah, she believed in you. She saw how you helped Matt.” For a year, Yates had held Matt up in the saddle until he could sit up straight and take over the reins.

“You know he's applying to Oxy for next year?”

“No!”

“Yeah. He's got an electric chair, takes him everywhere.”

“You did it.”

“No, it was all Matt.” We sat, the quiet tying us together. “Aves, if your mom was here, what would she tell you to do?”

“If she was here, none of this would be happening.”

“Sorry.”

I breathed in and out, got myself centered. “No, I'm sorry.”

“But if she could speak to you, what would she say?”

I wished Yates would drop it, but I knew he wouldn't. “Follow your dreams.” My voice broke. “She'd say follow your dreams, because even if you don't reach them, you'll still be going in the right direction.”

“So what are your dreams?”

I propped my back against the wall. “I'm not sure.”

“Come on. I thought you wanted to go to college.”

“Yeah, I do … I did.”

“You could still go in Canada. They've got great schools up there.”

Stop it, I wanted to say.

“I know it's scary, but you should think about it.”

“Okay. I will.”

Yates ignored the no in my voice. “So what do you want to study?” he said.

I'd never told anyone, never said it out loud. “Psychology.”

“I can see that. You always like to know what people are thinking. But I'm kind of surprised. I'd have guessed you'd go for art history.”

I felt the smile on my lips. “Really, why?”

“Oh, the way you lugged that big book down to the beach every day.” Mom's book about Michelangelo. “That thing weighed—what?—forty pounds?”

“More like eight,” I said.

“I remember you saying you were going to Florence someday to see the
David
statue up close.”

I couldn't believe he remembered that—some random thing I'd said four years ago. “You haven't told me what your dreams are,” I said.

“Keep doing what I'm doing. Fighting for justice. I'm leading the Liberty Project at Oxy, taking on the Paternalists.”

Yates's face was filled with passion, his twilight-blue eyes brimming with it, and I suddenly longed to feel the way he did, committed to something that filled me with purpose.

His long lashes brushed his cheeks as he spoke, and I caught myself staring at them.
I'm turning into Dayla,
I thought, and looked away.

“Oh,” I said. “I forgot to say, thanks for the shirt. It's beautiful, especially the quote.”

“I thought you'd like it.”

“Before I could say I did, Yates said, “Sorry, I've got to take this other call.”

“Oh, okay.” I didn't want to let him go—not yet.

His voice dropped and his words brushed my ear. “Please think seriously about Exodus, Avie, for me. I—care about you.”

My head spun. I knew Yates cared about me, but he'd never said it that way before—like it meant
more.

“You're all I have left now that Becca's gone.”

A rock formed in my throat as I tried to swallow. “I will. I promise I'll think about it.”

Yates hung up and I just sat there.
I care about you.

Of course he cared. He was my friend. We'd been through hell together.

The weird thing was, I'd felt a little flutter—like my heart wanted to go to a new place. Dusty rolled onto her back, begging to be scratched. I ran my fingers in circles over her tummy, and thought about the last time Yates and I were allowed alone together.

It was after Becca got Signed, and Yates and I spent the afternoon riding our bikes around my neighborhood. We chucked the bikes at some point and followed the horse paths behind peoples' properties. We peered over fences and stole some figs hanging over a wall, but mostly we just talked.

We weren't doing anything, but when I got home, Dad started giving me the third degree. And then he dropped the bombshell. “Roik thinks you and Yates are too close.”

I didn't get it. “What's wrong with us being friends?”

“Things are different now. You're growing up.”

I remembered the squelchy feeling in my stomach and how I prayed Dad wouldn't say my body was
changing
. “So what?”

“He's a teenage boy, and they—” Dad shoved his hands in his pockets. He couldn't even look at me. “You can't be alone with him anymore.”

“This is so unfair!”

“Yes, but this is the way it has to be,” he said.

I hugged Dusty to my chest.
Get real
. Me thinking that things might change between me and Yates was a complete fantasy. I could dissect everything he said and put any spin on it I wanted, but we'd never be together. There was no happily ever after here.

20

Dr. Prandip's office made pre-Signing exams a priority, so Gerard got me an appointment first thing Monday morning.

Dad and Hawkins could force me to go through this humiliation, but they could not make me believe it was for my own good. I kept hearing Yates warn me about how Hawkins would take over my life step by step and my head started to pound.

Only five days until I met Hawkins. In the flesh.

The building was secure, but Roik walked me to the office like he was sure I'd bolt.

I felt manipulated from the moment I walked in the empty waiting room. The decorator had designed it to be soothing: lilac-colored walls, lavender aromatherapy diffusers, and framed pastels of Mary Cassatt mothers and children. He'd even stenciled a touching quote from Cassatt on the wall.