A Girl Called Fearless (9 page)

“There is only one thing in life for a woman; it's to be a mother.”

Hypocrite bitch. I'd read Mom's art books. I knew the truth. Cassatt refused to get married, because it would “compromise her art.” I reached for my nail file and tapped my thumb against the sharp metal point. The only thing stopping me from scratching out the quote was the security camera in the corner.

Then I heard Ms. A whisper in my ear. Don't do anything foolish. If you appear to resist your Signing, they'll only watch you closer.

The nurse called my name, and I put away the file and followed her like a little lamb. An ignorant, submissive, soon-to-be-slaughtered lamb.

The nurse had me strip. I waited on the exam table in a paper gown that covered me about as well as a cheap paper towel.

Prandip came in with her laptop. “Ah, so you are going to be married soon,” she said with a smile. “Are you excited?”

I shook my head before I realized it. “I— It's kind of last-minute. It's a lot to take in.”

The smile left her eyes, but her voice trilled, “Yes, so many details. It can make your head spin.” She patted my knee. “Please lie back.”

I trembled under the paper gown. “You won't find anything broken,” I told her.

She nodded. “I trust you, Avie, but I am obligated to confirm your status.” She looked sad like this wasn't what she'd signed up for when she went to medical school forty years ago.

Dayla had told me all about her pre-Signing exam, but that didn't prep me to lie back on an exam table with my knees spread apart, and have Dr. Prandip point a blinding lamp right between them. Sweat trickled down my legs, but I was freezing cold.

“When you're ready,” she said.

I closed my eyes and let her do what she had to do.

Examined. Inspected. Graded.

Invaded.

“Your status is confirmed,” she said. “Would you like to take this opportunity for premarital counseling?” Prandip pointed up at the light and shook her head.

Ms. A had warned me that women's doctors have audio monitors to prevent criminal acts like dispensing birth control or arranging abortions. “I know where babies come from,” I said.

“Excellent. Do you understand your duties as a wife?”

“Yes.” I looked away, because I couldn't bear thinking about doing it with Hawkins even for one second.

“As often as he wants, you understand.”

“Okay.”

Prandip stuck a finger to her lips and reached for my foot.

I jerked.
What the hell?
Prandip stripped off my knee sock, then she waved her pen in my face and wrote something on my sole.

“He wants it three times a day, you do it. It is essential to a good marriage.” She turned my foot toward a mirror in the corner, and I saw a phone number. “Sometimes young girls have trouble satisfying their husband's needs. You understand what I am saying?” she snapped.

She paused and a big question shaped her face. She pointed at me, then moved two fingers like they were running away.

Do I want to run away?

Yes.
“Yes, I understand.”

“It is your duty to be the best wife you can be. Promise me if you have problems you will call me,” she said, and tapped the sole of my foot.

“I promise.”

“Very good. Now. We'll take some blood, and you can be on your way.”

Her eyes held mine. You call me, she mouthed.

“Thank you, Dr. Prandip.”

Prandip left and I stood up. The paper sheet had melted to my back, and I had to peel it off. I threw my clothes back on and huddled in the exam room trying to clear my head.

Invaded. That was how I felt. And it was only going to get worse once I met Hawkins.

21

Roik dropped me off at school, but I almost asked him to take me home. I felt as if I still had on the flimsy paper gown I wore for the exam, and everybody could see right through it.

I walked onto campus as morning break was starting. Sparrow was sitting at an outdoor table, tinkering with one of the little chargers she made out of wires and batteries and old mints tins.

She was flawlessly beautiful even in a lumpy Masterson blazer.

I sat down with her, because people usually left Sparrow alone. Right now I wanted to be invisible.

Sparrow looked up. “I guess I need to say thanks.”

I blew on my latte. “For what?”

“My dad upped my minimum bid. He figures if your dad got fifty mill for you with a company thrown in, he can get fifteen for me.”

“Oh.” I didn't know what to say. It was kind of an insult.

“Dad's taking me to New York tomorrow to get appraised by the auction houses. I have interviews at Sotheby's and Christie's.”

She wasn't boasting. Sparrow loathed debutantes. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, well, who cares what you or I want anyway. So, where were you today?”

“Status verification.”

“God, you'd have to tie me down and give me electroshock before I'd do that.”

I picked up my coffee. I'd had enough Sparrow for now.

She put down her tiny screwdriver. “Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel worse.”

“I doubt that's possible.”

“So did you hear what happened today with Samantha Rowley?”

“The girl who's fighting her Signing? No, what?”

Sparrow pulled out her phone and tapped away at the screen. I spied a sliver of chrome under the sequined case, not pink like the Princess cell everyone else had.

“Whose phone is that?” I said.

“My brother's. He lets me borrow it so I can sell my kits. I give him a cut.”

I'd heard rumors Sparrow had a stash of cash, but now I believed it.

She muted her cell and handed it to me. “Watch this.”

Reporters mobbed a man in a suit as he exited a white marble building. The camera pulled back, revealing Corinthian columns and
EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW
carved along the roof. The man jogged down the long flight of steps past a line of policemen holding back protesters.

“Who is that?” I said, squinting at the signs the crowd was waving.

“That's Rowley's lawyer at the Supreme Court.”

The man paused to look at the protesters, then he got in the car. It edged into the traffic and boom! The car exploded into a fireball, and flames roared out the windows.

I clamped my hands over my mouth.

“That's right,” Sparrow said. “They killed him.”

“This is crazy. Who did this?”

“I don't know. The Paternalists, maybe. Sending us a message that fighting Signings is too dangerous to even try. It's like the Taliban's trying to take over America.”

“What's the Taliban?”

Sparrow sized me up. “You've really been protected,” she said, like that wasn't anything to be happy about. “Don't you ever wonder why all these things are happening? The ACLU bombings? The intimidation? This isn't just about keeping girls safe. I think something bigger is going on.”

The bell rang and I got up and tossed my latte in the trash. I'd had just about all I could stomach.

22

Run.

I traced my finger over the phone number on my foot. Dr. Prandip. Father G. Yates. They were all telling me to run. I just didn't know if I had the guts to do it.

Bad things happened out there in the real world. Girls got kidnapped from ballet class, brides got snatched off beaches. But when I thought about Becca—

Hawkins was already taking over my life. Dad would never have had me verified—ugh—if Hawkins hadn't demanded it. And if Yates was right, this was only the beginning.

I took another look at Prandip's number and repeated it under my breath until I knew those ten digits by heart. She told me to call if I needed help, but could I trust her? Or Father Gabriel for that matter?

It was almost ten, and I knew I should wait to call Yates. Roik never went to bed before eleven.

A text came in and an image flashed up on the screen. The spiderweb cracks distorted the picture, but I could still make out the white marble sculpture. Michelangelo's
David.

I felt my whole body lighten. I hesitated a second, and called. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” I brushed my hair back from my face, before it hit me what a flirt move it was. “Just sitting here thinking.”

“About Canada?”

“Yes, among other things.”

“And?”

“I'm scared.”

“It's scary.”

We let the silence fill with the bad, unspoken things we both knew could happen.

“Why do you trust Father Gabe?” I said.

“Because he's honest. Unlike a lot of the lying sacks of sh— I've had to deal with.”

“You thinking about your dad?”

“How'd you guess?”

Yates would never lie to me. Ever. “You really believe I can trust Father G with my life?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “Exodus is full of good people. Good people who'll hide you, drive you to the border.”

“How do you know they're good people? How do you know that's what happens?”

“Because I'm one of them,” he said.

I was surprised, but not surprised—like I'd smacked into a door I should have known was there. “You are?”

“I'm one of the links in the chain. I get girls out of L.A. to their next stop.”

I wrapped my sweatshirt tighter around me. Yates was insane putting himself at risk like this. If Father Gabe went to jail, Yates would, too. I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “How long have you—”

“Almost a year. Once I turned eighteen.”

“So you'd be the person who—”

“Roik knows me, so I can't extract you, but I'd drive you to Indio or Goleta or whatever town they picked for the meet.”

“But why? Why are you doing this? You could get killed.”

“I made a vow,” Yates said.

I was suddenly very angry, because this was Father Gabriel's fault. He knew Yates worshiped him and took advantage of that. “A vow? To who? Father Gabriel?”

He took a deep breath. “I promised Becca,” he said quietly.

Becca? “But Becca loved you. I can't believe she asked you—”

“She didn't.”

“Then I don't understand.” Yates didn't answer, but he didn't owe me an answer. “Wait, you don't have explain.”

“No, I want to,” he said, then looked away. “It was my fault Becca died.”

A vision of Becca hanging from a beam swayed in front of me. “But she—” I searched for a gentle way to say it. “She chose to end her life.”

“It wasn't a suicide.”

I gripped the phone, my head reeling. “But they found her—”

“Yeah, I know, but I couldn't believe Becca would just give up, so I tracked down the coroner's assistant.”

“What did he say?”

“Her hyoid bone was broken. He can't prove it, but he thinks Becca might have been strangled.”

“I can't believe it.”

“I was supposed to help her escape from the hospital after she had the baby and drive her to Vancouver. But I didn't show, so it's my fault she's gone.”

Not show? That didn't make sense. “No, I don't believe you deliberately left her there.”

“Yeah, I could give you a list of excuses. The baby was early. I didn't know. I left my phone in a friend's truck. But none of that matters, because Becca's dead. So I made her a vow that I'd be there for other girls who needed to get out.”

Now I finally got why Yates lost it, why he ended up in the locked ward after Becca died.

We let the quiet settle around us.

“Thanks for sharing that with me,” I said.

Yates blew out a breath. “I've never told anyone about it before.”

“Miss Avie!”

Roik's voice wrenched me off the floor. I dropped the phone in my dirty clothes and flicked on the closet light. “What?” I said, throwing open the doors. “I'm right here.”

Roik was rifling through the stuff on my desk. “I thought I heard something.” He did that little thing with his mouth where he squashes it shut after saying something that isn't exactly true.

“So you just barge into my room?”

“When I knocked, you didn't answer.”

“I had my earphones in.”

Roik frowned like that was hard to believe since I didn't have any earphones hanging around my neck. He scanned my closet and I knew he wanted to go in there, but didn't want a scene.

“Then are you done?” I said.

Roik muttered good night and left. The closet hung open, and I wanted desperately to call Yates back, but I couldn't risk Roik catching me.

I pulled my comforter onto the floor and lay below the window so I could see the moon. I thought I knew Yates, but now I saw how much I'd missed since we'd been kept apart. He'd been carrying around this horrible secret, and blaming himself. How could Yates think for even one minute that it was his fault Becca died? Tears trickled into my hair, but for the first time in a long time, they weren't for me.

23

The next day, Roik showed up unannounced and had the dean pull me from class. I waited in the entrance hall while Roik signed me out, wondering why the hell he was here. Roik came out of the office, and steered me to the door.

“What's the problem?” I said.

“There's a stylist waiting for you at the house.”

“But I thought Elancio was coming on Friday.”

“Your lunch with Jessop Hawkins was moved up.”

I snatched my arm away. “To when?”

“Thursday.”

Hawkins was doing exactly what Yates warned me he'd do, taking over my life one appointment at a time. “Nobody even asked me!”

Roik pushed out a breath. “Hawkins runs the show, and if he has to go to Singapore at the last minute, then you've got to change your precious plans.”