Tarnished (2 page)

Penn’s hands shook and the notecards he held fell to the ground. He lifted his eyes, staring into the camera for the first time.

“My father will do
anything
to get her back. He’ll find her and he’ll bring her home,” he said. “I promise.”

The intensity in Penn’s eyes pushed me back in my seat and before I knew it, the woman from the desk was beside the television, switching off the screen. The happy look on her face was gone.

Her jaw clenched. “It’s going to have to be a ‘no’ on the popcorn. Television isn’t a good idea, either,” she said. “Please return to your rooms for the evening.”

The girls nodded, obedient as always, and headed for the hallway. I didn’t take my eyes off of the black TV screen. In it, my own reflection stared back at me, but I would never forget the look in Penn’s eyes. The other girls might not have seen it. The world might not have seen it. But I did. And I knew it was meant for me.

“Are you okay?” the woman from the counter asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.

I pushed back the urge to brush her hand away. “I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to call your counselor? I’m sure she’ll come in. That’s what they’re for, to help you through tough times like this.” She sounded like the video they’d shown me at orientation.

“No. I’ll be fine. I think I just need to lie down for a minute.”

I stood. The small rectangle of my stolen book still burned in my pocket. I didn’t need sympathy. I didn’t need to talk to one of their counselors. I didn’t need a life skills class or a lecture on self-sufficiency. I just needed to get out of there.

Get the book. Get back to my room while everyone was busy watching TV. Gather up the handful of items I’d stolen to get me back to Penn, and
leave
. That had been the plan. Not this.

In my room, I shut the door and latched it. It was only a small privacy lock. It wouldn’t keep someone out for long if they really wanted to get in.

I slipped the case off of my pillow and shoved the book inside. Then, lifting the corner of the mattress, I fished out the other items I’d collected. A thin, black wallet was the first thing I’d taken. I slipped it, far too easily, out of the back pocket of the man who had come in to speak to us about becoming Canadian citizens.

I opened it, the way I’d done every night since I’d taken it. I knew all its contents by heart: the bent picture of two small boys, the worn business cards, twenty-seven dollars in bills, a few laminated cards with the man’s sad, unsmiling face staring back at me. I plucked out the cash, shoving it into the front pocket of my jeans. Everything else, I left inside.

Besides the wallet and the book, I’d managed to steal a small folding knife that I found in one of the drawers in the kitchen, and a needle and thread that someone had left sitting on the counter in our life skills class.

It wasn’t much, a few little items knocking around at the bottom of the pillowcase, but I refused to believe they were useless. They were all I had.

From the small drawer beside the bed, I pulled out another pair of stiff blue jeans and a T-shirt, and added them to my bag. This was what I wore now. I should have been excited, after only wearing ball gowns for so long, to finally have clothes that didn’t scream to be looked at, but these clothes didn’t feel right either. They weren’t mine. Nothing was.

Outside, the night was already dark. Maybe it would be smarter to wait a few more hours, until I was sure that the others had gone to bed, but I couldn’t bear the thought of spending another minute trapped inside these walls.

I heaved up on the old window that looked out onto the fire escape, and past that into the deserted alleyway. The window was heavy, trimmed with flaking paint. And it was stuck. Tight. Obviously, no one had tried to open it for years.

I strained, pushing up on the window, and finally it let out a large
crack
, as the old paint that had sealed it shut finally broke free. I held still, my heart pounding in my chest, as I waited for someone to come running, but the room stayed silent. Outside a heavy truck rumbled down the narrow streets, and the wail of a crying child drifted in the breeze.

I shimmied out, pulling my small bag with me onto the narrow metal landing that surrounded the second story. Below me, the building faded into darkness. I didn’t know where all the volunteers went at night, but the place seemed deserted.

One good thing about my new clothes was how much easier they were to move in. Without yards of billowing fabric flowing behind me, it was easy to swing my legs over the side of the landing. The ladder that led down to the ground floor was old and rusted, but my arms felt strong enough to hold my weight. I held on fiercely, moving slowly from rung to rung until I dangled only a few yards above the street below.

A single bulb lit the street at the end of the alleyway, but between the valley created by the buildings, it was too dark to see.

I hardly cared.

I was almost out.

Finally, after a week, I was on my way to Penn.

I didn’t know what direction I was headed, but I was confident I could find my way once I made it to the street. The memory of my ride here was seared into my mind. I could recall every detail of that drive, every tree we passed, every turn the van made as it took me further and further away from Penn. I could still feel the tires humming beneath me and the rough fabric of the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. We’d driven over an hour to get to the refugee center, which meant that it could take me days to make it back to the border on foot. Once I was there, I’d have to find a way back across.

I couldn’t worry about that yet.

A bit of broken glass crunched under my feet as I dropped to the ground and took off down the alley. A second later, the whine of a siren cut through the cool air. I rounded the corner, bursting out of the alleyway. My feet hit the street’s pavement and a bright light flashed on in front of me, blinding me. I skidded to a stop, raising my hands to shield my eyes.

“Stop.”

Next to me, a hand tightened around my arm.

My heart sank. I was caught.

Chapter Two

T
he glare from the floodlights swam in front of my eyes, a ball of light that hung in the center of my vision, blinding me.

I struggled against the hand that clamped my arm, jerking my whole body, but it only tightened.

“Let me go,” I hissed, striking out with my other arm. My fingers met flesh and I dug in, feeling the tear of skin beneath my nails.

“Damn it! Stop fighting! I’m just trying to help you.”

In my periphery I could just make out the dark brick walls of the building next to me as I was pulled back into the alley, back toward the fire escape and my dingy little room.

They couldn’t lock me inside there again. They couldn’t keep me.

From the street came the squeal of the front door as it was thrown open on its hinges.

“We’ve got a runner,” a worker called.

Muffled voices grumbled in response. I could imagine them assembling, an army of volunteers ready to retrieve me, all of them imagining that they knew what was best for me.

“You can’t keep me here,” I said. “I’m not your prisoner.”

Feet thudded down the front steps of the building as the volunteers from the refugee center poured out onto the street. They called over their shoulders to one another, fanning out to find me as if I was some dog that had escaped the pound. They wanted to help me, but only as long as I submitted to their rules. Only as long as I stayed obediently inside their walls.

I dug my feet in, my heels grinding against the loose gravel.

“Will you stop fighting and let me help you?”

That voice! Where had I heard that voice?

The world shuddered with splotches of light, but I turned, letting this person drag me back down the dark alley. Behind the Dumpster, the rear of one building backed up against the apartments from the next block, creating an opening a couple feet wide. We ducked inside, our pace quickening as the sound of voices drew closer.

The darkness between the buildings engulfed us. We raced forward toward the strip of light that rose like a column in front of us. My shoulders scraped the brick on either side as I ran, but I didn’t slow.

Behind us, a volunteer called out, but my own ragged breathing muffled the sound. Had they seen where we’d gone? Were they close behind?

The staccato of our footsteps echoed off the walls. For a second, it sounded like percussion, like music, the beating of drums urging us on. A moment later we burst into the next alley, swiftly dodging past a large truck and down another small opening between the buildings.

We moved quickly. My legs strained to keep pace. Even as the blurry halo of light finally disappeared from my eyes, I couldn’t get a good view of the hooded person who pulled me after them. I trailed behind, concentrating instead on the ground beneath my feet as we zigzagged past Dumpsters and through viaducts until I was completely disoriented from all the twists and turns.

My lungs burned and my feet throbbed from slapping against the pavement. It was impossible to tell if the beating that thumped in my ears was the sound of footsteps trailing behind me, or the mad pounding of my own heart.

Finally we skidded into a small alcove behind a construction site. Next to us, the hulking body of a giant tractor shielded us from view.

I collapsed against the monstrous tire. My heart threatened to burst through my throat and I rested my hands on my knees, hanging my head between my legs as I fought to catch my breath.

“Did we lose them?” I gasped, finally looking up.

The face that greeted me stole the rest of my breath and I reared back, the hard rubber of the tire digging into my back.

“You,” I whispered.

It was a ghost, that face, pale in the small bit of light cast from a lone streetlamp near the sidewalk.

But there was no mistaking her.

Missy.

Her smooth, white skin glowed like a moon.

She threw back the hood of her jacket. “What’s wrong with you?” she panted, rubbing the red gash my fingernails had left along her forearm. “This is how you treat people who try to help you?”

My mouth hung open as she wiggled a small backpack off her shoulders and dropped it on the ground beside her feet, slumping back against the tire beside me.

Staring at her was like staring at a ghost, at a dead part of myself. I hadn’t seen her since the night I’d snuck in through her window, asking her to escape with me. The way she’d betrayed me had hit like a brick to the stomach then, and the pain of it still reverberated through me now. I never dreamed that I would see her again.

I never
wanted
to.

And yet, despite everything she’d said to me, everything she’d done…she’d come to Canada. To me.

I took her in,
all
of her. Even though Missy and I were identical in stature, she’d always seemed like a giant, as if her age and personality tripled her size. And even though she looked quite a bit worse for wear compared to the last time I’d seen her, she still startled me with her beauty. It didn’t seem to matter that her gowns had been replaced by dirty black tights, which were ripped and torn, holes running up the legs until they got to an equally ripped pair of denim shorts. Her shirt was whole, but it was dirty and mostly covered by an olive green jacket that must have originally belonged to someone twice her size because it hung limply on her small frame.

Her hair, which was normally silky smooth and curled with just the right amount of wave down her back, was knotted and crazy. I’m sure her owners would have been appalled to see her like this, but she didn’t seem to mind one bit. In fact, the look suited her.

She turned to appraise me, the arrogant smirk I was familiar with twisting her pouty lips. “You don’t look so great.”

I rested a hand on my chest, trying to calm the crazed beating of my heart. “
I
don’t?” I choked out. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

Missy snorted, running a hand over her wild hair, and I glanced past her toward the street, worried that any moment one of the volunteers from the center would come charging around the corner.

“Don’t worry,” Missy said. “We lost them.”

“How do you know?”

“I know how to lose someone,” she said. “Besides, those people don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Their security was primitive at best.”

My cheeks flamed. Already belittling my attempted escape. So very like Missy. “What are you doing here?”

She sat with her head leaning against the tire, almost relaxed, but my question made her bristle and she sat up, arranging herself more stiffly beside me.

“That’s it?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “No
thank you, Missy, for saving my ass
? No
I wouldn’t have made it without you, Missy
? God! You obviously haven’t been taught any new manners since you arrived.”

I shook my head, wishing I had it in me to roll my eyes at her the way she would have rolled them at me. Her appearance might have changed, but she was the same old Missy. “How did you get here?” It seemed impossible that she could just show up out of the blue like this.

“I’m glad you’re happy to see me,” she said, rising up from the ground to stare out into the dark pit of the construction site. She didn’t speak for a minute and I was about to repeat my question when she swung around to face me. Her face changed. She wasn’t wearing the painted on version of herself that she normally showed to the world. Her expression was rubbed raw. “I traveled the black market,” she said. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

The ache in her voice made me regret being so sharp with her. She’d obviously been through a lot to get here.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I had to come,” she said. “
You
made it impossible for me to stay where I was.”

Her words came out like a hiss and I scooted away from her. “I did?”

She crowded closer. “You think I could have stayed after what you did?”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to you!”

I hadn’t. Sure, I’d asked her to run away with me, but she’d refused. She was the one who’d rung that bell so her master came running. She was the one who turned me in, who made
my
life unbearable. If anyone was to blame, it was her.

“You think your actions don’t have consequences?” Missy asked. “You think your little stunt with your lover boy only affected you?” She threw her hands in the air.

My back stiffened. “At least I tried,” I snapped. “All you did was sit there. You hated your life, but you were too big of a coward to do anything about it.”

“Don’t you
dare
call me a coward,” Missy snapped. “I had to weigh all my options. I had to be smart. I couldn’t afford to make stupid choices just because my heart told me to.” She emphasized the word
heart
, spitting it out as if it was the ugliest word she’d ever heard.

I opened my mouth but she narrowed her eyes and the look on her face stopped me from speaking.

“You don’t have any idea what you’ve done,” she said. “You made my life
unbearable
. It didn’t make any difference to my master whether I turned you in or not. He wasn’t going to look at things logically. Men like that never do.” She shook her head. “No, from the moment I rang that stupid bell, my world has been tipped on its head. And don’t think it’s just my life you ruined.”

“You can’t blame me for—”

“Shut up! Just shut. Up,” she interrupted. “It’s a full-blown disaster to every single pet in the whole state.” She stared off over my shoulder as if she could see something there. Her face was almost red with rage and her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. “It might have been bearable if I only had to deal with my master,” Missy said, clearly getting some sort of pleasure from not answering my question. “He was suspicious, which was annoying, having to stay close to him all the time, like I was going to run away any second.” She wrinkled her nose, the distaste of his memory so clear on her face. “And after I’d worked so hard to make myself invisible to him. But I could wait that out. Or I could have waited that out if…”

“If what? Will you please just tell me what’s going on?”

She glared at me.

“You can’t just come here and treat me like this,” I said, stomping my foot so hard a spray of loose gravel and dirt skittered past Missy, bouncing noisily into the deep hole of the construction site. “I’m sorry that your master was cruel to you and blamed you for my actions, but it’s not my fault.”

“Oh…you have no idea.”

I clenched my fists. “Not if you don’t tell me.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Why did you come here if you hate me so much?” I asked.

“I don’t hate you,” she said, turning her nose up at me. “I don’t care about you enough to hate you.”

I didn’t have to stay. I was free to make my own decisions and I didn’t have to listen to Missy if I didn’t want to.

“Fine.” I snatched my pillowcase off the ground. “I’m sorry coming all this way was such an inconvenience to you, but I’m getting out of here.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You can’t just
leave
.”

“Yes, I can.”

“But you wouldn’t,” she said.

I put my hand on my hip. The position felt natural after seeing Ruby do it so many times. “If you need a refuge, I’m sure they’ll house you back at the center. All you have to do is ask.”

Missy’s face was wild with fury. She crossed the few feet that separated us in a flash.

“You fool. They’re killing us, okay?” Missy spat in my face. “The pets! They’re murdering pets! And here you are, clueless and free when other people are dying because of you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you understand English? I said
they’re killing the pets
,” Missy said. “A dozen pets have turned up dead in the last week.”

“But…” It felt like I’d been struck in the gut. I tried to get a breath, but I couldn’t.

She folded her arms and her face settled into a look of satisfaction. She hadn’t just come to rub it in. She actually thought I’d want to know, didn’t she?

But what could I do about it?

“I need you to help me,” I said.

She brushed at her legs as if she was wearing a long satin ball gown. Maybe our gestures were so ingrained in us they would never disappear. “Why would I help you?”

I swallowed, thinking of the refugee center. The dinginess was a glaring difference from the opulence that we were used to, but that wasn’t why I needed to leave. None of that stuff really mattered. There were more important things, things that no amount of money could buy, like the slant of light through a window, or a slice of crisp blue sky, the feeling of strong arms pulling you in tight.

“I need to get back,” I said.

“Back?”

“Home.” Maybe the word seemed peculiar to her. I didn’t mean home, as in staying at the congressman’s house. But it was the only word to explain where I needed to be. Home. With Penn. Next to him. Together, we’d figure out what to do.

She shook her head, turning away from me. “No,” she said matter-of-factly.

“No?”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “No,” she repeated. She bent down and grabbed her backpack.

I lunged at her, grabbing her arm. It felt surprisingly small beneath my fingers. “I have to get back to Penn and you’re going to help me. You made it here. You can make it back.”

I expected Missy to tear her arm away from me, but I didn’t expect her to throw her head back and laugh. It rang clear into the night air, three loud barks, deep from her belly.

“You really are that stupid, aren’t you?” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I’m never going back there and neither are you. You couldn’t even make it away from your friends at the refugee center without getting caught. If it weren’t for me, you’d be back inside right now, locked away in your little room. If you go back to the United States, you’ll get caught by someone worse.”