A Girl Undone (17 page)

Hawkins would dictate what I did, where I went, what I wore, and who I saw.

And he wouldn’t stop there. He’d control everything I saw or read or heard.

He’d control my body.

Everything. For the rest of my life.

I slid down, bracing my back against the wall, and stared at the wood door across from me until the pattern of the grain became an island surrounded by reefs.

No. Not everything.

Hawkins couldn’t control what I remembered. He’d never be able to take away my memories of Yates or of Luke.

Or how I felt about them. Those memories, those feelings were mine.

And Hawkins couldn’t control how I felt about him. He couldn’t make me love him or respect him. He’d never have that.

And he couldn’t control my thoughts, not as long as I fought his attempts to manipulate me.

I laid my head down on my fists. I sounded like that famous prisoner in the concentration camp who said he survived because he wouldn’t let the Nazis own his thoughts. What a joke. That guy was damned lucky they didn’t gas him.

I stuck the phone in the band of my yoga pants. I was just as deluded as he was, telling myself that protecting the phone still mattered. Still, I couldn’t let Hawkins and Deeps just take it away from me. I had to find a place to hide it or at least try.

22

I took the elevator down to the bottom floor, praying that Hawkins was still up in his office. The phone hugged my hip, barely covered by my cropped hoodie. As I stepped out of the elevator into the dark hall, a soft light came on over my head. Hawkins’ designer must have rigged sensors that picked up any movements.

The wine vault was to my left behind a glass wall. Hundreds of bottles lay on their sides in a wire rack that made them look like they were levitating. I tried the door, but it was locked.

Wood lined the back wall of the hall, the pattern of the grain so dramatic it must have cost thousands of dollars a foot. Hawkins had probably denuded an entire rain forest to get it.

I walked toward a sandblasted glass door, expecting it to be locked, too, but it swung open at my touch. Soft lights turned on, illuminating a long, greenish-blue pool. I walked over and dipped my hand into the warm water, feeling as if I’d descended into the depths of an Egyptian pyramid lined in smooth, caramel-colored stone, the lighting subtle and hidden. Like the rest of the house, the room contained minimal furniture, a small glass table and four chairs, but no nooks, no crannies, or clutter where I could stash the phone.

I shook my hand dry and slipped back into the hall. A long glass wall separated Hawkins’ gym from the hall, and through the gaps between his cardio and weight machines, I saw the floodlit terrace and outdoor pool.

A faint rumble came from the direction of the elevator.
Dammit, I’m out of time.
I ducked into the gym, scanned the ceiling for the monitor, then turned my back to it. I plucked the phone from my waistband and dropped it on the carpet, then nudged it under the treadmill with my toe.

The treadmill wasn’t a great hiding place, but no one was going to move this beast or try to vacuum under it. I pointed the remote at the big screen above it, so I’d look like I was trying to sneak a peek at the news. When the screen turned on, I realized I had access to all the channels. Hawkins hadn’t set the Paternal Controls yet.

I flipped through, listening for Deeps and hoping that the reporters Luke met had broadcast their story and exposed Jouvert’s treachery. But I didn’t hear a single story about Jouvert. Either Luke hadn’t made it to the rendezvous or the reporters hadn’t filed the story yet.

What I did learn was that the world still thought I was at large. Hawkins was still running ads for 1-800-AVE-LINE while Ho worked their connections to get my charges dropped. According to one news report, I’d been spotted in forty-two states, including Hawaii.

I was about to change the channel when the reporter announced his guests: Dad and Dayla.
You’ve got to be kidding me
.

I sat down on the carpet, checking over my shoulder to see if anyone was in the hall. Hawkins must have arranged the interview. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

I pulled my sleeves over my hands and held on as Dad and Dayla took their seats. Why did Hawkins have to do this to them? Why couldn’t he leave them out of this?

Dayla came out fighting. “Listen, I know Avie better than anyone on the planet and I’m telling you, she’s completely innocent. And she’s not into politics, at all! She got like a B- in American government, because she hates all those boring theories and stuff.”

Obviously, I was sucked in by the promise of freedom, Day insisted. I would never, never have run if it wasn’t for outside influences. “Help a terrorist? Avie? Get real. She can’t even drive and I know she’s terrified of guns!”

Day blew me away, defending me so fiercely. She really believed everything she was saying about me, because those things used to be true.

Oh, Day, you think you know me, but you don’t. Not anymore. Politics isn’t a bunch of boring theories. It’s about girls like us.

I thought about Splendor saving money to buy her sisters’ Contracts, and the girl trying to hold on to her family’s ranch. And Mikhaela being forced to leave her grandma so her stepdad wouldn’t get his hands on her.

Even though Hawkins had made Dayla his pawn, I couldn’t hate her. Either she thought she was helping me or Hawkins hadn’t given her a choice.

Then Dad spoke and my heart turned inside out. He’d made a huge mistake by Contracting me without asking me first, he said. He blamed himself for everything that had happened, and I felt like a ghost floating over my own funeral as he broke down. “Honey, please turn yourself in,” he begged. “I’ll help you any way I can.”

I thought I didn’t have any tears left, but my eyes filled. He was only forty miles away, but Dad might as well have been on the other side of the ocean. “That your father?”

Deeps strode toward me.

“Yeah.”

He picked up the remote, and activated the Paternal Controls, then clicked off the screen. “Hard to watch, I bet.”

I tilted my face toward him before wiping my eyes with my sleeve. I needed Deeps to see the tears I wouldn’t show Hawkins, so he’d want to protect me. “So, if I asked to call my dad, I guess the answer would be no, right?”

“Until Mr. Hawkins gets your status amended, it’s too dangerous.” He ambled around the treadmill, and my heartbeat quickened.

“I gotcha.”

Deeps reached under the treadmill and fished out my phone. “You know that the last thing you should do right now is to try an escape.”

My thoughts raced. Hawkins could not get his hands on that phone. “I know that. I’m not trying to escape, I mean what’s the point?”

“Good.”

The phone disappeared into Deeps’ pocket, and I got up slowly, making sure he saw me wince as I put weight on my hurt ankle.

“Those men who want to kill me are probably looking for some of the files I’ve got on that phone. Could you do me a favor and keep it safe?”

Deeps studied my face. “I should turn this in to my boss.”

Please don’t
. “It could put him in danger. Why don’t you lock it up where no one can find it? I promise not to even ask where you put it.”

In Deeps’ eyes, I saw rooms of secrets, sealed away, never to be opened. But somehow his secrets didn’t scare me, not the way Streicker’s had.

“All right,” Deeps said. “For the time being, the phone stays with me.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

I turned to go.

“Seminoles are on,” he said. “I’m watching the game in the theater. You can join me.”

I conjured up a small smile for him. I wasn’t a huge football fan, but if cheering for the Seminoles could keep me safe and keep the phone away from Hawkins, I’d be happy to park my butt in Hawkins’ cushy lounger for an entire season.

By the time the fourth quarter was over, I’d persuaded Deeps to give me the access code for the Sportswall that opened three, not exactly approved, news channels. I might be caged, but I refused to be ignorant.

When we left the theater, Deeps walked me out. Hawkins was running on the treadmill. His shirt was soaked through, but he was still going strong.

I heard Ajax’s voice echo in my head.
Know your captor. Observe him.

What does it matter? I wanted to snap back. I’m not getting away.

Situations change. Every day you survive is another day you might escape
.

“Does Hawkins run every night?” I asked Deeps as we entered the elevator.

“Mr. Hawkins? I couldn’t tell you. I just got here two days ago.”

“Yeah? Where did you work before?”

“Confidential, Hummingbird.”

“Hummingbird?”

“That’s your code name since you’re small and fast and a flight risk.”

“I guess that’s better than a lot of other things you could call me.”

Deeps grinned. “Yeah, you don’t want to know some of the other names I’ve heard people called.”

He saw me to my room. “I’m not going to lock you in. There are sensors in the hall that will alert me if you leave your room. Go get a glass of milk. Fine. Open an outside door. Not fine. Are we good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

The door closed silently behind me. I couldn’t lock it and there was nothing like a chair to prop against it. I picked up the remote and drew the curtains closed on the window facing Hawkins’ room. It was stupid, but it was the only thing I could do to keep him out.

23

I barely slept. I’d drift almost to sleep, and then my mind would replay the interview with Dad and Dayla. I’d hear Dad begging me to give myself up, and I’d snap awake and kick off the sheets.

And no sooner would I begin to relax than I’d see Dayla acting her heart out, trying to kill the lies the media had spread about me, while her fingers couldn’t stop twisting the strand of her hair.

They’d both betrayed me, but seeing their pain made me ache. “I don’t blame you, Day,” I whispered into the dark, wishing she could hear me. “Hawkins took advantage of you. That’s what he does.”

Deeps woke me the next morning telling me Ho was waiting downstairs. The skin under my eyes was the color of raisins. I pulled on the same workout clothes I’d worn the day before and didn’t bother with a comb. What was the point?

Ho sat at the long, poured-cement table in the glass box of a dining area. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my warm-up jacket and slumped down across from him. He looked up from his ever-present tablet.

You don’t scare me anymore. I’ve met way scarier guys than you. I know the only thing you care about is if I’m useful to your boss.

“The chef left some breakfast for you on the counter,” Ho said.

I eyed the yogurt and blueberry parfait the chef had layered so prettily, but I didn’t get up. “What are we here for?”

“We are here to reframe your story. Senator Fletcher’s on his way from D.C. In order to get the government to drop its case against you, we need to convince him that you were an
innocent victim of circumstances beyond your control
.” Ho sniffed as he said the last part.

“So what do you need from me?”

“Let’s start with Father Gabriel, the man who lured you into Exodus.”

My stomach twisted, and I shoved my fists deeper in my pockets. “Father Gabriel’s a good man.”

“Father Gabriel is a lawbreaker awaiting trial on kidnapping charges. There’s evidence linking him to over one hundred cases of girls who were Contracted to be married before he pulled them into Exodus.”

“I won’t testify against him.”

Ho pursed his thin lips. “We won’t let anyone put you on the stand.”

Not because Ho cared what happened to me. “Because it would hurt the campaign, right?”

“Obviously.”

“Father Gabriel didn’t lure me into Exodus.”

Hawkins strode in. “That’s unfortunate, because someone did, and that leaves only Yates Sandell. But it’s not surprising that your boyfriend enticed you to run.”

I raised my face to Hawkins.
Go to hell
.

Yates had pushed me to join Exodus, but I would not give him up. “My friend Sparrow was planning to run, and she convinced me I should do it, too. She introduced me to Father Gabriel.”

Ho tapped on his tablet. “Sparrow Currie, your classmate whose video accusing the vice president of federal crimes you broadcast nationwide.”

All that was true. “Yes.”

“But someone else must have helped you get away, because the day you Tasered your bodyguard, Father Gabriel was in jail and Sparrow had already left Los Angeles.”

Yates had picked me up. Dr. Prandip had loaned us her car and Ruby had flown me to Vegas. The only way to protect them was to blame people who’d died.

“Sparrow had arranged a ride for me in the back of a pickup under a camper shell with two guys I’d never met before.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Hawkins said. “What color was the truck?”

“I don’t know. Blue, maybe. It was dark.”

Hawkins picked up the yogurt and set it down in front of me. “You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Starving yourself won’t prove anything.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m not hungry.”

Ho cocked his head. “So, Sparrow Currie arranged for you to be delivered to Las Vegas, where Margaret Stanton
forced
you to become a hostess in her escort service.”

“I wasn’t forced. She manipulated me, but she didn’t force me to do anything.”

“For God’s sake,” Hawkins said. “Don’t you
want
to live?”

My stomach hardened into a rock. I got up and stood by the window. I didn’t know if I wanted to live like this, but I didn’t want to die. “Yes, I was forced.”

Ho and I worked through my story. How I’d briefly entertained clients, playing pool and getting them drinks.

“Margaret Stanton arranged for Sparrow to entertain the vice president during his visit. Is it possible Sparrow asked for that assignment?”

I rested my head on the glass. I had no idea, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had. “I don’t know.”