Flawed (15 page)

“Very well.”

An injection in my tongue. It instantly feels swollen and enormous in my mouth. I gag.

“One, two…” Sear.

I don't scream. I can't. I haven't the use of my tongue. I want to kick my legs, stamp my feet, and wave my arms, but I'm restrained and can do nothing. I can just feel my body push against the restraints and hear a sound that I don't realize until a moment later is coming from me. It is worse than a scream, it is an animal, guttural sound, a groan, a grunt, something so deep inside me, a pain that I have never experienced nor heard before. One I never want to hear again, but I will, over and over in my nightmares.

“Repent, Celestine!” Crevan shouts at me.

I'm unable to get the word out as my tongue is numb and feels swollen and oversized, but I can see that he is distressed now. He is not getting his way. I'm not following his plan. It was for me to say sorry and the branding would stop. I will never say sorry to him.

“Judge Crevan, we must get her to the ward. Her wounds need medical attention,” Tina says, urgency in her voice. “We have never gone on for so long. We must see to her quickly.”

I feel the strap around my head release, and I am able to lift my head from the headrest and look at him directly now.

“
Repent!
” he shouts at me, louder again.

I shake my head violently. I've come this far. It's finished. I'll never tell him I'm sorry even if right now it is the thing I am feeling most.

They free my hands and my ankles. They are moving quickly now, wanting to remove me, and probably themselves, from this situation. They start to help me up, Tina on one side, June on the other. Bark begins to clean and tidy away the equipment. They can't wait to get me out of here. I can't walk, my foot is completely numb and my legs are shaking so badly. A wheelchair has been placed beside me.

“Brand her spine,” Judge Crevan says suddenly, chillingly.

Bark turns to face him slowly. “Pardon, sir?”

Tina and June freeze, look at each other wide-eyed.

“You heard me.”

“Sir, she's just a child,” Tina whispers, and I can hear the shake in her voice and sense the tears about to come.

“Do it.”

“Sir, we have never seared a spine before,” Bark says nervously.

“Because we have never seen anyone so Flawed to their very backbone like this lady. Brand. Her. Spine.”

“I can't do it, sir. I'm afraid I'll have to check first with the—”

“I am the head of the Guild, and you will do what I say or you will find yourself in my courtroom first thing in the morning. Are you aiding a Flawed?”

Bark freezes.

“Are you?”

“No. No, sir.”

“Then get to it. Brand her spine.”

“But we don't have any more anesthetic.”

“Do it without.”

“Sir, the law states—”

“
I am the law. Do it!
” he yells. “By order of the Guild!”

“No!” I protest, but it doesn't come out like that. My tongue has swollen in my mouth, from injury and numbness. I can taste blood, feel it rolling down my throat. I start coughing. All I can do is whine, but I don't like the sound I make, so I stop. I see the evil in his eyes, the enjoyment he is getting from this. I won't let him get any further satisfaction.

It is going to happen, and I must be prepared. I must ignore the madness and the pandemonium that have just occurred in the viewing room, the injustice that is happening in the chamber right now. I must block out the fears I have for what is happening to my family now and find stillness within myself.

Tina and Bark open the ties at the back of my robe.

“Oh dear girl, I am so sorry,” June says, taking hold of my shoulder. “Oh dear God.”

“Stop talking,” Judge Crevan snaps.

Tina takes my unseared left hand in hers tenderly, then holds on for dear life, with her back to Judge Crevan so that he can't see the tears streaming down her face.

Bark comes toward me with the red-hot poker, looking uncertain.

“Do it,” Judge Crevan says again, then watches me. “Any time you want them to stop, all you have to do is say you're sorry.”

“She can't speak, Judge,” Tina says through her tears. “How can she stop it?”

“She can stop it if she wants to,” he says slowly, quietly.

He wants me to call out, to repent. I don't.

Suddenly, Carrick appears in the viewing room. I can see tears in his black eyes, so I know that he has heard it all. He is panting hard, as though he has run a marathon. Sweat and blood are on his brow, and he has a cut lip. Blood drips down onto his T-shirt. Funar, with a busted nose, struggles in the doorframe behind him, doubled over. Mr. Berry rushes in behind Carrick into the room, his phone in his hand. The security guard who had been battling with my dad runs into the room and jumps at Carrick, but Carrick knocks him out with one fierce blow. The security guard falls to the ground, out cold. Completely outnumbered, Funar doesn't bother to fight any more and slithers from the room, hand over his pumping nose. Mr. Berry pushes the door closed, and I see his face, and he suddenly looks his age. He is holding his phone up in the air, recording. Crevan hasn't noticed the activity behind him. Neither Bark, June, nor Tina have alerted him to this.

“Do it,” he says, urgency in his voice, sweat above his lip. “Brand her spine.”

Carrick stands right at the window and looks at me intently, forcing me to hold his gaze. He holds one hand up to the glass, presses it flat. Instantly, I zone out of the madness in this chamber and in my head and focus on the stillness in Carrick's body. I focus on his hand. The hand of friendship he offered me earlier.

I'll find you.

At least I have one friend. I am exhausted. I am still. I am ready.

“One, two…” Tina counts me in. But nothing happens. I don't feel a thing.

“Judge, I can't do it,” Bark says. “I just can't. This isn't right.”

“Fine,” Crevan snaps. “If you won't do it, I will.” He grabs the iron from Bark's grasp, and he and Bark swap places, Bark standing where Crevan was, so that he blocks Crevan's view of Carrick. I can't take my eyes off Carrick; I won't take my eyes off Carrick. I take a deep breath.

And as the hot iron touches my spine, the noise I make is the loudest, most excruciating, agonizing, animal sound I have ever heard in my life, and it echoes through the corridors of Highland Castle for all to hear, so anyone and everyone knows Crevan's poster girl has been branded.

 

TWENTY-NINE

DAY ONE

I'm home, propped up in my bed by a dozen cushions, organized by Mom, who keeps stepping back to take a look at her work before fluffing and punching again, as if it were a piece of art. If she can't fix me, she can fix the image around me. This is all for the visit of Dr. Smith, our family GP. After inspecting my dressings, he sits in the chair by my bed and looks at Mom as he answers her questions.

“A burn of the tongue will look and feel different, depending on the degree of the burn. A first-degree burn injures the outermost layer of the tongue. This leads to pain and swelling. A second-degree burn is more painful because it injures the outermost and under layers of the tongue. Blisters may form, which is what has happened here, and the tongue, as in her case, appears swollen. A third-degree burn affects the deepest tissue of the tongue. The effect is white or blackened, burnt skin. Numbness or severe pain.”

Or both.

Dr. Smith sighs, his friendly grandfather face clearly finding this difficult.

“She appears to have received the correct medical attention at the castle. Her tongue is not infected. The blistering will eventually go away. Her taste buds have been destroyed—”

“Not that she's eating anyway,” Mom interrupts.

“That's to be expected. Celestine has been through an ordeal. Her appetite will eventually return, as will her taste buds, which regenerate every two weeks. The severe untreatable pain that she is experiencing now can sometimes lead to feelings of depression and anxiety.”

You don't say.

Mom purses her lips and lifts her chin. I watch them talk to each other, over me, across my bed, as if I'm not here.

“Most burns heal within two weeks; however, some can last up to six weeks.”

He looks at me sadly, as if remembering I'm here.

“There is one more thing,” he adds. “There is a … sixth brand.…” He seems uncomfortable mentioning it.

Mom looks at him in panic. He leaves the sentence hanging.

“We've known each other a long time, Summer,” he says gently. “I've seen Celestine and this family through measles and chicken pox, vaccines and whatever else. I can assure you, you have my utmost confidence.”

She nods again, and I can see the fear in her. She wasn't in the chamber when the final two sears happened, none of my family was, and I don't want to talk about it. Ever. I don't even know if Mr. Berry shared it with her. But she's my mother, and she witnessed enough for her to guess what Crevan did in the state he was in, and she is respecting my silence, though I know Dad wants to know. The question is on the tip of his tongue every time he looks at me, but he holds back, probably holding himself responsible for encouraging me to speak up for myself and landing myself in this agony. I don't think either of them could imagine, even in their wildest nightmares, that it could be Crevan who delivered the sixth and final brand.

“I'll come back in a few days to review the dressings again, but if there's anything I can do before that, contact me directly.”

I don't bother to nod.

Everyone speaks on my behalf now anyway. They speak about me like I'm not in the room.

I'm not here.

I close my eyes and allow the pills I've just taken to help me drift away again.

DAY TWO

Sleep. Nothing but sleep, and pain, and disturbed dreams.

DAY THREE

There's a knock on my door, and I close my eyes. Mom enters. I know it's her from the perfume scent and the effortless, perfect way she glides in and sits without disturbing a thing. After a while, she speaks.

“I know you're awake.”

I keep my eyes closed.

“That was Tina at the door. Tina from Highland Castle. She was asking for you. It took a lot for her to come here, especially with, you know, them outside. She knew you wouldn't want to see her. She just wanted to give you these.”

I open my eyes and see a box of pretty cupcakes. Pink, lilac, blue, and yellow, with glittery flowers on top.

“She said her daughter made them for you. You can eat one this week,” she says, trying to make that sound fabulous.

One luxury a week is all a Flawed is allowed to have. It is part of the basic living we must abide by, so that we can purify ourselves. We must eat staple foods, nothing luxurious or fancy, nothing considered unnecessary for our bodies, for our life. Basics. Our intake is measured at the end of every day by a test I've yet to experience.

“And she brought you this, too.” Mom hands me a bag.

It's a Highland Castle tourist shop paper bag, which I feel is highly inappropriate. If she thinks I want a trinket to remember the worst experience of my life, she is sorely mistaken.

Inside the bag is a box. I barely want to open it, but curiosity gets the better of me. Inside the box is a snow globe, enclosing a miniature Highland Castle. I shake it lightly, and the red glittering particles are churned around inside the glass. Extremely inappropriate. Even Mom views it with distaste. I'm surprised by Tina, but I'm sure she was trying to be kind, maybe even say sorry, or that's my own wishful thinking. I put the globe back in its box and straight into my bedside table. I don't want to ever see it again.

I close my eyes.

DAY FOUR

I have a visitor. Angelina Tinder sits beside my bed, dressed in head-to-toe black, which is a look I've never seen on her before. She looks like a lady from Victorian times grieving her dead husband. She is wearing fingerless leather gloves to hide the branding on her hand. Her long piano fingers are as pale as snow beneath the leather. She's not allowed to wear these when she's out in public, but she can hide it in her own home if she wishes. She is not in her own home. She is breaking a rule. Though it's not me she is hiding it from, it is herself. She sits upright in the chair, looking at me rarely, just enough to see if I'm listening now, and then she speaks.

Her eyes are rimmed with red, as if she hasn't stopped crying since she was branded. The tip of her nose is red, too. She is paler than I have ever seen her, as though she hasn't seen the sun in weeks.

“You'll have a Whistleblower appointed to you,” she says. “They're giving you mine. She's senior. A horrible woman with nothing better to do with her time. She'd volunteer for the post even if she wasn't paid. Mary May is her name. Calls herself a Christian woman. She's the same kind of woman who was burning other women at the stake. She won't give you an inch, Celestine, you remember that.” She quickly glances at me, then away again. “She's looking to catch you out. She thinks you're disgusting.” She sniffs as if smelling a bad odor herself. “But they are. The Flawed. Absolutely disgusting. We are not one of them, Celestine, and don't ever let them think that of you. Though, what on earth were you thinking helping that Flawed man to his seat? Saying all that in the courtroom? It's everywhere, you know that. The footage of you on the bus has gone viral.” She looks at me, her face twisted in confusion and disgust.

I don't answer. I can't answer. I wouldn't anyway.

“Be home by ten thirty. They say eleven, but she'll be waiting for you, and anything can happen. Allow for delays, mistakes, anything. They will probably even try to trip you up. They're always testing you. I missed the curfew once. I won't miss it again, I can assure you.” She thinks for a moment. “She'll test you every evening to make sure you're sticking to your basic meals, and a lie detector test to ensure you're telling the truth about following all rules. They rely on these to work. They can't keep their eyes on you all the time, but God knows they'll create something soon enough in those laboratories. A camera sewn into our head or something, seeing everything we see, hearing everything we think. Because that's what they want to know, you know. It's like they want to crawl inside us, under our skin.”