Tarnished (22 page)

So he’d found it.

The congressman cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming out to our home,” he said. “When this story exploded yesterday, I was shocked. Believe me, my family and I were just as glued to our television as the rest of you.”

Penn shook his head. “The man of a thousand faces, ladies and gentlemen.”

“My wife and I have spent the past day doing some soul searching,” he said in a voice that would have sounded wholly sincere if I didn’t know the man it was coming from. “I’m heartbroken to learn that a company I not only supported but
championed
would let down its customers and the country this way.”

His voice cracked ever so slightly and he paused to compose himself.

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Ms. Westly said.

“Well, he’s had a lot of practice,” Penn muttered.

“As you know,” the congressman went on, “we were one of the first families here in Connecticut to adopt a pet from one of NuPet’s kennels. We tried unsuccessfully to bring not one, but
two
pets into our family, and had nothing but problems with both of them, which I now realize must have been because neither of them were the type of genetically engineered family companion that NuPet had promised us. These girls are far more human than any of us could have imagined. Dangerously human. And now that I know that they spent nine months in a mother’s womb, I’m not at all surprised that these very human qualities are surfacing. This is why I’m very much on board with the government’s commitment to recall all of these pets.”

“Asshole,” Penn hissed.

“To ensure that these pets—these
girls
,” he corrected, “get the support that they need and deserve, I want to be the first to comply with the government recall and turn over our family companion for reconditioning. The very qualified staff at the NuPet Kennel in Greenwich will begin the process on our family pet, Ella, immediately.”

“What? He can’t, even if he wanted to,” I said. “He doesn’t know where—”

The image on the television changed. No longer was the news station showing the congressman’s press conference, although the words that he spoke still carried over the new picture on the screen. Two of the kennel’s black SUVs were parked outside of a familiar building.

“We hope that our family’s sacrifice will spur other families to turn in their pets as well,” the congressman said. “This outrage can’t continue. It’s time for healing, not violence.”

Everything slowed, the world shriveling into a dark tunnel as I strained toward the window, knowing without looking that the two unmarked cars were parked only a few hundred yards away.

“Damn them!” Ms. Westly cursed.

“This can’t be happening,” Missy said, shaking her head. “How did they find us?”

“The executives at the station must have sold you out,” she said. “Greedy sons of bitches! Like they don’t have enough power as it is.” She looked around the room frantically as if she were searching for a weapon that she could use. “They knew he’d pay a lot of money to find her. He has an image problem and she’s his ticket to fixing it. They knew it. He knew it. Damn! They’ve probably been planning something like this the whole time.”

I hadn’t realized that I’d been moving away from her as she spoke, until the doorknob bit into my back.

“I promise, I had nothing to do with this,” Ms. Westly said, stepping closer to me. “You have to believe me. I have ethics. I never would have…”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have to leave.”

My hand fumbled for the door.

“They’ll find you,” Ms. Westly said.

“We’ve got a couple minutes,” Penn said. “It’s a start.”

“They’ll know what car you’re driving,” Ms. Westly said. “If they planned this far, they would have made sure to know that much. You won’t have more than a five-minute head start before they realize that you’ve run. They’ll find you before you make it to the edge of town.”

We all stared out the window.

“We don’t have time,” she said. “I can try to distract them, but it won’t be for long. I can only buy you a few minutes.”

“No!” Missy said, stepping forward. “A few minutes won’t do any good. You know it as well as we do. They need the congressman’s pet. It’s what they came for and they won’t be satisfied until it’s what they have.”

Ms. Westly’s normally overly tanned face blanched. “Did you hear me?” she said. “They’ll kill her.”

“I heard,” Missy said, straight-faced.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Penn yelled, shoving past me to stand face to face with her. “Was this your plan the whole time? To use Ella as a shield? Your own sure proof protection?”

Missy rolled her eyes. “You’re not understanding me.”

“Oh, I think it’s perfectly clear,” Penn said. “Fine, if you’re too much of a coward, you go. Get out of here. Run for it!”

“Stop!” I yelled. “She’s right. You know it. The only way you can get away is if I go with them. It’ll give you a chance. They don’t know the rest of you are here. The congressman only mentioned me.”

“She’s smart,” Missy said, smiling sadly at me. “I didn’t know how smart, but I hoped.”

“You’re sick,” Penn spat.

Missy didn’t bother to look at him. “Ella, you’re right. The congressman is powerful and that makes you powerful. You might not realize how much, but that’s okay. I know you’ll figure it out.”

Outside the sharp clap of car doors slammed shut, as frightening as the sound of gunshots. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see them leave. “Go,” I said. “I’ll wait until the last minute.”

“No way. Not a chance, damn it.” Penn pulled on my arm. “I’m not leaving without you!”

I squeezed my eyes tighter. I couldn’t look at him now. If I did I’d break. If I looked at him I’d lose my nerve. If I looked at him I would go with him, and then none of us would have a chance.

“Oh, stop blubbering,” Missy said, pulling him away from me. “She’s not leaving you. I am.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I
opened my eyes.

Missy folded her arms across her chest, calm settling over her face. “They need a pet.
One
pet. That’s what they came for, and that’s what we’ll give them.”

Ms. Westly blinked. “The pictures I’ve seen of Ella all show her with light hair…”

“Like mine,” Missy said.

“It could work,” Ms. Westly said. “But we have to act fast.”

“No!” I shook my head. “I can’t let you do that. I
won’t
.”

Missy smiled. “When have I ever listened to you? They want one of us, and I’m choosing that it should be me. And it’s not because I’m being romantic. It’s not because I believe in true love or any of that. It’s not because you’re younger and have your whole life ahead of you. It’s because I believe in you. If anyone can fix this thing, it’s you, Ella! You have the power to—”

A pounding at the front door interrupted her.

“They’re here,” Ms. Westly said.

“
Go
,” Missy said to me. “Go!”

“I can’t let you—” I started.

“You aren’t
letting
me,” she said. “This is a choice.
My
choice!”

The heavy pounding of a fist banged against the wooden door again.
Bang. Bang. Bang
. It echoed into the kitchen.

“Let her do it,” Ms. Westly said. Turning to Missy, she said, “Wait as long as you can. Make them break down the door if you have to.”

Missy nodded.

I threw myself at her, wrapping my arms around her neck. How could I let her do this for me? She was the strong one. If anyone could make a difference it was her, not me. But I also knew that there was no arguing with her. If this was the choice she’d made, we weren’t going to change her mind. And I loved her for it! I loved her. Truly. As much as I loved Penn. It was a pure and unconditional love, the same love that makes people fight to stay alive.

“I’ll remember you,” I whispered into her ear and she nodded.

The pounding grew louder. “Open up. We know you’re inside. There’s no use pretending.”

Missy gave us one more long glance before she nodded and turned toward the front door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Congressman Kimble has given us your location. The U.S. government has ordered you to be turned over to the Greenwich Kennel. If you come now, there won’t be any trouble.”

“Take my car. It’s at the end of the alleyway,” Ms. Westly said in a hushed voice, slipping her keys into Penn’s hands. “They’ll figure it out eventually, but it’ll give you a good head start. Ditch it as soon as you can.”

“Are you sure?”

“Get to New York,” she said. “I’ve heard about an organization there that can help you. The Liberationists. You need to find them.”

The same Liberationists that had tried to set me free the first time? What could they possibly do to help? “But—”

“They’ll help you,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder toward the door where Missy continued to try to hold off the people from the kennel.

Three earsplitting thuds reverberated through the room and the door finally gave, splintering at the lock. It crashed in, smashing against the wall, and Missy stumbled backward into the room.

Penn reached out, grabbing me around the waist while Ms. Westly moved forward, creating a shield between me and the men who’d burst through the door.

Penn’s hands held tight, but I fought against him. I couldn’t go through with this. I couldn’t let Missy die for me.

“Stop right there,” Ms. Westly yelled. “You can’t just barge in here. This is trespassing!”

Ms. Westly continued screaming, but the men didn’t listen. They plowed forward, eyes locked on their target—Missy. A hulking man in a black suit grabbed her by the arm and she went limp, folding into him like a rag doll.

She was going to do it. She was going to let them take her.

One last time, she turned to face me and I strained to meet her eye.

Go
, she mouthed.

Ms. Westly moved again, blocking the men’s view of me and blocking my last chance to see my friend as she was dragged from the house.

“Please, don’t let them take her,” I begged as Penn dragged me through the back door into the empty alley.

The alley was quiet except for the meowing of a mangy-looking cat that hopped off the window ledge, trying to wind around our ankles.

Penn grabbed my hand, leading me down the steps.

“We can’t just let them take her like that!” I cried. “You heard what Ms. Westly said. They’re going to kill her!”

He spun me around and grasped my face between his hands. “Ella, we have to go. Now.”

I nodded. I knew. We didn’t have long. If we didn’t go now, Missy would have given herself up for nothing.

“I just have to get one thing out of your car,” I said, dragging the back of my hand over my wet cheeks. We didn’t have time to go back inside for Missy’s backpack, but there was something that I could still get.

“We don’t have time,” Penn said, tugging on my arm.

I slapped at his hand, clasped tight around my own. “Let go, Penn. I need this!”

“Ella! You can’t—”

I broke free from his grasp and sprinted toward the car, which sat tucked up next to the Dumpster. The door was unlocked and I dove into the back, fumbling for the garbage bag that was tucked underneath the seat. I only needed one file, but I didn’t have time to look for it now. I’d have to bring all of them.

“Ella—”

My back was still turned toward the open door, so I didn’t see the person sneak up behind Penn, but I heard him say my name.

I also heard the
thud
of something hitting flesh. And bone.

The world slowed as I turned around in time to see Penn collapsing to the ground. Behind him, a dark blue van poked out from the other side of the Dumpster. How had I missed it? I would recognize that van anywhere with its faded red eagle.

I scrambled toward the other door. Had those other cars just been a diversion? The van was the kennel’s
real
killing machine.

A pair of hands tightened around my ankles, pulling me backward. I crashed to the ground and the world went dark as a bag slipped over my head, suffocating me. I took a breath to scream, but something hard struck me across the back, knocking the wind from my lungs.

“
Penn
…” His name made no sound as it left my lips.

The same object struck the back of my head.

The world spun. Stars danced before my eyes. And then there was only darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Three

D
arkness. Black. Consuming.

A steady aching in my ribs.

The pressure of wide hands lifting me.

The revving of an engine.

Tires squealing.

The shuffle of someone shifting beside me.

The squeak of leather.

The sigh of irritation.

And then a moan.

It didn’t come from my lips, although it felt as if it could have.

“Ella?”

Oh God, Penn. He was here. At least Penn was here.

Our bodies slid across the seats as we rounded a corner. We were moving. Driving. Fast.

I struggled, kicking and squirming. My hands were tied behind my back, but my feet were still free. I wouldn’t let them kill me without putting up a fight. I wouldn’t let them dump my body in another field or river, just to end up a photograph in Seth’s desk.

“Stop fighting,” a man said from the front of the car. “You’ll be better off if you just rest for a minute.”

“Don’t hurt her. Don’t you
dare
lay a hand on her.” Penn’s voice came out winded, as if he were straining for breath.

“You two really won’t stop, will you?” someone else said from the front of the car. “There’s no reason to keep their heads covered anymore, Ken. You can take the bags off.”

The rough fabric scraped across my face and a moment later there were lights. Red and green and white and yellow. They zoomed past the car as we sped along. The sky out the window was growing dark, but the lights flew past. I blinked. Next to me, a bald man with a neck as thick as my waist reached back and pulled a hood off of Penn’s head too.

“Are you hurt?” Penn asked me, as if the other men in the car didn’t exist.

“I’m okay.” I nodded.

“You’ll both be fine,” the man in the passenger seat said, turning to face us. “Ken was a little too enthusiastic grabbing you. I only asked him to restrain you, not to knock you out, but he’s not so good with finesse.”

I stared at the man’s familiar face. Almond-shaped eyes. Pronounced cheekbones. Dark, curly hair. “You’re the man from Bernard’s market.”

He smiled. “Yes. I’m Markus. Sorry we didn’t formally meet before.”

“
This
is how you formally meet someone?” Penn grumbled.

“You work for the kennel?” I asked. My head felt fuzzy. Too many fine tendrils of information tangling and overlapping.

“No,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Don’t lie to me,” I said, anger splitting through the middle of me like a lightning bolt. “I know this van. I saw it parked outside of Greenwich the other night and I know what was inside it.”

Penn glanced between us, confused. “You didn’t tell me about a van. And how do you know this guy?”

I glared at Markus. “They’re the ones killing girls. Mutilating them and dumping their bodies.”

Penn bucked against the seat, the tendons in his neck pulled as taut as the straps around his wrists. “You touch her and I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

“Will you two calm down? No one’s getting killed,” Markus said. “We’re the good guys.”

If my hands were free I’d claw out his eyes, I’d rip out his lying tongue. “Good guys don’t murder innocent girls.”

“You’re right. The kennel did that all by themselves,” he said, a bit of anger welling up in his voice. “Listen, I’m happy to explain it, but I need you to pay attention and calm down. First thing you need to know is that
we
haven’t killed anyone. I want freedom for the pets as much as you do, maybe more.”

I shook my head, disbelieving.

“Why should we believe anything you say?” Penn asked.

“Ken,” Markus said, addressing the bald man sitting next to me. “Cut them free. Ella knows I’m not going to hurt her. Right, Ella? I mean we’re practically brother and sister, you and me. We’re cut from the same mold.”

“I don’t—” I started, but the words fell away as I looked at him more closely. How hadn’t I seen it before? It was so obvious. Even with long, disheveled hair and the scruff of a beard coming on, he couldn’t truly hide. “You’re a—”

“Pet,” he said. “Yes. And I promise I’ll never hurt you.”

I stared at him. Ken loosened the tie around my wrists before he moved back to unfasten Penn’s hands. In a second Penn was beside me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded, still staring at Markus. “I don’t understand,” I said. “They don’t breed boys.”

“They don’t now. But twenty years ago, when the program was still young, they actually contemplated having male and female pets. They were going to give the customers a choice. But the trial program was a bust. People were freaked out about bringing a young man into their homes. In the end, we didn’t ‘represent the image they were trying to sell.’”

“If you’re telling the truth,” Penn said, “then where are the others? I’ve never seen a male pet before.”

Markus’s jaw clenched. “When I was twelve they rounded us up, a mass eradication. If it wasn’t for Drew”—he pointed to the man driving—“I would have died, too. He managed to sneak me out.”

For the first time, I looked at the man driving. He didn’t look special, a middle-aged man in a dark hoodie. I leaned forward, trying to get a better look at him, and his pants came into view. White pants, exactly like the ones they wore at the kennel.

I scooted back in my seat. “You lied,” I said. “He
is
from the kennel. This
is
the van I saw the other night.”

Markus rolled his eyes at my outburst. “Yes, he works at the kennel, but I can assure you he’s with us.”

“What about this van? I saw a dead girl in it. I don’t care what you say. I know what I saw.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Drew said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “She was one of the girls that died in the kennel’s breeding program, just like the others.”

“The others?” Penn asked.

“For the past two weeks we’ve been sneaking them out of the kennel. Instead of cremating them, we’ve been planting them all over the state. We needed a story, something big to scare the public, to wake them up and make them start asking questions. The media is a fickle beast. There are atrocities happening in front of our eyes all the time, but unless the story strikes just the right chord, people will ignore it.”

“And it certainly doesn’t help when the police are getting paid to cover it up,” Markus said, raising his eyebrow at Penn.

“If this is all true, how did you even know where Ella was?” Penn asked.

“The kennel has been in pretty close communication with Congressman Kimble,” Drew said. “The moment I knew they were headed to pick up Ella, we followed them. We were just lucky we got to you first.”

“And what do you want from me now?” I asked, rubbing the sore place on my wrists.

“Why do you think we want something?” Markus asked.

“I don’t think people normally knock you out and put a sack over your head when they’re just being friendly,” Penn said.

Markus frowned. “We didn’t have time for explanations. Those bastards from the kennel were moving in quick. They could have figured out at any minute that they took the wrong girl. I wasn’t about to take my chances.”

He studied us for a minute. “The truth is, we owe you. We’ve been trying to figure out how to get people to care for so long and somehow in a day and a half, you’ve unleashed this giant. There have been whistleblowers over the years, but their story was always buried or killed before it could do any damage. This succeeded in ways we’d only dreamed. We owe you, Ella. Truly. This cause could use someone like you, someone smart and brave.”

An odd sense of pride swelled up in my chest, knowing what Missy and I had accomplished. But just as quick, I thought of all the girls who were about to die. All the surrogates who might be punished for stepping forward. The babies that might continue to be killed. “What can I do?”

“Finish what you’ve started,” he said. “It isn’t enough to hope that we can sneak a few girls to freedom. We need to save them all. We need to end it for good.”

“I’m sorry,” Penn interrupted, squeezing my hand, “but I think you’re asking too much from her. These people want to kill her.”

“I know,” Markus said seriously.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” I said. “I do. Believe me. But I don’t know what good I can do.”

“Just be you,” Markus said. “You have it in you. You couldn’t have done all this if you didn’t. Up until now, NuPet has done an excellent job keeping pets a nameless and faceless commodity. But you’ve given pets an identity. Congressman Kimble has flashed your pretty face all over the world. The American people now know pets are people. We weren’t grown in a tube. Every perfectly flawed piece of humanity runs through our veins exactly the same way it runs through theirs. Now we just have to show them that we’re worth fighting for.”

Not grown in a tube.

“My papers!” I yelled. “I had papers, in the car. I was getting them when you took us. We have to go back for them.”

“Calm down,” Markus said. “We’ve got them. Right here.” He reached down in front of him and held up the garbage bag.

“Give them to me,” I demanded, snatching them out of his hands.

I tore open the bag and shuffled through the stacks of folders until I found the one I was looking for. I took it tenderly in my hands, setting the rest of the bag down on the floor.

“What is it?” Penn asked.

I swallowed, running my finger over the loopy letters on the tab. What did she look like, the woman this name belonged to? Had she given birth to more than one baby inside that kennel? Had she suffered inside those walls, too?

I didn’t need the words on this page to assure me that I was human. I knew that already, even if the rest of the world wasn’t ready to admit it.

I was human. Imperfect. Flawed in the same invisible ways as everyone else. Across the globe there were billions of us, all different, all suffering in the same ways. Not one was a clone, or a repeat, or a perfect duplicate, but those differences were all people looked for. It’s what they were good at. Categorizing. Separating. Maybe it was easier to ignore someone if they weren’t like you. Maybe it was easier to mistreat them, to enslave them, to treat them as “other” if they weren’t the same.

Maybe it would take an “other” like me to fix it.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“You will?” He smiled, the devilish spark in his eyes reminding me of Missy.

I nodded. “I’ll do it on two conditions. First: we have to get Missy back. You owe her every bit as much as you owe me. I couldn’t have done any of this without her.”

“And what’s the second condition?” he asked, not promising anything.

I held up the file. “I want to find this woman.”

Penn’s gaze traveled over the writing. In his mind those letters were already forming into a name. Her name.

“Emily Manzenares,” he said quietly.

I moved my mouth around the letters, repeating it in my mind. It was a beautiful name. Round and warm. Emily Manzenares.

“Who is she?” he asked.

Emily Manzenares. She was out there somewhere. As I sped down the dark road past neon signs and a thousand taillights, she was out there, too. Maybe she was sitting down to a small round table to eat dinner. Maybe she was watering the sad-looking plants growing brown in her windowsill, or watching television, or laying her head down on a pillow to rest. She could be doing anything, living a life that I’d never even bothered to imagine before.

“She’s my mother,” I finally said.

The word tasted foreign in my mouth.
Mother.

Mother. Mother. Mother.

Behind us, Missy was giving herself over to the enemy. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to imagine it, but it felt unfair not to. Right now she was probably climbing into the backseat of a dark car that would take her back to the kennel, back to the red door. In front of us, Emily Manzenares waited, even though she didn’t know it yet. We were coming. We would find her. We’d find the others like her, too, and we’d make them help us. And next to me…next to me sat Penn. His hand filled mine, warm and solid and present. We would do this together.

I wasn’t alone.