“Are you absolutely sure it’s her?”
“Yes, she sent me a video telling me good-bye and she pulled out a lighter—”
The camera caught an emergency crew running forward with extinguishers. They crowded round the fire, blocking the view.
Magda lowered herself down next to me. “What have I done? How could I have let her go?”
A newscaster came on: “We’re here on Capitol Hill where a homeless man died after dousing himself with accelerant and lighting himself on fire. Authorities claim this was a protest designed to send a message to Congress to focus on job creation.”
“What?” I said. “No! They’re lying.”
“They’re erasing her.” Magda folded her hands like she was praying and pressed them to her forehead. “They can’t keep the media from reporting, so they’re reframing the story.”
The newscaster looked so polished and clean you’d never suspect he was feeding you a load of crap. “Congressman Blake responded to the news, saying, ‘More than ever, this shows how important it is to pass the legislation we’ve created to address our economic crisis.’”
I muted the wall. “Sparrow sent a message out to the media. They’ll know that story’s a lie.”
“The government will bury it,” Magda said, shaking her head. “They’ll find witnesses to confirm their account.” She picked up my phone. “Can you show me her message?”
Sparrow looked deep into the camera. Her hair flowed down her shoulders, and she looked as innocent and pure as Botticelli’s Venus, but her voice was cold and hard as marble.
“Hello, America. My name is Sparrow Currie, and I have a message for our esteemed leaders.
“You’ve told me and my friends we should get married and have babies. You say it’s to rebuild the nation, but it’s really more complicated than that, isn’t it, Mr. Vice President?
“You allow our fathers to decide who we marry. You prevent us from driving, voting, earning money, or deciding what’s right for our own bodies.
“Until now, you’ve been able to hide the fact that you have conspired with members of Congress, pretending to oppose the Paternalists while accepting bribes and directing the rewriting of American laws. I am going to expose you. I have proof.
“For the last eight years, I and my friends have been treated as children, but now we’re women. We’re not your slaves or your property.”
Sparrow raised a bottle of clear fluid and began to pour it down her coat sleeve and across her chest and along her other arm until long, dark stains ran down the fabric. Then she tossed the empty bottle over her shoulder.
“The revolution has begun,” she said. “My blood is on your hands.”
Sparrow flicked the lighter, and Magda cried out as the coat exploded.
I felt it blow a hole right through me. How could Sparrow do this to herself? And for what?
Magda stumbled to her feet. “I need to think.”
The Sportswall was frozen on the commentator’s face. “Homeless Man Incinerates Self” read the headline, but up in the corner I could see the figure in the flames.
Sparrow had to be insane. Normal people just don’t do things like this.
Helen and the other girls rushed in. “Is it true? Has something happened to Persephone?” Helen cried. She swayed in front of the screens. “I sewed her that coat. She begged me to finish it before she left.” The Cast huddled around her and I fled to the pool.
The sky was clear yellow and the deck was hot below my bare feet. I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t shut out the eight screens of Sparrow in flames.
Those liars stole her death and used it for their own purposes.
“Bastards!” I yelled.
Down below, the poolside DJ cranked up the dance music. I picked up a chair and strode to the railing to pitch it over, and that’s when I realized: Sparrow expected that to happen.
I put the chair down.
Sparrow made sure I could speak out if her voice was silenced. She knew Fletcher and the Paternalists would never stop lying, never stop selling out girls. They’d keep doing it until someone made them stop. If she couldn’t, she expected me to try.
And I was angry enough to do it.
I pulled up Sparrow’s video. Once I touched the unscrambler icon, the software would charge off to unlock paternal controls and deliver her video to every female in the country—all of us whose double-X chromosomes had turned us into slaves.
And the message couldn’t be traced.
I held up my phone and looked right into the camera eye and hit record. “No more feeding us lies, and telling us it’s the truth. That wasn’t a homeless man who set himself on fire on Capitol Hill. That was my friend and this is her message.”
I touched send.
63
I stayed out on the deck, wanting to be alone. Twenty floors below, speakers pounded over a pool where men who were totally wasted chanted in a raging chorus.
Maybe I’m not so rich
Maybe I got no money
But I’m gonna make you hunger, ba-by
Beg for it, ho-ney.
I shut my eyes, trying to force out the world, and imagined Yates wrapping his arms around me, resting his head on mine. If I could just talk to him for a minute. Not even a minute. Thirty seconds. Fifteen.
I wrapped my hand around my phone. My fingers hovered over the keypad and I tapped out the first nine digits of his code.
I hit clear.
You can’t call him. He’s a suspect. Besides, he might not even have his phone. Roik could have forced him to turn it over.
My thumbs scrolled up and down the screen like they didn’t want to listen to me tell them no. And then I realized Sparrow had sent me two more time-delayed messages. A voice message marked OPEN NOW, and a recording, FOR MAGDA’S EARS ONLY.
What— I clicked on OPEN NOW.
I had to turn the volume up, because Sparrow was talking just above a whisper. There was water running in the background, making me think she was locked in a bathroom. She didn’t even say my name, just started talking.
“I’m trusting you. Do not open the file for Magda.” Sparrow went quiet while the recording continued to play the sound of water gushing.
I waited, listening hard. Is that it?
A moment later she returned. “Remember how Father Gabe suspected that the Paternalists had help? Well, I found out who.”
My heart started pounding, seeing the grenade coming for me.
“Last night, Jouvert told me the truth. He just doesn’t know it.”
I dug my fingers into my hair. What did you do, Sparrow? Tape Jouvert? Trick him into confessing?
“What I learned is too dangerous for mere mortals like you and me. Let Magda handle it—and you, you stick to your plan.”
My head began to shake, hearing her tell me to go to Canada. Then Sparrow laughed, quiet, and sharp-edged. “Maybe you’re right that love can give you the strength to do anything,” she said, “but I’ll never know.”
Click.
I dropped the phone on the lounger and shoved it away with my foot. Stared at it like it might sink teeth into me.
“Juliet!”
I wheeled around, and Billy was running toward me. “Magda wants you, now!” He pulled me out of the lounge chair, and I snatched up the phone. “Let’s go!” he said, pushing me in front of him and shoving me through the door. He punched in a code and as I tore down the hall, I heard the metal rattle of a security gate coming down.
Girls rushed around Backstage, grabbing clothes off racks and shelves. I blew past them, heading for Magda’s office.
I burst into the foyer. Magda’s office was wide open and she stood behind her desk, punching in the combination of her wall safe. “Well, it’s the star of the hour,” she said, seeing me.
The hangings were ripped off the walls and crammed into the open duffle on her desk. Magda flung open the safe, and I shrank back as she pulled out a gun.
I flashed back to the icy gun
against my cheek. My head spun, but I tried to focus. “What’s happening?”
Magda stuffed some ammo clips in her bag. “You’re what’s happening.” She shoved her phone in my face. “Look closely.” It was me, beaming Sparrow’s message, and over my shoulder was the rooftop bar of the casino next door. “You might as well have given out our address.”
My stomach twisted. “Oh, my God.”
“You should have talked to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I understand you were angry, and you didn’t want the Paternalists to get away with their lies, but right now Retrievers are passing photos around downstairs. We’ve got to get you out of here.”
Billy burst in. “Everything’s secure.”
Magda shoved a stack of passports and a roll of cash into Billy’s hands. “I called François, and told him the girls need a holiday in the Caymans. You have to get them to the airport.”
I stood there, confused. “I don’t have a passport.”
Magda looked at me hard. “You’re not going to the airport. You’re going with me.” Don’t ask where was written all over her face.
“Do you know how to use a gun?” She held up a second one.
“No. I don’t like guns.”
Magda threw it in the bag. “Well, that might change. Go grab some warm clothes.”
The gun lay on the folded hangings.
“Don’t just stand there,” Magda snapped. “Get going!”
I ran back to Wardrobe. A tall, black man in an elegant suit was tearing through a cabinet. He turned around, and I realized it was Helen. She’d shaved off her hair and stripped off her nails. Helen strode toward me, carrying a down jacket and hiking boots, and every girlie thing about her was gone. She held out the clothes. “You’ll need these,” she said.
I took them and grabbed a shirt and jeans off the shelves. “Are you going with Sirocco and the girls?”
Helen looked ten years older than she did the night before. “Don’t I wish. No one loves the Caymans more than I, but I’m destined for other things.”
She slid a cigarette case out of her pocket and flipped it open. Inside was a screwdriver and a tiny pair of wire cutters. “We’ve spoken to the management several times about how unreliable the elevator is.”
I’d turned Helen’s and everyone else’s life inside out. “Helen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mess things up like this.”
She shrugged. “Occupational hazard,” she said, and shooed me into the dressing room.
I pulled on the jeans. “You’ve been so kind. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Helen tossed a sweater and cowboy hat through the door. “Survive. Live happily ever after. And promise me you won’t do anything as foolish as Persephone.”
“Promise.”
“I hate good-byes,” she said, and when I pulled back the curtain, she was gone, but she’d left me something. Zipped into the inside pocket of the down jacket was a Canadian passport with Sparrow’s picture, but another girl’s identity.
Why did Helen give me this? I wondered as I rushed back to join the others. But even more importantly, why didn’t Sparrow use this to escape to Canada?
The girls clustered with their bags in the hall. Magda was in the midst of them. She’d stripped off her makeup and traded her dress for jeans and a sheepskin jacket.
Billy shook his head at me, but Magda said, “It’s a risky business. You know that. Take care of them, Billy.”
She went to each girl, whispered something and kissed her good-bye before she sent her down the emergency exit. All the girls had gone down when the phone in the foyer rang. Stopped. Rang again.
“Shouldn’t we answer that?” I said.
“No.” Magda jerked her head at the exit. “Let’s go.”
Stairs spiraled down and we ran flat out. We passed landing after landing, but just like Billy said, there wasn’t a single door.
The duffel bag on my shoulder swung wildly as I pounded down the stairs, throwing me off balance. My knees burned. I flashed back to the million times Ms. A ran us up and down the bleachers. She must have guessed that someday at least one of us would need it.
Magda and I hit the bottom. She punched in a code, and the door opened into a corner of the garage caged off from the rest.
Wheels screeched and we dropped to the floor. We scurried behind a van, listening to the growl of an engine, prowling a few rows away. It braked. Heavy footsteps patrolled the perimeter of the cage. Then the metal banged like someone hit it, and a man yelled, “There’s a separate exit!”
The engine revved. Took off.
I ran down the aisle after Magda. She tore the tarp off a huge, black pickup truck. The sides were coated in dried mud like it had just come out of the mountains. We threw the bags in the backseat and jumped in.
Madga guided it out a back gate. Then we charged down a service road and left the Strip behind. My heart pounded in my ears. We passed pawnshops, tattoo parlors, and broken-down neighborhoods with crumpled cars parked on dead lawns.
“See anyone following us?” Magda asked.
It was hard to tell through the tinted windows, but none of the drivers or passengers around us looked like they were checking us out. “I don’t think so.”
“Good. You know how to drive?” Magda asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Well, you’ve got six hundred miles in which to learn.”
“Where are we going?”
“Idaho. I know a place we can hide.” Magda pulled a pair of men’s sunglasses from under the seat and tossed them at me. “Put these on and pull your hat down. We don’t want anyone looking at us twice.”
Her voice had changed. The polished, elegant tone and diction she had upstairs was gone. She was an entirely different person. The strange thing was, I couldn’t tell which Magda was the real one.
64
The two-lane highway ran straight, and we were the only ones on it when Magda told me it was my turn to drive. We didn’t stop. The truck was charging along at seventy. Magda clutched the steering wheel and lifted up so I could slide into her spot. I shoved my foot on the accelerator, and she dropped into the passenger seat.
Seven thousand pounds of steel and power in my hands and I was driving. I checked the mirrors like I’d seen Roik do. Adjusted the seat. Felt the tires vibrate through the wheel.
I couldn’t see Magda’s eyes behind her big aviator shades, but she sat facing me, her arm over the seat, scanning the road in front and back of us.
I was glad I had to watch the gas gauge and the speedometer and the mirrors, because every time my thoughts drifted, they skidded into imagining the Retrievers hauling me out of the truck cab. They’d be careful with me, because they had to return me in perfect condition, but it probably didn’t matter how much they roughed up Magda.
Why are you running with me? I wanted to ask. Magda could have just turned me over to the Retrievers. She barely knew me. I wasn’t one of her girls.
About an hour outside of Vegas, I finally remembered Sparrow’s message for Magda. I needed to give it to her now, not when we were in the middle of a face-off with the Retrievers.
I pulled up the message FOR MAGDA’S EARS ONLY, and shoved the phone at her. “Here, it’s for you from Sparrow.”
Magda glanced at the display and then turned her back to me. She put in earphones, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her fingers play and stop and replay the recording.
Play. Stop. Replay. Play. Stop. Replay.
Finally, she pulled out the earphones and handed the phone back. Her mouth was a thin line. “Did you listen to it?”
“No.”
Her eyes flickered and I realized she didn’t believe me. “Put that phone where you can’t lose it,” she said, unzipping her duffel bag. Then she loaded both her guns and put them in the glove compartment.
I stuffed the phone into my jeans.
Magda didn’t intend to hand me over. Clearly, I’d seen too much, me
n in high places selling the country’s soul, and Magda and the Cast listening and recording it all. She didn’t trust me out in public, even though Hawkins would make sure I wasn’t out in public at all.
Night fell and we kept going.
We tuned through the radio, picking up satellite signals of sex jockeys and evangelists. We went back and forth between music stations until we gave up on finding anything decent, and let the basketball games run one after another.
I’d never seen anyplace so black or so empty as Nevada. Pinpricks of light in the mirror grew larger and larger until headlights thundered up alongside and then charged past.
Magda put her hand on the glove compartment each time one went by. If a driver came alongside and didn’t pass, I was to brake hard and duck. Every time one sailed by and didn’t look back, we’d both let out our breath. We’d lucked out that time.
Our luck changed after we crossed the Idaho border.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“What’s weird?” Magda leaned over to look at the dash in front of me.
I pointed up at the mirror. “Somebody was behind us for miles and then they just disappeared. They didn’t turn or pull off. They’re just gone.”
Magda rolled down her window. “Slow down a little and listen.”
We weren’t alone. There was another truck out there, its engine churning in the dark, but the headlights were off.
“It’s pitch-black. How can they see where they’re going?” I said.
“Night-vision goggles. Speed up, but do it gradually.” Magda pulled out her phone. She didn’t even say hello to the person who answered, just, “They found us. Just south of Twin Falls.”
Magda set both guns on the seat between us. Dashboard light slicked the barrels. I had a crazy sick thought that maybe Magda got them out for us. Kill the witnesses. Save the movement.
“Why don’t you just drop me off?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“The Retrievers don’t want you. They want me. You can leave me in the middle of the road. Drive away. Avoid the whole dying-in-a-rain-of-bullets thing. I can keep quiet about Jouvert.”
She rested her hand on one of the guns. “It’s not that simple.”
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