CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #4
‘Now we know why Apollo tells his clients to park back here.’ Leo tried to lighten the mood. He set Estelle down, but she could barely stand. She wouldn’t look at either of us. She wouldn’t speak either, save for the cries she simply couldn’t hold in.
I held her the entire ride home, brushing her hair back from her face.
I knew she wasn’t going to leave this alone.
There was nothing stopping her from going back to Apollo without us.
And I didn’t have any right to stop her.
She was right – our pain wasn’t the same.
I hated this. I hated the lack of control.
Someone else’s disease dictated our hurt.
Someone else’s disease dictated whether we’d get another Pain Carrier payment.
I hated knowing the Freedom System wasn’t broken, but a lie from the start.
Leo pulled up under our carport. I hopped out to grab Estelle’s things from inside, including her keys, so we could take her home.
I glanced at my watch as I unlocked the door.
I’d missed Molecular Principles. I could send an excuse to my professor for my afternoon Statistics for Data Sciences class.
I wasn’t leaving Estelle. Leo wouldn’t either.
As I opened the door, Estelle burst past me, her eyes red and burning with need. Leo was a second behind her. Her words at the warehouse came back to me: if you all don’t let me do this, I’ll cut it out myself.
I dropped my keys. She dashed into the kitchen.
‘Leo!’ He was fast, but he couldn’t catch her. Something crashed, and by the time I made it to the kitchen, Estelle was arguing with Leo, a knife in her hand. Lightning streaked over her pale throat. Blood pounded in my ears. Disbelief choked me.
‘I’ll take you back!’ said Leo. ‘You can’t do it yourself. Please don’t do this.’
She sniffled. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t take another hellflare.’
‘I know, I know.’ My voice trembled. I couldn’t think of the last time I’d been this scared. My breath hitched.
The floorboards creaked, Daddy appearing behind us. We just stood there, no one saying a thing. Estelle’s chest heaved, her grip on the knife shaking while she shuddered from her flare.
‘Estelle, may I have my knife, please? It was a gift from Charlie and Rox. I don’t believe they intended it for the use you’re considering.’ His voice was quiet, even.
So much pain and hurt swirled in her eyes.
She sobbed and shook. I held my breath with every calculated step Daddy took toward her.
In the end, Estelle was too broken to do it.
The knife clattered to the ground as he reached her and she screamed.
I dropped to my knees, air rushing back into my lungs.
So much had gone to crap in the last hour.
I couldn’t grasp how we’d gotten to this point.
The Freedom System made us desperate – not just desperate enough to say yes to it, but desperate enough to risk everything to escape it. Estelle would’ve risked it all.
Her legs gave way and Daddy caught her. He passed her gently to Leo. ‘You aren’t alone in this, Estelle. And you aren’t the first to want your chip gone. Rox tried a few days ago.’
I should’ve felt something when Daddy broke that news, but I didn’t have any tears left.
‘I’ll give you a few minutes.’ He patted my shoulder. ‘But we will have a conversation about this. I think it’s time we stop letting our strength keep us quiet.’
Adrenaline drained from my veins, numbness replacing it. I shivered – broken and cold.
Leo shook his head. ‘We have to do something. If enough of us speak out –’
‘Fines and jail time for more people like us, you mean. That’s what speaking out does.
I tried going back to the Crestview lab to speak up, and I know now that if I’d gone through with it, that would’ve been my future.
You saw what the Foxes did to cover up the fact they broke their own rules.
’ It made me think of those science experiments with mice in a maze – how the one in control can block certain paths to force a result.
Dominion closed every door leaving us nowhere to go.
All we could do was what they wanted from us: say yes, be grateful for our money, and be quiet.
‘There has to be something else we can do,’ said Leo. ‘The protests aren’t enough.’
I rubbed my scar. Pain Carriers shouldn’t have to live like this.
Why should we have to, when Albert Fox sits in his massive mansion uptown, with an office full of secrets and a possible cure?
Apollo was right. Cas was in the perfect position to help us end this.
With him, we could break the walls of the unbeatable maze.
‘I’ll reach out to Cas.’ I had to have faith he was as different from his family as he insisted.
He’d believe me. He had to believe me after everything.
He knew part of the truth, and I’d tell him the rest. Everything between us didn’t matter – though seeing Cas might unravel what little I had left inside me.
‘What if he says no?’ Estelle rasped.
I met her gaze with a sad smile. ‘Then we do this without him. We know the truth now. There’s no going back.’