That same force guided me through the rest of the day. I don’t know how else to explain the way I managed to stash the files under my mattress, go back to the quarry, tell Laurel to make the copies, act halfway normal, get the files back from Laurel before dinner, and after dinner return the originals to Clayton’s office. Especially on this of all days, when V’s break-in had everyone up in arms again and acting all top-security. It was like someone else was leading me; it took me a while to understand that that someone else had really been the strongest part of me.
I hadn’t meant to read anyone else’s files. The plan had been to distribute each one to its subject and let the girls annotate their own, separating the truth from Red Rock’s lies. And really, all I wanted was for Missy to fall asleep so I could read my file again, read Mom’s letter again. I figured Grandma must have found Mom’s note and sent it to me. But why had Clayton chosen not to show it to me? To protect me? To punish me?
When the lights went out and I cracked our door to read by the glow of the hall, V’s papers were on top. And on the top of her file was her date of birth. V was Aquarius, born in February. At first I didn’t give it a second thought, and I put her stuff on the bottom to get back to my own file. But then I looked back at her year of birth and I did the math. V was eighteen. She’d been eighteen for months—which meant she could’ve checked herself out ages ago. And I don’t know why, but the truth about V made me cry almost as hard as seeing my mom’s letter.
Chapter 25
“I want to speak to Virginia.”
It was the next morning, and after breakfast, instead of going to school, I had walked over to the isolation rooms where V was being kept. Once upon a time, I’d have been frightened to go over there, but, ironically, V’s own words egged me on: Act like you have a right to be there. Act like you have a right to know the answers.
“You can’t talk to her. She’s on Level One,” replied the annoying Level Sixer sitting outside the room.
“I wasn’t asking your permission,” I said.
“I’m going to tell,” the Sixer said.
“You do what you have to,” I said, pushing past her to open the door. V was in her pj’s, sitting on the cot, with her legs curled up against her. When she saw me, she motioned for me to sit down on the bed.
“I probably should stop trying to do you favors,” she said, offering up a weak smile.
“Yeah, it doesn’t seem to go so well.”
“I’m sorry, Brit. I think I blew it. I didn’t mean to. I thought everyone was gone, but Sheriff was there waiting for me.”
“Missy tipped him off that I’d been snooping around. Besides, I got the files.”
“You did? How?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got them.”
“I won’t be able to go through mine. Someone else will have to,” V said, giving me a probing look. “Or maybe you already did.”
“No, I haven’t read it. That wouldn’t be right. But I did see something in yours. By accident.”
V let out a long sigh. Like a balloon losing its air.
She slumped back against the wall.
“You’re eighteen. Why are you still here?”
“Is that what you saw? My birthday?”
“Yeah. Why? What else is in that file? Whatever it is, does it explain why you’re still here, why you of all people, you who hate this place so much, are still here?”
V shrugged and shrank farther back toward the wall. She was a tall girl, but she suddenly looked small, fragile, broken. I reached out to touch her wrist. She looked up at me, fear in her eyes.
“V, tell me.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and took another breath. “I lied to you. I lied to all of you. My dad’s not a diplomat with the United Nations. Not anymore. He’s dead.” V started to cry.
I was stunned. All I could say was, “I’m so sorry.”
She sat back, straightened out her shirt and wiped her eyes. “My dad used to work for the UN. We lived all over the place, in some pretty wild places: Ghana, Sri Lanka. His last assignment was in Baghdad, but Mom and I couldn’t go with him that time; it was too dangerous.”
“Oh God. He got killed in Iraq?”
V looked up at me through misty tears and let out a bitter laugh. “No. I mean that’s what you’d expect to happen. I was at least a little prepared for that. Mom and I both were. People were getting blown up left and right. But no, he stayed safe there until the UN cut his mission short. He came home and it was great. Mom and I were so relieved. Then two weeks after he got back, he and Mom drove up to Connecticut to see my grandparents. On the way home, their car was broadsided by a drunk driver. Mom walked away without a scratch, but Dad was killed on impact. Can you f**king believe it?”
I was numb. All I could do was stroke her hand and say, “Oh V,” over and over. She kept going, the words tumbling out of her.
“After that, I kind of came unglued. Mom and I both did. It was more awful than anything I could’ve imagined. I missed him so much, and every morning for ages I’d wake up expecting him to be there. It was like losing him all over again. Every day. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”
I thought of my mom, the secret wish I’d nursed every morning that I’d find her downstairs, making breakfast. I nodded.
“So that was that. And then my whole world seemed to go berserk, and I felt like I couldn’t trust my footing anymore. I just got scared to go out, scared I’d get hit by a car or electrocuted by a power line or bitten by a dog. It was totally irrational. It got so I couldn’t even leave our apartment. It felt like doom was lurking in the most random of places. It was obvious that I needed some help. So here’s the really crazy thing, Brit. I’m the one who chose Red Rock. I chose this place.”
“Why? Why would you want to come here?”
“It felt safe to me. It still feels safe to me. We’re way out here in the middle of nowhere. We’re watched. We’re taken care of…...”
“We’re spied on. It’s horrid. You hate it here. You hate it more than most.”
V barked out a cutting laugh. “And I really do hate it. That’s the oddest thing. I hate what it does to smart, mouthy girls like you. But for me, it’s comforting. I know what to hate, what to fear, what to expect.”
“And you also know how to keep yourself here.”
“I guess. All the level demotions are just for show, although Clayton and Sheriff are as hard on me as anyone. My mom will let me stay here as long as I need to. She’s petrified of losing me, too.” V stopped and wiped her tears, her caustic laugh weakening to a nervous giggle. Then she looked up and bore into me with those eyes of hers. “Did you see your file?”
I nodded.
“And were there any bugaboos?”
“A letter from my mom, one that no one had shown me.”
“Was she raving mad?”
“No, that was the strangest part. She was lucid. She knew what was happening to her. For that moment, anyway.” I shook my head.
“What?” V asked.
“It’s just that we’d like to think that craziness and sanity are on opposite ends of an ocean, but really they’re more like neighboring islands.”
V stared at me. “Is that what scares you? The thought that Brit Hemphill may be living a little too close to the island of the crazies?”
“Everyone else seems to think I’m already living on Crazy Island.”
“Like who?”
“Clayton. Dad. I never told anyone this, but he came to visit me in the spring, and while he didn’t admit as much, I could tell that’s what he thought.”
“Forget your dad. What do you think?”
I felt my shoulders retreat into a defensive shrug, but then I pulled them back down. V had come clean to me, and it was my turn. I owed it to both of us. “I’m scared,” I said, my voice a tiny croak.
“Of what?”
“That I’m going to end up like her, that it’s my destiny,” I whispered.
“And what makes you think it is?”
“I look like her, I sound like her, I act like her, like she did when she was younger.”
“But I thought your mom was the coolest, that everyone loved her.”
“She was,” I said.
“Then you should be thrilled to be just like her.”
“Not if the end of that path is insanity,” I said. And then it was all out there. Everything. It was said out loud. V didn’t stroke my hand or say my name or hug me. She just watched me, her eyes sharp and glinting and wise.
“Cinders, I would’ve thought you of all people would know better. There are no wicked stepmothers and there are no fairy godmothers, and there are no Prince Charmings. There is no preordained destiny. You get to decide that. You decide your destiny.”
“But what if I have it? Like a sickness. Inside me.”
“Then you have it, and maybe one day it gets you. But you decide how you live your life in the meantime. You can hide in fear. Or you can live life.”
I looked into V’s eyes. She was sitting up straight again, the fragile little girl gone for now. She was my tough-ass friend, my sister. And she was right, in more ways than one. “Maybe it’s time you took your own advice,” I told her.
Her gaze found mine and held it for a second. “Maybe you’re right.”
Chapter 26
If Bebe and Cassie thought I was foolish to attempt it, Ansley and Beth thought I was downright nuts. When I called them with my plan, they were dead against it. I told them it was the only way.
I didn’t have a chance to tell V what I was going to do, but I thought she’d approve. Her words, after all, were driving me.
I broke out the same way I had in March, through the same unarmed door, jammed open with a rock. And Ansley and Beth were waiting for me the same as before, only this time with more trepidation than anticipation.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ansley asked. “You don’t exactly have a good track record.”
“We could bring him your files,” Beth suggested.
“It’s the only way. He’s got this idea of us as these bratty, stupid kids. If I meet him in person, maybe he’ll take me seriously.”
“He might also blow a hole in you with a shotgun,” Ansley said.
“Ans, don’t scare her.”
“Well, it’s Utah. Everyone’s got a gun, and he could mistake her for a prowler.”
“I’m not a prowler. I’m a teenaged girl, and I don’t get the feeling he spooks easily. He won’t shoot me.”
We drove on in silence, through St. George and up toward Zion, where what seemed like years ago I’d spent part of a night with Jed. Instead of cutting into the park, Ansley turned north until the road emptied out again. It was late, around 11:30, but when we pulled down the tree-lined drive to Henley’s giant ranch, the lights on his three-story adobe house were blazing. At least I wouldn’t wake him.
“We’ll wait right here,” Beth said.
“If he starts shooting, duck and run for the car,” Ansley said.
As I walked up the front path, dogs started barking inside the house, and before I could ring the bell, the door opened. Henley was old, with a shock of white hair. He wore tattered old pajamas and held a fat book, his finger bookmarking his page.
“What the hell do you want this time of night?” he growled. “Don’t tell me you’re selling Girl Scout cookies.”
I looked down at my Red Rock uniform. “Mr. Henley. My name is Brit Hemphill. I called you a few weeks ago.”
“Not you again. I told you. I don’t care.” He tried to shut the door, but I shoved my foot into it. He turned around to look at me, kind of surprised, but he didn’t close the door. I walked through it.
