I never made it that night. As I lay in my bed, singing Clash songs in my head for inspiration, I told myself it was because of Missy. She was restless again. It was too dangerous to get caught this late in the game. Missy was a little restless, going to the bathroom a couple of times, but I could’ve gone if I’d wanted to, if I’d had the guts.
The next morning, Bebe sidled up to me in the cafeteria, dropped a note on my tray and left.
V got caught in Clayton’s office last night. Missy told Sheriff that you’d been sneaking around, so they did a stakeout. V’s back on Level One. They might press charges against her! I saw her in the bathroom. She said she hid the pass key in her slipper while they questioned her, and then hid it back in the plant. She said to tell you that she is sorry. What now? Are we screwed? It was the second time V had taken the fall for me. And once again, I was angry. But this time it was me I was pissed at. I’d allowed V to claim responsibility for my breakout and now I’d hesitated in following through with my grand plan. V didn’t hesitate. She marched into risk. And willingly paid the price for it.
Right there in the cafeteria I made a decision: I would go into Clayton’s office, not that night, when everyone would be looking, but that day. I would go in because I had a right to be there, and the walls were only plaster and brick. I would get our files. I would make copies of them during dinner and I’d have them back before dark. Soon they’d change the key or lock the files or do something to keep one of us from striking again. Now was my window, and I had to leap through before it closed.
Clayton saw students in the morning and then again in the late afternoon, and she left Red Rock in between. I just had to sneak off the quarry and into her office, hide the files somewhere for Laurel to copy, and replace the originals, with no one the wiser. It was the equivalent of a commando mission behind enemy lines in broad daylight, with no camouflage and no backup. But it was what I had to do.
As soon as the door clicked closed behind me, I shuddered. Even though the rest of Red Rock had lost much of its intimidating veneer, Clayton’s office still had an ominous atmosphere. It felt like she was there, looking over my shoulder, though I’d checked to make sure her car was gone. I hated Clayton’s office more than any other room at Red Rock. It was like a cave housing all my deepest fears. I took a deep breath and reached for her file cabinet. It was unlocked.
An odd calm came over me as I went through the files, plucking out WALLACE, JONES, LARSON, HOWARTH, and finally, HEMPHILL. I knew I had to work fast—get in, get out—but holding my file in my hand, I couldn’t resist. I flipped it open, and phrases like “denial” “idealizing iconoclastic characteristics,” “narcissism” “in common with mother,” “paranoid schizophrenia” glared at me in Clayton’s neat print. There was also a sheaf of Xeroxed letters my dad and grandma had sent, including some from Jed. And then there was a letter I’d never seen. It wasn’t a copy. It was the original, on what looked like a brown paper bag in handwriting I knew all too well. I dropped the rest of the files and sank to the floor.
My dearest, darling ever-lasting lovey Brit:There are some mornings I wake up and it’s almost like I’ve forgotten the years that have passed. I see you so clearly—you in your pajamas, twirling scarves on the lawn, your feet wet with morning dew. You’re just a blur of color, all brightness and joy. I’m inside, making breakfast, watching you, thinking, how is it that I made this? How is it that this came from me? Call it life, call it a miracle. I just call it you, my biggest and best contribution to the world.I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened. I’m so sorry for being taken away from you. I count it a blessing that most of the time I don’t even know I’m sorry. But every so often comes a day like this when the chase stops, and for a moment, I’m free. It’s like at home in the winter, when just for a day, the gray goes away, and the sky is so clear you can see the mountain perfectly. Today is one of those days.It won’t last. The clouds always return to the sky and my own clouds come back to reclaim me. But I write this for you now as a testament—a sign that I was here, that I was your mom once, that I still am. When I finished reading, my tears were blinding me and I’d dampened the letter. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t move. But then it was like some invisible force pulled me out of that office, away from the dark room where all my worst fears lived.
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?”