Perfect - Cecelia Ahern

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can understand why you want to stay. There’s goodness in here, yes, but there’s something you need to think about. What exactly do you think you can do here?” he asks gently. “What’s your role?”

      I had romantic visions of me making cakes with Adam and Kelly in the kitchen. Skating around suds-soaked floors on brush-skates with Mona, cleaning the floors at night while everyone sleeps, Pippi Longstocking-style. Teaching Evelyn maths. Becoming Bahee’s sidekick, donning a white lab coat and sensible glasses and studying things on petri dishes. Wearing night-vision goggles and sitting with the security team, scanning the horizon. For a few hours at least, this factory was my oyster.

      Carrick goes on. “After Fergus and Lorcan escaped the supermarket riot, their faces were plastered all over the news. They’re on the Guild Wanted list. They have to work night duty from now on, so nobody recognises them by day and gives them up. Night duty falls to the Flawed mostly. You have one of the most recognised faces in the country right now; maybe that will calm down after a while, maybe not, and people here are good, but I’m sure they’re not that good. They won’t want their lives in danger, because if the Guild discovers that they were working with you day in and day out but never reported you, they’d all be in trouble. They wouldn’t take that risk. You’ll have to be kept away from everyone, for a while.”

      The way he says while, he drags it out and makes it sound like a long time.

      He shrugs. “For the record, my wanting to leave has nothing to do with how things are going with my family. It’s about me. I’m not settling for this life and neither should you.”

      He leaves a silence, gives me time to think.

      I want to see my family; my heart hurts when I think of them, of the home that I’ve left behind, of the life I’m missing, but I said goodbye to that life as soon as I was taken to Highland Castle. I’m dreaming of Mum, Dad, Juniper and Ewan visiting me here, transported through the gates hidden in the back of a food truck or something. Special Sundays where we hang around the rec room together, playing football or whatever Ewan wants to do outside. But I know this is ridiculous thinking. Bahee and the others would never allow it. Carrick is right: I’m tired, and feeling safe is a rarity, something so beautiful I should want to fight for it outside these walls.

      “This life isn’t good enough for me, either,” I admit.

      He grins. “Good. Because when I said I wanted us to get out of this mess I didn’t just mean leave the plant, I meant I wanted out of this entire Flawed life. I’ve got a plan.”

       Missing Image

      Carrick leans forward, brimming with excitement. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me last night. About Crevan, about his searching for the footage of the branding. Do you have any idea the power that it gives you?”

      I ponder that. Mr Berry and Pia Wang knew about the footage and they’ve since disappeared. Crevan thinking that it’s in my possession fills me with fear; it puts me in a vulnerable situation, and I doubt that telling him I don’t have it will be believed. If anything, it makes me feel like the most hunted person in the universe.

      Carrick can tell I’m not seeing this the same way he is. “Celestine, you can use that footage to reverse your branding. And not only that, if the public sees that Crevan has made a mistake with his rulings once, then who knows how many mistakes he’s made in the past? It calls the entire Guild system into question.”

      My heart starts to pound. I think there’s something in what he’s saying. It’s the first light I’ve seen through all of this. It’s better than revenge: it’s a way out. He has convinced me, I do think it’s worth trying, but …

      “What’s wrong, Celestine? You should use this. You should show the video to every single person you can.”

       I don’t have the footage.

      Tell him, Celestine. Tell him you don’t have it. Say it. I open my mouth. I think how to phrase it. It should be simple. I don’t have the footage. I don’t know where it is. Somebody just thinks that I have it. Because the person who apparently gave it to me told him so.

      Carrick’s waiting. I close my mouth again. I can’t break his enthusiasm – he’s holding on to this plan like it’s his only chance to undo all of this. And who knows – I might have the footage. If I could gain access to my house, it could be there. My mind races. Can I get back to my house without the Whistleblowers seeing me? Can I contact my family and ask them to search for it instead? Can I really do this?

      “It’s okay,” he says, like the wind has been taken out of him, backing down. “It’s a lot to ask of you, I understand. You’ve just arrived, you’re tired, I shouldn’t have … Anyway –” he perks up – “I brought you in here for a reason.” He stands up, opening the fridge, turning off the lights, and placing two cushions in front of the open fridge on the floor. “Take a seat, please.”

      I look at him in utter confusion. The moment has passed. I’m relieved, but I don’t like that I’m keeping something from him. I should tell him.

      “It’s okay, Celestine, really. It’s something for you to think about. For now, just sit, please.”

      I sit down on a cushion on the floor, the light of the fridge the only thing illuminating the room.

      He sits opposite me. “We’re going to have a lesson. Are you ready to begin?”

      “Yes, Master Vane.”

      He fights a smile, and I wonder what he’d look like if he let himself go, if those facial muscles untensed and a real smile took over; even better, a full-blown laugh, how it would transform him.

      “Of all our senses, smell is one of the most important. Animals need a sense of smell to survive. A blind rat might survive, but a rat without a sense of smell can’t taste, therefore can’t mate or find food.”

      I realise what this is about. “Your mum told you I couldn’t taste the birthday cake.”

      “She may have said something,” he says softly.

      “You’re comparing me to a rat.” I pout.

      His mouth twitches as he tries to hide his smile. “Listen. You might have lost your sense of taste, but you haven’t lost your sense of smell. Seventy per cent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from scent.”

      “I did not know that.”

      I could barely eat in the weeks after my tongue branding, as my tongue swelled and scabbed from the sear. It’s been a month and everything tastes like nothing. I’m assuming I’ll never taste again for the rest of my life, which is fine, because the Flawed diet doesn’t allow for luxuries. I might be saved from tasting the endless grains and pulses we have to eat.

      Carrick continues the lesson. “When you put food in your mouth, odour molecules from that food travel through the passage between your nose and mouth to olfactory receptor cells at the top of your nasal cavity, just beneath the brain and behind the bridge of the nose.”

      I raise an eyebrow. “And when you swallowed the encyclopedia, what did it taste like?”

      “This is my good schooling talking,” he says sarcastically. “You can’t taste but you can smell, and you can feel the texture and temperature of the food. You need to use all these things to your advantage.”

      I nod along.

      “In school we had to do a taste test. We had five items: a pine cone, a cinnamon stick, a lemon, baby powder on a cloth, and a mothball. We were told to sniff each one

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