Tarnished (14 page)

I nodded and stared down at the water, seeing the red door instead of the swirling grays and whites. “I think the kennels have something to do with this.”

“Why?”

I tried to think of the best way to tell him about what I’d seen in the black markets. About the jobs and the sales and how close I’d come to being sold back to the kennel. “It’s like someone
wants
people to believe that the owners are doing this,” I said, “but I just don’t believe it. Not this many girls. Not all at once. I just can’t shake the feeling that it comes back to NuPet.”

Penn rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know. Look at those pictures. They’re brutal. The kennels would have a better way of getting rid of bodies. Cremating them or something.”

I didn’t want to think about the ashes of burned girls. About mutilated bodies or who was responsible. I wanted to lie back in the soft leaves with the boy I loved. I wanted to hold him, and to only think about the feel of fingers on flesh.

But I couldn’t allow myself that luxury. Not when girls were dying.

I had to fix this.

“When I was in the black markets,” I said carefully, “girls weren’t only being sold to do jobs the way Missy was. And they weren’t just being sold to new owners either. There were people from the kennel there.”

Penn frowned. “Working at the black market?”

“No. They were there to buy girls. I don’t know why, but they were looking for the youngest and healthiest. They had us strip down. They measured us, looked in our mouths…” I cringed, remembering the feel of those rubber gloves pressing into my jaw.

Penn cradled his head in his hands and balled his fists, moving them in front of his ears like if he concentrated hard enough, he could block out all the terrible things that had happened to me, that could ever happen.

“What if we broke back into your house?” I asked suddenly. “Is there a file your dad kept on NuPet? Anything that we could use to point us in the right direction?”

Penn shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. Plus, he wouldn’t keep stuff like that at the house. He’s too smart to have anything incriminating lying around.”

“But there’s got to be something,” I said. “Have you overheard any of his calls with NuPet?”

“Bits and pieces, but not enough to use against him,” Penn said.

I almost wished I were back in the congressman’s office. Maybe if I heard some of those calls firsthand I could untangle this riddle, but it was impossible. If I ever set foot in that office again, I was as good as dead. Which only left us one option. “We have to break into one of the kennels.”

Penn stomped toward me, his eyes wide. “Are you crazy? Breaking into my house was dangerous enough. Look at those pictures. If it is the kennels, what makes you think I’m letting you go anywhere near one of those places?”

I stood and poked him in the chest. “First of all, I’m free. This is my decision, not yours.” It hurt to say the words, to devalue his need to protect me, but I couldn’t let him stop me. This was too important. “If we’re going to figure this out, we have to do something bold. Something dangerous.”

Penn ran his hands through his hair and tugged at the shortened strands. “I know that. I do. But you can’t expect me to like the idea of you doing something like this.” His hands dropped to his sides. “I just got you back, Ella.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I know. And I love you. But I have to do this, and it will be a lot less dangerous if you help.”

He sighed into my hair, his arms tightening around my shoulders. “I’ll help. Of course I’ll help. But how are we going to do this? It’s not like we can just march up to their front door and ask for answers.”

I smiled into his chest. “When I was trying to get back here to you, Missy hid me in plain sight,” I said. “Nobody really saw us there. They only saw pets. They only saw two girls they could exploit.”

He stepped back and stared at me for a few moments, frowning. Finally, his shoulders slumped and he sighed. “We’re going to march right up to their front door, aren’t we?”

I grinned.

M
issy sat on the edge of the bed. Her mouth hung slightly ajar as her gaze shifted between the two of us. “Are you crazy?”

“So we just shouldn’t try?” I asked.

She sniffed. “Not if you want to stay alive.”

“It’s the only way to find anything out,” I insisted. “And I know they’ll buy me. They were desperate for girls. You saw it. Once I’m inside I’ll be able to figure out what’s really going on. We can’t do anything from the outside.”

Missy stood and began pacing the room. “You don’t even know you’re going to find anything in there,” Missy said, her arms flying around as she spoke. “And if they’re the ones killing pets like you seem to think, what’s going to stop them from killing you? I do
not
want to see a picture of you cut into a million pieces. Not after how hard I worked to get you here.”

Penn held up his hand. “I could’ve done without the image, thanks.”

Missy spun on him. “I can’t believe you, of all people, are on board with this.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not.” He sighed, but a hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “But as Ella so plainly put it, I don’t get to decide what she can and can’t do anymore. As if I ever could.”

Missy cocked an eyebrow at me. “I liked her more when she followed directions.”

I rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t contain the flush of pride in my cheeks. Maybe I was turning into Missy now. If being with her for the past week had taught me anything, it was spunk, and endurance, and bravery.

“I want to live,” I said to Missy. “And right now, being a pet doesn’t look too safe regardless of where you are. So I’m not going to run away. You’re the one who’s always calling me naive.” I lifted my chin. “Well, I refuse to stay blind.”

“God,” Missy moaned. “Enough with the dramatic pep talk. If we’re doing this, I can’t stomach your change-the-world attitude.”

I blinked. “We?”

“Well you don’t think I’m letting you go in there alone, do you?”

Chapter Fourteen

B
y that evening we had everything we needed. Penn’s old clothes were stuffed in a plastic shopping bag and he was decked out in a new pair of khakis and a sports coat. He had a part to play and a dingy white T-shirt and jeans weren’t going to cut it. Neither were the grungy clothes that Missy and I had been wearing for the past week. Even though my things were smudged with grass stains and dirt, I was sad to give them up in exchange for a dress again.

Missy had fussed and pouted, but besides paying for the clothes she’d also given him a thousand dollars to go buy an old, beat-up sedan. She hated to part with the money, but we couldn’t walk all the way to the kennel in Greenwich and she couldn’t argue with the fact that taking a taxi was a bad idea. We needed our own transportation. There was just no other way around it.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late to be going tonight?” Penn asked as we all climbed into the car.

Missy and I both hesitated. Just looking at her, I knew she was dreading this plan as much as I was, but if we didn’t act now, we might not actually have the nerve to go through with it. I glanced back at the motel room. It was dumpy and dark, but it had been an oasis. I knew each one of us was sad to go.

I turned away from the faded orange door and locked eyes with Missy. “If we leave now, we can get there before they close for the day.”

“We do it quick,” Missy said. “Get it over with.”

Penn nodded and sighed before he cranked the key. The car sputtered to life, coughing and jerking as we bumped out onto the road.

“I still don’t feel good about this,” he said, glancing over at me with pleading eyes.

“It’s the best we’ve got,” I said. “What else can we do?”

“I don’t know. That thing Missy said about using bombs is actually sounding pretty good at the moment.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, you know Ella’s right,” Missy said. “If there’s something going on, we’re not going to find out staying on the outside.”

“But what if it’s nothing?” Penn asked. “What if you get in there and find out that it’s all just a dead end? That the kennels have nothing to do with the dead pets? What if you get in and there’s no way to get back out?”

“It doesn’t seem like a dead end,” I said. “I have a feeling about it. I can’t explain it, but it’s scary and very, very real.”

“But it’s not enough to just go on a feeling.”

“It’s more than a feeling,” Missy said. “If your dad’s upset, there’s probably a pretty good reason why. And I know my owner’s upset. I’d bet a whole box of granola bars that they’re upset about the same thing.”

Penn tightened his grip on the wheel, but he didn’t argue. For a minute we all stayed silent, thinking our own private thoughts, concocting our own private fears.

“Do you remember it at all?” Penn asked me after a while. “I mean this is the kennel you came from, right? Greenwich?”

I wasn’t happy to be returning, but it was the closest kennel. “I don’t remember very much about it.”

Most of what I remembered blended together with the training center: the austere white bedrooms, the sound of shoes on the linoleum floors, the long hallways lined with doors. I could have told Penn about those things, but I was afraid to. When I let myself remember the kennel, my mind jumped to the red door. Bad things happened behind that door. Girls went in and they never came out.

The red door was the answer. It had to be.

“So, you don’t remember the babies?” Penn asked.

I shook my head. “We were only kept with the girls our own age. Each year they moved us to a different dormitory, so we didn’t get a chance to see many of the others.”

“I’ve just always wondered.” Penn shrugged. “When that whole bill was getting passed, my dad made this huge deal about how pets were different from people and how it was okay to buy them since they were made in a laboratory. It made them different.”

“But we aren’t different, are we?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Missy snapped. “Look at us. I don’t care if you hand-selected my genes and grew me in a test tube. I know what I am.”

“And so do I,” Penn said, sensing her anger. “My father drilled it into my head and maybe I sort of believed it…until I met Ella.”

I smiled and pinched his thigh. “Human is human.”

I just hoped that would be enough.

I
t only took half an hour to find the compound that belonged to Greenwich Kennel. The entrance was nestled at the end of a narrow stretch of wooded road only a few miles past the center of the city and before we knew it, we were pulling past the unmarked brick gate onto the driveway. On either side of us, the woods gave way, opening up onto a wide stretch of grass, neatly mowed and lined with rows of spindly new trees.

“Are you sure this is it?” Missy asked, peering out her window at the sprawling brick building that appeared over a small rise. “This place doesn’t look right.”

“What’s it supposed to look like?” Penn asked.

“I don’t know. But not this,” she said, flipping her hand dismissively at the long, squat building. “This looks like one of those places that sells bulk rolls of toilet paper.”

Penn laughed. “Clearly you’ve never been to a warehouse club.”

Missy rolled her eyes. “So what?”

“Well, they don’t look like this,” Penn said. “At least, I’ve never been to one that has a water feature.”

We stared out the driver side windows at the fountain situated in the middle of a large circular driveway. At its center, a thick column of water shot into the air before cascading down the marble sides. Quite the display, considering we were the only ones around to impress.

Slowly, Penn eased the car to a stop in the small parking lot. “Hopefully they don’t have cameras out here,” he said, turning off the car. “We won’t be fooling anyone if they see this thing.”

“I guess you’ll need these,” Missy said, pulling a couple of envelopes out of her bag and handing them over to him. “Keep an eye on my bag, okay? I want it back when we’re done with all this.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t lose it.”

“And I know how much money is in there,” she said. “So don’t think you can just go on a shopping spree or anything.”

“Got it.” He forced a smile, but it didn’t fool any of us. We each turned to look at the entrance. The NuPet logo was etched in the center of the two tall, frosted glass doors, beckoning us.

“How will we know how to find you…when we get back out?” I asked, suddenly worried that even if we did manage to get inside and find something, that we’d never be able to find Penn again.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting in my car out past the front gate. The bushes are plenty thick and this car is small enough to hide.”

“You promise you’ll be there?” I asked.

“I’ll be camped there all day and all night until you come.”

Our lips met and for just a moment the worry and the fear lifted. There was only warmth and the sweet hum of wanting him. Kissing Penn felt like a warm summer night. It felt like a soft breeze on bare skin, like a clear sky and a bright moon. If only I could carry this feeling with me. If only I could live inside one of those kisses.

Missy cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to break up the love fest, but if we’re going to do this thing, we need to get going.”

Penn pulled away and squeezed my hand. “You ready?”

“Ready.”

He straightened his collar and ran a hand over his jacket before he swung open the tall doors that led into the kennel. Behind him, Missy and I had already composed ourselves, wearing our persona as pets as easily as we wore our dresses.

It was surprising to me how quickly I could still slip back into this identity; as if it was a piece of clothing I could slide over my head. Or maybe I was more surprised by how easy it had been to change out of. A lifetime of training and I had cast it aside like a dirty shirt.

Behind the sleek metal counter a woman looked up from her desk. “Can I help you?”

“Hello,” Penn said, putting on his most charming smile. “A family friend referred me. I was told to speak to one of your buyers.”

The woman cocked her head, considering. Her eyes flicked over to me and Missy for just a moment before she pressed a button on her desk and leaned down to talk quietly into the speaker.

“Sorry to bother you, Ms. Leaver,” she said. “But there’s a young man here to speak with you.” She stopped talking and sat back up with a plastic grin set on her painted lips. “If you’d like to have a seat, she should be out in just a moment.”

Penn thanked her, turning toward the row of stiff modern chairs that lined the wall. He eyed them warily. Instead of sitting he leaned up against a large cement column. I could tell he was nervous from the way he kept licking his lips. I wanted nothing more than to feel the assuring squeeze of his hand in mine, but I kept my distance from him, imagining that we really were the people we were pretending to be.

A few minutes later the clacking of heels down the hallway made us all turn. Penn straightened, once again sporting that easy, confident smile that looked so convincing.

He stretched out his hand. “Ms. Leaver?”

She didn’t need to introduce herself for me to know that we had the right woman. She looked like she’d been cut from the same mold as the woman I’d seen at Bernard’s market: the crisp, tailored suit; the cold, piercing eyes. She even had the same look of concentrated derision on her face.

She glanced disinterestedly at Penn’s hand, not bothering to shake it, before her gaze turned to me and Missy and her eyebrows lifted just a little.

“And what’s this?” she asked, stepping closer to Missy and me.

For a moment Penn looked flustered. The smile slipped from his lips. “I…was referred by a family friend,” he said, finally snapping back into form. “We were hoping to get rid of our pets. They just aren’t working out.”

For the first time, Ms. Leaver turned and studied Penn. Her eyes traveled slowly over him, much the same way she’d appraised us.

“You’re young,” she said.

Penn shrugged. “They belonged to my grandpa, but he’s too sick to come. Dementia,” he said, as if that explained it. “My mom would have come, but she doesn’t think he should have gotten them in the first place.”

Ms. Leaver narrowed her eyes for just a second before a new expression transformed her face. Was it compassion? Pity? “It happens fairly often,” she finally said, nodding. “Nothing to feel ashamed about. We’re happy to take them off your hands.”

“Oh, good,” Penn said. “I brought their paperwork.” His hands shook as he reached into his breast pocket, but Ms. Leaver had already turned away from him again.

“Your grandfather should know that we don’t offer a full refund.”

“Of course not,” Penn said.

She circled us slowly, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she studied us. “This one?” she said, picking up my arm by the wrist to study my hand. “She’s new?”

Penn swallowed. “Yeah, sort of new.” Maybe we should have come up with a better story. Maybe we should have spent more time rehearsing. “My grandpa got her last year.”

“From one of our facilities?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I…I…” Penn stuttered, fumbling with the envelope. He’d read over both the documents before we came, but he must have forgotten. The paper shook in his hand as he unfolded it. “No…he got her from Texas. I guess he had her shipped in.”

“Ah…” She nodded. “They did a nice job,” she said. “I could have mistaken her for one of ours.”

Penn laughed uncomfortably.

“And the other one?” she asked. “She looks older. We’re not really in the market for these.”

“My grandpa really needs to get rid of them both. He’s not in the condition to care for them and my mom won’t let either one of them back in the house.”

“Well, for the right price, I suppose we can come to an arrangement.”

Next to me, Missy clenched and unclenched her hands, an indignant expression plastered across her features.

“Would you care to follow me back to my office and we’ll work something out?” Ms. Leaver asked, already walking back down the hallway that she’d come from.

Penn nodded, casting me a quick sidelong glance before he strode after her. I grabbed Missy by the arm, squeezing the soft skin above her elbow in the hopes that she’d wipe the sour look off of her face.

Ms. Leaver paused at the desk and the woman with the bright red lips looked up attentively. “Allison, take these two back to intake while I finish the paperwork,” she said, not even bothering to glance back at Missy and me.

Penn stiffened. “Wait, you’re taking them now?”

Maybe he could hide the panic in his voice from Ms. Leaver, but he couldn’t hide it from me. It swelled and multiplied in my ears, filling up my whole head. That was it? Of course, I had known that getting sold back to the kennel would mean leaving Penn, but I hadn’t thought about how it would feel.

Ms. Leaver turned around. “Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem,” Penn managed to say, although when he spoke, it sounded like the air had been kicked from his lungs.

“Fine, then follow me,” she said, not even offering for him to bid us good-bye.

I locked eyes with Penn. For one last moment we held each other’s gaze. I wanted to let it fill me. I wanted it to give me courage, but it only felt like a knife was being plunged deeper inside me. As if a piece of me was being sliced away. How many times could a person be cut open before they couldn’t take it anymore?

I slumped into Missy. Her hand reached out to find mine and I clung on to keep myself from toppling over. The girl behind the desk wrinkled her nose, eyeing us suspiciously. She opened her mouth as if she was considering calling after Ms. Leaver, who was disappearing around a corner with Penn, but she reconsidered, giving her head a small shake and pursing her lips before she turned back to us.

“You’re not sick, are you?” she asked. “Because we can’t have you infecting the others.”

I swallowed. “No,” I managed. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “Follow me.”

I straightened my back, mustering as much strength as I could. The woman pushed open a pair of swinging doors and Missy and I followed her back into the kennel.