HELPER12, Jack Blaine [reading in the dark .TXT] 📗

said it was a mistake.  She asked Father what could be done.  What could be done, Benna.  About Jobee.”

A buzzing starts in my head, low, at the base of my skull.  She’s got the power to do whatever she wants to with Jobee.  She can throw him away like he’s garbage.  And suddenly, it’s clear to me that this is what will happen.

“There are places in this world, Benna, where we can be together.  Where nobody knows who we are, and it isn’t wrong for us to be in love.”

“Where?”  I can’t hear what he’s saying through the buzzing.  I need to focus, I need—

“Remember the lake?  Remember how you sketched my portrait, right out in the open, and nobody said a thing?  Remember how we kissed, Benna?”

I nod.

“I’ve been asking some questions.  I’ve been doing some research.”  Thomas slides his hands from my shoulders down my arms, until he’s holding my hands.  Even at a time like this, I feel a stirring from his touch.  “Deen can help us get transport; he knows some people.  He’s—he was going to help Gregory and Rob get away.”

“How?”  I want so desperately for this to be true, but I can’t believe it.  “We’d need funds, we’d transport, we’d—”

“I have all that.  What do you think I’ve been doing for the last few days?”

“What do you mean, you have all that?”  I wonder if Thomas has actually lost his mind.

“I know it’s a lot, all at once.”  Thomas squeezes my hands.  “I’ll tell you all of it tomorrow afternoon.  They’re going to the city then, to make arrangements for Greg’s ashes.  It will take them a few hours.  We can talk in the courtyard, where Helper can’t hear.”

I can’t think of anything to do but nod.

Chapter Twenty Nine

I’m waiting for him in the courtyard.  Jobee has had his bottle and he’s ready for his nap.  I’ve got him set up in the whizby, so he can sleep while we talk.

Helper has been giving me looks all morning.  At breakfast, she asked me what my plans were for the day—something she has never done before.  I told her I had no special plans.

“So you won’t be going anywhere, then?”

“What do you mean?  I never go anywhere, do I?”

“Well,” she said brightly.  “You and Mr. Thomas went to the city that time.  And then you went to the lake with him, too.”  She smiled, a frightening, knowing sort of smile.  “I just wondered if the two of you planned to go anywhere today.”

The Driver kept his eyes on his plate the whole time.  When he left to take the Sloanes into the city, I retreated to my bedroom with Jobee, and hid there until noon.  Then I came down to the courtyard to wait.

When he appears, he looks even more tired than he did last night.  He goes to Jobee and leans over him, watching him sleep for a moment.

“I could use one of those,” he says, when he sits down next to me.

“A whizby?”

“A nap.”  He looks at me.  “Helper is in the kitchen, but I know she’ll be passing the door soon.  Probably more than once.  So we’ll have to speak as quietly as we can.”

I nod.

“Benna.” He starts to say something, and then stops.  He shakes his head, as though he’s trying to clear it.  “I need to tell you what I want.  I’m going to tell you all of it, what I’ve been thinking, what I’ve been doing, since I found out Greg was dead.  And when I’m done, I need you to tell me yes, or no.”  He turns to check the door to the kitchen.  Nobody is there.

“If it’s no, if you can’t be with me, I’ve got a plan for you and Jobee—a way you can get out of here.  I won’t leave you here for her to do whatever she pleases with you.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then.  Here’s my idea.”  He lowers his voice even more.  “There’s passage set up for two people, on a ship that leaves the day after tomorrow.  It’s been set up for weeks, already paid for, and there won’t be a lot of questions asked about who those two people are.

“The ship is going to a place where people don’t care if you’re a Helper and I’m Society.  We can be together.  And Jobee can do what he wants to with his life, when the time comes.

“I’m not saying it will be easy.  It will take us time to get there, and during that time we’ll be at risk of being found out.  Once we’re there, it will be safer, but not a lot easier.  It isn’t like here.  There are things we’ll be doing without.”  He looks back at the door again—still no Helper.

“That’s it, really.  We have to move fast though, so if you’re in, I need to know now.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s in the Tongal region.”

“Your parents just went there!”  I know Ms. Sloane said something about that place.  I don’t know what this is—is he playing a game of some sort?  Is this a trap?

“Shhh.”  He checks to be sure my outburst hasn’t brought Helper to the door.  “I know.  And it wasn’t my parents, it was just my father.  Mother wouldn’t be caught dead outside a resort.”  He hesitates.

“Listen, I think my father knew about Greg’s plans.  I think Greg said something, something that tipped Father off.  Greg did love him so much.  But he knew Mother would never let him be who he was.  And Father . . . Father’s weak.  He loved Greg, but he couldn’t protect him.” Thomas bites his lip.

“I think maybe he went to see what sort of life Greg would have.  To see where he’d be spending his days, once he was gone.  Thomas’s voice grows harsher.  “Before she had him wiped and he couldn’t get away.”

I consider it all.  How things are here, how they’re likely to get.  I keep seeing Ms. Sloane, looking at Jobee