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VALE

This jobmy father has given us is crazy. Just to go to a party at the Brotherhood is dangerous enough. If they want to start something with me, we’ll be swamped with Brothers. In my mind I see me and Ami, surrounded by dozens of Brotherhood men.

Going there could be a trap, and my father wants me to steal from them. The stuff he said in front of Ami was vague and not helpful, so I’m going to get the answers now.

Where exactly is this laptop in their compound? Finding and stealing are two different tasks, so unless my father has a location for us, I’m not going to be searching their compound top to bottom. The Brotherhood will keep an eagle eye on me. And Ami? She’s gorgeous, and confident. She’s bound to attract attention.

A wiggle of discomfort nags at me. If what we’re doing up here, in Anchorage, is the right thing, why do the women look so different from Ami? So scared all the time? Memoriesof my mom, faded a little, hit me. My mom was intelligent, tall and strong, a military veteran. My father used to say she was the best of the best. I never saw her shrink back or cower.

My whole life is spent around men now. It seems natural up here for men to be in charge—we’re the ones always working and planning.

I’m not sure what women do anyway, raise children, watch the babies. They help with the cooking. They’re not out there risking their necks or training with the men. But maybe they would if they had the chance? I shake my head. I’m not sure what to think.

Standing, I reach to grab my hat from the hook but it’s not there. Oh yeah, I gave my hat to Ami.

I’m thinking about her again. I stare out the window into the wide parking lot in front of the Forge, but I’m seeing Ami in her swimsuit, thinking about the cut of her arms through the water. I take a deep breath. She could still be a PS spy. I need to stay cool, stay detached.

It’s dangerous, how she distracts me.

I text my father and he answers to come to his room. I head down the stairs. My father’s room is all the way in the basement, in the old storage rooms. It’s a smart place for a leader. Not out on top, not the fanciest, but down here, hidden, hard to find. The corridor is dark with lights that need to be replaced, but he likes it that way. I knock on his door, which has Employees Only stenciled on the front.

It jerks open and he stands in the doorway. I scan the room quickly. He’s alone.

He sees me do it. My father doesn’t miss anything.

“Just us,” he says. “I need to tell you something.”

Interested, I look up. It’s not always clear when he wants me to answer him, and a long time ago I learned to err on the side of silence.

The room has low ceilings, not much higher than the tops of our heads. There’s a small kitchen, a couch, and rooms behind, a bedroom and bathroom.

“Vale,” he says, taking a seat at the table. I mimic him. Scattered across the surface are papers I recognize, old newspaper clippings with letters from Mikayla Adamson. My mom was a great writer. She used to write to theBaltimore Sunon behalf of MAV all the time.

“I need to tell you something.”

He already said that. I wonder where this is going. Is it about Ami?

“It’s about your mother.” I flinch. My mom died many years ago at Natanz, at the nuclear site there. The PS sacrificed her with no compassion; Ami’s grandmother Selene Bloome sent her there knowing how dangerous it was. She never returned from that last, deadly mission.

“Vale. There is new information we’ve heard. Rumors that your mother might be alive.”

“What? What do you mean?” I ask him. Eight years she’s been gone. They didn’t care that she had a ten-year-old kid. Just ripped her away from her family and sent her to her death.

“It’s information from Western Maryland, from the camps there.”

The camps outside of Frederick? I shudder. It’s where the PS keeps men who have been deemed a threat. Too dangerous to put on the depo trains. They say they emptiedthe jails when the PS was formed, but really they just shipped men off to camps.

“She’s being held there?” I ask.

“We don’t know. Someone made contact with a prisoner at one of the camps. The prisoner said she’s there. They were sure it was her.” He ducks his head and I see he’s feeling emotional. I’m still in shock.

“How could she be alive this long and we didn’t know?”

“She’s going by another name is what they said: ‘Kayla Davis.’”

“Davis?” I ask.