“Like prison.”
“If prison’s having your own room, an education, good food, nobody walking around ready to jab you with a shock stick and strip you down for porn before they sell you off to some perv, yeah. If it’s being able to play music, paint, hang out, learn, be treated like a human being and not a number, yeah, just like prison.
“I was in a state school a lot of years,” Eve added. “It was decent enough. Compared, this is goddamn paradise.”
“Why were you in a state school?”
“Not your business,” Eve repeated. “There’s a rooftop garden, there’s counseling if you want it, you don’t have to wear a uniform or sexed-up underwear or wonder when somebody’s going to ship you off to some pervert. And when this is done, if you don’t want to stay, we’ll figure out what. Sebastian’s not an option. It’s a line I can’t cross. Take your choice.”
“If I said the school, can Mouser come with me?”
A crack in the wall, Eve noted, but shot Dorian a suspicious look for form. “Who the hell is this Mouser?”
“He found me, when I was sick and hurt, and he could’ve left me, but he didn’t. He helped me. I don’t care what you think about Sebastian, he helped me. They all did. If Mouser wants, can he go?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Take the school, then listen to me. When this is done, you’re going to sue the living shit out of Truman.”
Dorian poked at some sort of plant. “As if. Like I’ll call my lawyer, right?”
“That’s right, the lawyer the guy in the suit’s going to get for you. The lawyer who’s going to sue her ass off. She probably doesn’t have money, or much, but it’s not about the money. It’s about making her pay. She was responsible. If she’d done what she promised to do, you’d never have ended up where you did. She pays.”
“Why would the guy with the voice and the suit get me a lawyer?”
“For the same reason he started the school. Because you matter. Take the school, start there. If Sebastian’s not a complete asshole, he’ll say the same.”
“He’s not an asshole! Maybe, I guess, maybe, if he thinks so, I can try the school. With Mouser if he wants. If I don’t like it, I don’t have to stay.”
“We’ll start there. Now let’s look at some pictures. You’re going to help me save some lives and bust these bastards.”
16
Dorian identified three almost immediately, two from what she said they called the Pretty Ones, and another from the Slave/Pet area.
In the middle of another group, she burst into sobs. “She’s dead, she’s dead. I didn’t know her name, but they said she hung herself, with her sheets. And Auntie was really mad, and somebody said the floor matron on her level got beat up bad. It’s how Mina heard about the tunnels, I think. It’s hard to remember, but I think, because Mina heard they took her body out that way to where they burn it up.”
“This is so hard, and you’re doing so much.” Peabody’s voice soothed like a cooling balm. “Can you remember when this happened? How long ago?”
“I don’t think I’d been there very long. I mean not like right away, but I think it was when some of the matrons and guards bitched about how cold it was, for this time of year or something.”
“Okay, that’s good. That really helps.”
“She’s dead. Mina’s dead, and that other girl’s dead, too. How does it help?”
“It helps all the others,” Peabody told her. “Everything you can tell us helps all the others. But if you want to stop, we can stop and come back to it.”
“I want to forget it happened. I was happy when I forgot.”
“But it did happen,” Eve reminded her. “So let’s pay them back. But we can give it a rest. You’ve given us plenty to start with. We can do more tomorrow.”
Eyes still flooded, Dorian turned to Sebastian. “She said I can’t go back with you.”
“She’s right.”
“It’s not fair.”
“It doesn’t feel fair, I know. Too much isn’t fair. But we all need to do what’s best for you.”
“She said there’s this school, but—”
Holding up a hand to stop Dorian, Sebastian turned to Eve. “Do you mean An Didean?”
“That’s the idea,” Eve confirmed, and Sebastian sent her a look of profound gratitude.