The Perks of Being a Freak (Editing)

91. Betrayal From Within

“Have you seen Juliana fly?” The woman asked. I wracked my brain, trying to find out where I had heard her voice.

“No, and neither have any of my sons or my husband.” My mother replied, and my blood ran cold. They were all in on it? Even Seth and Cody? No. That couldn’t be right. Cody had seen me fly. He hadn’t betrayed me. Neither of them had.

“But you’re sure that she has been?” God this womans voice was driving me insane! Where had I heard it before?!

“Her windows have been left open,” she sounded so emotionless. She was just reporting. 

“Does she have any idea that you and Andrew were the ones who turned her over to us?” 

“Oh goodness no,” my mother laughed airily. “Juliana? Know something? God, that girl is too obsessed with all her boyfriends and doing drugs.”

“She does drugs?” The woman sounded surprised. I wanted to call out, to rectify that claim. “We screened her blood. There wasn’t even a trace of any kind of drug in her system.”

“Well I know my daughter.” I am not your daughter.

“We’ll need to take her back soon, now that she knows. Do you think she’ll go in easily?”

“Are you kidding?” My mother laughed again. “She’ll fight.”

“That’s too bad,” the woman sighed. “I guess we’ll have to execute plan B in order to obtain the weapon.”

“Just send the money for my kids to go to college and I don’t care what you do to the freak.” My mother laughed. She laughed. 

She sold me away for college money.

It was all starting to come together now.

They needed money, I thought, sobbing silently. All of our families needed money, right? My parents needed money for my brothers to go to college. Benny’s mom needed money for his sisters operation. Emily’s family needed money so they could survive without her father. Tony’s siblings needed money to survive. Rajeev’s mother needed money so she could buy a better life.

Tony and Rajeev weren’t volunteered, Benny sounded bitter. They volunteered themselves.

That makes more sense, I hit the end button on the phone. There was nothing else I wanted to hear.

My parents volunteered me. My parents gave me away like I meant nothing to them. My mother was a surgeon- had she been the contact in the hospital that gave away my medical records?

And that woman, now I knew where her voice came from. The first voice we had heard after waking up in the Dark Room.

They sounded like old friends.

I slammed the phone down on the floor and sobbed, once. I allowed myself one moment of weakness, of sadness, before steeling myself.

Honestly? It didn’t surprise me that my mother was the one who sold me out.

That doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like a bitch.