Perfectly Scarred

The Support I Never Knew I Needed

The positive outcome from the week's house arrest is that the press have disappeared from outside of the house, and they haven't yet learned that the punishment has been withdrawn. If I'm not coming or going, there'a nothing for them to report, so I successfully manage to get to the local ice-cream parlor, my meeting point with Granddad, because that's where he always used to take me and Jisoo. Granddad was waiting in his dusty pickup truck with two ice creams.

"Showtime," he says when I sit inside, and it's best I've felt for weeks.

After driving, for almost an hour, during which I've filled him on everything that has happened to me since we last met, including Alpha and her charity for the Failure, the guards going missing, Mila's helping me searched for them, and my mission to find Lisa, especially now after Ms. Bennett's boyfriend has told me that I have the video. Granddad listens intently as we drive, sometimes pulling over and asking me to repeat what I've said, listening to every word and, most important, believing me.

"What makes you think this Lisa has the video?" He asks.

"Well, it just makes sense." I reply.

"But Bennett's boyfriend said that you have it. Not anybody else. That you have it."

I nod, hearing him but thinking it couldn't possible be true. I would have remembered being given it.

"Did Bennett send you anything since you've been home? Think about it, Roseanne"

"Granddad" I say, holding my hands up to my pounding head "I haven't been able to do anything but think about it. But there's nothing. Apart from an envelope with an invoice, there was nothing. She left her home number for me, and I called her boyfriend. That's the only message she left for me."

He goes silent "dont worry, we'll figure it out"

"Thanks for your help, Granddad. I appreciate it. I don't want to get you into trouble, though"

"Trouble?" He barks. "I've been trouble since the day I was born. You're not cutting me out of this excitement."

I smile, feeling grateful.

We turn off a country road onto an even smaller track, and Granddad slows.

"This can't be right" he says, confused, squinting out the windows at the view of fields around us. We're surrounded by thousands of acres of wind turbines, and a liquid storage plant rises from the horizon, enormous though it's miles away. "Let me see the directions, again"

I hand him the crumpled slip of paper with Alpha's handwriting. It's a messy scrawl, something I think she did deliberately so nobody else could decipher it.

"Hmmm" he says, face screwerd up in concentration as he reads. Then he looks up and around. "Looks like we're going the right way." He says, but he sounds uncertain. "This woman, do you trust her?"

I look at him "I don't trust anyone anymore"

"That's my girl." He chuckles. "Well, we'll soon find out"

He continues driving down the narrow road, on the hunt for Gateway Lodge. I'm expecting a hotel of some sort, a conference room with a dozen or so people all talking about theit experiences, but this doesn't seem like the place anybody would come to stay in a hotel. It's too remote.

My stomach tenses. Becoming lost is a concern of mine now, as is running out of gas. I worry about a random event occuring that will stop me from returning home in time for my curfew. Even worse, i'm afraid Carina will orchestrate something to deliberately get me inti trouble. She can't be happy with the outcome of the photograph and alcohol charge, and I'm expecting trouble. I must beat this fear. I thought the Society couldnt do anything to hurt me anymore. But I was wrong, targeting my family would be an unbearable pain, a guily I don't think I could live with, and it's fear that that instill in us that is the continuous punishment for what we've done.

I trust granddad. I trust he will make sure I get home. But he's old. What is he has heart attack, what if he passes out?

The road gets increasingly narrowas we delve deeper. The branches of the trees are now brushing up against our windows. Just when I think we'll be crushed by branches and overgrowth, a gate appears after the next bend in the road. The gate is enormous and towers ovet us with multiple security cameras covering all angles. A twenty-foot wall hides whatever is behind it. The plaque on the wall announces it is Gateway Lodge.

We've arrived.