Page 34 of The Knight

Staring at the broken camera lens, I take a deep, shaky breath. There has to be some way out of this—some alternative. Maybe there were other lenses in the camera bag. Or maybe I can just twist it back together...

"Well, fuck." Blake's voice is mild, despite the deep shit we're in. "You sure do know how to ruin things."

"Shut up." Opening the driver side door, I check to make sure we haven't been spotted and kneel by the shatters camera and lens. "There has to be some way to fix this. The battery pack fell out of the camera body, but it's not actually broken... it still turns on... shit."

The camera screen flickers to life and blinks out again, torn and broken. I try pulling the photos up, but a big red sign flashes across the screen: SYSTEM ERROR. Turning off and back on again does nothing.

"I can't believe this." I stare at the camera, certain I must be cursed. "Everything I touch is ruined. Even this. It was my one chance, and..."

Distantly, I hear the sound of the car door slamming. That must be Blake, coming around the rear of the car to tell me I'm a fuck up. He'll probably make fun of me for thinking I could ever pull this off, laugh in my face for believing he was actually falling in love with me, and tell me to get my own ride home, because he's going to drive the Maserati back and leave me here to think about what I've done.

"What's wrong?"

I look up at him as he comes to a stop in front of the broken camera and my shattered hopes and dreams. "I dropped it. I fucked it up. Everything I touch is just... fucked up the instant I touch it."

"It's just one camera, Brenna. I'm sure we can figure out some other way to catch Hass." Kneeling beside me, Blake picks up the lens, which is bent at the end, and fiddles with it for a moment. "The mount just needs to be replaced. Until then, I bet a pair of pliers would hold it together, and I know Cole keeps a toolbox in his trunk. It can be fixed."

"But the camera is ruined."

"Let me see it."

As I hand the body of the camera over our hands brush together, and a spark of electricity goes off inside me. It's unfair that a cold, distant statue of a boy should be so impossibly warm, should give me so much comfort with a simple gesture or a few reassuring words. Watching him mess with the camera, testing different things, I wonder why he's doing this—actually helping me.

It almost makes me think he might really...

"There." Holding the camera up, Blake shows me the clear, bright screen, absent of any glitches or the red flashing warning sign. "I just had to blow some dirt off the sensor, take the battery pack out, and restart it. Now it's like new... mostly. That smudge of dirt won't go away, but you can still photograph crimes with it. Just don't try to win any photography contests."

"The lens, though." I take a deep breath in, trying not to let the tears I'm holding inside fall from the corners of my eyes and spill down my cheeks. The last thing I need is to look weaker than I am in front of Blake Lee. "How will we attach the lens?"

"Here—hold this."

He hands me the camera body, grabs the lens, and strides around to the back of the car, where a small, streamlined trunk barely takes up any room. As he opens the latch and grabs a toolbox inside, I look back towards the end of the runway, where three girls have been dragged off the plane and down its stairs. They're standing in the cold, shivering in fishnets and flimsy clothing, all of them thin, pale, and impossibly made up.

At first I wonder why there are three of them, until I realize that of course Hass would want options. To him these aren't three human lives; they're a menu of flesh, and he gets to pick which one he wants. Like ordering a sushi roll or putting your favorite color of tennis shoes in your cart online.

I wonder what will happen to the two girls he doesn't pick. Maybe they'll be lucky and get to go home, but somehow I doubt that. More likely they have other billionaires to service in exchange for money—teenage billionaires, or ones in their sixties, it won't matter either way to the men brokering them off for money. No doubt they came here believing they would get the American dream, or some semblance of it, not realizing they'd simply be sold to the highest bidder and kept in fear for the rest of their lives.

An engine rumbles to life around the curve of the road, and moments later the nose of a silver sports car turns down the asphalt. I watch it go by and swing towards the tiny airport: Ferdinand Von Hassell, here to inspect his goods. It's now or never—if Blake hasn't fixed the telephoto lens, then we have to figure out a backup plan, fast. Otherwise we'll lose our chance to take Hass down—if that's even possible. Blake is starting to make me wonder if these rich assholes will get to do what they want, no matter how the rest of us try to take them down for their numerous sins.

I watch as the silver sports car parks, and know we don't have much time. "Blake, tell me that telephoto lens will go back on the camera."

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like the mount is permanently fucked." Pacing around to my side of the car, he holds up a much smaller, less useful lens. "The good news is, I found the kit lens in the camera bag. So you can at least use the camera."

"How far will the kit lens be able to get us?"

He shrugs, looking annoyed. "You're the artist. You tell me."

"I'm not an—you know what, whatever. Let's just do this."

Grabbing the lens from his hand, I do my best not to touch my fingertips to his skin, and find myself blushing anyway. Touching him, not touching him—all of it is just me trying to navigate myself around the undeniable attraction I feel to him and the rest of the Elites. No matter what I do, no matter how I act, I'll feel this way as long as they're around to make me feel it. So I'll be better off the sooner I leave Coleridge, since the only thing that waits for me here is temptation, secrecy, and lies.

Twisting the lens onto the body of the camera, I flick on the screen and check to see how far into the airport it can zoom. My heart plummets as I twist the lens as far as it can go only to get no details at all, not even more than a slim slash of pixels where each of the girls stands. The only way to get this finished and done with is to cross the street and hide out somewhere close enough to see what's going on—which means putting myself at far more risk than I originally bargained for.

"What's wrong? Is it not working?" Blake hovers unusually close to me, acting invested in this for the first time since the day started. "You can always try blowing dust out of the sensor."

"It works," I tell him, "but I'll have to get closer if we want anything good enough to go on the blog."

"What—can't you just put blurry, pixellated photos on there and tell everyone it was Hass? You're just an anonymous blogger, after all. It's not like you're a journalist. Or this is the aughts. No one will give a shit if it's just speculation."

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