Page 87 of Poster Girl

He looks at her the same way Naomi Proctor did when she let Sonya into her laboratory. With pity.

“Just,” she says, “tell me.”

“The truth is, I didn’t keep count,” Graham says.

It’s worse than hearing a number, she thinks. There were six children buried in the woods behind Naomi Proctor’s home; not enough to lose track of. This means there are other graves out there. Marked with stones, perhaps; not marked at all, maybe, the underbrush growing over them, well fertilized.

“Where did you get it from?” she asks.

“I didn’t have it myself—Sol is highly regulated,” he says. “But I facilitated the connection between him and someone who worked at the drug company, Beake and Bell. I didn’t know his real name when I arranged contact, and I was never present for any of their meetings.” He rubs a hand over his forehead, roughly.

“Great,” she says, coldly. “Useful as ever, Mr. Carter.”

Sonya turns to go. She can’t stand to be here anymore, in this apartment that stinks of stale coffee and moonshine and the smoke from the party next door seeping through the walls. But Graham’s voice stops her.

“I did overhear one of his conversations,” he says. “He called the man by his name, and the man scolded him for it. It was an odd one—it sounded like a cardinal point. West... no, that isn’t right—”

Sonya’s hand is on the doorknob. She turns back, eyes wide.

“Easton?” she says. “As in, Easton Turner?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” Graham says. “Easton.”

Eighteen

She paces back and forth down Green Street, ignoring the shouted commentary of the men nearby.

Easton Turner is one of the three most powerful people in the city. Someone who has reached the limits of what they can gain, and has everything to lose. His political career would be destroyed if anyone discovered he had given Sol to her father—and by extension, to the Delegation—to help him kill children. So while Easton might not have been able to stop the investigation into Grace Ward’s disappearance without arousing suspicion, he likely didn’t count on Sonya Kantor, spoiled brat of the Delegation elite, making any headway. It was, as she had thought from the beginning, a deliberately impossible task.

But he hadn’t counted on her desperation. And shehadmade headway, thanks to Emily Knox, so he first tried to get in her way through Alexander, sending his assistant to imply that it would be better if Grace Ward wasn’t found. Then, as she inched closer to the truth, he ended the mission completely, thinking that if she was trapped in the Aperture, she couldn’t do any damage.

Maybe he’s right about that, she thinks. What can she possibly do to him now? Everything she knows comes from criminals and liars, and she’s never getting out of here. And she hasn’t answered one of the most important questions: what does Easton Turner have to do with the Analog Army? They’re the ones who came after her with a gun. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence.

She stands by the gate for a while. The interlocking plates are squeezedtightly shut now. They will open again tomorrow, to admit the monthly supply delivery. A truck will steer into the middle of the Aperture, and peace officers will unload food, fresh and canned; cleaning supplies, toiletries, and clothes, donated by people in the city; and other household goods, lightbulbs and sponges and writing utensils. It’s a desperate scramble every month. She usually sits down with Nikhil the night before to outline their priorities. They work better as a duo.

She goes back to Building 4. She’s wearing clothing she borrowed from Naomi Proctor. There are pine needles sticking out of her coat, and there’s dirt splattered on her shoes. She smells like the woman’s soap—sharp, lemon and lavender.

She sidesteps a sheet hanging from the clothesline—it must be Wednesday, the only day Mrs. Pritchard allows “unsightly obstructions.” She climbs the steps to her apartment, and pauses just outside, her hand hovering over the knob.

The rules of euchre are hazy in her mind. She played only a few times as a child. There’s only one choice in the game: which suit will be the trump suit. It’s made with limited information, as you can’t know what hand your partner is holding. And after it’s made, the rest of the hand plays out the only way it can. Mostly, she remembers the moment of tension as the trump suit is decided, and the moment of relief after all the choices are gone and only the hand remains.

She feels like she still has one choice left to make before she can surrender to circumstance.

She flips on the lights in her apartment and goes straight to the crate next to the bed. She takes out an old notepad with only a few sheets of paper on it, and a pencil, and sits at her kitchen table where little Babs carved her name.

Sasha,

I need you to send a message to Easton Turner’s office on my behalf. Tell him I want to play a game of euchre at his earliest convenience.

—Sonya

After a moment of thought, she adds:

P.S. Thank you.

She folds it and leaves the apartment with the lights still on. In the courtyard she waves to Charlotte, taking her sheet off the line, who calls out, “Where have you been?”

“Be right back!” she calls back. She walks through the tunnel to Gray Street and around the corner to Green Street, past the tunnel to Building 1 and up to the guard station, where Williams sits with his hands folded over his stomach, dozing.

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