Starters

Callie tears up Helena’s tickets for the awards ceremony and makes plans to meet with Rhiannon/Madison. She goes to pick up a flash meal but passes out. When she wakes up, she has an assault rifle in her hands and is in a hotel room with the rifle pointed at a podium through an open window. She hears the voice in her head again and realizes it’s Helena. Helena fights with her to stay put and go through with it. Callie unloads the gun and leaves. Helena advises Callie to take it easy since she just had surgery to disable the no-kill switch in her chip. Helena tells Callie that the senator will kill many children with the proposal he’s planning to the president: to show Enders what it’s like to have children’s bodies accessible to them. Callie starts to go back to Prime Destinations because she doesn’t want to be complicit in a murder plot, but Helena warns her they’ll both die if she goes back.

Callie tries to connect with Helena, but the connection is gone. She decides to go to Madison’s house like she originally planned. While they’re hanging out with holograms, Blake calls to invite Callie to the awards ceremony. Callie refuses because she’s afraid of what Helena might do there. As she thinks about it more, she realizes that she may have lost her connection with Helena because Helena could’ve left the body bank.

Callie calls Blake back and accepts his invitation to go. Blake picks her up and takes her to a penthouse before they go to the Music Center. It’s a luxurious spot for his family before big events, but it’s surrounded by the decay of the rest of the area. He lets her use his sister’s wardrobe to get ready. She chooses an elegant blue gown, pretty pumps, and jewelry with a whale charm on it since Blake remembered whales are her favorite animals. Blake thinks she looks stunning.

Callie and Blake go to the Music Center plaza and into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that night for the awards ceremony. They mingle and eat food. Blake goes to fetch his grandfather, and Helena’s voice reappears in Callie’s head, telling her what a monster the senator is. Helena offers Callie five times what Prime Destinations is offering her and a home if she kills the senator. Callie doesn’t believe her and won’t do it. Helena directs Callie to a gun stashed away just as Blake comes back with his grandfather, Senator Harrison. The Senator is judgmental of Callie because she’s wearing the family’s clothes. He also acts strangely around her. When the Senator prepares for his on-stage appearance and Blake gets ready too, Callie is left alone with Helena’s voice again who tells her she must get the gun because it has her fingerprints on it. Callie goes to the women’s restroom and gets the gun, which was taped on the underside of a trashcan in one of the stalls.

Callie takes her seat for the ceremony, and Helena urges her to shoot the Senator. She doesn’t, and once the ceremony is over, she asks why Helena wanted to shoot him there. Helena wanted to expose Prime Destinations as publicly as possible.

In the ballroom afterwards, she is approached by the Senator who inspects her “like a bug under a microscope” (172). He knows she’s from Prime Destinations and thinks she’s plotting something. The woman who had her chased out of the senator’s office the other day recognizes her. Security comes after her, and she runs. The other Enders in teenage bodies run with her. She recognizes them as Briona, Lee, and Raj. They head for a car and Callie’s shoe comes off. Raj and Lee go back to return the heirlooms Blake leant her, and then they quickly make a getaway in the car. As they pull away, Callie sees Blake in the rearview, looking sad and confused while holding her shoe.

Callie tries to ask Briona, Raj, and Lee about Emma again, but they all say they didn’t know her. Callie finds it a bit strange that none of them want to know why she’s curious. Callie retrieves her car from Madison’s house, where she left it to slip out and meet Blake and goes back to Helena’s house.

She’s very stressed about the situation with Blake and thinks back on her conversation with Senator Harrison, which she also finds odd. She doesn’t understand why the senator would worry that Tinnenbaum sent her. Helena pops back into her head, and they have a heartfelt conversation, during which Helena offers Callie a place for her brother to stay and a reception blocker to allow her to visit him. She tells Callie she reminds her of Emma.