Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (29 page)

He crossed the room and lay down on
the cot beside Alessa, spooning her. “She keeps going on about her
‘great adventure’ tomorrow, like it’s a vacation or something.
She’s not even scared. It’s amazing.”

Isaac draped his arm around Alessa’s
waist and she squeezed his hand with her own. She was glad she
couldn’t see his face – she didn’t want to imagine the
disappointment in his features once he realized her
betrayal.

“
So, how are you doing?”
Isaac asked. He leaned over her and she shifted onto her back so
they could talk more easily. Isaac slid an arm under Alessa’s neck,
cradling her head, and laid his other hand gently across her
stomach.

She liked feeling wrapped up in him
like this – she hoped tonight wouldn’t be the last time he wished
to be this close to her.

“
Are you ready for
tomorrow?” he prompted.

Alessa shrugged. “I think
so – it’s just a raid, right? We’ve been trained for this. I’m
nervous about finding Janie –
if
I’ll find her at all,
what
I’ll find if I do – but I guess
there’s nothing I can do about that now. I’ll just have to go and
see what I come up with. Are you ready for the
hospital?”

They didn’t really know the med center
as well as the prisons, and as far as Alessa knew, didn’t have any
allies on the inside there. As a result, Alessa was a little
worried about Isaac’s assignment to search for rebels in the
medical ward.

Isaac looked away quickly before
responding. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll be careful, don’t
worry.”

Some intuition prickled at Alessa, but
she dismissed it. She was probably just worried. At least they both
had teams going in with them – that would allow them to cover more
ground and get out of there more quickly.

“
And what about your
empath stuff?” Isaac asked. “Do you feel like you understand it
better now?”

Alessa nodded. “What
Michael said made sense. I can feel those primal pre-death emotions
that everyone experiences, whether they’re left behind on a place
or being carried within a person – or, a
thing
.” She shook off a memory of
the bone-chilling howl produced by those creatures.

“
All the puzzle pieces
finally fit,” Isaac agreed. He grinned. “Though I’d like to point
out that
my
theory was about 80% of the way there…” He sighed
exaggeratedly. “If I’d ever heard of this ‘empath’ stuff before, I
totally would have gotten it.”

Alessa smiled and tapped the tip of
his nose with her fingertip. “I’d expect nothing less, Isaac
Mason.”

He smiled down at her and planted a
soft kiss on her lips, a few locks of his thick brown hair brushing
against her forehead.

When he pulled back from the kiss,
something flashed in Isaac’s eyes. Alessa couldn’t ignore it this
time – he was hiding something.

“
What is it?” Alessa
questioned.

“
What?” Isaac feigned. He
looked away, his eyeballs suddenly glued to their entwined
fingers.

“
You’re not telling me
something.”

Isaac pressed his lips together and
refused to meet her gaze.

He
definitely
wasn’t telling her
something.

Finally, he let out a ragged sigh.
“I’m not supposed to say anything,” he mumbled.

Alessa waited. Then gently, “Say
anything about what?”

Isaac swallowed and ceased toying with
her fingertips. Finally, he relinquished her hand and lifted his
eyes to hers. “I’m not just going after prisoners in the med center
tomorrow. Regina needs me to retrieve something.” He looked away
for a second, then back. “The fuel cell for the train we’re taking
out of Paragon.”

“
What
?” Alessa blurted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
No one knows – no one
except Regina, and Sato and Carlos, who are retrofitting the train.
She’s afraid word will get to the wrong person, that Paragon will
find out about our plans again. She didn’t want to chance it.” He
grimaced apologetically.

“
Regina doesn’t
trust
me to keep this
secret?” Alessa bleated, outraged.

“
No, no, Less – it’s not
like that. She just didn’t want to risk anything…”

Alessa shook her head, fuming. How
could Regina ask Isaac to keep something like this from her? Didn’t
she realize how insulting that was to both of them? How
unreasonable it was to wedge herself into their relationship like
this?

Regina truly held nothing
sacred.

Alessa could spit – she should have
seen this coming the minute Regina asked to speak to Isaac
alone.

Isaac reached for her hand, grasped it
tightly. “I’m sorry, Less. I never should have kept this from you.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them
gently.

Alessa exhaled a weary groan. It
wasn’t Isaac’s fault – he was just following orders. It was
Regina’s fault, for giving the order in the first place.

She sighed. “It’s okay, Isaac. Thank
you for telling me.” Alessa was resigned – there wasn’t much she
could do. Isaac would fulfill this one last mission, and then she’d
find a way to get him out. “Please –” she pleaded, “– just be
careful, all right? We’re almost done with Paragon.”

His lips, still pressed to her
fingers, curled into a smile. “Almost done,” he agreed.

They sat there like that for a moment,
regarding each other. Isaac’s sapphire eyes seemed to glow as he
took in Alessa’s face.

“
My strong, smart,
beautiful green-eyed girl. No matter what happens tomorrow, or the
day after, or whenever,” he whispered, “this is how I want to
remember us. This is perfect, right here.”

Alessa blinked back tears
and smiled up at him. If she could push Regina aside, this
moment
would
be
just right. “You almost wouldn’t know the world had fallen down
around us.”

“
No, you wouldn’t.” A
flash of darkness crossed Isaac’s eyes. “I still can’t quite
believe it… one viral outbreak and –” he snapped his fingers, “–
poof. Everything we knew is gone.”

“
I wonder if we’ll ever
know how it started, truly,” Alessa mused.

“
At this point,” Isaac
nuzzled his face into her neck with a sigh, “I’m more interested in
how it ends. Everything’s going to change tomorrow,
huh?”

Alessa was worried about that, too.
Yes, everything was about to change tomorrow – but not the way
Isaac thought.

“
That reminds me.” He
eased his arm out from under Alessa and sat up, digging through his
pocket for something.

Alessa sat up, wondering what he could
be searching for.

Finally, Isaac smiled brightly and
withdrew his hand. In between his thumb and forefinger, he held up
a ring.

“
I got this for you, back
at the mall.” He looked sheepish. “But then I forgot about it when
I got sick. I just found it in the bottom of my bag this
morning.”

Alessa pulled his hand to her and
examined the ring. “Isaac… it’s gorgeous.” It was a shiny sterling
silver band, set with two round stones on either side – one a deep,
sparkling cobalt, the other a fiery emerald.

“
Blue and green,” Isaac
explained. “For our eyes.”

“
It’s perfect.” Alessa
slipped the ring on and kissed Isaac deeply.

He took Alessa’s hand and ran his
thumb over the ring. He seemed to be chewing something over in his
mind. Finally, he looked up at Alessa, her fingers still knotted in
his.

“
Listen, I want you to
know that this ring means something. I – I know you know I love
you. But it’s more than that, too.” With his free hand, he swept
the hair from Alessa’s eyes and tucked it behind her ear, gently
cupping the side of her face.

“
I know sometimes it feels
like the world has ended – and, I guess, in a lot of ways for us,
it has. But I want this ring to always remind you that it’s not
over. I
thought
my world was over once, Alessa, until I found you.
You
drew me back from
that ledge, you gave me a reason to go on – and then at some point
I finally realized that we were actually just at the
beginning.”

He leaned in and brushed his lips over
hers, just barely touching, and looked up into her eyes. All Alessa
could see was blue – sapphire and cerulean, ocean and sky – and she
never wanted to turn away.

“
I’ll never stop making a
new world for you, Less, no matter how bad it gets,” Isaac
whispered. “It will never be over for us. Remember that,
okay?”

Alessa nodded, the words caught in her
throat, and Isaac pulled her gently forward, their lips meeting in
a flurry of fireworks and dizziness and passion.

This was her Isaac, the person she
loved more than anything, needed more than anyone – and tomorrow
she would betray him. She buried the thought and channeled her
anxiety into her kiss instead, lost herself in Isaac’s body one
last time before everything would be different.

After they had taken comfort in one
another, Isaac lay dozing peacefully, but Alessa tossed and turned
under the blankets.

She didn’t want to hurt Isaac. But she
didn’t know how else to keep him safe. Hopefully he would remember
what he’d said – that it would never be over for them, no matter
how bad it seemed. They’d start fresh, carve out a new existence,
somewhere far away from Paragon and the rebellion. He would forgive
her, eventually…

She fingered the ring he’d given her,
the two stones – green and blue – separated by a stiff bar of
smooth, cold metal. She wondered if that was symbolic somehow – if
there would always be something pushing them apart. The rebellion,
his imminent anger over taking him from his family… Joe. It seemed
like lately there’d been a lot coming between them. Maybe from now
on there always would be.

Alessa sighed and closed her eyes. The
ring – and everything it might represent – would be there tomorrow.
Tonight, she needed her rest.

31. REVEAL

Thump
. Isaac cursed silently under his breath. He kept forgetting
how narrow these ventilation shafts were.

Shimmying through the ceiling of the
medical center, he’d caught glimpses of a few quiet rooms, all
empty and dark. From what Isaac could tell, the hospital seemed
pretty dead at this hour – as heavy and still as the blackness that
still reigned outside, awaiting dawn to creep its way into the sky.
Any noise he made was sure to be heard, if there was anyone there
to hear it. He would need to be more careful to keep
quiet.

1, 2, 3, 4… He lay low on his belly,
counting the beats from the rhythmic throbbing in his chest, his
ears straining for any signs of life outside the crowded chute. All
that stirred was the whish of a fan at the far end of the
shaft.

Relieved, Isaac slithered deeper into
the building, looking for an opening into a closet or bathroom
somewhere near the central stairway that would lead to the power
room in the basement. He just needed to get down there, grab the
battery, and get out. He hoped that task would be as simple as it
sounded, but he knew from experience that nothing in Paragon ever
was.

The tiny comm device in his ear
crackled, and he surreptitiously ran a finger over it to make sure
it was secure. He’d left his team outdoors, waiting beside the vent
he’d entered through – they were ready to extract him if anything
went awry.

Scooting round a corner, a
sudden thud on Isaac’s right stopped him in his tracks. He didn’t
think
he’d
made
the noise – where was it coming from?

Thud, thud, thud.
The sound seemed to be issuing from below him,
somewhere up ahead. A tinny voice floated through the shaft, the
panic in the notes making Isaac’s hairs stand on end. “Let
me
out
of here!”
it cried.
Thud, thud, thud.

There was a grate ahead on the right,
maybe ten feet further down the chute. Painstakingly, Isaac slid
his way forward, careful not to make a single sound.

As he reached the vent, Isaac peered
through the narrow slits to take in the brightly lit room below. It
was a small, typical-looking hospital room, with a bed, a chair, a
wide window, and various medical machines.

A disheveled patient was standing at
the door, banging on the glass with the flat of a skinny wrist, a
few strands of wavy blonde hair sticking out of the swaths of gauze
that circled her head and face. Long, goose-prickled calves
sprouted from the bottom of her hospital gown, her thin, bare feet
splatting against the linoleum with every step. The girl looked
thin, and frail, but determined.

Thud, thud, thud.
“I can
see
you out there! I want to speak to the Developer,”
she demanded. “Tell him
I remember.
Ev-er-y-thing
.” She spelled out the
syllables of the last word with venom and stared fiercely through
the window at whoever was on the other side.