Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (6 page)

Paper. A rolled piece of napkin maybe?
And next to it, a thin metal stick of some sort. Where had they
come from?

Nikhil snatched up the foreign objects
and slid over to the door, holding them in the faint sliver of
light that leaked in through the crack at the base.

He recognized the paper immediately –
a square torn from the thin napkins served with the dismal meals
that came through the flap in the door once or twice a day.
Unrolling it, he realized it was a note. The words were hard to
make out, but he ran his eyes over them frantically until the
message resolved.

“
Hey, neighbor. Anybody in
there?”

Nikhil’s heart pounded in his chest
and water threatened at his eyes. This was the first contact he’d
had in months, besides the guards. He thought back to what he
believed was the last time – his hands on the hips of a beautiful
dark-haired girl, her raised arms swinging in time with the music,
the most striking green eyes he’d ever seen sparkling up at him
from a veil of thick lashes. And then she was gone, the warmth of
her body replaced by pain, the blows of thugs beating him into
submission. And then the endless darkness and quiet. He couldn’t
even remember her name.

There was space left on the scrap for
a response, but he wasn’t sure how to reply – then he remembered
the metal stick that’d come with it. He held it in the patch of dim
light and recognized one of the narrow support rods that wove
through the prison’s uncomfortable cots. The end had been whittled
to a point and was covered in some kind of dirty black
grease.

Flattening the note against the floor,
Nikhil scrawled a reply. It’d been so long since he’d written that
his hand cramped with the effort.

“
I’m Nikhil.” What do you
say to the stranger in the jail cell next to you? “You?”

Rolling the paper up, he scooted back
along the floor to the spot on the wall where he’d found it, his
fingers scrabbling along the crease looking for the hole the paper
and “pen” must have come through. Eventually he found a tiny rough
gap at the base of the wall and slid the note in. The napkin caught
at the edges and he used the makeshift pen to shove it the rest of
the way through.

Within seconds, the pen disappeared
through the wall as well.

Nikhil sat back, waiting for a reply.
At least the scraping hadn’t been in his head. After so many weeks,
he’d begun to worry about that. He hadn’t been feeling quite right
the past few months, and when the scratching started, he was afraid
it might have been the beginning of the end. But no wonder it’d
taken this long for his new companion to dig out that hole. These
cement walls were thick – thick enough to block out most sound from
the prison around them. It’d never even occurred to Nikhil to try
to break through them.

A long scratch broke the silence again
and a little dart of white peeked out from the wall. Nikhil
gathered up the paper and pen following behind it and scuttled back
over to the light of the door to read.

“
I know you – from the
party with Alessa. One of her sisters.”

Alessa – was that her name? Nikhil
tried to remember the party, but all he could grasp was that one
flash of the green-eyed girl, this Alessa. He couldn’t recall a
single other face from that night.

“
Who are you?” he replied.
He noticed how faint and illegible his scribbling looked next to
her neat block print. Hopefully she could read it.

The response came quickly. “Call me
14.” Her cell number, he realized. His was 15. He wondered if he’d
made a mistake by sharing his real name. Oh well, it was too late
now.

The note continued. “Dip the pen in
the door grease pls. – will make it easier to read.”

Ah, so that’s why her lettering looked
so much crisper. Sure enough, there was a glob of dark grease
smeared along the hinges of the door to his cell. He rolled the tip
of the metal stick through it and scrawled his reply, which he
noted with satisfaction was much clearer than before.

“
How long you been here?”
he asked.

He passed the note through the wall
once more, impressed with this girl’s resourcefulness. He peeked
through the tiny hole after the pen disappeared once again, but he
couldn’t see anything through the dark. The note came back and
their conversation quickly fell into a comfortable
cadence.

“
Few weeks.
You?”

“
Few months, I think. Not
sure.” He hesitated, not certain if he trusted this person enough
to share his next thought. But she was the only one he had right
now, so he forged ahead. “Thought I was losing it in here with all
that scratching.”

“
Sorry.” Her reply came on
a fresh scrap of napkin, the other having been filled in every
direction with their scrawls. “Worth it, though? :-)”

He chuckled at the absurdity of the
innocent little face staring up at him from the page. Who could
smile in a place like this? He couldn’t even remember the last time
he’d laughed.

“
Definitely. :-)” he
replied.

Nikhil leaned back against the wall,
content. He’d forgotten how good it felt to banter, to feel
connected to another human being. He felt suddenly grounded again
after so many months adrift in his own cluttered thoughts, drowning
in his own choking misery. He may not know which Nikhil’s life was
the real one, but at least he was still alive, still able to laugh.
That was something.

As he waited for her reply, an
unexpected noise suddenly filled his chamber – a vicious, rasping
howl that shot straight to his bones.

Some primal note in that chilling
shriek put him on edge, his skin prickling as the hairs on his arms
stood straight like sentinels of danger.

Suddenly he felt his heart begin to
hammer, all of his senses on high alert.

It’d come from the hall. In months, no
noise but 14’s gentle scratching and the occasional footsteps of
the guards had penetrated the walls of his cell. But that snarl had
rang through the room like the walls were paper. He couldn’t
imagine how loud that cry must have been on the other side of the
door.

The note came shooting through the
wall. “What was that?” She’d underlined the sentence three times
for emphasis.

Nikhil sat frozen, hostage to the
jittering of his heart and his own ragged breaths.

He waited. But the sound didn’t come
again.

It took all of his concentration to
still the trembling of his hand as he jotted his reply. “Let’s hope
we never find out.”

6. PHOENIX

Even the simple act of opening her
eyes was a struggle.

The slightest of movements sent
throbbing bolts shooting through her body. Everything felt blurred,
even with the bright fluorescent lights piercing her eyes. All she
could see – and feel – was white. White bandages crowding her
vision, smooth white sheets on her bed, shiny white walls encasing
the small hospital room, white blinds on the large window… and the
burning white ache searing through her limbs with every twitch,
every tremor, every breath.

A door slid open with a gentle whoosh
and a man she didn’t recognize stalked into the room. He appeared
to be in his early thirties but carried himself like an awkward
teenager, his posture lanky and slouched, making him appear smaller
than his average height. His greasy hair was brushed messily behind
his overlarge ears and her immediate reaction was a desire to swat
at him like a fly. But his dark eyes were quick and calculating,
and a gauche smile spread across his thin lips when he saw that she
was observing him.

“
Ah, she’s awake,” he
wheezed, pulling a sterile white chair up next to her bed. He
settled himself into it, his scrawny shoulders hunched forth as his
gaze narrowed, waiting for her to respond.

She peeled apart her dry
lips to take in the air and tasted rot on her stale tongue. How
long had she been in this bed? And why did everything
hurt
?

“
Where am I?” she croaked,
her words barely audible over the hum of the machines at her
bedside.

“
Well I think that’s quite
obvious,” he quipped nasally, sagging back into the chair. “You’re
in the medical center, being treated for your injuries. Head trauma
is messy business, you know. It’s been three days. We were starting
to worry you might not wake up.”

Three days? That’s all? She thought
back to the last thing she remembered before this bed, but her mind
couldn’t seem to move beyond the agony of the present. How had she
ended up here?

“
How?” she whispered. It
was all the strength she could muster.

He seemed to grasp her meaning. “You
don’t remember?”

She tried to force her eyes to
maintain contact, but she couldn’t focus. Everything was woozy, her
vision blurring in and out as she breathed.

Eventually he cleared his throat and
sat up again, placing a gawky hand on the bed near her bruised and
swollen arm. She stared at his long, bony fingers, not having the
vigor to lift her eyes again.

“
I’m sorry to say that the
people of Paragon turned on you. Of course, we were hoping they
would – not maliciously, of course, but we know you’re important to
the insurgents. We thought that your predicament might draw them
out, give us a chance to retaliate for the two you helped escape.
But unfortunately for you, no one appears to have come to your
rescue.” He released a long breath from his concave chest. “They
let the mob have you. It was… shocking, actually –” He shook his
head. “– the brutality. And from the people you were trying to
help, no less.”

She tried to remember. There were bits
and pieces hovering just out of reach, vague sounds and sensations
that she couldn’t quite piece together. The sting of a rock burying
itself in her side. The hollow ring of a gunshot and the shock of
hot blood splattering on her face. The rattle of dry leaves
skimming along a cobblestone path on a cool fall day.

But she couldn’t place these memories,
couldn’t make sense of when or where or why any of this had
happened.

And then through the fog in her brain,
a new thought burst forth, one that set her heart
racing.

She realized with a start that she
couldn’t remember her own name.

She fought through the
haze in her mind, reaching into the recesses of her consciousness.
She knew it must be here somewhere. She had a name. She
must
have
one.

Biting back the pain that shook her
body, she gripped the skinny hand on her bedside and stared
intently into the dark, beady eyes that regarded her with
surprise.

“
Who am I?” she
breathed.

He turned her hand over, his clammy
palm gently cupping her own in a weak show of pity. “Who you were
before doesn’t matter. As far as they know, you’re dead. And that
means we have an opportunity.”

She tried to follow his logic, but her
head throbbed with the effort. What opportunity? She just wanted to
know her name.

“
We’ve all taken new names
here.” He sat up a little taller, a newfound confidence cascading
through him. Something lit up inside him. “Shedding the old world
to embrace the new,” he explained with reverence, a faraway look in
his eyes. He settled his gaze back on her broken face. “You
understand.”

She didn’t understand. Why wouldn’t he
just tell her what she wanted to know?

With a wry smile, he finally relented.
“Phoenix. We’ll call you Phoenix.”

Phoenix? She knew he couldn’t see her
expression through the gauze that swathed her face, but the
question must have been evident in her eyes.

“
Rising from the ashes.
Renewed, restored – filled with hope for the future. I think that
will suit you, given your recent… ordeals.” He sat back, a smug
grin spreading across his face.

Phoenix. It wasn’t her original name,
she thought, but it was better than nothing. She would take it, for
now.

“
They call me the
Developer,” he continued. “My colleagues, the Engineers, and I have
been working to maintain order here in Paragon. But this misguided
rebellion has been making that job… difficult for us.”

A rebellion? Something about that felt
familiar to Phoenix, but she was tired now. Too tired to think any
longer. She felt her consciousness slipping away, the pain
assaulting her body numbing any attempts by her mind to process
what he was saying.

The Developer eyed her for a moment,
then released her aching hand and reached above her head. An
electronic beep pricked her ears and relief washed over her body,
dragging her ever further toward sleep.

“
Rest now. There will be
plenty of time to talk when you’re feeling stronger. You’re safe
here, Phoenix. I’ll make sure of it.”

The sliding door closed behind him
with a hiss and she settled deep into the fluffy pillow at her
back. Something about his words rang false in her head, but the
utter deliciousness of the heavy sleep creeping over her
overwhelmed any misgivings she might have had.