Yes, Lizzie was certainly blessed in the physical department. And while her frivolous beauty routine did not do justice to the tenacious woman underneath, it was evident that cleaning up after Janie would certainly drive the perfectionist in Lizzie nuts, even if she was stitched.
Thinking about the dramas brought his mind back to Jo, the girl who had played his younger sister on his side of the drama. “Maybe Josephine will get cast alongside Janie this time. That would be nice, right? I’m sure Janie would watch out for her.”
Alessa smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure she would.”
Poor Jo. She could use someone looking out for her, for once. Isaac remembered that she was only nine on the show, which meant she must have been a baby when Paragon was founded. “I just don’t get it – how does such a young kid end up in this messed up situation? At least the rest of us were rebels, or old enough to realize that we’d been privy to information we weren’t supposed to have. She’s way too young for anyone to call her a rebel, so that means she must have wandered into some restricted area or something. But even if she did, she’s still too little to have understood the implications. They should have just sent her home with a warning.”
Alessa nodded. “I’ll never understand what goes through these people’s minds – they’re just… ugh.” She looked ready to spit with disgust.
Another thought occurred to Isaac. “Oh, and I hadn’t thought of this before, but isn’t it weird that the people who played my parents so readily accepted Jo and me as their kids? Wouldn’t you remember your own kids?”
“Well, the stitch did make us forget each other, mostly. And I didn’t remember that Janie was my sister.”
“I guess so. I just really want to understand how it works. And why they’re going to such lengths to trick the prisoners into leading false lives and filming them as entertainment for the rest of Paragon. Wouldn’t it be a hell of a lot easier to just get rid of us?”
Alessa sighed. “Well, I guess they needed someone to try the stitch out on, and the dramas do seem to do a good job of keeping people distracted…” She shrugged. “Plus, with so few people left, maybe they just didn’t want to take chances losing anyone else. Though they did make Joe – and Nikhil – disappear easily enough.”
The mention of Nikhil brought on a pang of jealousy which Isaac did his best to swallow – after all, he trusted Alessa’s account that nothing had happened between her and Nikhil. But that didn’t mean that it didn’t still sting. “You said no one heard from Nikhil after the night of the party, right?”
“Right. Hopefully the rebels will know more – about Nikhil, Josephine, all of this – by the time we get back there.” She gave him a stern look. “Speaking of, why don’t you take that nap now so we can get moving in a bit?”
Isaac smiled. Alessa was always so focused – she couldn’t relax until she’d achieved whatever it was she set out to do, even if it was something as simple as making him rest. He knew there was no sense in fighting her.
“All right, all right. Your wish is my command, m’lady.” And with a wink, he laid his head down, inhaling the earthy scent of wood and moss, and drifted off contentedly.
5. CONFEDERATES
The scraping was driving Nikhil insane. Or maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe he was already insane.
He shook his head vigorously, willing the sound – imaginary or not – from his ears. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch. For what had to have been the thousandth time in weeks, he searched the room for its source, but once again came up empty – it was everywhere and nowhere at once, on and off and then on again for hours at a time. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
Nikhil stood and paced back and forth in his cell, hunched slightly so his head wouldn’t brush the cold, hard ceiling. Perhaps his footsteps would drown out the noise, bring him some relief from this torment. But it persisted – scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch – the tiniest little scraping, reverberating off the walls until it formed the blaring soundtrack to his every thought.
He tried to distract himself with thoughts of better times, transport himself somewhere – anywhere – outside this dark, cramped prison cell. The rush of victory at a water polo match. The scent of blown birthday candles and a warm embrace from a smiling mother. A stolen kiss behind the bleachers. The relief of finding help after a long and harrowing journey. The gratitude of a patient’s family. Rescuing a fallen brother from enemy fire. A noble lady’s favor tucked into his pocket…
The problem was that he couldn’t remember which memories were real and which were fake. There were so many different lives jumbled in his head, it was hard to tell now which was the real Nikhil. Though in the end, did it even really matter? Anywhere was better than here.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch. The train of pleasant images halted, Nikhil sighed deeply and stretched his broad shoulders and long arms as best he could in the miniscule space. He resumed his usual place on the floor beside the rigid metal cot.
It was cool on the cement, but at least he could stretch his legs in front of him without his feet dangling. He leaned his head back against the wall, cursing the day he’d begged the gods for a reprieve from the silence of his lonely cell. Even silence was better than this maddening scratching, grating away at his already frayed nerves. Resigned, he waited for the scraping to stop, as he knew it eventually would.
It might have been minutes or it might have been hours, but finally the moment came. Peace at last. Nikhil groaned a long sigh of relief.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
Growling in frustration, Nikhil rolled onto his side and beat the wall in front of him helplessly with his fist.
And then the noise stopped.
Nikhil held his breath, afraid to believe that the cacophony had finally ended. He heard one long, smooth scrape like metal against stone, coming distinctly from the base of the wall he was facing. And then nothing.
Shaking his overlong black hair from his eyes, he peered through the near-darkness. That last sound had been different. He could pinpoint the source, and he was almost certain he hadn’t imagined it. Something had changed.
Nikhil ran his hand along the crease between the wall and floor where he thought he’d heard the final scrape. Nothing but cold, smooth cement – until his fingers closed around something soft.
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.
Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) Page 4
