Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (5 page)

Isaac shook his head emphatically.
Ouch. It wasn’t like they were on a schedule or anything, but
nevertheless, he was eager to be out of these woods before they had
another encounter like last night’s. “No, no, I’m fine.
Seriously.”

Alessa huffed. “That’s what you said
when you fell off your bike and ended up hospitalized for a
week.”

Isaac thought back to that incident –
he’d only been what, five or six at the time? It was so long ago he
barely even remembered – a whole lifetime ago it seemed, before
Paragon, before even the war. He hadn’t remembered even thinking of
it in recent years, let alone sharing it with Alessa.

“
What made you think of
that? And how’d you know about it anyway?” he wondered
aloud.

“
I don’t know, it just
popped into my head. You must’ve told me about it sometime. Didn’t
you?”

“
I don’t think
so…”

Alessa squished her lips
to one side in the adorable way she had when concentrating on
something, then shrugged. “I guess Joe must have told me, then. He
would have been seven or eight when it happened – it would probably
be pretty scary to have your younger brother in the hospital. I
know
I
would
remember if it was Janie.”

That made sense to Isaac.
“Well, anyway, I was a little kid then. I’ll admit I’m not 100
percent, but if I needed to stay put, I would tell you, Less. I
don’t feel a need to play the tough guy to impress you. I
have
other
ways
of doing that,” he winked.

Alessa laughed incredulously and shook
her head in dismay. “Well, you certainly seem like yourself. Just
let me know when you need a rest, okay?”

“
Will do,” Isaac
agreed.

Their progress the rest of the day was
slower than usual, but they managed to negotiate a steady pace that
assured Alessa she wasn’t pushing Isaac too hard while still
whittling away the miles. Finally in the early afternoon the
fatigue of Isaac’s head injury started to catch up with him, and he
requested that they stop for a short break.

Plopping down in a small clearing with
a crumbling log against his back, Isaac took a long swig of his
canteen and exhaled contentedly. He noticed Alessa eyeing him
uneasily and gave her hand a squeeze. “Please, I’m okay. Just need
a few minutes. I’ll even nap if it will make you feel
better.”

Alessa considered. “It would,
actually.” Unwrapping one of their few remaining energy bars, she
added, “And eat this.”

Begrudgingly, Isaac took a few bites
and handed it back to her with a pout. “You finish the rest – it
tastes like cardboard.”

Alessa gnawed off an end reluctantly
and put it away. “I never understood why Janie liked these so much
– something about the texture is just so… unnatural.”

Washing down the chalky remains in his
mouth with another swig of water, Isaac snickered, “Agreed. If food
weren’t so scarce, I’d use these babies as kindling.”

Isaac waited for a response, but
Alessa stared off into the distance, her mind obviously elsewhere.
He squeezed her hand once more. “Hey – you there?”

She looked startled. “What? Oh, sorry.
Yeah, kindling, hah.”

Isaac gave her a look. “Less. What’s
the matter?”

Alessa sighed and fretted with her
cuticles before meeting his eyes. “I’m just so worried about
Janie.”

“
Don’t be – she’s strong,
she knew what she was doing, she can fight off the effects of the
stitch…”

Alessa sighed again and went back to
picking at her fingers.

“
And yeah, the prison
sucks, but they’ve probably got her on another show by now, anyway.
Maybe she’s playing a famous socialite or a maid in a rich person’s
mansion or something – she’ll be perfectly comfortable until we get
back.”

Alessa snorted, “Not if
they’re making her clean stuff, she won’t.” Smiling, Alessa
reminisced about the days before Paragon, “Do you know she
actually
tried to go in
and get a second set of shots instead of reporting to recycling
sorting duty during our civil service?”

Isaac laughed and thought
back to his own time in the mandatory government service program,
doing the menial jobs everyone took turns with in their teenage
years to support the country while so many of the adults were busy
with the war effort. “I mean, I only did it for two years before
the outbreak and I know there were some terrible positions – the
sewer plant in particular was
quite
the olfactory experience – but recycling wasn’t
bad. Most of the stuff that came through was already clean. And
those shots were brutal – they gave us like six different vaccines
at once, I think. I can’t believe she’d rather do that again than
rinse out some old bottles.”

Giggling to herself,
Alessa replied, “Luckily the med center was keeping good records
and sent her right back to work. She’d
just
turned 14 and started her
service, so she’d had her initial set of inoculations only weeks
before. Who knows what another round of that stuff might have done
to her? It’s amazing the dumb things we do as kids,
huh?”

Isaac had to agree. “Well,
then maybe she’ll get lucky and get cast as the heiress, and some
other poor schmuck will get the job of cleaning up after
her
.”

Alessa burst out laughing. “I just got
an image of Lizzie on her hands and knees mopping up Janie’s mess!
Oh, that’s a good one.”

Isaac chuckled in agreement. It was
certainly a possibility, given that Lizzie had also been cast on
the drama as one of Alessa’s sorority sisters, and as far as they
knew, was still in the hands of the producers. Regina’s daughter
had certainly proven her mettle before that by breaking free from
the Ruling Class’s sickening harem, but all the same, she was still
a bit of a priss.

It’d been a running joke
between Isaac and Joe about where Lizzie found her tailor, as the
colony’s standard issue jumpsuits had always seemed to somehow
miraculously cling to her body in all the right places, in a way
that – to a younger Isaac’s chagrin – it certainly did
not
on the compound’s
other women. She was quite the sight at the rebel meetings, her
eyes lined with dark kohl and never a hair out of place. And much
to Joe’s satisfaction, her lips always seemed extra pouty whenever
her attention was turned in his direction.

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.