Shudder Page 4

  “I thought about that too,” said Jason. “But you heard Boone. He’s been in here for years. It’s got nothing to do with us waking up.”

  “But this place,” I said. “Where is it? Why is it here? Was it here during the blackout after the solar flare?” Five years ago, there had been a solar flare that had knocked out power on the east coast of the U.S. We’d been cut off from the rest of the world, and my power and Jason’s had grown astronomically. While all that had been happening, we’d done terrible things.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Of course you don’t,” I said. “According to what Boone said, it was here when Kieran and Eve were ruling the world. And the people here felt the effects of their power.”

  “That must have been really easy for whoever was keeping people here,” said Jason. “Kieran and Eve made everyone happy little robots. Being locked up wouldn’t have bothered the prisoners in the slightest.” Kieran and Eve had stolen our powers and used them to complement each other, unlike the way Jason and I had used our powers against each other. The combined power had the effect of making everyone completely happy all the time, but robbing them of free will. It had been creepy, and up until I’d gone into the coma, I’d devoted my life to stopping them.

  “Do you think Kieran and Eve started this? If they knew people were invincible, maybe they would have locked them up as a threat to their empire,” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Jason, “but they used mind control to make people do their dirty work. Now that they aren’t controlling people—”

  “They aren’t doing it to the whole world,” I said. “But we can’t be sure they aren’t doing it at all. They could be the ones who locked us up here.”

  Jason shrugged. He began pacing the room. “Could be.”

  “But,” I said, “I have this feeling that we did something to Kieran and Eve. While we were asleep. I can’t remember it, but I think we did. And I don’t think they’re a threat anymore.”

  “I don’t either,” said Jason. He stared at his feet as he walked.

  I looked up at a camera. “Are we giving the people who captured us valuable information by talking about this?”

  He kept pacing. “The way I figure it, they either captured us because of who we are, in which case, they probably know all this stuff already, or they don’t know a thing, in which case, they probably don’t care what we’re saying, because we’re way off base.”

  He was right. I sighed.

  Jason stopped. “Look, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we get the hell out of here.” He turned to look up at the camera defiantly.

  Immediately, a loud ringing noise cut through the air, like a bell between classes in high school.

  I leapt off the bed. What were they going to do to us for saying that?

  But nothing happened. The sound stopped.

  Jason and I looked around warily. He threw open the door to his room and stalked down the hall to the main room. I followed him.

  The other three we’d met earlier were already there. They didn’t look too worried by the ringing.

  “What the hell was that?” Jason said.

  “Dinner bell,” said Boone, smirking.

  “Only they ring it for all three meals,” said Grace. “Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” She was already at the food door. She opened it and began handing out plastic-wrapped trays.

  Boone took his and disappeared down his wing, but Emma sat down at one of the tables. When Grace handed me my tray, I hesitated, then went to the table as well. Jason sat down next to me, and Grace joined us.

  I peeled back the plastic on the tray. Underneath was Salisbury steak with sides of steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes. There was a slab of cake for dessert. I unwrapped a plastic fork that was on the tray. “What if I’m a vegetarian?” I said to the camera.

  There was no response.

  “Are you a vegetarian?” asked Grace.

  I used the fork to cut a bite of Salisbury steak. “No.”

  Jason was already chewing. “It’s pretty good.”

  I glared at him, but speared the food and put it in my mouth. He was right. It wasn’t bad. “So, they don’t put poison in the food?”

  Grace and Emma looked uncomfortable.

  “Not poison,” said Grace in a soft voice.

  “What does that mean?” I said.

  Grace shook her head.

  “You don’t have to talk about it, Grace,” said Emma, shooting me a look. “It’s better to try to look at the bright side. This place could be much worse.”

  I thought about pressing for information, but Grace wouldn’t look me in the eye, so I gave up. As I ate more food, I looked around the room, at the six doors that each led to a wing. This place was bigger than the apartment Jason and I had lived in with Hallam in Bradenton, Florida, but it felt more confining. It was suffocating. We had to get out of there. The sooner, the better. I didn’t care if the food was passably good.

  Wait a second. Six wings. Something that Emma had said to me came back to me. “Emma, you said that everyone had their own wing, and that there were two empty ones, one for me and one for Jason.”

  Emma nodded. “That’s right.” She tucked a bite of broccoli into her mouth.

  “But there are five of us and six wings. Are we missing somebody?”

  “Oh,” said Grace, “there’s that other guy. He never talks to us. He comes out to get his meals, though. You’ll probably see him soon.”

  As if on cue, the door to the sixth wing opened, and a man walked out into the main room.

  I choked on my Salisbury steak and dropped my plastic fork.

  Jason looked up to see the man. His face turned white.

  “Jude,” I managed to croak. “But you’re dead.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jason was out of his seat in a second and streaking across the room to tackle Jude.

  The two went down on the ground, Jason on top, Jude beneath him. Jason wrapped his hands around his brother’s neck.

  “I always regretted the fact I didn’t kill you myself,” Jason said. “I’m going to fix that.”

  Jude struggled, bringing up his hands to pry at Jason’s, trying to stop the strangling.

  Jason wasn’t deterred. “You little snake.”

  Jude’s eyes bulged. Having no luck freeing himself, his hands scrabbled at Jason’s face. He raked a nail down Jason’s cheek, drawing blood.

  Jason clenched his teeth. “You fight like a girl.”

  Jude jammed a finger into Jason’s eyeball.

  Jason howled but released him. “Dirty move.”

  Jude pushed himself to his feet, massaging his neck. He aimed a kick at Jason’s head.

  Jason caught Jude’s ankle and literally yanked his brother’s feet out from under him.

  Jude slammed into the floor. He grunted. “Let up, okay?”

  “Let up?” said Jason. “Last I knew you were trying to kill me.”

  “Yeah, well, so were you,” said Jude. “Trying to kill me .”

  Jason lunged at Jude. “And I will kill you this time.”

  I got up from the table, the shock of seeing Jude alive starting to fade enough that I could move. I got myself across the room. “Wait.”

  Jason looked up at me. “Wait?”

  “We should talk to him.”

  “Talk to him?” Jason’s face was red. He stood up, wiping at the blood on his cheek where Jude had scratched him. “What is it with you and him, anyway? If you hadn’t interfered last time, I would have already killed him.”

  I swallowed. Angry Jason threw me for a little bit of a loop. Sometimes, I forgot how violent he could be. How violent we both could be. “Let’s not get all high school about this, huh?”

  He glowered at me.

  “Jude was dead,” I said. “Neither of us killed him, but someone did. There was a bullet in his head.” I looked at Jude. “You’re not dead. Care to explain?”

  Jude coughed. He held up
his hands in surrender. “I talk, and he keeps his distance?”

  “Fuck you,” said Jason, moving forward.

  I put a hand on Jason’s chest. “Stop.”

  He backed off. “Fine. Talk to him. I’m sure you’re very happy he’s alive.”

  I glared at Jason. “Why are you being like that?”

  He stalked to the other side of the room.

  I took a deep breath. “Hi, Jude.”

  “Hi, Azazel,” he said.

  “So, um, about you not being dead?”

  He shrugged. “Hell if I know. One minute the Sons are shooting me. The next minute I’m here. I’ve been here ever since.”

  “Here?” I said. “Since Italy?”

  He nodded.

  “But that was ten years ago.”

  Jude shrugged. “Well, I knew it had been a long time, but I wasn’t exactly sure how long. So, thanks for clearing that up.” He pointed at the food door. “I’m just here to get my dinner. That a problem?”

  “You’re a problem,” said Jason from the other side of the room. “I don’t feel safe with you around.”

  Jude walked around me and pulled out his tray of food. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re invincible. I put a bullet in your skull once before, and it didn’t work. What makes you think I could actually kill you now?” He went back to the door to his wing and disappeared inside.

  Jason leapt after him.

  I intercepted Jason. “We have no idea what’s going on. Calm down.”

  “Why are you always defending him?” Jason growled. He sucked in air through his nose and turned away from me. He disappeared into his wing as well.

  Emma and Grace stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “They’re brothers,” I said. “They have... issues.” I looked from one closed door to another. Then back to my half-eaten tray. Screw it. I was hungry. I sat back down.

  * * *

  “So, after Jason cut off their mother’s finger, Jude got really pissed off, and he kidnapped me at gun point and was going to trade me for their mother. But I tricked Jude into letting me go by pretending to be into him. I kissed him and got his gun. Then I got him to give me his car. So then I found Jason, but his mother was trying to kill me, so Jason had to shoot her. And when Jude showed up and saw that, he shot Jason in the head,” I said. I was still sitting at the table with Grace and Emma, who were hanging on my every word.

  “But then,” I continued, “Jason didn’t die.”

  “Because we don’t die,” said Grace, her jaw open.

  “Or for some reason,” I said. “We didn’t see Jude again until a year later, and then Jason and I tied him up and kept him prisoner. Jason wanted to kill him, but I wasn’t sure what we should do. But someone else killed Jude, so we didn’t have to worry about it.”

  “Except he didn’t die,” said Grace.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Because he’s like us,” said Grace. She got up. “I’ve got to get Boone. He has this theory that maybe we’re the way we are because of heredity. Jason and Jude are brothers, so maybe this is proof that he’s right.” She scampered away from the table.

  Emma got up as well. She swept up Grace’s tray and held out her hand for mine as well.

  I handed it to her. “Thanks.”

  She piled the trays back in the food shaft and turned to look at me. “That story you told really happened?”

  I smiled ruefully. “I’ve never had an exactly normal life. Sometime, if you’re bored, I’ll tell you all about how my parents were secret Satanists who groomed me to be the vessel of a demon.”

  She smiled back, but she looked a little confused. “I like stories. I think it’s better if we tell stories and try to feel content here.”

  “Do you have stories, Emma?” I asked. “From before you were here?”

  Emma didn’t answer. She got very interested in her hands.

  From Boone’s wing, I heard his voice. “Get lost, kid. I told you not to bother me when I’m in my room.”

  Grace slunk back into the main room. “He’s a fucktard,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Grace, who taught you to swear like that?”

  “Cable television,” she said.

  “You like Boone, don’t you?” I asked.

  “No!” She rolled her eyes and wouldn’t look at me. “He’s totally horrible. I hate him.”

  Emma walked over to Grace and put her arm around her. “Do you want to watch a movie with me?”

  Grace looked up at Emma. Her shoulders sagged. “Yeah, maybe.”

  The two left for the library. I guessed I needed to go find Jason.

  He was in his room, sitting in the corner next to the shower. He’d somehow taken off the door. He was hunched on the ground, one of the screws from the shower in his hands. He had drawn it along a line on his skin, and blood was welling up there.

  I dashed across the room and snatched the screw from him. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He was surprised to see me. But then his expression darkened in anger. “Absolutely nothing.” He shoved his arm in my face. “See? It heals right away.”

  His skin was healing.

  “Were you cutting yourself?”

  His jaw twitched. When he spoke again, his voice was low and hoarse. “Leave me alone, okay?”

  “No,” I said. “Not if you’re trying to hurt yourself. What the hell is going on?”

  He shut his eyes.

  “You said you stopped this,” I said. “You said you hadn’t done it in years.”

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t felt like killing someone in years either,” he said.

  “Killing someone?” What was he talking about? Then I realized. “Jude.”

  He nodded. “I wanted to snap his neck. You have no idea how good it felt to have my hands squeezing his neck like that. It was like...” He let out a little sigh, half anguished, half in longing. “Like coming home.”

  I looked down at the screw in my hands. A little bit of Jason’s blood stained the sharp end red. “Well, you know, you wouldn’t have been able to kill him, anyway.”

  “That’s not the point.” He walked over to his cot and sat down on it. “I’ve been fighting my dark side ever since I left you and Chance in Jasontown. I had to remind myself that it caused pain, that I’d destroyed people. Because, goddammit, it feels so good to kill. I’m good at it, you know. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “There a trillion other things that you are good at.” He liked killing? Okay, I knew this. I’d always known this. I remembered the way Jason had gone after Sutherland back in Florida. I remembered the people he’d killed in Jasontown, their heads displayed on sticks to show his power. But he’d never put it quite like that before. He’d never indicated that he did it for pleasure. He’d usually used my safety as an excuse. And I supposed that some part of me had always thought that Jason looked at killing the way I did—as a distasteful, but sometimes necessary, activity. I didn’t like to kill, but I did it if I had to. Now, I guessed I had to own up to the fact that Jason and I saw it differently.

  “Like what?” Jason said.

  What was he talking about? Oh, yeah, the things he was good at. “Like...” I floundered, trying to get my mind back on track.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “You’re smart,” I said. “You’ve read all those books. You’re really good at Calculus.”

  He glared at me. “We’re not kids anymore. Stuff like that doesn’t matter.”

  “You are good at things, Jason. I only hesitated because I was kind of taken aback when you said it felt good to kill.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head.

  “My powers made me enjoy it,” I said. “But after they were gone, it went away. I thought maybe it was the same for you.”

  Jason glared at the floor. “It’s the rush of it, I guess. When I take life, I feel almost like a god, you know? And
I started to feel it again, when I was fighting Jude.” He looked up at me. “I hate feeling like that. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to be a monster.”

  “You aren’t,” I said.

  “Maybe I wasn’t,” he said. “I remember this vague thing from when we were asleep. How everything was better then. I was balanced. But now, we woke up, and we weren’t supposed to do that. ”

  “Jason—”

  “I think we’re getting the powers back,” he said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. That’s why we’re healing. That’s why I want to kill again.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” I had a certainty deep down that our powers were gone forever. I just knew it.

  “The only thing that’s good about it is that once they’re back, we’ll be able to blow out of this prison like it’s nothing.” He clenched his teeth. “Maybe if I kill Jude, it’ll hurry it along.”

  I sat down next to him. “You struggled with this after your powers were gone, didn’t you? You said you’ve been fighting it ever since you left Jasontown.”

  He flinched, as if my words hurt him.

  I took his hand. “I think this is something inside you. It’s because of the way you grew up, and because of all of the things you’ve seen and dealt with. There’s darkness in you. It’s in me too. But it’s not all that’s in you. And you don’t have to give into it. But this—” I held up the screw— “is not the way to deal with it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I squeezed his hand. “Maybe you should talk to Jude.”

  He snorted. “Talk to him? I want to rip his throat out.”

  I bit my lip. Well, maybe talking was a bad idea.

  “Why don’t you want to kill him too?” His gaze searched mine, and he suddenly looked very vulnerable. “It isn’t because you do have feelings for him somewhere, is it?”

  I yanked my hand away. “Don’t do that.”

  He stood up. “Do what?” His voice had gone flat.

  “Get jealous,” I said. “I can’t stand it when you do that. You have no right.”

  “I have no right?” He was incredulous.

  “And don’t start accusing me of stuff either, because it’s stupid. We’ve been off and on again since we were kids. And neither of us was ever celibate when we were apart. But as near as I know, when we’ve been committed to each other, we’ve never been unfaithful. Either of us.”