Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) by Samantha Durante Read Free Book Online Page A

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