Silent Symmetry (The Embodied trilogy) by JB Dutton Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed to cheer up and went back inside the apartment. “I’ll get supper ready while you work on the posters in case we need them,” she said, disappearing into the kitchen.
    I was super proud of myself. This was the plan: I’d set my alarm for 3 am, crawl into the tunnel, track him down, bring him back, and pretend that he’d come through the chained front door and woke me up by jumping on my bed. Then I’d just have to find a way of stopping him going back through the flap tomorrow. What could go wrong? By morning, I had the answer.
     
    * * * * *
     
    The tunnel was colder at night. I’d thrown on some sweatpants but had totally not expected to be shivering in there. I crawled along the passageways, following the route I’d taken before. I quietly called out Flash’s name, shining the flashlight in front of me, then above me. I came to the vertical junction that he’d jumped down from the last time. But there was no sign of him.
    I began to worry that he’d found a similar flap in another apartment and gotten stuck in there. What if the tenant hated cats and threw him out in the street? The posters suddenly didn’t seem like such a waste of time. Or what if he was trapped somehow in a narrow part of the tunnel? I knew that last idea was unlikely, seeing as how Flash was able to squish himself down to about two inches high. And if he did, surely he’d be squealing in pain or meowing in fear and I’d hear him...
    Sure enough, just as that thought entered my head, I heard it. Faintly, but undoubtedly, it was a soft meow. Heartened, I crawled faster. The sound seemed to be getting louder – I must be headed in the right direction. I rounded a couple corners, no longer cold because of how fast I was crawling. Then I stopped as I realized that the tunnel sloped upward in front of me. I shone the flashlight up, but I couldn’t see how high the incline went. But now that I’d stopped it was obvious that the meowing was louder.
    “Flash!” I called, this time in more of a hoarse shout than a whisper.
    “Meow!” came the response from somewhere up the sloped tunnel. I started to crawl upward.
    After a minute or so the incline leveled off. I thought I saw something glinting in the distance ahead.
    “Flash?” I edged forward. Something told me that it wasn’t Flash. The meowing had stopped. But there was definitely something reflecting back the beam of the flashlight. I wondered whether I should continue. But curiosity got the better of me.
    That old saying came to me: curiosity killed the cat.
    The number of times Mom had said that after catching me sticking my finger in a hole as a little kid or poking my head through a railing to see what was below... But she never got super mad at me. How could she, with her scientific background and engineer’s training? She’d always encouraged me to explore, to ask questions. Although, come to think of it, she never specified whether crawling along a small dark tunnel in the middle of the night was allowed.
    Now I could see what had been glinting in front of me. Not the eyes of a cat, but the brass of a metal grille. It was about two feet wide and ten inches high, with an ornate design of curly leaves and twisting stems. The kind of grille you found covering a heating duct in an old building like this.
    I realized that if it opened somehow, a cat could get through the gap easily. I approached the grille and shone my flashlight through the opening. Before calling Flash’s name again I wanted to see if it was someone’s bedroom. The last thing I needed was to give some poor old lady a heart attack.
    The room on the other side of the grille was in darkness. I could make out a patterned rug and the legs of various tables and chairs. Cool – it didn’t seem to be a bedroom, so I whispered “Flash?” and waved the flashlight around some more.
    Then I sensed a movement and focused the beam in its direction. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out what it was in the