Page 18 of All the Little Raindrops

“Four and twenty pencils baked in a pie. When the part was opened, the birds began to sing.”

Pencil. Part.

That confused him. He knew that sometimes it was too difficult to say a specific word because it either didn’t blend into the song or it gave too much away, should it be overheard. He assumed that was the case now, so he considered the parts of the pencil and what purpose they might serve but couldn’t come up with anything other than maybe a sharp piece of wood. But that would be so tiny that even if they managed to sharpen it into a blade, it would break upon contact with even the softest target. Another stretch, another shrug.Why?

“Oh, wasn’t that a dainty plug, to fire before the king?”

Plug. Fire.

He’d been rubbing his shoulder, sore from the push-ups he’d done while she was gone, and now he paused, his breath catching. He gave a small cough to cover his reaction.

“I’m done,” she said.

Evan turned, lying down on the floor of his cage and facing her where she was now doing the same across from him. “You were telling me about that kitten you found when you were a kid,” he said, pickingup the topic they’d been using to converse about their plan earlier. He assumed that, like him, she made up some of what she told him to fit within the framework of the secrets they told but that she also inserted some truth.

“Right,” she said. “Yes. So, I adopted this kitten, but he was a little troublemaker who was always causing havoc in places he shouldn’t.” She yawned, and her eyes slid upward and slightly to the back before her gaze quickly returned to him. Evan stretched his neck, his glance going to the place behind her that she’d signaled toward. There was only the small square of the dumbwaiter directly behind her cage. Was that what she meant? “Even the smallest, seemingly inconsequential places,” she said.

So not the dumbwaiter. His gaze slid backward on another stretch, his eyes moving over the outlet off to the right of the dumbwaiter and low on the wall. Was that what she was talking about? Her chin tipped downward.Yes.

Yes. Okay. So ... she was proposing using the piece of pencil she’d stolen to start a fire in the outlet somehow? That seemed ... highly unlikely. Then again, he actually had no idea if that could even be accomplished, but she seemed to think otherwise. He could do nothing except trust she knew something he didn’t.

Something occurred to him. Wasn’t her father an electrician? Maybe she’d picked up some knowledge on electrical from him. His hope soared.

He blinked once.I understand.Enough, anyway.

He saw her lip curve slightly before she turned it against the arm her head was resting on. They were both very precise now with their movements and signals. This second language they’d created had been built on fear and necessity and therefore honed in a way Evan didn’t think he’d be able to teach someone if he had months to do it. They had no idea where the cameras were in this room, so they had to assume they were everywhere.

He quickly filtered through what they had as the outline of a plan. So far they had two maybes. Maybe they could unknowingly gain access to the codes to their locks. And maybe they could start a fire that would ... what? Provide a distraction while they attempted to input those codes and escape?

Yeah, that, or burn them alive.

The hope that had blossomed a moment before deflated. Several problems still remained. Even if they were able to obtain the codes to their cages, the bars at the front crossed both vertically and horizontally near the top, making up small squares. It wasn’t as if they were made of wire. The bars would not bend, even under the greatest of pressure. He’d have to shrink his hand to the size of a child’s to force it through. Or use a tool of some sort that could fit through the smaller section of bars and then bend to reach the keypad. Given that it was impossible to collapse his hand, they’d need to find or steal the perfect item.

The problems were stacked up far higher than any potential solutions.

They spoke about the possibly made-up or possibly real troublesome kitten for a while, brainstorming on the things he’d just considered, finally running out of ideas. All they could do now was wait for more opportunities. He reached his arm out, and she did the same, their eyes meeting as their fingers linked.

“We leave here whole,” he said to her, not caring who heard that, figuring they imagined it to be an empty promise anyway, something they said in a useless effort to keep their spirits up during hopeless circumstances.

“And we leave here together,” she added as they were both pulled in to sleep.

They slept; they woke. They ate bread and they drank water. There were no extras, and there hadn’t been for days. He felt weaker, and he could see by her movements and the listlessness in her speech that she did too.

Still, they sang, they discussed possibilities that seemed unachievable, and they fell asleep, fingers linked.

Their hands fell apart as the man in red shoes woke them three days later as he walked toward Evan’s cage. He blinked with sleep, his head foggy, and yet, he knew what he had to do.Now.This is your chance.He threw himself forward, grabbing the bars at the front of his cage and shaking them just as the man raised his hand to enter the code. He had ceased announcing that either of them had been rented, assuming correctly that Evan and Noelle knew the drill. “Please,” he begged. “I can’t take it!”

The man blew out a breath, appearing bored. “Move back.”

“Please help,” Evan begged. “It’s not too late to let us out of here. It’s not too late to do the right thing.”

“Move back now, or I’m going to tase you,” the man said, pulling the Taser from his outside coat pocket.

Evan threw his body on the floor of the cage, his face turned and pressed against the front grate as he kicked the top with his feet, rattling the bars and sending waves of pain through his legs but causing no damage whatsoever to the enclosure he was in. The man’s mouth set, and even through his fear and the performance he was putting on, Evan saw the look of excitement in the man’s eyes. Finally, he was going to be allowed to inflict pain. Still, he gave Evan one last warning, and Evan put his hands flat on the floor as he braced for the jolt.

When it came, it felt like hot lightning flowing through his veins and rendering him incapable of movement. He gritted his teeth and rode through the agony, his eyes locked on the man’s tie pin, the small blurry reflection revealing the man’s finger as it stabbed at the keypad. 9906.

Evan let out a sound that was something between a sob of victory and a growl of pain and anger and horror at what he had to suffer before he could use what he’d just obtained. Because they didn’t yet have Noelle’s code, and he wouldn’t even attempt to leave without her.He’d made a promise, and one thing Evan had learned as he’d sat in the bowels of hell was that he could be stripped of everything and still keep his word. It was his. No one had been able to steal it, and he wouldn’t allow them to now.

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