Fadeaway by E. Vickers (ebook smartphone TXT) 📗

middle. He finds the pages scattered along the steps leading out of this basement hellhole. He picks them up as he climbs, gathering them like the programs that litter the bleachers after a game. He stands at the top of the steps, and the door opens before him and the light pours in, illuminating the words as he strains to read them….

There’s one word, floating on glass, that comes back to him: Phoenix.

Is that where he is?

But no. He remembers now: that’s the man’s name. At least, he thinks it is.

Then the man—Phoenix—is back, shaking him awake, handing him the morning pills and a glass of warm water to wash them down. There are flecks of something floating in the glass, though, so Jake swallows the pills without the water. He’ll drink from the sink later.

Unless he can get Phoenix to leave the water. No way is he drinking it, but there are plenty of things he could do with the glass to get himself out of here, one way or another.

“Good,” says Phoenix after Jake swallows the pills. “Now talk to me.”

“What?” Jake asks.

“Talk to me. You know, with words.”

“Talk to you. Are you serious?”

Phoenix rolls his eyes. “We have to trust each other. You have to tell me stuff.”

Now Jake’s mad. “Talk to the person who cuffed me to a pipe? Trust the person who’s kept me in this basement for who knows how long? Crack myself open and spill it all out like you’re my freaking therapist or something?”

“I’d hang fancy diplomas on the wall, but I didn’t earn any.” Phoenix smiles, but only on the surface. Jake can tell he doesn’t want to show the shame underneath the smile. Jake is an expert at smiles like these.

And in that moment, Jake judges him. He looks at the shabby surroundings, Phoenix’s shabby clothes and sunken eyes. Of course a loser like this wouldn’t have graduated. But then he corrects himself.

You don’t have any diplomas, either. And as of last semester, you weren’t exactly on track to earn any.

But that’s not true. There were college scouts. There was interest. Even though Arizona State had screwed him over, there were schools willing to give him another chance in the classroom because of what he could do on the court. All he’d had to do was figure out a way to pass that damn math class so he could graduate.

Well, that was all he’d had to do before the torn-out chapter. Before he missed however many days he’s missed, trapped in this hole.

“Talk to me,” Phoenix says again, the patience in his voice draining quickly as he snaps Jake from his thoughts. “You’re here for me too, you know. I agreed to this so we could help each other, but first we have to trust each other. So spill. It’ll be good for you.”

“Talk to you…What, like tell you how I’m feeling?”

Phoenix shrugs. “Sure, we could start there.”

Jake begins cautiously, like a creature emerging from its den. Tells Phoenix something he already knows. “I’m sick. Running over to take a crap or throw up about every five minutes.”

“Still?” Phoenix asks, almost like he actually cares.

Jake considers. “Well, not now, but for a while there.”

“But it’s getting better?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Phoenix nods. “Good. What else?”

“I have dreams.”

He laughs, the sound bitter as soap. “Don’t we all.”

“Not that kind,” Jake says. “I mean actual dreams, with, like, metaphors and crap like that.”

“You’re not swearing anymore,” Phoenix observes.

Jake wonders how much he swore during the missing chapter. He’s always watched his language, mostly for Luke’s sake. He’s not sure who he is anymore, and the thought makes him angry. “Go to hell,” he says.

The man’s laugh is less bitter this time. “Probably will. Thanks. And how are things going when you’re awake?”

“I’m worried sometimes, sick sometimes, desperate a lot of the time. But I’m bored most of all, and that makes me mad. Because it means I’ve given up on ever getting out of here.”

“Nah,” Phoenix says. “It means you’ve recognized that I’m your way out, and I’ll let you out when I’m ready. When you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” Jake says, and this time the man’s laugh is real and deep.

“You are so far from ready you’re not even in the same time zone.”

And there’s something about the way he says it that brings something else to the edges of Jake’s memory.

The championship game.

Climbing the ladder to cut down the net—and almost cutting off his finger because he was watching somebody in the stands instead of watching what he was doing.

Running to the parking lot, hoping he wasn’t too late.

Too late for what?

That’s when he truly recognizes Phoenix, and once he does, he can’t believe he didn’t see it all along.

There’s a knock on the door, loud and insistent, like a crack of thunder. They both freeze, and then Phoenix pulls out the cuffs and presses the latch, swinging them open like jaws.

Jake tenses but doesn’t make a move. Doesn’t even shift his gaze, but takes in the room with his peripheral vision and readies himself for a fight. The water glass is closer to him than to Phoenix.

“Trust me,” Phoenix says again. “Because I’m trusting you.” Then he tosses the cuffs on the cot and runs up the stairs, two at a time.

Finally Jake can turn all this agitation into motion. He pushes the cot under the window and stands on top of it. Only the back end of a car and only the first few painted letters are visible, but it’s enough to know: the police are here.

A Luke fact: 390,127 people in the UK listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 census.

School days got better

and almost normal

after a while,

but Sundays were still

so hungry,

so empty.

Especially when your church has

a special fast for your brother

and you are supposed to not

eat anything,

drink anything,

all day.

I don’t even realize I’m stopping,

staring

into Bishop Gregersen’s office

and the jar of snack-size Kit Kats,

until I hear his voice.

“Come in,” he says.

So I do.

“Have