Superior

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

Delaney

I awoke on a cold, hard surface to a throbbing headache and the sound of incessant knocking. "Shut up," I groaned, pressing my hands over my ears to try and block out the sound. It echoed through my head like it was coming from inside me, and I wondered what the hell the neighbors were doing and why on earth I wasn't in my bed.

And then I remembered. My eyes snapped open of their own accord and were met with a steely metal ceiling. I wasn't in my room, I wasn't in my house; hell, I wasn't even in my own city. I was in the Capitol, and I had been "locked away."

The guards had taken us beneath the building, through a series of dank tunnels that wound through the underground. We'd ended up in a cell block; one cramped hallway with tiny dark cells lined one wall. A Superior man who seemed half asleep behind his shades sat in a chair by the only door. They'd locked us in separate cells, with the muttered promise that Nessa would be there to see us soon.

That had been the night before, and evidently, as I saw upon waking, we were still there.

Rubbing my temples groggily, I rolled over, only to realize that the mattress-less cot I was lying on didn't extend that far. I toppled onto the floor, a good three feet away, and landed flat on my face.

After the initial shock of hitting the ground wore off, I picked myself up, muttering angrily. The knocking was still going strong, but I couldn't seem to place the source. Sticking a finger into each of my ears, I turned in a full circle, surveying my surroundings. I was in the same box-shaped space, with its three of the walls were made of metal and the screen of bars facing out to the hall.

Trapped.

A spark of anger shot through me, at the guards, at Miracle, and just at the situation in general. I kicked the wall in frustration, but that didn't do anything except give me a sore toe to match my sore attitude. My head pulsed relentlessly.

And through all of this, the knocking, slow and methodical, hadn't stopped.

"What the hell do you want?" I shouted, turning to face the direction I thought the noise was coming from. It stopped immediately. When there was no response for a full minute, I began banging furiously against the wall, crying, until my hands went numb.

Finally, clutching my bruised knuckles, I stopped pounding the wall and instead leaned against it, breathing heavily and swiping tears from my face. A few seconds later, the knocking started again, more faint this time. I wasn't sure who was on the other side of that wall, but I was about ready for them to shut up. For all I knew, it was Miracle and her Superiors trying to mess with my head.

"Oh, give it up, will y—" I stopped abruptly and whirled around, pressing my ear against the cool metal. Something about the sound was familiar. The knocks weren't just simple knocking—they had a beat, a rhythm.

"Think, Delaney," I murmured to myself. "What is this sound?"

And then it hit me. A memory flitted into my mind, of Lizzy and I, six summers ago, sitting in my backyard and teaching ourselves Morse code out of one of my dad's old books. I strained to remember everything, the series of dots and dashes, and which letters they formed. I realized that the knocker was using different sounds, some high-pitched, some lower.

I closed my eyes and listened, trying to translate the pattern as it repeated. It all came back to me, sitting in the overgrown grass behind my mom's gardening shed and pouring over the letters, trying to replicate the sounds explained in the book. Lizzy and I would sit on opposite sides of a wall and talk to each other using Morse code.