Triple Digits

Claire Miles

When she awoke, an afternoon sunlight was streaming in from the bottom of the curtain, and Corey was nowhere to be seen in the room. The lights were off, as was the TV, leaving her in blissful silence and darkness.
The pain in Claire's head was gone, replaced by a dull ache, and she sat up with a quiet groan, rubbing at her face to try and clear the sleep from her eyes.
"Strickland?" She whispered into the dark, wondering what the time was. How could it be afternoon if it had been dark when she'd gone for her shower? Fumbling for her phone on the bedside table, she unplugged it from the charger, waiting for the screen to boot up. She couldn't even remember plugging it in.
Her grandmother's funeral was at eleven in the morning on Sunday, and the dinner was tonight.
Stumbling out of bed, a towel dropped from her body, making her blink in surprise. How had she even gotten from the bathroom to here? She had vague memories of curling up against the wall in the shower, waiting for the pain in her head to stop so she could stand up, and then of someone knocking on the door to the stall. They'd spoken to her, hadn't they? Corey! It had been him talking to her! Strickland had come looking for her.
He'd carried her out of the shower.
Gods, she owed him dinner and then some. Dressing quickly, she tugged on a pair of black leggings over her underwear, and a tight-fitting shirt cut short enough that a thin slice of her naval, including her bellybutton, was exposed. Averie had bought it for her yesterday. It was black with a lime green love heart across the front, and had cost her sister thirty dollars.
Her phone finally finished starting up, and she unlocked it with a swipe from her finger across the sensor on the back, the time blinking up at her.
Four PM.
How was that possible?
Unless... No. She hadn't slept through not only the dinner, but her grandmother's funeral, had she? Where the Hell was Corey? Why hadn't he woken her?!
Storming for the door, she wrenched it open, nearly tripping over Strickland when he fell back with a shout of surprise, having been sitting with his back against the door.
"I slept through the dinner," she said, so surprised to find him on the floor in the hallway that the angry yelling she'd been planning died away, and he nodded, staring up at her from where he laid at her feet. There was a plate on his lap of sausages and mash potato, half-eaten and steaming hot, and a drink next to him, tucked against the wall so it didn't get knocked over accidentally.
"What are you doing in the hallway?"
He swallowed his mouthful of food, righting himself into a sitting position, and explaining, "I've been out here on and off since yesterday night. I only came back into the room to sleep, so I didn't wake you." She'd wasted an entire day in bed. Considering she'd been wanting to waste the weekend away in the motel, Claire supposed she could consider it a gift from the universe, rather than something to regret. She hated Redwood, so why would she care about missing a day here?
"You didn't wake me up for the funeral."
"I know. I'm sorry," Corey admitted bashfully, "The doctor said you needed to sleep, or you could do damage to your brain. I called Averie and explained everything. She messaged this morning to say the dinner had been pushed back until tonight, at eight."
Her family were going to kill her.
"What were you going to do if I kept sleeping?"
"Honestly? Leave you be. Your health is more important."
Averie would have had to go to the funeral, and then the dinner, alone. Hopefully they hadn't been too harsh on her without Claire there to back her sister up, or even just provide moral support. Despite being quite mouthy to other people, Claire had never really learned how to defend herself against her family. Which is why she'd fled.
It was easier to run than to try and fight back against people who were content to tear you apart with their words.
She would need to attend that dinner tonight.
Her phone pinged in her hand, a text coming in from Helix.
Glancing down, she opened it absentmindedly, looking back to Corey rather than immediately reading it, remarking, "Thank you for carrying me out of the shower. I owe you a drink."
"It was nothing, Miles." He gave her a carefree, lighthearted smile that made her heart skip a beat in her chest, only for her to clamp down on it. Smirking, she replied, "I'm surprised you didn't leave me there, for the pain in the ass I've been."
He laughed openly, plucking up his fork again and teasingly admitting, "I considered it."
Glancing down at the phone, Claire frowned. The text from Helix was nothing but a photo, taken in her apartment, all the lights off. It was facing the balcony, and showed the sunset. From what she could see, nothing was amiss.
She didn't bother to reply. Helix was probably drunk and trying to show her the view like she didn't see it every afternoon.
A text followed after it.
'How often does the moon block the sun?'
The text was even more confusing than the photo, considering she could see no eclipse visible. Claire sighed. Helix must have gotten into her good drinks, or maybe found some gods-forsaken drug in his tunnels.
Another text followed the third.
'New race on Monday night. Triple Digit going to be present?'
Triple Digit... That was odd. No matter how drunk or high Helix got, he always referred to her as TD in text, never her full racer name. And Claire had thought the race was cancelled, to honour Quickshift?
She tapped the image of the phone in the corner of the screen, dialling Helix, Corey looking up at her inquisitively until she mouthed, "Calling Helix. He's high, I think."
The police officer's eyes lit up in amusement at her confession, making her curse herself, and she battered her eyelashes at him, pleading, "Don't arrest him?"
He held his hands up in surrender, murmuring, "I saw and heard nothing."
The phone rang out, a robotic voice answering "The number you dialled cannot be reached. Please leave a message after the beep."
Then, it was Helix's voice on the other end, his voicemail answering for him.
"Hey, it's Mid-City's local sewer-rat. I'm-" His sentence was cut off by a large, drunken burp, and what sounded like him kicking a box full of garbage aside, "probably clawing my way through trash or somethin' right now, so leave a message. Beep." Claire snorted at the mimicking noise he made, the robotic voice repeating a second later, "BEEP!"
"Helix, it's Claire. Call me back when you can form a coherent sentence, okay?" She laughed, hanging up a moment later, and Corey asked, "He didn't answer?"
"No. He could have passed out. Who knows?"
She was about to place her phone back on the bedside table when another photo came through. She opened it, sighing heavily at whatever game Helix was playing, only for the sound to catch in her throat. It was a photo of her bedroom, the balcony door open, the curtains swaying in the wind. What the Hell was he doing?
Another text followed it.
'How far can you push someone to despair?'
Unease crept through her, and Claire again dialled the phone. It didn't even make it to voicemail, like Helix had declined her call. Ugh.
"Helix!" She hissed anyway, like he could hear her, instead tapping out a text in reply, demanding to know what he was doing.
An emoji of a smiley face, a sun, and a moon was the only response.
He must have been really damned high.
Hearing her frustration, Corey rose, peering over her shoulder at the phone, frowning. Reaching around her, he scrolled back through the messages, Claire's heart leaping into her throat when he read the one that called her 'Triple Digit', only for him to snort, "You're right. He must be high, to think you'll know if Triple Digit will be there."
Corey was far too naïve to have made it this far into the world on his own, much less as a police officer. Thank the Gods for it, who must have been pulling out their hair keeping him alive.
Then, he scrolled higher up, reading over the first text he'd sent, underneath the photo.
"How often does the moon block the sun?" His eyes lifted to Claire's, and he mused, "Is Helix into riddles?"
She shook her head.
"Never. He's normally pretty straight forward. But why was he asking about eclipses?"
Corey paused, like something in her sentence reminded him of something, and he reached into his bag, rummaging around for a bit before retrieving a pin, holding it out in his palm. It was of the moon beginning to block out the sun. It looked vaguely familiar, although Claire couldn't think where she'd seen it.
"An eclipse," Claire hummed, "Pretty. Where did you get that pin from?" She might have seen it while out shopping, or somewhere in Mid-City.
"It was outside Maddison's house after she was attacked. One of her neighbours said she saw a man drop it while leaving the house. Call the Mid-City police, and then call Helix again," Corey ordered firmly, horror following the unease in Claire as she demanded, "Why?"
Even as she asked, she was dialling the emergency number, her hands beginning to shake, and Corey shoved the pin back into his bag.
"Corey, why?!"
"Because the killer might be the one texting you, not Helix."
But he was texting from Helix's phone! If it was the killer, then that meant Helix was either in danger, or already dead!
If Claire had gotten him into trouble because she'd kept that note in her pocket to herself... She couldn't think like that. This wasn't her fault.
The Mid-City police picked up, a random officer answering the phone, and Corey took it from her, rattling off his name and badge number before ordering for a car to be sent to Claire's apartment immediately, stating that someone dangerous could be there. When the officer promised to do it, Corey hung up, dialling Helix's number himself.
The phone rang... and rang... and rang...
"Helix," Claire whispered in a prayer, "Please pick up. Let this just be a dumb trick, or something." Instead, while the call rang out, another text came, this time from an entirely unknown number.
"I don't know that number," Claire admitted, tilting the phone to show Corey.
Strickland blanched.
"That's my number," he said quietly, Claire's finger hovering over the message. She was too afraid to open it and read what it said.
Instead, Corey tapped it. The message blared up at them, all hope fleeing Claire's body of them reaching Helix in time.