The Marked People

Door shut? Try the Window

Phoenix

"Did she eat anything?" My vibrant green markings pulse as I ask, hoping for a better answer than last time.

Patrick shakes his head "Barely, hopefully the dinner I left outside her door will be more to her liking."

"What did you give her?" I ask in a dry voice.

"Just bread and water. At this point anything too rich will just make her sick, I also thought simple food might give her some sort of comfort." Patrick replies while scraping her mostly untouched seafood platter into garbage shoot.

I hope he's right. Until now Indigo had never had the kind of food I've always considered normal. Perhaps basic food will give her a sense of home, encourage her to eat a bit more.

I sigh and slide away the laptop I've been working on, mainly looking at the company's latest profit margins "I don't think I can go to the meeting tomorrow, not with Indigo in this condition."

Patrick sticks his head out from the kitchen "You're  going. Indigo needs time to adjust. It doesn't mean you can stay hidden in here as well. At the moment your brother is trying to take you down. The longer this goes on for the more desperate he'll be to get rid of you."

Patrick's right. It's been a week since Indigo refused to leave her room. A week since she's refused to even see me, let alone talk to me. I knew she needed time so I'd busied myself with learning as much as I could about my old company. Much has changed, including some of those who had been loyal to me being swapped out for board members who are in the pocket of my brother.

The only edge I have on Aradonious is that after the escape of his 'test subject' the board isn't looking on him with favourable eyes. In fact they seemed almost relived to have me back. Under my leadership the company had been safe. Perhaps it wasn't taking the market by storm or wiping out competition in all directions but it had been steady with profits, as expected.

What Aradonious was trying to achieve -while something that would allow the company to monopolies the market- was incredibly risky, mainly because of the amount of money needed to fund it. Add that to the fact his 'subject' is gone and Aradonious must be feeling the heat.

And yet while I'd spent the weeks that Indigo was being operated on cementing some sort of control back over my company I could still sense the eyes watching, waiting to slip the knife between my shoulder blades. The truth was I needed Indigo. As a nobody she could get where I couldn't. She could slip through the ranks and perhaps get close to Aradonious, or at least someone who knew his plans. I could never do that, and neither could Patrick, not with Aradonious keeping tabs on us. But he wouldn't suspect a nameless person. While his attention is focused on trying to find Indigo, she could easily worm her way through his defences.

Except Indigo hasn't left her room. By this point I'm beyond worried. The only reason I know she's alive is because I've woken up in the middle of the night to hear screams. No matter how much I begged though she wouldn't let me in and often Patrick would find me in the morning slumped against her door asleep.

Patrick sits down on the opposite side of the table to me "If Indigo doesn't come out soon we're going to hit a wall. There's only so much we can do. You might be able to turn a profit for your company but sabotaging it is a different thing altogether. If anyone caught a whisper that you might be trying to take the company down they'd throw you out without hesitation, giving Aradonious plenty of opportunity to make his move against you."

I nod, dragging a hand through my hair. It's not even eight o'clock and yet I feel like I've been awake all night "I know, but what can we do? Indigo..."