The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Ten

But I don't get a chance that day.

Nurse Barrett bustles in and out, too regularly for me to seize any chance to slip out of the infirmary and into Records, and when evening rolls around, a plate of food is brought to me from the mess hall, and then it's lights out.

Nurse Barrett is asleep on a pull-out bed in the infirmary office, and this should be the perfect time for me to sneak out – it's not she can hear anything over her rumbling snores.

But I'm locked in.

I prowl around the room, looking for any other way out, but there are only two doors in the entire place – one to the office, where the nurse is sleeping, and one to the hallway outside. Neither of them help me.

My skin burns with frustration.

Nurse Barrett replaced my file in Records after lunch, so I can't even snoop in that. I search the infirmary anyway, in a futile attempt to find anything, but my efforts turn up nothing unexpected, just medicines and medical equipment.

I shouldn't be surprised – this is the infirmary, after all, but it still rankles.

I didn't get to see Roan, my eye is a puffy, purple mess, and I'm potentially so close to a lead, yet unable to follow it. Of course I knew that information wouldn't just fall into my lap, but when will I get another chance to be in here?

There's no way I can get into Records otherwise.

I could always goad Gavin into punching me again, but that hardly seems like a solid strategy.

Unless . . .

I touch my swollen eye and wince. It must be clear by now that I don't have a concussion, but it's also clear that Nurse Barrett takes my health seriously, especially since the Trials are drawing nearer.

If I were to suffer a sudden relapse, an unexpected wave of dizziness or nausea for example, then I would buy myself extra time in the infirmary. The problem is that extra time in the infirmary doesn't equal extra time to get into Records. Even if I managed to sneak out without Nurse Barrett seeing me, it wouldn't be long before she realised I was gone.

I cannot get caught in Records.

I want to help Roan, and maybe this is the only way I can, but if I'm caught in there, I will be put into Isolation, and the Handlers will almost certainly start keeping a closer eye on me. There's no point risking everything to find the evidence that Roan and Beyond need if I can't then give it to them.

What I need is to get Nurse Barrett out of the way long enough for me to search Records, without her ever realising that that's what I've done.

How am I supposed to do that?

I have no idea.

"Think, Caia," I mutter, but my brain doesn't want to cooperate.

If Roan were here, he'd probably have some bright ideas, but he's not here. I can't rely on him; this is something I have to do myself.

I go back to bed, but I can't sleep. My brain is racing, going over and over scenarios and plans, desperately trying to find a solution. There has to be one, and I'm just not seeing it yet, but I'm also distracted by thoughts of what Roan must have thought when I didn't show up, how worried my friends must be when I didn't come back from the infirmary, whether Taffy will be okay if she wakes up from a nightmare and there's no one there to comfort her –

My eyes shoot open.

Taffy.

When her nightmares are at their worst, usually around the anniversary of the fire and her parents' deaths, Taffy is sometimes prescribed strong sleeping pills with a name I can't even begin to pronounce – pills that don't just put her to sleep, they stop her from dreaming too.

If I can get my hands on them, maybe I could drug the nurse.

I sit up, my eyes roving over the white cabinets on the walls, trying to remember if I came across the pills while I was searching earlier. My pulse quickens with excitement, but I force myself to take a moment to stop and think this through. I've seen Taffy take them often enough, so I know what the pills look like, but I've never seen the packaging. I don't know if I'll recognise them if they're in a box. Even if I can find them, how will I get Nurse Barrett to take one?

Her coffee?

She was drinking it when I arrived in the infirmary, and it wasn't a standard white CC mug; she must have brought it from home, so maybe she doesn't let it leave her office. Could I slip a pill into the mug?

In theory that could work. I could crush the pill up, let it dissolve in the coffee, and then sit back and wait for it to do its thing. But how could I get it into the mug in the first place?

If it was as simple as just getting one or two pills in then maybe I could do it while she was fetching my file from Records – which she'll have to do if I'm back in the infirmary – but the pills won't dissolve unless they're crushed up first. Records is right next door, so I won't have time to find the pills, crush them up, and get them into the mug, and she will certainly notice them if they're still whole.

No, I need to get her out of the infirmary for longer than it takes to go to Records.

I slump back in bed, and try to organise the chaos in my head. This is doable; I just need to work out how.

Hours tick past, and eventually I fall asleep, but it doesn't last long, and when I wake up again, early enough that greyish-pink dawn-light is just barely creeping through the window, I am filled with fresh determination.

Fragments of plans flit through my head, and I take them and try to fit their edges together, until finally pieces are clicking into place, and I think I know how to do this.

It's a long shot, but it's the only one I've got.

But if I'm going to fake some kind of collapse, whatever it takes to get me back into the infirmary, it needs to be after rec time.

First, I have to see Roan.