The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Seventeen

That night, after the lights have gone out, I lie in bed, Boots a warm weight on my chest, and think again about everything I've learned today, trying to go through it all in a calm and orderly way.

Cole and Fletcher are having an affair.

Fletcher is a bastard.

Cole knows something about the Trials.

Unless this Prey/Predator/Undecided business has nothing at all to do with the Trials. I suppose that's possible – nothing in that file explicitly pointed to a link between the two. But I don't believe it.

Whatever those designations mean, they're important to Cole, and what else is important to Seconds but the Trials? There has to be a connection.

So where does that leave me?

I don't know where Cole got the information from in the first place, but who knows what she and Fletcher discuss together. This thing between them could have been going on for years.

I told Roan that I would help him find concrete evidence about what the Trials really were, and it doesn't escape my notice that Cole is actually the one who might have the information he needs.

But can I risk asking her about it?

I let possible scenarios unspool in my head, but none of them seem to have a good outcome. The Cole that I know isn't the same girl who was in Records with Fletcher this afternoon, and I don't know which one is the real Cole.

Maybe both.

Maybe neither.

Either way, asking her about the Trials would put me in an incredibly dangerous position. It would reveal that I know something about them, and I'm not supposed to know anything. It would reveal that I know about Fletcher and Cole, and that would mean telling her how I know. My face flushes at the thought of trying to explain that I was hiding under the desk that she and Fletcher were having sex on.

Telling Cole anything would be trusting that she wouldn't report it back to Fletcher, and I don't trust her.

I don't know if she really feels anything for Fletcher, or if she's using him to try and get ahead in the Trials, but either way, I cannot risk her telling any of this to Fletcher.

I've never heard anything about Seconds finding out about the Trials in advance, so I have no idea what happens to anyone who might stumble upon information they're not supposed to have, but I don't want to find out.

There's something else I need to bear in mind too, something I've been trying not to think about.

There's a chance that Beyond are actually wrong about all this, and there's nothing sinister about the Trials at all. Even if they're wrong, Roan won't give up trying to bring down the CC and set Seconds free, but he'll be starting from square one.

Beyond have focused on the Trials chiefly because that's what their now-dead source told them to do, but what if he was lying?

What if he wasn't really a Second and his mysterious car-crash really was just an accident?

Roan might not believe that, but I have to keep it in mind as a possibility.

It's easy for Roan to talk about how Seconds shouldn't be kept in the CC, how we shouldn't be property, but the Firstborn Act has been in place for decades. Seconds have been property of the government for decades, and even if human rights groups have campaigned on our behalf all that time, it hasn't changed much. Most of the general public seem to be okay with what's happening. Roan wants to tear the CC down, but that hinges on Beyond exposing the truth behind the Trials.

But if there is no truth to expose, if there's a rational and reasonable explanation for why they are kept so secret, then Roan no longer has ammunition to use. And the Trials might still be my chance at a better life.

I can't pin all my hopes on Roan.

I have to remember that I might still need the Trials, and if Fletcher finds out that I know anything, I will jeopardise my chance to take them.

No, I need to be very, very careful here, and that means I can't approach Cole about anything. It's just too dangerous.

I carefully pull the stolen photo out from under my pillow; I hid it there earlier when Taffy wasn't looking.

There are no curtains or blinds on windows in the bedrooms, and silvery moonlight spills through the glass and pools on the floor next to our beds. I tilt the photo towards that light so I can see myself.

The sight of my own young face hits me like a punch.

I wish I could remember looking like that. I wish the trauma hadn't blocked out everything before the attack.

I touch the photo, using my fingertips to trace lines on my face, the paths that my scars now take.

How long after this photo was taken did the attack happen?

Months?

Weeks?

Days?

For all I know, it's the same day.

I wonder if I look at all like my parents.

And then I wonder about the firstborn child in my family, the brother or sister that came before me. Do I look like them? Did they have blond hair when they were little? Has it darkened to brown now? Do I share their eyes? Their smile?

I blink back the prickle of tears.

Most of my life, thoughts of my parents have been met with a conflicting clash of anger and love and resentment, but I think about my sibling far less often, because I can only think of them with sadness.

Do they even know I exist?

There's a good chance that, depending on their age, they might not. If they were young enough when I was born, my parents could have hidden the birth and pregnancy from them, and once I'd been handed over to the CC, my parents would have no reason to mention me to my brother or sister.

Unless . . .

Unless my parents actually did love and want me, and they told their firstborn about me as a way of keeping me alive in the family. Roan said that some people do that.

My lips twist.

It's a pretty fantasy, but it probably isn't true, and even if it is, what difference would it make?

I was handed over to the CC as a baby – I know absolutely nothing of my family, and they know nothing of me. Once a Second becomes property of the government, their families can never contact them or know anything about them again.

A slow ache builds in my temples.

I have to stop thinking about this, because I don't have any answers and I never will, and it's too messy and emotional and confusing.

My family are part of the past.

I can't go back to them.

I can only look ahead to the future.

My fingertips trace the photo again, running over the face I once had.

I was beautiful.

Was?

That brings me up short, and I put the photo down, instead lifting my hands to my real face and tracing my scars.

I am still beautiful.

My scars don't change that.

I know that they are the first thing that people see when they look at me – maybe the only thing. But they're not all I am. They're no longer all I see.

Confidence in myself is a flower bursting to life in my chest, a bird taking flight, a star cutting through the velvet dark of the night sky, and I will not let that wither and die.

"I am beautiful," I tell the dark, and I truly do believe it.