The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Twenty-Six

I'm strangely calm when I return to the fence the next day.

I'm ready to hear what Roan has to say.

I'm ready to listen.

He'd better be too, because this is about both of us, which means we both have things to say.

Roan is waiting for me, and even though I don't know what's going to happen between us, my heart lifts at the sight of him.

He looks worse than ever, tired and rumpled and drawn, but he's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - my sun in a cloudy sky, my splash of colour in a world of grey.

"Caia," he breathes, staring at me like I'm every star in the night.

I stop in front of the fence. He hasn't come through yet; he's waiting for me to say he can.

Maybe it would be better to do this with a little distance between us, but I feel like a flower in the dark, desperately tilting my head towards the sun that is my Roan. I can't stand to see all this wire separating us.

I gesture to the damaged spot. "Are you coming through?"

Hope blooms in his eyes. He scrambles through as quickly as he can, but as soon as we're both on the same side, I take a step back, wrapping my arms around myself to fight the urge to reach for him.

Roan visibly swallows. "Okay, so . . . I've been thinking a lot about what you said – about how I didn't really see you as a person after all. And you were right."

That's not what I expected, but I don't react. I just give him time.

"When our source first told us about the Trials, we decided that we needed to scope out the CC before we could do anything else. On the outside, the CC has a website with photos and live footage supposedly proving that Seconds are cared for, comfy, and happy, but we've always known that's all carefully curated to present the image the CC wants. But if we wanted to find out anything they were hiding, we needed to get a better idea of the building as a whole."

He gestures at the fence behind us. "We needed to know what we were dealing with. So Rosie built a couple of tiny drones, and we spent a few days flying them over the grounds. That's when we saw you."

I hug myself a little tighter.

"Three times our drones picked you up, and each time I was struck by the look on your face – longing and sadness and hope. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere but behind that fence," Roan says.

"I did," I whisper.

"That's when I had the idea to approach you. We knew there was no guarantee you would help us – no guarantee that you would think of your own rights and freedom beyond the propaganda they feed you in this place. We knew that we'd be running the risk of you reporting me to the Handlers, and that that would probably increase security measures around the CC, which obviously wouldn't help us. Some other members of Beyond were very against involving you at all. They thought the risk was too high. I didn't."

"Why?"

"Because you always looked like you were dreaming, and I found myself wondering what you were dreaming of."

"Flying," I say. "I was dreaming of the sky." I bite my lip. "I think I saw you that first day, from my bedroom window in the morning."

"I guess I should have been more careful. Thanks to Rosie's drones, I knew what time you would be at the fence, but I got to the CC early that day."

"Why?" I say again.

"Honestly? Because I was nervous about approaching you. I knew it was a risk, I knew it might be a waste of time, so I arrived early enough that I could really rehearse what I was going to say. And then when you came to the fence, I forgot everything I'd rehearsed anyway. Every time I'd seen you, you looked like you wanted to be free, and that's why I met you that day. I thought that you would help me."