The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Forty-Seven

Fletcher's face is bruised and bloodied, and I really hope that that's Cole's handiwork. I hope it hurts.

Cole . . .

"Where is she?" I blurt out.

When I left her with him, I knew there was a good chance that he would kill her, but it's only now that I realise just how much I had hoped that she would get the upper hand.

He gives me a nasty smile and raises a knife. The blade is sticky red with blood. "Cole? She's dead."

I know that Cole wasn't a particularly nice person – even before she started detaching herself from everyone to make it easier for her to kill them.

I know that she killed my cat.

I know that if she had survived this and become a military asset, she would have killed again.

But deep down, I had still hoped that she would be the one to walk away from that fight.

"Did it feel good killing her?" I ask, my voice bitter. "Did you enjoy murdering the teenage girl who was foolish enough to fall for you?"

I study his face, hoping to see even a flicker of humanity, but there's nothing. Like Ripley, he just sees us as things, and things are easily disposed of.

"Not as good as it's going to feel killing you," he says.

There's no one to intervene this time, and nowhere to run.

Fletcher wants me dead, and because he blames me for him being here, I get the feeling he plans to take his time, to really make me hurt. After all, he's got nothing else to do with his time. He knows he's not getting out of here.

But I'm not going down without a fight.

Even if I don't stand a chance against him, I'm not going to make it easy for this monster.

I raise my knife.

"So what happens now?" I ask. "You kill me, and then what? They let you out of here? That's not going to happen, is it?"

His face darkens with rage.

I'll never understand the minds of the people who know that what Fletcher did was wrong, but are absolutely fine with the existence of the Trials, and maybe I don't want to understand them, but I am glad that Fletcher is being punished, even though this isn't how it should be done.

"You're not Prey or Predator," I continue, anger making me reckless. "No matter what happens, no matter who you kill, you won't become a military asset. Only Seconds will. You're just supposed to die down here."

If no one kills him, then I imagine he'll meet with an accident, much like Beyond's source did, but why they didn't just stage an accident to begin with, I don't know. Maybe the cruelty is the point. Or maybe they wanted Cole to kill him. Maybe that was her ultimate test as Predator.

"I guess I'd better make the most of the time I have left then," Fletcher says.

Something gleams in his eyes, and it's so close to what I saw when he caught me in Records, when he suggested that I could stay out of trouble by providing sexual favours, that I want to throw up.

Did the CC make him like this?

Or, like Gavin, is it possible that he was just born this way?

Maybe the CC just gave him an outlet for his evil, and if it didn't exist, he would have found another way to hurt people. I don't know.

I look up at the cameras once more and smile. If I'm going to die here, I want Roan to know that I'm thinking of him.

Fletcher attacks.

He's faster than me at the best of times.

Now that I'm wounded and exhausted, I stand little chance.

But he wants to make this last, and rather than stabbing me during that first lunge, he gives me an open-handed slap. His hand catches my sliced ear, and fresh pain floods me.

He grins, shaking my blood off his hand.

I take a clumsy swing at him, but he steps aside to avoid it. I try again, and he hits my wrist, hard enough that my hand goes numb. The knife drops from my fingers, and Fletcher kicks it away.

He could have picked it up, given himself another weapon, but we both know he doesn't need it.

He doesn't even need his own knife.

He can beat me to death with his bare hands, and there's little I can do to stop him.

He advances, and I throw up an arm to shield myself. Fletcher grabs it, his fingers curling over my blood-soaked bandage, and squeezes, and I scream as the pain almost sends me to my knees.

I buckle, and he hits me in the stomach, making me fold over and drop to the floor. I hunch over, hugging myself, as Fletcher stands over me.

"This is better – you on your knees," he says. "You should have done that from the beginning, like Cole."

"You're pathetic," I spit. "Using threats and blackmail to force kids into sex because no one outside the CC will look twice at you."

I really shouldn't goad him, I know, but I hate him more than I've ever thought it was possible to hate anyone.

He hits me, and when I reel from it, he grabs my hair and hauls me upright. The point of his dagger touches my face, close to my eye, where my longest scar starts.

I freeze, and he smiles, cold as snow and sharp as ice.

"I bet you would have been pretty without this mess. Maybe I should finish what Thomas started." He trails the blade along the length of my scar, across my lips, and up the other side of my face. "Or maybe I should give you one on this side. Nice and symmetrical."

No matter how much that I said that I would go down fighting, I'm shrinking down, quailing away from this evil man, because he's tapping into my deepest fears and stripping away my armour.

"I could make you just as pretty as Cole was when I finished with her," Fletcher says.

I realise what he's doing. He wants me to suffer and that includes terrifying me. By letting him see that I am afraid, I am giving him exactly what he wants, and so, even though I am terrified of the knife pressing against the unscarred side of my face, I look up and meet his eyes.

"You're nothing," I say to him. "Nothing."

His eyes darken, and he leans in. I feel the sting as the knife punctures skin, but it's not deep enough to really hurt.

Not yet.

"Go ahead, cut up my face if it will make you feel better about the fact that you're a sad, petty, vicious little man, and you're going to die down here, same as me, and no one will mourn you."

He twists his fingers in my hair until my scalp screams.

"And you think anyone will mourn you? A worthless Second with a mangled face? You think anyone will care if you die?" he snarls.

"Yes. My friends will. The boy I love will."

I don't mean to say that last part, but Roan is in my heart, and I can't acknowledge what I will lose without mentioning the most important thing of all.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Fletcher laughs.

And then I'm sure I must be dreaming because a beautiful, familiar voice, one I never thought I'd hear again, says, "She's talking about me."

Fletcher slowly turns, still holding onto my hair.

Roan is standing behind him.