The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Forty-Eight

My heart explodes from my chest and flies to the sun.

The stars are on my tongue.

It can't be real . . . it can't be – but it is.

Roan is here.

He's here and a storm is raging behind his lovely eyes.

"Take your fucking hands off her," he says.

"Who the hell are you?" Fletcher snaps.

Shock loosens his grip on my hair, and I manage to pull away from him, but he only half-notices. His attention is locked on Roan.

Roan is an inch or two shorter than Fletcher, but he's young and strong, and if he's at all afraid of the man with the knife, he's not showing it.

Fletcher is happy to threaten and intimidate and beat teenage girls, but he's warier around someone like Roan.

"Caia," Roan says, but he doesn't take his eyes off Fletcher. "Are you okay?"

I can't find words.

I still can't believe that he's really here.

Fletcher's eyes narrow, planning his next move and I take advantage of his distraction and scramble across the floor, away from him and towards Roan. Still looking at Fletcher, Roan holds out a hand for me, and gently pulls me to my feet.

Now that I'm close to him, I can see the tension in his face, the pulsing muscle in his clenched jaw, the black fury in his eyes. His hands are tight fists.

"I'm okay," I whisper.

"You don't look it."

I can't even imagine what I look like right now, but it's probably not good. I want to put my arms around Roan, to taste his sunlight lips, and run my fingers through that fox-red hair, but I can't do anything to distract him.

Roan might not be afraid of Fletcher, but Fletcher is the one with the knife.

I cast about for mine, but I can't see it anywhere.

"Well?" Roan says, when Fletcher doesn't move. "I thought you were looking forward to hurting someone."

Fletcher's face tightens.

"Or is it not as much fun when that someone isn't exhausted and wounded?" Roan says.

I realise that I've never seen him angry before. Now he's looking at Fletcher like he wants to kill him, and I want him to, not only because Fletcher deserves it, but because he won't stop otherwise. But I also don't want him to.

Gavin left me no choice but to kill him, and I don't regret it because I was protecting my friends, but it will be a long time before I'll forget the awful way the knife slid into his neck, and the hot blood that spurted out over my hands.

It'll be a long time before I can wash away the fear and the horror, and I don't want that to happen to Roan.

But I can't say that; we can't get into a debate about it with Fletcher standing right there.

Fletcher laughs, loud and ugly. "What are you, eighteen? You think I'm afraid of you?"

If he wasn't, he would have attacked by now.

Roan doesn't say that, he simply stares Fletcher out, and Fletcher's face twists.

"I'll kill you first and make her watch," he roars, and swings up his arm as if he's about to charge with the knife.

But he doesn't get a chance.

His body jerks suddenly, and he lets out a startled gasp.

For the space of a few heartbeats, he seems to be frozen like that, eyes wide and mouth slack, his arm still raised.

The knife drops from his hand and clatters on the ground.

He makes a gurgling noise and blood spills out of his mouth, running down his chin. Then his knees fold and he goes down, his body making a soft thump as it hits the floor.

A knife is sticking out of his back, above his shoulder-blades, just beneath the nape of his neck.

Standing over him, breathing hard, is Cole.

I almost don't recognise her at first.

Her hair is dark with blood, matted with it, and her eyes are wild. Her face is . . . I swallow hard. The left side of her face is a bloody ruin, her cheek slashed wide open, white bone flashing through skin and meat.

I never saw what I looked like immediately after my attack, but I'll bet it was something like that.

I stare at her, and she stares back at me.

"Um . . ." Roan says.

Cole crouches over Fletcher, checking for a pulse. "He's dead," she says, her voice flat.

Pulling out the knife, she straightens up.

"Is she a threat or not?" Roan asks, eyeing her.

"I don't know. Are you?" I address the question to Cole herself.

I'm not sure my words register at first. Her face is blank, blood still dripping from the awful wound on her cheek.

"Cole?" I say, and clarity flickers in her eyes.

"I . . ."

"You're not going to hurt us, are you?" I say.

Cole's mouth trembles and she drops the knife. "I just want to get out of here," she whispers.

"Is there a way out?" I ask Roan.

There has to be, right? Otherwise he couldn't have got in.

Roan pulls a small metal cylinder from his pocket and holds it up so I can see it.

"Another one of Rosie's toys?" I say.

"Ever since you let her scan the tracker in your neck, she's been working on a way to disable them, and she finally had a breakthrough when she realised she could adapt the machine that she uses to send out the RP and disable the cameras. This gives out another pulse, one that will specifically target your trackers. Anyone who has a tracker will be knocked unconscious."

"Will it hurt?" I ask.

His expression is grim. "I think so, yes. But there are still kids alive in here, and we have to rescue them. This is the quickest, easiest way of stopping everyone at once."

"Then do it," I say.

He swallows, and for the first time I see a flicker of fear in his eyes. "I really don't want to hurt you."

Stretching up on my tiptoes, I press a gentle kiss to his lips. "We did all this to protect innocent lives. That's still why we're doing it. I've already been through hell for this, and a little more pain isn't a big price to save anyone else from dying."

"I'll be with you when you wake up," he whispers.

"You'd better be. You're the thing I'm waking up for."

He kisses me once more, then he presses a button on the metal cylinder.

There's a sudden bolt of pain in the back of my neck, and it roars through me, blazing white. I feel myself fall to the floor, but I don't feel it hit, and I know, before everything goes black, that Roan has caught me.

Roan will always catch me.