The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Forty-Nine

I open my eyes.

A white ceiling takes shape above me, and for a hazy, awful moment I think it's my bedroom, and I'm waking up for another day in the CC, and everything that happened was a dream.

Then a hand grips mine, and I turn my head to see Roan, sitting by my bedside.

White curtains surround the bed, pulled around by tracks on the ceiling – I'm in the infirmary.

Roan's face brightens when he sees me awake, and he scoots his chair closer to the bed.

"Hey, beautiful," he whispers.

"Hi," I croak.

My throat feels dust-dry, and I try to communicate that by gesturing limply at my neck.

Roan gets the message and fetches a glass of water from somewhere behind him. There's a straw in it, which he guides to my lips.

I drink as much as my stomach will allow, and then sink back on the pillow.

"How are you feeling?" Roan asks, stroking my hair.

"Everything hurts," I admit.

Tears fill my eyes, and I managed to hold them back while I was in the Grid, but I can't now.

Roan gathers me in his arms, holding me gently against his chest as I cry.

I can't believe I'm here.

I'm alive and Roan is here, and I can't believe it's real, but it is.

My aching, battered heart flutters hopeful wings.

"What happened?" I ask when I've cried all the tears I can for now.

Roan gently eases me back onto the bed.

"You did it," he says, and his smile is like morning sunshine. "Thanks to you, Rosie was able to access everything that the cameras saw, and that footage has been broadcast globally. Major human rights' organisations across the world have already been mobilised. The Prime Minister and several members of his cabinet have already resigned in disgrace. Every single Handler and other CC member of staff have been arrested, and it's only a matter of time before their military contacts are exposed too. The CC is over."

I close my eyes as a wave of pure emotion crashes down on me.

I know that this is really only the first step in a fight – the country might not repeal the Firstborn Act – but things will change for Seconds now. Too many people knew the truth about what had happened in the CC. Too many people are finally paying attention.

The doors of our cage are finally open.

"My friends," I say, half-sitting up. "Where are they? Are they okay?"

"They're fine. Priya went with Sonny to the hospital, but Taffy is waiting outside for you to wake up."

"How long was I out?"

"About six hours, but I think at least half of that was down to exhaustion, not Rosie's toys."

My eyes fall to the bandage wrapped around my arm – properly this time, not the hasty piece that Taffy wrapped around the wound before I went back into the Grid.

"Sixty stitches in your arm, and another twenty in your ear," Roan says, darkness flickering through his eyes.

I reach up to touch my ear, my fingertips running over the little lines of thread closing up the wound that Gavin gave me.

Frankenstein's monster. Cole's voice echoes in my head, but those insults don't hurt me anymore. The Trials have left me with new scars, in addition to the scars on my face, but I'm no longer afraid of any of them. They are a story of what I have seen, what I have survived, and I wear them with pride.

"You came into the Grid for me," I say, fumbling for Roan's hand.

"You didn't think I'd let you take all the risk, did you?" He kisses my knuckles, even though they're still stained rusty red with other people's blood.

"But how did you find me? How did you get into the Grid?"

"We realised that something had gone wrong almost immediately that first night. Rosie's bugs would have activated the second you put them on the cameras, but only one did, and it gave us access to a computer. We found plenty of information on there about who was involved in this, though no concrete evidence to prove what the Trials really were, but we still couldn't access any of the cameras."

"Fletcher caught me in Records before I could get any further than that computer."

Anger flies across Roan's face at the mention of that name, but Fletcher is dead now. He can't hurt anyone ever again.

"I still don't understand how you found me," I say.

He smiles. "You can thank Taffy for that. The day after everything went wrong, I waited at the fence for you. I wanted to believe that there was a valid reason why you hadn't planted those bugs, but when you didn't show up, I knew you must have been caught. Rosie worked her butt off going through everything we could access from that computer, and eventually she hacked into a couple of email accounts where she discovered that the Trials had secretly been moved up to yesterday."

He touches my hand, running his fingers lightly over my knuckles.

"I knew that I had to get you out of here. Last night, Rosie and I called in as many members of Beyond as we could, and we came back. She activated another RP, shutting down cameras and unlocking doors so I could get inside the CC."

"But how did you find your way around?"

"I didn't. I honestly wasn't thinking that clearly but I was prepared to tear the whole place down if it meant that you would be safe."

My heart flutters.

"But I got lucky, and ran into your friend Taffy when she and the others were leaving the infirmary." He smiles again. "She didn't believe me at first when I told her who I was."

"I never told them about you. I thought it was safer," I say.

"You thought right. Taffy eventually believed me when I told her that I knew where Boots was buried, and that I'm the one who gave you the wooden bird," he says.

I think of my little bird, broken on Cole's bedroom floor. Maybe I can fix it one day, maybe I can't, but one thing I do know is that I do not need wings to fly.

"Taffy showed me how to get to the Grid," Roan says.

The curtains part and Taffy herself appears. Her eyes are exhausted, but she is smiling. "I tried to go down with him, but he wouldn't let me," she says.

"Good," I say.

I reach out a hand and Taffy takes it, pressing my palm to her burned cheek as she bends over the bed.

"You saved us," she says.

"Once we'd put a stop to the Trials, I called in the rest of Beyond and they swarmed the CC, in case the Handlers tried anything, while Rosie mobilised the police, who sent in armed response units. The Handlers didn't have a chance to fight back," Roan said.

Fresh tears fill my eyes.

"Is it really over? Are we safe?" I whisper.

"Yes," Roan says. "You're safe now, and I am never going to let anyone hurt you again."

It isn't that simple, I know. Just because more people are now aware of what was going on in the CC, doesn't mean they will welcome Seconds with open arms. We still have a fight ahead of us, and it's going to be hard, but I know that I can face it now.

I can face anything.

Next week is the final chapter, and I can't wait to share it with you :)