The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Thirty

Roan winces. "I don't know if her stuff is ready yet, but even if it is, we can't use it for this. We can't afford to make anyone in the CC suspicious by shutting down the cameras twice, not before the Trials anyway."

My first instinct is to bristle indignantly. Boots's safety means everything to me, and if there is any way of getting him out then I want to take it. Then I think of my friends, and everyone else in the CC, all the people who are depending on me and don't even know it. I think of people like Taffy and Priya, who had their rights stripped when their parents died, who became property of the government because they had nowhere else to go. I think of all the Seconds who are sent here simply for existing, and all the future Seconds who will be treated the same way.

I love Boots with my whole heart, but I cannot put him above the wellbeing of hundreds of other lives.

"I'm sorry," Roan says, perhaps interpreting my silence as anger.

"You're right," I say, even though it hurts. "I can't risk everything for my cat. It's just . . ."

"Hey, you don't have to explain it to me. I know how special pets can be, and this is a nation of animal lovers, after all."

I taste bitterness on my tongue. The people of Britain have such love for their pets, but so little for Seconds.

But I suppose I need to get used to that kind of attitude – I'll be seeing it a lot more on the outside.

"What about your friends, Sonny and Priya? Could either of them hide him for a bit?" Roan asks.

I consider it. "That might work. Smuggling him out of my room at all is a risk, but Priya's room is only three doors away from mine, so it's a lot more doable than trying to get him out of the whole building." My face falls again. "But her roommate doesn't know about Boots. Asking Priya to take care of him means bringing someone else in on the secret."

"Okay, so what's her roommate like? Would she keep the secret?"

"I don't know. She doesn't really hang around with us."

Frustration bubbles in my stomach. Every time I think a solution is presenting itself, it falls apart.

"Maybe you should talk to Priya about it. She lives with this girl, so she knows her better than you, right?" Roan says.

"Yes."

"See what Priya says. If she thinks that this girl can be trusted, then you might have to bite the bullet and trust her. If she thinks this girl can't be trusted, then we'll come up with Plan B."

"I thought Priya was Plan B."

"Plan C then. And if Plan C doesn't work, we'll focus on Plan D. We'll go through the whole alphabet if we have to."

He's right; I have to try and think positive. After all, we've managed to keep Boots hidden all these years; one way or another we can continue to do it.

But I'm still uneasy about Cole.

For the next couple of days, nothing happens. I ask Priya about the possibility of moving Boots into her room, and while she is happy to help however she can, she isn't sure about her roommate, Jackie. She tells me she's going to test the waters with Jackie first, see if she can gauge how trustworthy she is.

The delay makes me chafe, but I don't have any choice.

Taffy at least seems to have stopped worrying. She says that if Cole was going to report us, then she would have done it already, but that's what's nagging at me.