The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Forty-Four

I hand it to her, and she uses it to attack her jumper, tearing it into rough strips so she can bandage Sonny's arms.

As we walk, Taffy gestures to small red streaks on the glass panels that divide up the walls. "I left myself markers."

Before all this started, I never would've guessed that my sweet, gentle Taffy would have done something like this, but it seems the Trials are quickly showing us what we're all capable of.

Which I suppose is exactly the point of them.

Going through the maze is horrible.

Twice we encounter Predators, and I'm sure the only thing that saves us is that there are four of us and Taffy and I both have knives. If the Predators teamed up, then we would have been in trouble, but for now they seem to be focused on their own success in the Trials. When they realise that we outnumber them and that we're armed, they leave us alone.

I wish I could feel hopeful about the fact that we're still alive, but far too often we stumble upon the bodies of those who have already died. There's so much blood, splashed on the walls and floor, and the smell of it turns my stomach inside out. There's a sour taste in my mouth.

Is this entertaining the people who are watching us from those cameras?

How can they look at this, watch kids getting butchered, and find it anything other than horrifying?

How can anyone demonise Seconds, when firstborns like those who organise this exist?

No one asks where we're going, which is good because there are no answers to give.

We've survived longer than many other Prey, but how long can we go on like this?

There is no way out of this place. We are trapped in the Grid until a Predator kills us.

Or . . . I look down at my bloody hands.

I killed Gavin.

Does that mean I'm Predator now? Does that mean I'm allowed to live?

I shake my head. Even if that's the norm, they won't allow me to leave. I've already made it clear that I won't ever accept belonging to anyone – the CC, the military, no one. And if I'm not willing to be their weapon then I am useless to them.

No matter what happens, they will make sure that I don't leave this Grid alive.

The knowledge of that feels like a solid weight pressing on my chest until it's hard to breathe. The wings that normally beat in my heart are nothing more than a faint flutter now, too exhausted for anything more.

I try to picture the sky, but all I can see is blood and death.

Maybe I should give up.

Maybe I should accept that I'm not getting out of this, and let my friends go on without me. Maybe if they also kill someone they will be allowed to live.

I'm opening my mouth to tell them this, when something catches my eye, and my chest swells with a wonderful, terrible hope.

The lights on the cameras overhead have all gone out. They're so small that I doubt that anyone else has noticed, but . . . I don't want to believe it but the seed of hope has been planted now.

Is it possible, is there even the tiniest fraction of a chance, that this is Rosie's doing?

Has she set off another RP and shut down the cameras in here?

If she has . . . I almost sob with hope. The first time she set off an RP, it also opened any locked doors in the CC, so is it too much to hope that the lift doors are also unlocked now?

I grab Taffy's hand. "What's at the end of this maze?"

"A couple of rooms like the one we first came from –"

"With lifts?" I say, starting to shake.

"Yes, but they're locked. I already tried them."

Except maybe, just maybe, they're not.

"We have to run," I say to her.

"What? No, we can't make too much noise –"

"Taffy, I need you to trust me. If we can get to a lift, there is a chance that we might be able to get out of here, but we have to go now."

It's still a gamble, I know.

Predators are still roaming the Grid, looking for Prey to kill, and we'll attract less attention creeping around quietly than we will running, but the effects of the RP are only temporary, and even though I don't actually know that it works on the lift doors, it's a chance we'll have to take because it's the only chance we've got.

Taffy doesn't question me.

Holding tight to her hand, Priya and Sonny holding hands behind us, we start to run.