The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Forty-Six

Of course I can't tell my friends what I'm doing. There's too much to explain, and I don't have time, and they won't leave the CC if they know that I'm going back into the Grid.

But this has to end now.

Otherwise all those kids, the people that I have spent my entire life with, will have died for nothing.

I know that there's a good chance that I won't escape a second time.

But I have no choice now.

If I don't do this, then Taffy, and Priya, and Sonny might still escape the CC, but they will always be on the run, always looking over their shoulders. They will never truly be free.

The Trials will continue, and more and more Seconds will die.

I think of the nursery behind the CC, where Second babies are taken until they're old enough to move into the main building. Years from now, they'll be the ones desperately slaughtering each other in the Grid.

I won't let that happen.

Even if it costs me my own life.

With a Predator knife in one hand, and Rosie's bag in the other, I leave Records and make my way back to the lifts.

There's still no sign of life, but my nerves are stretched out like wires. I've already seen how quickly plans can go wrong – it could happen again. A Handler or a Predator could emerge from any room and stop me.

But they don't.

I can only assume that the Predator who chased us down in the Grid found easier prey there rather than following us up. Or maybe he was too scared to follow us. Even Predators have been trained to play by the rules.

All too soon, I'm back in front of the lifts, and my stomach is a rock, because I am terrified of the Grid and I would give anything not to go back down there.

Closing my eyes, I think of Roan. I picture his eyes, the same colour as my beloved sky. If my soul had a colour, it would be that beautiful blue.

I push the panel on the wall, and the lift doors slide open.

"You can do this," I whisper as I step into that shiny metal box.

"It will be okay," I tell myself, as I push the button on the wall, the one I watched the Handlers push when they took me down to the Grid the first time.

I can taste the bitterness of my own lie, but it won't stop me.

The lift starts to move downwards, and I feel like I'm leaving my heart behind in the CC. My friends will find a way out, and Roan and Rosie will rescue them and take care of them, and they will have proper lives, actual futures. I just don't think that I will able to share it with them.

Opening the back, I pull out the small metal stick that Rosie gave me and press the button on the side, just as she instructed. The stick telescopes outwards, until it's long enough that I can reach the cameras, however high they are on the walls. I press the button again and the stick collapses down.

It seems pretty sturdy; I wonder if I can use it as a weapon as well as my knife.

The lift comes to a stop and a curious calm settles on me. The Handlers thought I wasn't strong enough to be a Predator, but I'm going to show them just how strong I am.

I'm pretty sure now that I'm not getting out of this alive.

Even if I get Roan and Rosie the footage they need, the CC won't let me escape the Grid again. Once the effects of the RP finish then the lift will be locked again, the cameras will come back on, and I will be trapped down here.