Taffy takes a long time to fall asleep that night, crying so hard over Boots.
When I look at the little spot he used to occupy on my bed, where strands of his fur still remain, my chest aches with tears that I still need to shed, but I have to put my grief on hold. Too many lives are depending on me.
I soothe Taffy as best as I can, and I'm unspeakably relieved when she finally cries herself to sleep. She can't be awake when I sneak out to pull the fire alarm.
My heart is thundering in my throat, fear and excitement warring inside me.
There are so many ways that this could go wrong, but I refuse to think about any of them. Instead I think about the future.
I think about walking out of here, hand in hand with Roan.
I think about the world that is waiting for me to come and explore it.
I think about my everywhere sky.
The hands on the clock tick into position and there's no more time to think about anything.
I glance out of the window, but I can't see anything outside, just black smears of trees beneath the stars. Roan and Rosie are out there somewhere.
Rosie will have set off her pulse by now.
I didn't feel a thing, but it's midnight, so I have to trust that she's done it.
Climbing out of bed, I reach for my shoes. My heart pangs again as I look at the spot that Boots used to sleep in, then I take all the sadness, all the fear, all the uncertainty, and I lock it away, deep inside, where it can't distract me.
Even so, as I creep across the floor and open the bedroom door, my heart climbs into my throat. I have never sneaked out of my room at night before, and a shadow of the old Caia still lurks inside me, afraid of breaking the CC's rules.
I peek out into the corridor.
There are no lights on at night, except the tiny red dots of light on the cameras, which are barely noticeable during the day. There are no red lights on now. The corridor is almost solid with shadows.
I give myself a few seconds to let my eyes adjust, and then I run, as quietly as I can, towards one of the two staircases that separates the girls' half of this floor from the boys'. My heart is throbbing on my tongue.
There's no security in the CC because the place is always monitored by the cameras, but as I clear each floor, I still half-expect to see Handlers emerge from the shadows, batons in hand.
But no one comes, and then I'm on the ground floor and the double doors leading in and out of the place are right there, at the end of the long hallway.
I run, past the gleam of the defunct lifts, past the yawning black mouths that lead to the rec rooms on my left and the mess hall on my right, and then put both hands on the doors and push.
Without Rosie, those doors would have been locked.
Now they silently swing open.
I know that time is absolutely of the essence but as I start moving down the sloping spread of land that leads away from the building, I stop suddenly, overwhelmed by this new world.
During winter, our second exercise drill is carried out in the dark because of how early the sun sets, but I've never been outside this late before.
The world is made of shadows, hugging the sharp edges of the CC, wrapping themselves around the perimeter fence, flowing into the woods beyond. The stars overhead look like crushed glass, glittering brightly in a swathe of dark sky.
The air smells sharp and crisp and clear.
I give myself a little shake. There'll be time to appreciate all this when I'm free.
I run down to the overgrown patch of trees and bushes that screen my little spot off from the rest of the CC, and it's so dark in here that I can barely see Roan and Rosie at all; they're just vague shapes, slightly darker than the shadows around us.
"Are you okay?" Roan asks, squeezing my hand.
"Yeah," I say.
I'm jittery with nerves, my whole body drawn tight as wire, but I can do this. I believe in myself.
"Okay, here are the bugs," Rosie says, handing me what feels like a small bag. "I've given you as many as I can. There's also this." She hands me what feels like a small metal stick. "There's a small cup at the bottom that you need to put each bug into, and a button on the side that will extend it so you can reach the cameras. Each bug will automatically activate as soon as they're attached to another piece of tech. If you can get back into Records, you'll need to put the bug on the computer tower."
"I don't know what that is," I say.
A little square of light cuts through the darkness – Rosie showing me a picture on her phone. "It's this thing," she said, tapping the screen.
"Right." I clutch the bag tightly in my hand.
I'll have to hide it when I go back up the fifth floor to pull the alarm, and then pick it up again once everyone is out of the building. From there, I'll go to Records first, and put a bug on the computer, and then I'll have to get into the Handlers' quarters and see what I can find there.
"Our friends are standing by in London, ready to access anything you put a bug on as soon as you do it, but Rosie and I are going to stay here in case anything goes wrong," Roan says.
"It won't," I say, as confidently as I can.
It's too dark to see his expression.
He bends his head to kiss me, and it's sweetly clumsy in the dark.
"I'll see you soon," I whisper.
And the next time I do, it will be outside the CC.
I race back to the CC, painfully aware of how much time has already passed. I hide the bag of bugs under one of the benches in the mess hall, easily accessible for when I pass back this way, and then back up five flights of stairs to my floor. A little grin touches my lips as I reach the top in record time.
The CC has trained us to be fit and healthy, but I bet they never imagined one of us using that to bring them down.
The nearest fire alarm is right by the stairs, on the wall next to the lifts. Taking a deep breath, I pull it.
A loud, shrill noise echoes through the building, and I race back to my room – I have to be there when Taffy gets up. In the event of a fire, everyone is supposed to congregate by the nursery, behind the CC, and my plan is to lose Taffy during the chaos of everyone evacuating, and then slip back into the building when no one is looking.
"What's happening?" Taffy cries, scrambling out of bed.
"There's a fire."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Taffy's about to start crying, so I grab her hand and pull her towards the door. "Come on, it'll be okay."
She just has time to slip her shoes on, and then we're out into the corridor, where everyone else is starting to emerge. I'm annoyed that they're not reacting as fast as they should be. Some people, like Gavin, are looking around in confusion, as if they don't know what that noise is, as if we've never had a fire drill before.
Every second they're wasting milling about here, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, is a second that I need.
I raise my voice so everyone can hear. "There's a fire, guys. We need to get outside. Come on, now¸ do you want to burn to death?"
My words have the desired effect, and a ripple of panic spreads through the crowd. I feel a stab of guilt at frightening everyone, but it's better that they're scared and alive, than the alternative.
We start streaming down the stairs, and as the crush of bodies is joined by Seconds from the other floors, I let go of Taffy's hand. She screams my name, and I hate how much I'm scaring her, but I really don't have a choice. I let the swell of panicked people carry me away from her, until we're on the ground floor and heading towards the front doors.
The Handlers are here now, barking orders, directing us, and I keep to the thickest part of the crowd as we surge forward, but as soon as we reach the entryway to the mess hall, I fight to the edges, breaking free of everyone and ducking into the huge, darkened room. I hold my breath, pressing myself flat against the wall in case anyone saw me, but no one comes.
When the last person is out of the CC, and the doors have swung shut behind them, I grab the bag from under the table, and run.
I go to Records first.
I have no idea what – if anything – is on that computer. It might just be digital versions of everything that's in the filing cabinets; I don't know why anyone would need two different copies, but then I know absolutely nothing about computers or how they work.
Opening the bag, I pull out one of the bugs. They're tiny, made of black plastic with a blue panel in the middle, and they're so flat that I can hardly believe they can do anything that Rosie claims they can. But I trust her.
The bug latches onto the tower, and I feel a little thrill.
This is working.
I know that the hardest part will be navigating the Handlers' quarters – I have no idea how any of it is laid out or what I'll find there – but I draw strength from the fact that everything is going to plan.
We can do this.
Then the door opens and Fletcher walks in.