Free Skylight (Arcadium, #2) by Sarah Gray

hold.
    “We should
leave,” I say. “We’re only making her angry now.”
    We head out
into the living room but I can’t stay this close to her. I escape
to the balcony and everyone follows me.
    I sit on the
swing and all I can see in my mind is Liss playing on it, giggling
and soaring, with her hair flowing out behind her and the sun
dancing over her skin. Innocent. Vulnerable. And I let her down.
That’s on me.
    You’d think
we’d be used to death by now. Death and loosing everyone we care
about. But somehow it only gets worse. We already know how precious
life is and how fragile we really are, and it’s such a bigger
damned tragedy when you already know that.
    I hang my head
and stare at the ground but I don’t cry. I just feel like a heavy
weight. I tighten my grip on the swing’s ropes.
    Kean is
watching me. He’s not crying either but his sadness is still there.
It’s in his lost eyes, in his crooked lips, his furrowed brow. It’s
in his balled fists, and the way he leans against the balustrade
like he wouldn’t mind falling over the side right now.
    The sadness is
everywhere, hanging like some kind of rain cloud, pouring itself
over us and we can’t escape it.
    I can’t
escape.
    She was my
sister, and I knew I loved her, but I didn’t realise just how much
I did.
    And the only
thing I know now is that this cloud is going to follow me for the
rest of my life. However long or short that may be.
     
     

Chapter
8

    TIME PASSES
BLINDLY. Seconds stretch into longing hours, bend into broken days.
I sit on the couch and a whole week slips by. I don’t really sleep
or eat. I barely do anything.
    I check on Liss
though, every now and then. But she gets so riled up when I’m in
the room I feel like I’m torturing her. I guess it’s kind of like
dangling a starving person’s favourite food in front of them, and
jerking it out of reach.
    And there’s a
thought I never want to think of again. I am now my sister’s
favourite food.
    I make my
decision in the morning, because I know I can’t go on with my
undead sister in the other room pretending that’s okay. I think
about my decision all day. I wait until everyone is upstairs, and
until I’m sure Kean is asleep. I sometimes sleep downstairs on the
couch now, so it’s not out of the ordinary. Which is good, because
I don’t want anyone to see me go.
    I’ve got my
torch and as I unlock the door I glance at the cricket bat leaning
up against the wall. For a second I wonder if Trouble has left it
there on purpose, like he knows me too well. But then maybe it’s
just sitting there for no reason. I could take it, but I’m not
really sure I care about getting attacked anymore. So I leave it.
The others will need it more than me.
    I slip outside.
The trees still have leaves, the sky is still hovering above, the
heat of the day still lingers. The world doesn’t seem to register
that Liss is gone the way I do. And that’s sad. Because without
people left to remember you, we really don’t make a mark on the
earth, do we? We just go, and the universe continues being black
and endless, and we might as well never existed in the first
place.
    I keep the
torch low and walk straight to number seventeen, hoping that Jacob
is still there. I mean, there’s no reason for him to go anywhere
else, but he could be dead too. Why not? Stranger things have
happened in the history of time.
    Jacob’s house
is dark. I think I’m going to have to bang on the door to rip him
from sleep, but when I knock it’s only seconds later that the door
opens.
    Before Jacob
has the chance to comment on my presence I say, “I’m coming with
you.”
    There’s a pause
as he takes in my words. And for some reason I feel the need to
explain myself.
    “I want to
destroy whatever and whoever is responsible for this disease,
dammit, and every facility that keeps it alive. I want to bring
everything down.”
    Jacob opens the
mesh security door and I flash the torch in his face. He