Free Skylight (Arcadium, #2) by Sarah Gray Page A

doesn’t
even flinch, just stares straight at me with dark narrowed eyes.
After a few seconds he nods back at the empty hall.
    “Interesting,”
he says as I walk past him, into his living room set up.
    It looks
exactly the same as the last time I was here. Guns out in pieces,
water boiling, candles burning. I stare at Jacob as he passes me
and sits on the couch. He gestures to the opposite couch.
    “Don’t you ever
sleep?” I say.
    Jacob smirks.
“Coffee addict. Would you like some?” he says.
    “No.” I sit and
stare down at the gas burner with a frown.
    “Mind if I
do?”
    I shrug,
turning my attention to the pieces of guns.
    Jacob fixes
himself a cup of coffee and settles down on the cushions this time,
in the centre of the floor. He takes a long sip and sets the mug
down.
    “What inspired
you to change your mind?” he asks.
    I purse my
lips. How do you say this sort of stuff without breaking down? So I
try to get it out all at once: quickly as possible, whipping off
the Band-Aid manoeuvre, except that in this situation the stinging
never seems to go away.
    “My sister is
dead,” I say.
    Jacob takes a
nonchalant sip and swallows slowly. If he feels an emotion about
this, he doesn’t show it. “How?”
    I stare at my
knees. Knott my fingers together. “Infected blood in a cut.”
    “So she’s
infected.” He tips his head back casually, and it makes me so
angry.
    “Whatever way
you want to call it.” I seethe. “Dead but with the grand privilege
of eating living stuff.”
    Jacob manages
to look grave and serious suddenly. He doesn’t look straight at me,
but to the sides, or to something above me. Thinking, thinking.
    “Where is
she?”
    “Why?”
    Jacob offers a
tight smile. “Just want to make sure she’s not going to massacre my
friendly neighbours.”
    “Yeah, that’s
not going to happen.”
    “That’s what
they all say.” Jacob smiles solemnly as he drinks his coffee again.
“How long ago was she infected?”
    I shrug. “A
week, maybe.”
    Jacob glances
at his watch, then shakes his head. He fills his lungs and breathes
out slowly. Is that his way of offering condolences?
    “When are you
leaving?” I ask.
    “My timeline is
open to suggestion.” He pauses, giving me a long, dark stare. “What
about the others?”
    I rub the tips
of my thumbnails together for a while. Then I look up and
shrug.
    Jacob nods.
    Shadows dance
silently against the walls.
    “This place
your going to, is it like Arcadium?” I ask.
    “Not quite.
It’s more like the Titanic of all facilities.”
    This makes me
frown. “Didn’t the Titanic crash and sink and kill hundreds of
people?”
    “Yes, but it
was big and classy and progressive. And if icebergs beat a ship
that big, why can’t we bring down this facility. Why can’t we bring
them all down?” He makes a solemn noise. “How strange that our
fates would align over revenge.”
    He’s right.
It’s revenge, but it’s also something more. “This is my life,” I
say. “I won’t sit here and be a passenger any more.”
    Jacob takes a
deep breath. “You might die,” he says.
    “Oh, really?” I
snap. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    Jacob nods
slowly, deflecting my sarcasm like lead. “Pack a bag. We’ll leave
tomorrow, seven a.m.”
    I walk home
slowly, daring to be challenged. Jacob stands at the end of his
driveway, arms crossed, covering me I guess. No attacks come. No
lives are lost. It seems random and unfair that I can stroll
through the night and be safe, but I can’t open a box in broad
daylight without being attacked.
    Where is the
sense in that?
    I lock our
front door tightly and climb the stairs, knowing that I’ll probably
never do either of those things here again. I hold the torch
between my teeth and plunge my arms into the shadows of the closet,
fishing out my go pack. I packed it a while back now, when I
thought we might need to leave at any second, but that never
happened and it got lost beneath jackets and shoes.