Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (8 page)

I watch Liss,
her still face, her barely moving chest.

And then her
eyelids flutter. Her lips part and a puff of air comes out and
that’s it.

I know she’s
gone.

Kean checks her
pulse anyway and he pulls away slowly, looking back at the others.
He gives his head a little shake so that Trouble knows.

“Flo…” Kean
says.

I raise my
hand. Throat frozen over.

“We have to…”
he says.

“Get out,” my
voice snarls.

Kean looks at
the others for a moment, then ushers them out.

I know what he
wants to say. He wants to say we have to kill her. We have to be
ready when she comes back as one of the infected and tries to eat
our beating hearts. I hold Liss’ hand but it’s not her anymore.
It’s just a body. It’s just nothing. My sister is gone. My
responsibility, my love, my life, my other half. And I got her
killed.

One moment she
was running around, free as a bird, eating jam and bread and
playing in the stream and being generally annoying as always, and
now… nothing. She’s just empty.

And the worst
part? My last words to her were some big lie, because I don’t know
what happens when we die. I didn’t even tell her I loved her. I
forgot.

I am a bad
sister. Was a bad sister. Now I’m no sister at all.

The walls crush
in on me, the sailboats on the duvet leer. The room spins and
tilts, blurs in a rage of red. I leave a dent in the bed from where
I’ve been planted. One minute I’m still, the next, I’m spinning
with the room. I hurl Liss’ glass of water at the closed door, and
knock over the bedside table before the glass shards even reach the
ground. I pull every drawer out of the dresser and pelt them at the
wall, puncturing plasterboard. Clothes rain down in slow motion. I
tear at the curtains, punch at the holes in the wall until my
knuckles are raw red.

No one comes
in. Everything that gets ripped from its perfect little position
offers a drop of relief, but it vanishes quickly. I can’t stop. I
can’t stop destroying everything because for once I feel like I’m
in control. I get to be the disease. I get to be the destroyer.

I keep going
until everything is flung, and nothing is in its right place
anymore and that’s how it should be. And then I just lie down on
the floor, in between the rubble of mess, and tears streak from my
eyes. My heart is breaking and I hear it, like tearing cloth. I
listen to my own heart breaking for hours and hours and it never
seems to end.

THERE ARE TWO
bodies in this room: one of them is empty. No more sunlight
giggles, no more stating the obvious. No more curious looks, no
more little sister. Every time that we ran and hid and narrowly
cheated death means nothing now. Every risk, ever chance we
took—worthless.

I stare up at
the ceiling from all the mess, while Liss’ body lies on the
bed—calm on the outside, catatonic within.

“Florence?”
It’s Kean’s voice.

He comes in,
not even glancing at the damage I’ve done. Kean nods to Trouble,
who then scoops me up in his arms and carries me from the room. He
sets me down on the couch and then sits next to me, his hand on my
shoulder.

Trouble knows
what it’s like to lose someone dependent on you for survival. I
wonder what he’d say to me if he could.

Trouble’s eyes
are wet and blanched and hopeless. I suppose grief hits everyone,
no matter who you are or where you’re from, what you do or don’t
say, if you’re tough or soft. It still slams into you like a
speeding train, never discriminating, leaving us all equally
mangled, all equally exposed.

Some time later
Kean leaves the little bedroom, barely able to look me in the eye.
“It’s done,” he says.

I jerk up.
“What have you done?” I glance back at Trouble but he doesn’t
really react, so I try to read Kean’s face. “What have you done to
Liss?” The words come out of me, snarling and horrible.

But I know.
Logic says make sure Liss doesn’t wake up as an infected creatures.
It’s an insult that her body gets to go on but her conscious
doesn’t. I know this is logical, but she is my little sister.

I cut Kean with
a horrified look because I want him to hurt too. I try to push past
him. He blocks me. I grab his t-shirt in my fists.

“Stop.” Kean
searches my face for reason. “You don’t need to see her like that.
It won’t help.”

“Get out of my
way,” I say through gritted teeth. We struggle awkwardly, me trying
to push him out of the way, him trying to hold me back. I’m losing
the battle.

“No!” I scream.
“Get out of my way. I hate you!”

Trouble joins
us. He places his palm on Kean’s chest and gently applies pressure.
I dart under Kean’s arm.

Henry rolls
back against the bedroom wall when I surge in.

When I see
Liss’ body, I cover my mouth with my hand and let out a half cough,
half sob.

She’s still
lying there, pale and placid like before, but now her wrists are
shackled by a chain of thick zip ties that run under the bed, and
her ankles are zip tied to the frame. Kean’s obviously gone to a
lot of trouble to not harm her because he’s covered her legs and
arms with tea towels so the ties won’t dig into her skin if she
pulls against them.

Kean stands
next to me and rubs my back. And we wait, not sure where to look,
not daring to say what we all want to. Finally I decide to do it
for everyone else.

“What do you
think is going to happen?” I say.

Kean shakes his
head. “I’ve never seen the change before.”

“I have.”

Everyone turns
to look at Henry.

“So has
Trouble,” Henry says, almost looking guilty. “At Arcadium. When we
were in the lab, in the glass cages, they were infecting people.
Remember?”

Henry glances
at me then focuses on the ground. His mouth opens and closes three
times and still no words come out.

“Tell me,” I
say.

Henry looks at
Liss and takes a small breath. “Well… after this bit, they started
to twitch. Then the mouth would always open first, like gnash a
bit. Then the eyes open, but it’s like they can’t see anything for
a few minutes or something because they just thrash around and get
angry over nothing. Then when they calmed down the only thing that
riled them up after that was any kind of movement.” Henry shrugs.
“That’s about it.”

I look back at
Liss’ cuffs. “Are you sure they’ll hold?”

Kean bites his
lip and nods. “I’ve done three chains so if one goes there’s still
two more holding her. The ties are strong though…”

And Liss is so
little, there’s no chance of her breaking free. I nod. “How long
does it take?”

Henry frowns.
“In the lab everything moved a lot quicker.”

As if on cue
Liss’ body gives a sudden jolt. We all jump, and then settle,
trying to ignore the constant little twitches she makes.

“Um… like
twenty minutes, I think,” Henry says.

“Maybe the
disease they used is stronger than when it’s transferred blood to
blood,” Kean offers.

“Maybe,” I
say.

Liss’ mouth
opens and closes, just like Henry said, and I want to look away but
I can’t.

Her eyes snap
open and they’re foggy and bloodshot, strained and wandering,
unable to focus. She thrashes around, making a horrible growling
sound. This goes on for few minutes but it feels like hours. The
cuffs 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.

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 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.