Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (9 page)

“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. Liss’ is in
there too. I don’t look for it.

I upend my pack
and stuff comes out in clumps. Sealed bottle of water. Can opener.
Torch and batteries. Mini first aid kit with bandages and Detol
wipes and paracetamol. I close my eyes for a second; push away the
thoughts that say, if only you’d had this before. If only you
hadn’t gotten complacent. I give the bag a shake and more stuff
comes out. Soap. Thick walking socks. A pair of underwear. Kitchen
knife wrapped in a tea towel. Three nut bars. A spare t-shirt.

I ditch the
soap, pack the rest and glance around to see if there’s anything
else I want. The gold beam of light cuts across the dark walls, and
I know in that moment that I’m never coming back.

My door creaks
and I look up. Trouble’s head leans in.

I’m sitting
there, quiet in the dark, fully dressed with walking shoes, packing
a bag. It doesn’t take a translator to explain what’s going on.

Trouble blinks
back his surprise. He wavers on the edge of my doorway, deciding
whether to enter or leave. He gives me a long hard stare, then
disappears.

If I wasn’t
already so broken I’d describe it as having my heart ripped out, or
maybe like total oblivion. Trouble, at the end of all things, is my
best friend. And to have him leave without a word is crushing.
Tears well in the corners of my eyes but I fight them back with
gritted teeth. I punch the contents of my pack, force the zip
closed, and just sit there. I clear my eyes with my thumb knuckles
and wonder how I’ll break it to Kean. And then to Henry. And what
they’ll say and what they’ll do. And what Trouble will do now that
we’re fracturing so completely.

A sigh shudders
out of me. What will become of Liss?

My door creaks.
I keep my torch pointing at the floor and look up.

Trouble stands
there with a bag on his shoulder and an armful of bedding.

His expression
doesn’t move, doesn’t change. It just says I am here. Always.

He dumps his
bag by the door, drops his pillow and blanket at the foot of my bed
and lights the candle on the dressing table. He moves to the
window, distracted, thinking. He crosses his arms, leans against
the wall, and stares out into the night. Trouble turns back. His
mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He shakes his head in
frustration. Trouble points to the door, towards where the others
are sleeping, his eyebrows raised.

I shake my head
softly and he looks away again.

That night,
Trouble sleeps at the foot of my bed, with nothing more than a
blanket and pillow for comfort on the hard floor. I lie on the bed
I haven’t slept in since Liss died; my arms and ankles crossed,
trying to keep strictly to my side because I know the pillow next
to me smells like her. And I lie there, going through all my
goodbyes and last-times and try to concoct the right words for
Kean.

I lie there for
hours, but find nothing to give him.

The morning is
grainy and warm. I sit up and find Trouble sitting at the dressing
table, lacing his boots. He shoulders his bag and nods before
heading downstairs. Kean wanders through my door, his head turned
to where Trouble had just been.

“Where’s
Trouble going? He’s wearing a back pack.” Kean stops short when he
sees me.

I stand up. I’m
still wearing shoes. I slept in them. He glances sideways at my
bag, still sitting by the wall. His eyes lift to meet mine, and
they melt into realisation.

“I’m leaving,”
I say. There’s a long pause between us.

“You can come
if you want,” I offer.

Kean takes a
deep breath, like he’s making room for all the panic that’s
flooding in, hoping it won’t spill over the sides. “You know I
can’t do that. I won’t put Henry through that.”

There’s another
long silence, which Kean ends up breaking.

“So this is
it?” he asks. His eyebrows pinch. “This is goodbye?”

I nod.

He looks at the
ceiling, at the wall, at his feet. “I never thought it would end
this
way.”

“I’m
sorry.”

He turns my
apology away with the shake of his head. “You’re going now?”

“Yeah. I’m
going to the city.” I don’t have to say with who.

His green eyes
dart with nerves, searching for the right words, the perfect
offering to keep me here.

The fact is, we
look at each other and don’t know what to say. Kean doesn’t cry or
scream or demand or beg. He controls himself with tight fists and
gritted determination, so that he can remember me the right way,
and not leave me with another sad memory. We kiss in a flurry of
awkward hands and holds. His lips are cool; his embrace warm, his
scent is sweet. I pull back before I lose myself.

“You smell like
ginger bead,” I say.

He smiles, flat
and sad, but a smile at least. “It’s about time you noticed.”

We stare at
each other, slowly detangling our limbs.

“I’m glad I met
you,” he says.

“Me too.”

I’m pretty sure
we’ve both got the whole ‘I love you’ thing on our lips but it
never quite gets said.

Eventually I
leave the room and freshen up in the bathroom. Downstairs I walk
past Kean and Trouble doing their goodbye thing, so I find Henry to
do the same.

Henry’s sits on
the balcony in his wheelchair, hands gently resting on the wheels
like he’s ready to follow if he gets the word.

I stand beside
him and he looks up slowly.

“Kean told me
you’re leaving,” he says.

“I am sorry,” I
say.

Henry nods. “We
had something good, didn’t we?”

And we did. It
was amazing. Being together, being alive, being free. How easily it
all falls apart and leaves us searching in the rubble for just a
brief reminder of it.

Henry tucks a
small white envelope with his name scrawled on the front in his
cargo pants pocket.

“What’s that?”
I ask.

He shrugs.
“Kean gave it to me yesterday.” Then he starts crying. Tears cut
paths down his cheeks. Sobs rattle him.

I reach for his
hand, something I would never normally do, and squeeze it. He lets
me. It’s easy to forget that he’s just a little boy, not even a
teenager yet, trying to deal with a whole heap of crap choices and
sharp feelings, and that underneath all the bravado and comedy and
head down mentality, he’s a lost boy, loosing even more. I want our
good thing back too. But that’s just not the way life works. You
have to keep going forward, forging into the unknown. Shedding the
past, even though you may want to stay there.

The only way I
can see to survive is to let it all go.

MAYBE I’M
CHOOSING to leave, maybe I’m choosing to control what happens for
once. I don’t say goodbye to Liss. I walk right past her room and
out the front door.

The morning is
a little on the cool side—some kind of welcoming. The sun is a
sprinkle; dew slowly melts off the overgrown nature strips. The air
is pure.

Jacob’s car, a
glossy four-wheel drive thing with black paint and shiny rims, is
parked in front of our house. It actually looks like he’s washed it
or something, because it’s so unnaturally pristine. He leans
against the side, arms folded, staring off down the road; calm,
alert, listening.

Trouble and I
cross the front lawn and Jacob looks us over.

“How’d you get
the Chinaman to come?” he asks.

I give him a
deadpan stare. “Can you be any more offensive?”

Jacob shrugs
and rounds the car to the driver’s side.

“Who wants to
be map lackey?” Jacob leans in and extracts a folded map from the
dashboard.

I glance at
Trouble. He looks blank. I sigh. Jacob tosses the map in my
direction and I slide into the front seat, stuffing my bag into the
footwell.

Kean walks out
to watch us. Henry must still be inside.

I don’t have
the guts to look Kean in the eye, to look back at where my sister
lies. I tuck my chin to my chest and wait.

Jacob starts
the four-wheel drive and pulls away from the curb.

I watch Kean in
the rearview mirror, completely alone in the middle of the road,
helpless. His arms sit at his sides, his sandy hair is a collective
mess, his green eyes are duller than usual. I don’t turn back. He
doesn’t wave. We just watch each other. Then he’s gone, and I’m
gone, and I feel like there’s no going back, even if I wanted
to.

Jacob coasts
for twenty seconds then floors it. I yank my seatbelt on and flex
my fingers. I’ve no intention of being crushed again.

Jacob glides
the vehicle effortlessly around abandoned cars and obstacles: a few
wheely bins and rogue furniture pieces.

The interior is
swish and actually smells like new car. The seats are soft cream
leather and the dashboard is black with all sorts of gadgets that
light up neon blue.

At first I
don’t want to break the silence, but I can feel the pride instilled
by Jacob in this vehicle. The carpets are dusted, the footwells are
rubbish free. I bet the seat belts are even oiled.

“Conspicuous,”
I say.

An instant
smile pulls at the corner of Jacob’s lips.

The world
speeds past my window and I watch the colours blur.

My mind wanders
back to Liss, lying at home in bed, vacant eyes staring up at the
ceiling, mouth gaping, hands tugging at her cuffs.

I think of
Henry sitting in his wheelchair on the balcony and of Kean standing
beside him, staring into space, alone in the world again.

And suddenly I
don’t want to think anymore.

“What’s the
plan?” I ask.

Jacob’s eyes
never stop moving. He assesses the area ahead, sifting through the
obstacles and picking the best paths. He checks his rear-view
mirror, his side mirrors, throws a quick glance over either
shoulder. I don’t want to say he’s being overly cautious, because
that’s not something you can be these days. But I can tell this is
serious business, and he won’t let anything stop him from reaching
his goal.

“Drive as far
as we can, switch onto the Cranbourne/Pakenham train line and ride
it all the way into the city.”

“You make it
sound so simple,” I say. I glance at Trouble in the side mirror.
He’s sitting right behind me, gripping the seatbelt across his
chest like he’s holding his hand to his heart. And he knows I’m
looking. He stares back at me and nods. No smile. He must be on
edge, wondering why we’ve split. Wondering if he made the right
choice coming with me.

“I expect we’ll
get blocked out by trains at some point,” Jacob says after a long
delay. “Which means we’ll go the final leg on foot.”

My head snaps
round. “You’re mad.”

Jacob shrugs.
“Sometimes you’ve got to risk it to get the biscuit.”

I stare at
Jacob. He glances across at me. Jacob’s default is this amused look
that really, in an apocalypse, should only be reserved for people
who’ve lost the plot. It’s kind of unsettling.

“I can’t
believe you just said that.”

Jacob is
clinical in his search for danger, but it’s like his brain is split
in two: one part is on the look out, and the other is capable of
bringing cheesy lines to the party.

“What do you
think the facility is like?” I say.

“Well… I think
Arcadium was a tiny rural farm compared to this. Have you ever been
shopping in Melbourne Central?”

My eyes go
wide. “No way. A giant shopping centre sanctuary in an apocalypse.
That’s not cliche at all.”

Jacob splays
his palms on the steering wheel for a split-second. “I don’t make
the rules.”

“And you
definitely don’t follow them,” I say, unsure whether I mean it as a
compliment or a criticism.

Jacob just
smiles.

We descend
through the quiet leafy roads. It’s pretty clear up here, not too
much debris to block our way. Not like what’s coming, because as we
get closer to the city the roads will become more clogged, until
there’s no space left at all. And the infected swarm the streets
like rats with nowhere to go, just stuck in the endless maze of
criss-crossing roads. My dad used to get so lost driving in the
city and mum wouldn’t even risk it. She’d always make us take the
train. So annoying.