The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Thirty-One

A flurry of wings fills my head, so loud and frantic and chaotic that I can't think. They beat against my skull, my brain, but I've never felt more rooted to the ground.

Boots is dead.

Boots is dead.

I crumple to my knees, holding his little body, clutching him to me and saying his name over and over again as if that will somehow bring him back.

This can't be happening – he can't – we were so close –

Boots.

"Caia?" Taffy's voice sounds behind me as she comes into the room. "What's – no."

The last word rips out of her throat in a broken scream.

Grief rises in a great wave inside me, and then it is burned away by pure rage.

"Cole," I snarl. "She did this."

Taffy shuffles up next to me. Her face is tear-blotched, and when she reaches for Boots, her hands are shaking.

But I don't let her take him. He was my cat. I'm the one who found him that day in the rain, shivering by the fence. I'm the one who smuggled him into the CC and up to my room, when he was so tiny he could fit in the palm of my hand, and I didn't think he would survive the night. I'm the one he's slept with every night, the one he wakes up next to.

I was supposed to be responsible for him and I've let him down.

I let him die.

"Cole did this," I say again, and the words are sharp as knives in my mouth, sharp as the knife that gave me my scars.

Gently, I lay Boots down on my bed. He's so still, so limp, and suddenly it's hard to breathe.

There are ashes and pieces of glass in my throat.

How could she?

How could she kill my cat?

"How . . . how do you know?" Taffy sobs. She reaches out to Boots but she can't bring herself to touch his fur.

"She was the only one who knew about him!"

Suddenly I'm on my feet, and the world is spinning around me from the force of my rage. I've never felt anger like this before, like it is burning me up inside, utterly consuming me.

"What are you doing?" Taffy asks, staring up at me from the floor.

"I'm going to find Cole."

She jumps and stands in front of me. "You can't go after her. You can't let the Handlers know that we had a pet here."

Had a pet.

We don't have one any more.

Because of Cole.

"She murdered Boots," I say, and although my voice is calm, Taffy flinches. "While we were planning how to save him, she sneaked into our room and killed him."

I hope it was quick.

The thought of my little cat suffering – I can't bear it.

There's so much going on inside me, so much anger and grief and hurt that it feels like it's tearing me apart. I am a hurricane.

"Caia –" Taffy starts, but I'm past listening.

I push past her and storm out of the room. Priya is coming down the corridor towards me, and her mouth is moving so she must be saying something, but I can't hear it.