Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (24 page)

Jacob killed
Liss.

I WALK, HEARING
nothing, seeing no one. I can barely breath. My skin is cold but my
heart is being burnt alive. Hate drives my limbs, sadness pools in
my eyes. I’m half exploding with hate and half reeling from a
strange loss.

I pause on the
threshold of our room, beneath the half open roller door. Jacob
sits at the desk, absorbed in his papers on the desk.

“Perfect
timing,” he says without looking up. “You just have this way of
saving me an incredible amount of time. If I can get the door code
I’ll need you to…”

His words fall
short when he finally turns to me.

I fight to keep
my onslaught of tears back. They brim, just spilling over the dams
of my lids. And I force all my rage into my glare.

Concern passes
through Jacob’s expression.

“What is it?”
he asks.

“You saw me.
Standing in that house. And you didn’t say
anything
.”

Jacob blinks.
He stands slowly. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

I grit my
teeth. “You killed my sister.”

Jacob’s eyes
narrow. “I did no such thing.”

“Jessie told me
everything. I know you put that infected woman in the house. And
you knew we were there.”

“Look.” Jacob
raises his hands. “I don’t know what Jessie told you, but she has a
way of not seeing what’s right in front of her. She doesn’t see the
truth.”

“You put that
woman there and you left us! Knowing we were in danger.”

“This is not on
me.” His words are sharp. “I did not put that woman in the
chest!”

My lips frown.
I feel the tears threatening to break through. I force my voice to
be steady and low. “I didn’t tell you about the chest.”

The hurt falls
from Jacob’s face. He stares at me with dark eyes that now seem
shallow and hard. He takes small controlled breaths. “It’s not what
you think.” He almost smiles. “I can explain.”

“You could have
explained a long time ago. Before I helped you. Before I trusted
you — with my life and with Kean and Trouble’s lives. You could
have told me that day when you looked me in the eye and chose to
talk about pineapple pieces instead of the danger you put
upstairs.”

Jacob doesn’t
say anything. He crosses his arms and looks down at the floor. “I
couldn’t know you’d open that particular chest. And I couldn’t risk
telling you. You’d have though I was insane! Just like the people
here would think about you if you told about those doors
opening.”

“Nothing will
change the fact that you killed a little girl,” I say, just as my
throat tightens. “I want nothing to do you ever again. You’re a
liar and a murderer.”

All pretences
of patience dissolve from Jacob’s expression, leaving something
cold and primal in its wake. “I am no murderer,” he shouts. “I am
not responsible for every single person that dies. I cannot save
everyone!”

He throws a
hand back to steady himself on the desk. A wave of exhaustion rolls
over Jacob and his whole body goes strangely calm. He clears his
throat, his neck twitches. He rasps in a sudden breath and coughs
so hard that blood spatters through his teeth and lands in a semi
circle at his feet.

I freeze in
place, totally confused. One minute we’re yelling and now Jacob’s
collapsing on the floor. He goes down slow, fighting all the way
and slips at the last moment, landing awkwardly on his side. His
body convulses and rattles with horrific hacking coughs. I step
back and glance in both directions but there’s no one to grab.

I can’t deal
with it. Maybe I was wild with hate a few seconds ago, now it’s
drained away and I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know if I want
to help him.

I don’t know if
I can help him.

Images flash
back to me: the moment he passed out while driving, his blood nose
under the train. I didn’t think much of it then but they’re all
connected.

Jacob stops
coughing but lies on his side gasping for air.

I take a step
forward.

“Get back,” he
says instantly.

I don’t argue.
But I also don’t walk away.

Jacob wipes his
mouth with the back of his hand. He sits up, and when he’s steady,
he stands, leaning heavily against the bench.

I want to run
but his lips move, preparing to say something. There are so many
things I want to hear like why he hid the infected away, why he’s
sick and why he kept it all to himself. But most of all, I want to
hear him say sorry. I will never forgive him, but I need to hear
the word on his lips. I need to know that he’s not insane. That I
didn’t let myself trust a crazy person.

“You…” Jacob
scowls and licks the blood from his teeth. “You and I have come so
far. It cannot be this close. Please don’t give up on me now.”

I wait.

He stares at me
with questioning eyes.

I clench my
jaw. He’s not going to say it. What happened to Liss is the last
thing on his mind. He doesn’t even care. So I force myself not to
care in return.

“Is it
serious?” I say flatly.

He nods. I see
death in his eyes.

“I’m not blind
anymore. You’re on your own now.” I turn on my heel and walk
away.

I head up to
the next level and walk the semi circle beneath the sun with my
hand trailing along the railing. I trace my way back and forth,
feeling like a zoo animal trapped in a cage. I don’t know how to
escape. I don’t know where the others are. I don’t know how to just
cast Jacob aside. Don’t enough people die already?

But he took
Liss from me.

I stop, put my
elbows on the railing and lower my head into my hands. And I stay
that way for hours.

“Hi,” a
familiar voice says.

I look up.
Trouble smiles at me. He looks over my face and the smile fades a
bit. His lips form the shape of a question he can’t ask. Part of me
expects him to just start speaking English all the time, like it’s
just a big practical joke he’s been playing on us. But he never
does.

I don’t want to
talk about it anyway.

Trouble puts a
hand on my shoulder and stares deep into my eyes, trying to extract
the reason I’ve been crying.

After a while
of just standing and staring, Trouble beckons for me to follow. So
I do.

He leads me to
Jessie’s room.

Skylight is
huge and spread out. I keep to a small section, never making use of
the facilities. People live on the lower three levels, the canteen
is in the basement, the library in a bunch of offices near the top
floor, a gym two floors down from that, and I think there’s a
school. I’d call it a school, they call it a skills centre, which
reminds me, one thing I haven’t really seen here are kids, young
kids. There are teenagers, yeah, like Mo and Tina that run the food
court in the quiet hours, but there are no little ones. I guess
they’re the least able to protect themselves out of everyone.

Jessie almost
lives in her own private tree house, high above everyone else on
the least populated level of the three.

Trouble says
something in Chinese and points. I follow his outstretched arm and
am kind of surprised to see Jessie lying on a fancy red couch, feet
kicked up, angling a folded magazine toward the natural light
that’s filtering down.

Above is a
black, purple and green spray-painted sign: Jessie’s Tattoos. The
couch is out on the walkway, there’s a roller chair up by the
railing and a kitchen trolley on wheels beside it. Behind her, the
shop is filled with chairs and piles of books and supplies. She
doesn’t have any lights turned on, which I guess is why everything
spills out onto the walkway.

Jessie sits up.
“You made it.” She comes towards us, and pats Trouble on the arm.
“Hey, champ,” she says.

“What’s going
on?” I ask.

“I’ll get my
stuff.” Jessie gestures to the roller chair. “Sit down, Trouble.
Tell her what you need.”

Trouble looks
at me, his hands poised like he might use them to sign something to
me. He draws in a breath, tips his head to one side, then
sighs.

I pull a sad
smile. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m usually the one
struggling to explain myself.

Finally,
Trouble rolls up his t-shirt sleeve and points to the small set of
numbers he had tattooed on his arm before the outbreak: his
daughter’s birthday. His dead daughter.

“Liss,” he
says, turning the L into an R sound. He speaks very softly, and
points to the numbers.

And then I
realise that Trouble wasn’t struggling to explain what he wanted,
he just wasn’t sure if he should say her name, like I might freak
out and throw myself over the railing.

Trouble wants
Liss’ birth date so he can have it tattooed to his arm. Because
she’s dead. And he knows it too.

Wow. I look
away for a second, and cover my mouth.

Trouble looks
concerned. Really, really horrified, actually. So I drop my hand
and nod. “Okay.”

Jessie returns
wearing gloves. “All good?” She looks between us.

I put on a
smile, pretending it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of Liss. “Yeah.” I
motion Trouble toward the chair. He still looks a bit unsure, so I
put on a better smile.

He sits
down.

“Write it down
on this,” Jessie offers me a notepad and pen.

I quickly jot
Liss’ birth date and step back.

“He’s sweet,”
Jessie says, as she sorts out her equipment on the kitchen trolley.
“Came to me on his own to procure my services. Even traded me two
Chuppa Chups and a Snickers bar for it. I tried to tell him I’d do
it for free but he wouldn’t have it.” Jessie pops back into the
shop for a moment and drags out a second roller chair for herself.
“You guys are lucky to have each other, huh.”

“Yeah,” I say,
just standing and watching.

“You can take a
seat on the couch,” Jessie says. “We might be a while.”

I sit on the
edge of the couch and then slide all the way back.

“A lot of
people don’t get on so well outside, under all kinds of pressure.”
Jessie starts her tattoo gun thing and it buzzes loudly.

“You sound like
you’re speaking from experience,” I say.

Jessie just
smiles to herself, one of those sad ones that rarely come out of
hiding. We don’t say anything else and we all just hang out in her
makeshift tattoo parlour as Trouble immortalises my dead sister, so
much better than I ever could have done.

KEAN IS
SURPRISED to stumble across Trouble and I as we’re leaving. He
carries a small stack of journals under one arm and narrows his
eyes slightly when he sees my face.

“What’s wrong?”
Kean asks.

I pull a smile.
“What isn’t wrong?”

“I was just
looking for a quiet place to chill out. Come on.”

Kean leads
Trouble and I up another level and we settle by the railing,
sitting on the tiles with our backs against the glass. Sunlight
streams in from above, warming my hair. I’m not exactly relaxed but
I feel better than before.

“I couldn’t
find you guys anywhere.” Kean runs a hand through his hair, messing
it up. “I miss phones so much. We need to start a note system or
something.”

When I don’t
respond, Kean gets serious. “What’s on your mind?” he asks.

“I think it’s
time to go home,” I say.

Kean’s eyes
soften. “Really?” He glances at Trouble. “What about Jacob?”

I look down.
“Jessie told me that Jacob and her grouped up on the outside. She
left because she found him hiding infected everywhere, trying to
save them or something. She’d find them when she was scavenging. He
just wasn’t safe to be around.”

Kean’s whole
body tenses. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“He admitted
it. He put that infected in the bedroom chest. He walked right past
us, knowing we were in danger, and he didn’t say a thing.”

Kean is
silent.

“I thought that
we were becoming friends. I thought he was okay. I was so wrong.
How could I not see it? He’s just a liar. I don’t understand how he
could look me in the eye, and joke with us and be in the same room
as me, knowing what he did. I can’t…”

“He betrayed
you,” Kean says. “He tricked all of us.”

“This is why we
don’t let other people in. I will never trust any outsider again.”
I fold my arms tightly. “From now on it’s just us. And we can’t
ever lie to each other.”

Kean leans over
to touch my arm. “I agree. It’s the only way to survive now.”

“And there’s
more,” I say.

I tell Kean
everything, about Jacob knocking Doctor Moran out on purpose, about
the exit doors opening, about the infected body mysteriously
disappearing.

“I didn’t tell
anyone what Jacob did because… I don’t know. I kind of wanted to
protect him, I guess. I wanted to give him a chance.”

“And you did.
Maybe it didn’t work out for the best, but it’s not your fault.
That’s on Jacob.”

“I know.”

“We can’t stay
in that room with him, and we can’t really travel in the dark. I’ll
talk to Jessie now and see if we can get another room for tonight.”
Kean stands up. “ Will you be okay here with Trouble?”

“Of
course.”

“One more
thing…” Kean pulls something from his pocket and dangles it from
his finger. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to give you
this.”

My heart
constricts. It’s a large blue bubbled shard of glass with a leather
cord wrapped around the top and set in two little grooves. It's a
piece of glass from Liss’ broken favourite cup. I didn’t even know
it existed still. And Kean carried it all the way here.

“Jessie helped
me turn it into a necklace. I thought it would be easier to carry
that way.” Kean slowly puts it over my head and I cradle the glass
piece in my hand. It’s the only thing I have of Liss’.