Finding Sky

I didn’t know why my brain was so scrambled but I now knew where I stood.

‘Zed!’ I screamed. ‘Get down.’

The gun went off. Zed was already moving, alerted by his foreknowledge. A second crack. There was another shooter—O’Hal oran—up in the rafter, trying to pick off Xav by the door. Instead of diving for cover, Zed ran for me. I screamed—my mind playing a version of this where he had attacked me and I had shot him. But my hands were empty. No gun.

Victor. Code Red! Code Red! Xav punched the message through O’Hal oran’s shield with al the strength he could muster, broadcasting on a wide cha

Zed threw himself over me as I sat curled up, clutching my knees. ‘Keep down, Sky.’

‘Don’t shoot!’ I pleaded. ‘Please, no!’

I sensed Gator’s aggression and determination to kil swel in a flood of red colour. Zed’s back presented a clear target, his only hesitation that the bul et might pass through and get me too.

‘No!’ With a burst of strength brought on by desperation, I used my legs to boost Zed clear. The bul et meant for his back hit the ground between us, ricocheting wildly off the concrete. Then everything went to hel . Gunshots rang out; agents burst through the door, screaming that they were FBI. Something hit my right arm. Pain lanced through me. Sirens and more shouting. Police. I curled up into a bal , sobbing.

In the confusion, someone crawled to my side and crouched over me. Zed. He was swearing, tears ru

After several staccato explosions, the guns fel silent. I sensed that two presences had gone from the room—O’Hal oran and Gator. Had they fled?

‘Get me a medic over here!’ yel ed Zed. ‘Sky’s been hit.’

I lay quietly, biting down on the urge to cry out. No, they’d not fled. They’d been kil ed in the exchange of fire, their energy snuffed out.

A police paramedic rushed over.

‘I’ve got her,’ she told Zed.

He released his grip on my arm, my blood on his hands. The medic ripped my sleeve open.

‘From the looks of it, just a graze. Possibly she caught a ricochet.’

‘They’re dead,’ I murmured.

Zed caressed my hair. ‘Yeah.’

‘What happened to me?’

The medic looked up from her treatment of my arm. ‘You hit your head too?’ She saw the blood in my hair. ‘When did this happen.’

‘I don’t know.’ My eyes turned to Zed. ‘You locked me in the boot of your car. Why did you do that to me?’

Zed looked shocked.

‘No, I didn’t, Sky. Is that what they did to you? Oh God, baby, I’m sorry.’

‘We’d best get her checked for concussion,’ said the medic. ‘Keep talking to her.’ She signal ed for a stretcher to be brought over. Zed untied my legs.

‘I shot you,’ I told him.

‘No, you didn’t, Sky. The men were shooting at us, remember?’

I gave up. ‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘Just think that you are safe now.’

I had an image of an orange-ski

The two medics lifted me onto the stretcher. Zed kept hold of my uninjured hand as I was wheeled out to the ambulance.

‘I’m sorry I shot you,’ I told him. ‘But you were attacking me.’

Why would my soulfinder attack me?

I could see other Benedicts gathering around my stretcher. They were evil, weren’t they?

Zed wiped the blood from my cheek. ‘I wasn’t attacking you and you haven’t shot me.’

The last I saw of the rest of the Benedict family was a grim-looking Saul as I was loaded into the ambulance. Zed tried to get in but I shook my head.

‘I shot him,’ I told the medic seriously. ‘He can’t come with me; he hates me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman told Zed. ‘Your presence is upsetting her. Where are her parents?’

‘They’re booked into a hotel off the Strip,’ said Saul. ‘I’l let them know. Which hospital are you taking her to?’

‘The Cedars.’

‘OK, I’l stay away, let her calm down if you think that best,’ said Zed reluctantly releasing my hand.

‘Sal y and Simon wil be there. You hear that, Sky?’

I didn’t reply. As far as I could remember one or other of us should be dead. Perhaps it was me. I closed my eyes, my mind so overloaded I had to check out for a moment. Then I was gone.

It was the sounds that first alerted me to the fact that I was in hospital. I didn’t open my eyes but I could hear the hushed noise in the room—a machine humming, people murmuring. And the smel s—

antiseptic, unfamiliar sheets, flowers. Surfacing a little more, I could feel the pain, dul ed by drugs but stil lurking. My arm was bandaged and I could feel the pul of a dressing in my hair and the itch of stitches. Slowly, I let my eyes flutter open. The light was too bright.

‘Sky?’ Sal y was at my side in an instant. ‘Are you thirsty? The doctors said you must drink.’ She held a beaker out, her hand shaking.

‘Give her a moment, love,’ Simon said, coming to stand behind her. ‘Are you al right?’

I nodded. I didn’t want to speak. My head was stil messed up, ful of conflicting images. I couldn’t work out what was real and what was imagined.

Supporting the back of my head, Sal y held the water to my lips and I took a sip.

‘Better now? Can you use your voice?’ she asked.

There were too many voices—mine, Zed’s, a man saying he was my friend. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the pil ow.

‘Simon!’ Sal y sounded distressed.

I didn’t want to upset her. Perhaps if I pretended I wasn’t there, she would be happy again. That sometimes worked.

‘She’s in shock, Sal y,’ Simon said soothingly.

‘Give her a chance.’

‘But she’s not been like this since we first had her.

I can see it in her eyes.’

‘Shh, Sal y. Don’t jump to conclusions. Sky, you take al the time you need, you hear? No one’s going to rush you.’

Sal y sat down on the bed and took my hand. ‘We love you, Sky. Hold on to that.’

But I didn’t want love. It hurt.

Simon switched on the radio and tuned in to a station playing soft classical music. It flowed over me like a caress. I’d listened to music al the time during the years in a succession of foster and care homes.

I’d only spoken by singing strange little half-mad songs I’d made up myself, which had led the carers to assume I was crazy. I suppose I had been. But then Sal y and Simon had met me and seen that they could do something for me. They’d been so patient, waiting for me to emerge, and gradual y I had. I’d not sung a note since. I couldn’t put them through that again.

‘I’m al right,’ I rasped. I wasn’t. My brain was a junkyard of bits and pieces.

‘Thank you, darling.’ Sal y squeezed my hand. ‘I needed to hear it.’

Simon fiddled with an arrangement of flowers, clearing his throat several times. ‘We’re not the only ones who want to know you’re OK. Zed Benedict and his family have been camping out in the visitors’

lounge.’

Zed. My confusion increased. Panic zapped through me like an electric shock. I’d realized something important about him, but I’d slammed the door closed again.

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s al right. I’l just go and tel them you’ve woken up and explain you aren’t up to visitors right now. But I’m afraid the police are waiting to talk to you. We have to let them in.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Just tel them the truth.’

Simon went out to give the Benedicts the news. I gestured to Sal y that I wanted to sit up. I now noticed that her face looked strained and tired.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘You’ve been out for twelve hours, Sky. The doctors couldn’t explain why. We were very worried.’