Finding Sky

Victor was hanging back, watching us from the doorway. ‘You’re not corrupting the girl, are you, Farstein?’

‘Can’t leave Vegas without taking one gamble.’

‘I don’t know many games,’ I admitted.

‘Let’s keep it to Snap then.’

‘If I win?’

‘You get the flowers.’

‘If I lose?’

‘You stil get the flowers, but you have to give me one for my buttonhole.’

Farstein left with a carnation pi

Victor stayed behind. He stood looking out of the window for a moment, his disquiet clear.

‘Sky, why don’t you want to see Zed?’

I closed my eyes.

‘He’s real y cut up. I’ve never seen him like this. I know he blames himself for what happened to you, but it’s knocked him off his stride in a major way.’

I said nothing.

‘I’m worried about him.’

Victor was not one to confide in someone outside the family. He real y must be concerned. But what could I do? I could barely find the courage to get up in the morning.

‘He got in a fight last night.’

A fight? ‘Is he al right?’

‘From the brawl? Yeah, it was more words than fists.’

‘Who did he fight?’

‘A couple of guys from Aspen. He went looking for it, Sky. And in answer to your other question, he isn’t al right. He’s hurting. It’s like he’s bleeding inside, somewhere he thinks no one can see.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘But you’re not going to do anything about it?’

Tears pricked the back of my eyes. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He held out a hand to me. ‘Stop shutting him out.

Help him.’

I swal owed. There was a streak of ruthlessness to Victor that wouldn’t let me duck behind the excuse of my confusion—it was both scary and chal enging. ‘I’l

… I’l try.’

His hand curled into a fist before he let it drop. ‘I hope you do, because if something bad happens to my brother, I’m not going to be pleased.’

‘Is that a … a threat?’

‘No, just the truth.’ He shook his head, his irritation clear. ‘You can get through this, Sky. Start looking outside yourself—that’l help you heal.’

At the end of November, I was released from hospital but my parents had decided on the advice of the doctors not to take me straight home.

‘Too

many

distressing

associations

in

Wrickenridge,’ Dr Peters, my consultant psychiatrist, told them. ‘Sky needs absolute rest and no stress.’

She gave them a recommendation for a convalescent home in Aspen and I was duly registered and assigned my own room, something we could only afford thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor from Vegas who had heard about my case on the news.

‘This is a loony bin, isn’t it?’ I asked Simon bluntly as Sal y unpacked my few belongings into the chest of drawers. My room had a view of the snowy gardens. I could see a girl walking round and round the pond, lost in her own world, until a nurse came out to fetch her in.

‘It’s a nursing home,’ Simon corrected me. ‘You’re not fit to go back to school yet and we couldn’t afford to stay in Vegas any longer, so this is the best we could come up with.’

Sal y stood up and shoved the drawer closed. ‘We could go back to the UK, Simon. Sky might feel better among her old friends.’

Old friends? I’d kept up with some of them on Facebook but somehow the old closeness had evaporated the longer I was away. It wouldn’t be like going back to how it had been.

Simon gave me a one-armed hug. ‘If that’s what it takes, we’l do it, but one step at a time, eh?’

‘We’ve got classes we have to teach at the Arts Centre,’ Sal y explained. ‘But one of us wil be over every day. Do you want to see your friends from Wrickenridge?’

I played with the curtain cord. ‘What have you told them?’

‘That you’ve had a bad reaction to the trauma of your kidnapping. Nothing too serious but you need time to recover.’

‘They’l think I’m crazy.’

‘They think you’re suffering—and you are—we can see it.’

‘I’d like to see Tina and Zoe. Nelson too if he wants to come.’

‘What about Zed?’

I leant my head against the cool glass. The gesture gave me a sudden flashback—a tal tower, neon signs. I shuddered.

‘What, love?’

‘I’m seeing other stuff now—stuff that makes no sense.’

‘To do with Zed?’

‘No.’ And it wasn’t, I realized. Zed hadn’t been there. And I’d been stal ing. I’d promised Victor I would try. Maybe if I saw Zed, it would help get things straight. ‘I’d like to see Zed too—just for a little while.’

Simon smiled. ‘Good. The boy’s been worried sick about you, phoning us every hour of the day and most of the night.’

‘You’ve changed your tune about him,’ I murmured, suddenly remembering clearly the argument we’d had about him a month ago. Hadn’t Zed said he loved me? So why did I feel as if he was my enemy?

‘Wel , you can’t help but like someone who walked into a trap to get his girl out.’

‘He did?’

‘Don’t you remember? He was there when you were injured.’

‘Yes, he was, wasn’t he?’

Simon squeezed my shoulder. ‘See, it’s coming back.’

The next day passed quietly. I read my way through a pile of novels, not leaving my room. My carer was a motherly woman from California who had a lot to say on the subject of the Colorado winters. She came in and out al day, but left me largely to my own devices.

At around five, just before she went off shift, she knocked on the door.

‘You’ve visitors, honey. Shal I send them up?’

I closed my book, my heart rate accelerating.

‘Who is it?’

She checked her list. ‘Tina Monterey, Zoe Stuart, and Nelson Hoffman.’

‘Oh.’ I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.

‘Sure, send them up.’

Tina put her head round the door first. ‘Hi.’

It felt an age since I’d seen her. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her explosion of ginger brown dreadlocks and her outrageous nails.

‘Come in. There’s not much room but you can sit on the bed.’ I stayed in my chair by the window, knees drawn up to my chest. My smile felt fragile so I didn’t push it too far.

Zoe and Nelson fol owed her, al looking a bit awkward.

Tina put a pot of pink cyclamen on the bedside table. ‘For you,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

‘So …’

‘So how are you, guys?’ I asked hurriedly. The very last thing I wanted was to explain my total y messed up brain. ‘How’s school?’

‘Fine. Everyone was worried about you—real y shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened in Wrickenridge before.’

My gaze drifted to the window. ‘I don’t suppose it has.’

‘I remember joking with you about that when you first came—I feel awful that you had to find out I was wrong. Are you, you know, OK?’

I gave a hol ow laugh. ‘Look around you, Tina: I’m here, aren’t I?’

Nelson got up abruptly. ‘Sky, if I could get the guys who did this to you, I’d kil them!’

‘I think they might be dead already. At least, that’s what the police think.’

Tina hauled Nelson back down on the bed. ‘Don’t, Nelson. Remember, we promised not to upset her.’

‘Sorry, Sky.’ Nelson put his arm round Tina and kissed the top of her head. ‘Thanks.’

What was this? I couldn’t help but grin—my first genuine smile in a very long while. ‘Hey, are you two

…?’

Zoe rol ed her eyes and offered me a stick of bubblegum. ‘Yeah, they so are. Driving me crazy, the pair of them. You’ve got to get straightened out, Sky, and keep me sane at school.’ Thank God for Zoe making fun of the madness—it made me feel a lot more normal.

‘When, how?’ I mimicked one of Tina’s favourite gestures—a pale imitation of her long-nailed beckon but it was something. ‘Give me the details, sister.’

Tina looked down, a little embarrassed. ‘When you were, you know, taken, Nelson was real y great.