Finding Sky

Everything I wanted was here.

I sat at the end of my bed looking out of the window long after my parents had retired for the night. The sky was clear, moon shadows turning the snow a bruised blue. Winter had set in, the snow packed down, prepared to stay til spring. The thermometer was wel below freezing, the icicles dripping from the eaves, lengthening daily. I scratched at my arms. I couldn’t bear this. I wanted to scream, pummel my head until it was back in shape.

I was trying hard to pretend I was getting better but in fact I felt I was getting worse. I clung on to sanity, stepping lightly on the thin ice protecting my mind, but I feared that this was an il usion: I had already plunged through the cracks.

I stood up abruptly and walked to the window, fists clenched. I had to do something. There was only one place I could think of to go to prevent the damage spreading. Grabbing my dressing gown, I shoved open the casement. I knew what I was contemplating was mad, but then again I thought I was crazy, so what the hel . Regretting that my snow boots were downstairs—I didn’t want to risk alerting my parents to my plan—I climbed on to the porch roof, slid down to the edge and dropped to the ground. My soft shoes were immediately soaked but I now felt too driven by the belief that this was my one last hope to care.

I started to run down the road, feet crunching in the powder snow. I travel ed from shivering cold to not feeling. Passing our car parked in the garage, I spared a wish that I had taken the opportunity of Coloradan laws letting sixteen year olds behind the wheel—Zed had once said he’d give me lessons but we’d never got to it. Never mind, it was only a couple of miles across town. I could make it.

I was walking by the time I turned into the steep road behind the ski lodges that led up to the cable car. The snow here was stamped down, freezing in icy ridges. When I looked at my toes, I realized the soles of my shoes were in shreds and my feet bleeding. Oddly, I couldn’t bring myself to care too much. I approached the Benedict house cautiously, wondering what security they had instal ed. They’d been expecting an attack and wouldn’t have let down their guard yet. A hundred yards out, I did feel a barrier—not a physical one but a sensation of unwil ingness and fear compel ing me to turn back.

Slamming up my shield, I pushed on through, my determination to reach Zed far stronger than this counter-instinct. When I broke free, I sensed that I’d tripped some kind of alarm. Lights went on in the house ahead, first upstairs in the bedrooms, then down on the porch.

What was I thinking? I was pla

This was gun-toting America, not England: I’d probably get shot before they realized who it was.

My certainty that this was a good idea evaporated. I stood irresolutely on the path, considering if I had the energy to turn round and go home.

‘Stop right there. Put your hands up where we can see them.’ A man’s voice—one I didn’t recognize.

I was frozen to the spot—too cold to move, to think.

There came the unmistakable sound of a rifle bolt being slid—something I’d only ever heard in the movies. Images spun: Bugsy Malone—‘come out with your hands up’. I swal owed a hysterical gulp of laughter.

‘Step into the light so we can see you.’

I forced myself to move.

‘And I said ‘‘hands up’’!’

I raised my hands shakily.

‘Trace, it’s Sky!’ Zed burst from the house only to be pul ed back by his arm. His oldest brother, Trace, the policeman from Denver, wasn’t letting him go.

‘It might be a trap,’ Trace warned.

Victor stepped out of the darkness behind me.

He’d circled round to cut me off, gun trained on my back.

‘Let go of me!’ Zed struggled, but Saul joined the blockade.

‘Why aren’t you using telepathy, Sky?’ Saul spoke calmly, for al the world as if it were natural to have a girl turn up in her dressing gown at three in the morning.

I swal owed. There were too many voices in my head already. ‘Can I come in? You said I could come.’

‘Is she alone?’ Trace asked Victor.

‘Seems so.’

‘You ask her, just to make sure.’ Trace lowered the gun. ‘We can’t risk a mistake.’

‘Don’t you touch her, Vick! Leave her alone!’ Zed burst from his brother’s grasp and jumped the steps.

‘Zed!’ shouted Saul.

But too late. Zed reached me and folded me in his arms. ‘Oh baby, you’re freezing!’

‘I … I’m sorry to come like this,’ I murmured.

‘Stop being so damn British about it—you don’t need to apologize. Ssh, it’s fine.’

Saul reached us but didn’t have the heart to separate me from his son. ‘It’s not fine, not until we know why she’s here. She walked right through our security perimeter. She can’t have done that without help. Her powers aren’t that strong.’

Victor eased me away from Zed’s chest and held my eyes with his steely gaze. ‘Tell us why you’re here. Did someone send you?’ He was using his gift, layering his words with a compulsion to answer. I could hear it like a harmony ru

‘Stop it, stop it!’ I sobbed, pul ing away from them, stumbling backwards. ‘Get out of my brain, al of you!’ I tripped over, ending up sitting in the snow, head squeezed between my hands.

Zed shoved Victor out of the way and scooped me up in his arms. He was furious. ‘I’m taking her inside and I don’t care what you say. She’s mine—my soulfinder—and you’d better not try and stop me.’

This a

‘Look at her—she’s blue with cold.’ Zed shouldered his way past his family and took me into the kitchen. Xav was there, along with Wil , one of the brothers I was yet to meet properly; they were checking a monitor that had been set up on the kitchen counter.

‘She walked in,’ Wil said. He was ru

‘Sky, what are you playing at?’ Xav moved towards me, then spotted my feet. ‘Sheesh, Zed, didn’t you notice she’s bleeding? Put her on the counter.’

Zed held me to him as Xav eased off what was left of my shoes. He closed his eyes and placed his palms on the soles of my feet. I immediately felt a tingling sensation like pins-and-needles and then pain as sensation flowed back into my toes.

Victor dropped his gun on the counter and took out the magazine. ‘Wil , Xav, there’s something little brother’s forgotten to mention.’

Trace shook his head. ‘Yeah, meet his soulfinder.’

Xav’s touch pinched for a second, a jolt in the flow of energy, then he went back to healing.

Wil whistled. ‘No kidding?’

‘That’s what he says.’ Trace glanced at his father, seeking confirmation. Saul nodded.

‘Wel , wha’d’ya know.’ Wil gri

Zed smiled at him grateful y. ‘Not that she knows—

but we’l try and find out for you.’

‘Don’t forget the rest of us,’ said Trace, his smile a little forced. ‘Some of us are ru

Saul clasped his son’s shoulder briefly. ‘Patience, son. You’l find her.’

‘You walked here al on your own?’ Zed asked gently while the healing was progressing. ‘Why?’

‘I need help,’ I whispered, wishing I could burrow into his chest and disappear. He was so warm and I was so cold. ‘I needed you.’

Trace and Victor were stil suspicious about my strange arrival. I could feel the waves of emotion flowing off them. Oh God, my gift had switched on again. I’d read the emotions in the warehouse but deadened myself to them ever since; here, in this house of savants, the ability to see people from their feelings came rushing back.