Cold Tomorrow

[30]

CHAPTER THIRTY

The next day, I'm at school. It's the coldest day of the year so far and I feel with it every inch of my being. I also feel that I shouldn't be in school, not with everything going on. But it looks like I'm stuck with both.

Roma is absent. During history I end up sitting next to some guy with a forehead too big for his face.

"Jacks," he tells me his name is.

"Jack?"

"No, Jacks. With an s."

I blink at him. "Why?"

"For the same reason you're called Maya," he says, and I think, doubtful.

"Parents?"

He nods. "Parents."

I decide to study in the library at lunch rather than sit with Roma's friends. Individually they're quite nice people – eccentric and energetic and ultimately kind. But together they seem to adopt a language I was never taught, with inside jokes and references to shared interests. In fact, similar dialogue filters throughout the entire school, like everyone was sent an English to high-school-lexicon dictionary when they enrolled but mine got lost in the mail.

I pull open my books but instead find myself simply sitting there, staring at the page. Katherine said she would be working with Ethel and the council today to figure out the note – and how to get back Caden and Sarah. She also said she'd let me know if they had anything. It's after midday and my phone is still silent.

Giving up on study, I take out my phone and call Harrison. Since the incident with Lauren Tuesday night, I've heard nothing from him. We'd managed to get to him to someone on the council with healing abilities that night, but they only healed him on the outside. I know that on the inside, the wounds from that night are irreparable. He's seen who she is now and nothing can change that.

The phone rings three times and then goes to voicemail. He's ignoring me. I hang up.

That afternoon when I'm home from school, I pull myself up onto the roof. The effort of doing so tires me more than I care to admit. It feels I'm always tired now, even when I'm not using my abilities, like someone is slowly draining my life-force.

The sky is an awkward shade of blue-pink, the mixture almost white on the horizon as the sun droops. The day is still busy with the sounds of life, but the cold wind whips up the trees, blocking much of it out.

It's only up here, alone and comfortable, that I can finally release the secret I've been keeping from my thoughts all day. The secret being that today is meant to be my sixteenth birthday. Every year for fifteen years, I've had some form of celebration on this day. Except now my father is an Anarkk, my mother is dead, and both Caden and Sarah are missing. And the worst part is, the 29th of May is not my real birthday. It's Sarah's. I've been sixteen since February – since before it all happened, back when it was just rain and heat attacks and isolation. And I had no idea.

I lie down, the roof tiles cold and awkward against my back, and close my eyes. The wind whispers, whispers, and whisks me away.

-:-:-:-:-

Later, I wake to my phone ringing.

The dark has swept up over the edge of the Earth and turned sky dark blue and purple like a bruise. I pull myself up into a sitting position, my back aching from where I lay awkwardly on the tiles. I get that moment of disorientation you feel after sleeping during the day. I must have only been asleep for an hour, but suddenly the world feels alien and strange, like I'm weeks or years from where I was when I went to sleep. The air is colder than before and the wind is more ferocious. The trees around me whip and shudder, leaves flying through the air, along with a couple black crows.