Blackfin Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

pull of sleep, and nothing.
Except now, she was dreaming. Or dreaming she was awake.
There was not one speck of light to show her where she was, but she could feel she was in an enclosed space. With one hand, Sky tried to reach for the switch on the electrical cord of her bedside lamp, but her fingers knocked up against something hard and smooth. Then her elbow met the same resistance as she tried to reposition herself to feel what it was.
Weird dream.
Her breath bounced back at her, and further exploration showed that there was another barrier only inches in front of her face.
It’s like I’m in some kind of crate or something. Or…
Realisation hit her at the same moment her forehead banged against the underside of the coffin lid.
Sky struggled to get her arms free, feeling the cramped enclosure pressing in on her even more now that she knew where she was.
Not enough space. Can’t breathe!
Her quickening breaths were too loud, far too rapid for such a tight space. A space with limited air.
God, it stinks in here!
Sky’s fingers caught on something cold and clay-like, and she stopped struggling. She stopped breathing altogether.
Oh please tell me that’s not what I think it is.
A flash hit her eyes, blinding her – but not before Sky had an instant to see what she was lying next to in the darkness.
A waxy face with sunken eyeballs lay next to her. A face which looked too much like her to be anyone else.
There was another bright pulse of light, like a billion tiny lightning bolts.
With a shriek, Sky jolted upright in bed, sobbing at the comforting sensations of cotton sheets and the cool seaside air drifting in through her open window. The nightmare was over.
She was home, she was safe.
‘Is something the matter, darling?’
Sky’s mum stood silhouetted in the doorway, the hallway light behind her casting a streak of pale yellow across the carpet.
Sky swallowed, trying to calm her breathing, the memory of rot-stink still in her nostrils. ‘No, nothing. Just a bad dream. Sorry if I woke you, Mum.’
Her mother closed the door with a gentle click, and Sky settled back into her bedclothes. But she had no intention of falling back to sleep – not if those were the dreams she could expect to greet her.
Feeling bleary-eyed, Sky snuck out of the house before her parents woke the next morning. She needed some help to work out exactly what had happened to her, and who better to help solve the puzzle than the police? Still, it was with some hesitation that Sky knocked on the door of the Vega household on Sunday morning.
She wasn’t surprised to find Officer Vega already up and dressed. Her black hair was braided back, the open top button of her police uniform the only concession she would make to it being the weekend. Officer Vega seemed equally unsurprised to find Sky on her front porch at a little after seven, her quick brown eyes checking Sky from head to toe in a second.
‘Amazing,’ she said with a smile, standing back to make room for Sky to pass. ‘If I weren’t seeing you with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it to be possible.’
The house was small and functional, which suited Holly Vega’s personality just like the taser strapped to her hip. At seven o’clock. On a Sunday.
‘Uh, yeah. I’m getting that reaction quite a lot.’ In truth, on the short walk over to Officer Vega’s house, every person Sky had encountered had reacted the same way. Lorenz di Sola out walking his seven dogs, the headteacher, Mrs Hemlock, jogging up towards the Point, and Old Lady Brady who always sat on the same bench outside the park for an hour each morning, as though waiting for a bus which never came – all of them had stopped, gasped, and then hurried off as though Sky were an omen of the apocalypse. Even the dogs.
‘I hoped I could come and talk with you before my parents realise I’m gone,’ Sky admitted, following Officer Vega through to the family room and swallowing nervously, though she couldn’t have said why.