Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron

Author:Sophie Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

EIGHTEEN

The girl on the roof above me is a smudged sketch of the Leah I knew. She’s lost a ton of weight – she was always quite curvy, but now her jeans hang loose on her hips – and her once-sandy hair is mousy with grease. There’s an angry spattering of acne across her cheeks, and her clothes look as if they haven’t been washed in months. To her left is a young boy, the same kid I saw on the rooftop opposite our flat the night we arrived. To her right, her frail arms wrapped around one of the roof’s turrets, is Leah’s mother.

After four months of trying to make sense of it, the situation finally comes into focus. This is the reason they left so suddenly; this is the reason Leah hasn’t been in touch since April. She and her mother were never in Stirling, staying at her aunt’s house. They were with the Standing Fallen.

‘Jaya!’ Allie shouts. She’s standing by the entrance to McEwan Hall, staring at me with a bewildered look. ‘What are you doing? Hurry!’

For a few seconds, I’d forgotten all about them: Allie, Calum, Teacake in her tinfoil and blue leggings. The Edinburgh chapter leader starts to scream into his loudspeaker, the usual rant about sin and death and doom. Allie hurries over to me and gives a sharp tug on my sleeve; I stagger forward, head spinning. Before the roof disappears from my view, I take one last look back. Mrs Maclennan’s eyes are closed, but Leah stares straight ahead, barely flinching when a gust of wind sends her staggering to one side. She doesn’t look scared. There’s no expression on her face at all.

‘Come on!’ Calum is waiting by the side entrance to the building. ‘Quick, before the police get here.’

He glances over each shoulder, then ushers us through a narrow passageway in the scaffolding towards a door with a sturdy metal padlock and a ‘No Entry’ sign. His fingers tremble as he tries each of the keys in the lock.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he keeps mumbling. ‘Dad’s going to kill me.’

Behind him, Teacake is still sobbing quietly. I reach for her hand and realize I’m shaking all over. The sirens are growing louder beyond the rooftops; their screams swell in my head, pushing out all thoughts but Leah. She’s in the Standing Fallen, and she’s here. She’s in Edinburgh, and so am I. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

Calum finally finds the right key. He pulls the padlock off and gently shoves Teacake through the door. We pile in after her – I almost trip over a toolbox that’s been left on the floor – and slip under the network of scaffolding lining the back wall. The door clicks shut and Calum deflates, the tension seeping out of him.

‘Nice one, Calzone,’ Allie says, patting his shoulder. ‘You can breathe now.’

Perry tugs the leads out of my hand and goes racing into the hall. As we follow her into the space, Teacake’s sobbing trails off.

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