A laugh tumbled from my lips as understanding crashed into me, and I looked back at the building before us. It made sense why Seth was so taken aback. I had been the first time I’d spotted trainees sitting up there too, but apparently, it was fairly normal. I’d gotten so used to the sight since I’d left the induction wing, but Seth hadn’t had the chance to.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Someone’s always up there.”

  “Really?” Seth asked, looking at me with wide eyes.

  “Yeah. I mean, they’re not meant to be,” I felt the need to explain. “Rodgers said we shouldn’t go out during rush hour, just in case.”

  Confusion appeared on Seth’s face, and his eyes returned to the building.

  “In case of what?”

  “Being seen,” I said, gesturing to the line of trees on the far side of the Academy grounds. “There’s a dual carriageway over there, and the tutors don’t want to risk us being spotted by someone driving past, but I don’t really think that’s likely…”

  Seth’s gaze followed mine, scanning the trees in the distance. They were so thick and tall that it was impossible to even see the road through it, but I’d been told it was there. I’d seen it on a map too, but I couldn’t even hear it.

  The chances of anyone even happening to catch sight of the Academy as they passed seemed unlikely, but being able to see the Academy well enough to spot anyone sitting on the roof felt close to impossible. Surely, they’d need to have parked the car and gotten out to actually get a good enough look at it, and even then, they’d probably need to use binoculars or something.

  They wouldn’t be able to do that, though. There was nowhere for anyone to park anywhere near the Academy. There wasn’t even a lay-by for anyone to pull into, so they’d need to just stop at the edge of the road, and if anyone was foolish enough to do that, the security measures around the grounds would kick in.

  That was what Rodgers had told me, anyway. I’d asked him what he meant by that, wanting to know what would happen to the person if they did try to spy on the school, but he just chuckled and said he was pretty sure I didn’t actually want to know the answer to that question. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. He did offer to tell me, but I couldn’t recall if I’d taken him up on it.

  “And it’s allowed?” Seth asked, looking back at the roof. “The tutors don’t care?”

  “Umm… I don’t think they do?” I said with a shrug. “I mean, you know how they are here. They trust us not to do anything too stupid and, if we do, to deal with the consequences of whatever happens.”

  They really did, and that still felt strange to me. As long as we weren’t risking others or doing anything that could reveal the Academy to the public, they allowed us to make our own decisions, and I hated it. I wasn’t used to having an adult put so much trust in me, and it felt wrong every single time.

  Maybe it should have made me more confident. Having someone tell me that I knew best, that I was smart and mature enough to know what to do, should have been good. It should have made me start to believe it too, but it didn’t. If anything, it just made me feel more uncertain. The urge to check with a tutor or someone older than me before making any decision, no matter how minor, only grew stronger each time they refused to tell me what to do.

  It was too much trust, and it had come too soon. I still felt too new to the Academy, too young and stupid, and I wasn’t ready. None of my decisions really mattered. They didn’t impact anyone else, and the tutors did generally offer advice when I asked, but they wouldn’t make the choice for me, and that was hard.

  “Have you ever been up there?” Seth asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  Hesitation washed over me, and I searched my memories, trying to figure it out. Flashes of being on a roof appeared behind my eyes, but they weren’t right. The grounds I was looking down on in those recollections were all wrong. That wasn’t how it actually looked, I realised. The memories must have come from another world, or maybe they were from before I’d been taken to the Academy.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Do you want to?” Seth asked quickly, pausing before adding, “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t or if you don’t like heights or something. That’s completely fair. I didn’t used to either. They used to terrify me.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure why, but that surprised me. Seth always seemed so fearless, so the thought of him being scared of something like heights made me smile, and I wanted to know more.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I used to get really nervous whenever I was up high because I was worried something would happen, and I’d trip and fall straight over the edge or something.”

  He laughed, but the sound was tinged with anxiety. I joined in, wanting to make him feel more at ease.

  “That’s fair. So, what happened? How did you get used to them?”

  Seth hesitated for a moment, the smile slipping from his face.

  “Like five years ago or something, I realised I could get out onto the roof from the window in my room. It was around the back of the house, and no one really went out there, so they never found me,” he explained. “Sometimes, when my dad was in a mood, I’d go out there.”

  I felt a slight smile pulling at my lips. It wasn’t because of the story Seth had told. It was because I understood, and that surprised me. I’d never really spoken to anyone about my family or what it was like, and I didn’t know anyone else who had a parent like my mom. It felt nice, though.

  Obviously, I felt bad for Seth. He shouldn’t have had to put up with his dad, and he was so much worse than my mom had ever really been, but having someone who understood what it was like made me feel… less alone.

  “I used to do the same,” I admitted. “I couldn’t do it at home, but we’d go to my grandparents’ house every summer, and I used to hide from my mom on the roof.”

  It had been scary the first time. I was desperate, though. My grandparents had just left the house, but before they left, they’d been more awful to Mom than normal. I could feel the fury building within her even as she plastered a smile onto her face and waved them off, and I knew the moment they were gone, she’d explode. I had to get away.

  My heart had been pounding. I’d tried to find another hiding place, but there was nowhere else. If I stayed in the house, she’d be able to find me, and I knew I didn’t have enough time to get changed into my running clothes and get away. Climbing out the window felt like a stupid decision at first, but it wasn’t.

  Before long, the fear went away. It stopped being quite so terrifying, and I started actually liking being out there. Sometimes, I’d sit out there even when I wasn’t hiding from my mom. It was just nice to be outside where no one could find me, and I was alone.

  A pang of longing tore through me. It was so strong it almost pulled me from the world. I was going home, I realised. In my reality, I was on my way home, and that meant I didn’t have that option anymore. I wouldn’t be able to slip out onto the roof to get away from my mom when she got angry for another year, and that made my heart sink. I was excited to get home, obviously, but things were harder there. There was no escape.

  The world started to spin slowly around me. I could feel myself pulling away from it slightly, even though my reality was no better than the Academy. It was worse, but part of me still wanted to escape. Every other world scared me, but I just wanted to be somewhere that didn’t make me sad.

  Movement caught my eye, and I glanced at Seth in time to see him smile at me. The expression was so sweet, so understanding, that it made my heart clench. My vertigo slipped away, and all I could do was hold his gaze.

  “Really?” he asked softly.

  “Yeah,” I replied, my voice softer than I expected.

  It was more difficult than I expected to get the word out, and I wasn’t sure why. A lump had formed in my throat, and butterflies flapped in my stomach, making me feel nervous. It was a good kind of nervous, though. I wanted it to go away, but I also liked how Seth was looking at me, and I didn’t want that to stop.

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  “Awesome,” he breathed before shaking his head slightly. “Sorry, I’ve just… never met anyone like you. I mean, anyone else who’d done that too.”

  Another nervous laugh slipped from his mouth.

  “Me either,” I replied, feeling my cheeks burn.

  Seth’s smile grew wider, and he held my gaze for a moment longer before looking away.

  “I kind of miss it. Is that weird?” he asked, glancing at me from the corner of his eyes. “I mean, I used to sit out there for hours, just watching the stars, and it was kind of peaceful, you know?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  I’d done that too. Not in Scotland. I rarely went out onto the roof at night. It was safer that way. If Mom couldn’t find me in the evening, she always assumed I was out with some guy, despite the fact I didn’t know any around there. That didn’t really seem to matter to her, and I hated her rants about how I was a slut and how if I got pregnant as a teenager, I’d disgrace the entire family, so I normally stayed in the house.

  But I’d spent house outside on the roof at Duncan’s house. Phoebe and I used to go out there during parties when being inside and surrounded by people became too much for us. Sometimes, we’d sneak out a bottle of some random alcohol and spend hours lying out there, feeling the vibration from the pounding music reverberating through our bodies and staring up at the sky.

  Duncan would join us sometimes. Somehow, he always seemed to know when we’d disappeared, and I think being inside got to him too. He liked being around people way more than Phoebe or I did, but he always seemed more relaxed lying out there, and I liked it when he came out.

  My hand twitched, and I felt myself bite my lip. I wanted to text Duncan. I wasn’t sure what I’d say to him, but I just wanted to talk to him. It was risky with my mom in the car next to me. She’d already gotten annoyed at me being on my phone, and I knew there was a chance she’d grab it out of my hands and read my texts, but the temptation was still there.

  “So… do you want to do it?” I heard Seth ask, his voice distant. “Go up there, I mean?”

  I glanced at him, barely taking in his face. It was blurred, and the colours were starting to fade from it, but I could still make out his smile. It was so hopeful, so nervous yet excited, that I wanted to agree with him. Even if I had no desire to go on the roof and it terrified me, I was pretty sure I would have still said yes because the thought of doing anything to crush his happiness broke my heart.

  But before I could say anything, anxiety gripped me. It seemed to come from nowhere, and I didn’t expect it. My chest tightened as if a bolder had been dropped on top of me and was slowly crushing the air from my lungs, and my thoughts began to race. I had liked being on the roof before, but what if it was different at the Academy for some reason?

  It could be, I realised, eyeing the building in front of us. When I’d done it, I’d only been one story up. It wasn’t that high. If I fell from it, unless I somehow landed on my head, it was likely that I would have survived, but that wouldn’t be the case if I fell from the Academy.

  The building was surprisingly tall, I realised as I stared at it. It didn’t feel that big when I was in it, but it was. If I fell onto the gravel below, the impact would probably kill me, especially if I landed on the greenhouse.

  My eyes found the fogged glass building attached to the side of the Academy, and a shiver tore through me. I couldn’t stop myself from picturing my body smashing through the roof. The shards of glass would turn my skin to ribbon, and if that didn’t somehow kill me, I’d land on the plants below. That would be a worse way to go. Most of the plants in there were either toxic or poisonous. It also housed medicinal ones, but they wouldn’t be of much help if I were just lying on them.

  Would that even happen, though? The question pulled at me, causing my thoughts to stutter. I wasn’t actually sure. The glass was meant to be strong enough to withstand a barrage of bullets. It was supposedly hardened, so even a bomb detonating nearby or a car crashing into it at full speed wouldn’t be enough to break it, so it felt unlikely that my body slamming against the roof would even leave a mark. I’d probably just splat against it like a bug hitting the windshield.

  “Sure,” I forced myself to say, pushing the anxious thoughts swirling through my mind away.

  My answer seemed to shock Seth, and his lips parted slightly. His eyebrows twitched, pulling together before his smile reappeared, wiping the surprise away.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go,” I said, taking a step towards the building.

  Seth hurried after me.

  “Wait, right now?” he asked.

  There was no real reason for us not to. The tour was pretty much over. I’d already shown Seth almost all of the buildings outside, and I could always point out anything else from the roof if he asked, or I’d show him the rest in the morning. Or after dinner. I wasn’t sure how long he’d want to spend out there, but we might have enough time after we’d eaten to swing by the last couple of places. It was barely starting to get dark.

  “Why not?”

  Seth looked away from me, his eyes finding the people sitting on the roof before his smile grew even wider.

  “Let’s go,” he said excitedly, hurrying towards the front doors of the school.

  I laughed as I rushed after him. He was taller than I was. His legs were so much longer, and I almost had to jog to keep up with him, but I didn’t mind. I’d been working out so much since getting to the Academy, so I wasn’t even out of breath as we entered the building again.

  The smell of something garlicky and delicious towards us as we crossed the lobby towards the lift, and I glanced back at the canteen as my stomach grumbled. It smelt so good, and I was starving, but that confused me. I shouldn’t have been. We’d gotten a snack on the way out. I’d had a flapjack and a protein bar. That should have been more than enough to keep me full until dinner, if not even longer.

  It was real life, I realised slowly. I was hungry there, and the sensation was reaching through the worlds. That made much more sense to me. I’d already been awake for hours there, and I wasn’t sure if I’d had anything to eat yet.

  My stomach grumbled again, and I pressed a hand against it, my eyes flicking towards Seth as embarrassment rose within me. It was stupid. There was no need to be embarrassed about something I couldn’t even control, and I knew that, but I still felt it.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “We can always grab dinner now and go up on the roof after?”

  For some reason, his offer just made my cheeks burn. It was so considerate, but I could see the reluctance in his eyes. He didn’t really want to do that, and neither did I. I wasn’t actually hungry.

  “No, it’s okay,” I said as I hit the button to call the lift.

  “Are you sure?” he checked.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. We can have something later. They serve dinner until really late, anyway.”

  “Oh really? That’s cool.”

  I smiled at him in response, unable to think of anything else to say. My stomach was starting to hurt. I needed to go back into the real world and have something, I realised. There was probably some food in the car somewhere that I could snack on. That would be enough to sate me, and then I’d return to the Academy.

  The lift chimed as it arrived, and I stepped inside, blindly hitting the button as I started to pull out of the world. I could hear Seth speaking as I did, but his voice was too distant and muffled. The clean, sleek interior of the lift was already being replaced by the inside of Mom’s car.

  Disappointment grew within me as I blinked quickly and looked around. The footwell was empty. My backpack was the only thing there. There were packets of crisps or anything else, and the only food I could see was in the paper bag stashed behind one of Mom’s coffee cups in the console.

  My eyes flicked between it and her face, trying to work out how she’d react if I asked whether I could have some. Not well, I assumed. She wasn’t really a fan of sharing her food, and there was no real point in asking. The chances of her agreeing were basically zero, but there was nothing else. If I wanted to have food, which I did, we’d need to stop.

  I glanced at her again, taking in her posture. She didn’t seem too angry. She was still humming along to the radio, and she barely glared at the car that overtook her. That was promising.

  There was a service station coming up, I noticed, reading the sign as it came into view. That was good timing. She couldn’t claim we’d just passed one and tell me off for not asking sooner.

  “Do you mind if we stop here?” I asked. “I’m getting pretty hungry.”

  She turned her head to look at me, her lip curled in disgust.

  “Why didn’t you get something when we stopped ten minutes ago?” she demanded.

  I was pretty sure it had been more than ten minutes since we’d stopped last. I wasn’t certain how much time had passed, but it was longer than that. There was no point in arguing, though. That would just annoy my mom, making her more likely to refuse to stop, and I was too hungry for that.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I should have, but I didn’t realise.”

  She eyed me again. I could almost feel her trying to work out whether to pull in or not, and a flare of desperation burned through me as the service station came into view, causing my stomach to grumble loudly.

  “Do you know how to get onto the roof?” I heard Seth ask, his voice echoing in my ears, but I pushed it away, forcing myself to remain in the real world.

  “Fine,” she agreed with a heavy sigh. “But you need to be quick in there. This journey has already taken longer than it should, and we can’t keep stopping. Otherwise, we’ll never make it home.”

  The temptation to point out that I’d not asked her to stop once before then pulled at me. She had been the reason every single time because she couldn’t go more than half an hour without having a cigarette or getting another coffee, but I forced myself to swallow the words.

  As satisfying as it would be to say them, I knew it would be stupid. She would get so angry, and then she’d refuse to stop. In fact, I was pretty sure she’d be able to resist her cravings for the rest of the journey if it meant we didn’t pull into another service station. That would be just as difficult for her as it would be for me, if not worse, but she was so stubborn that I think she’d find a way to push through.

  “I will,” was all I said.

  “Good,” she muttered, shooting me another look as she began to drift onto the slip road.

  I had to fight to keep my expression neutral as relief washed over me. She could still change her mind and swerve back onto the motorway. I knew that; she’d done it before, but it was unlikely. There was something I could do to help with that, though. It was sneaky, but it would make her even less likely to refuse to stop.

  “Oh, they have a Starbucks here,” I said, knowing she rarely passed one without getting a drink. “It’s not a drive-through, though.”

  Mom didn’t reply, but the car began to speed up ever so slightly.