Wild Summer by Suki Fleet

Where had he always bought a train ticket to? Where was everything and everyone he knew? London. He’d gone back there because it was familiar, because he belonged there, because it was home .
    Wouldn’t Sky want to go somewhere she knew? Wouldn’t she head here? Wouldn’t she run home?
    We should try your house before we go, Crash signed.
    Summer’s eyes grew wide with understanding, and without saying a word, he took off at a run down the high street, toward the playing fields, toward home.

Chapter 14
     
    C LOUDS WERE gathering over the sea, the horizon awash with gray weather. For the first time in weeks, it looked as though it was finally going to rain.
    Crash sprinted across the playing fields after Summer, surprised at how quickly the distance closed between them. His climbing and free running had made a bigger difference to his speed than he had realized. And maybe it was his height too. Summer could barely be five foot nine, but Crash was now six foot four and counting.
    They reached the row of maisonettes, and Summer immediately darted around the back. When Crash reached him, he was fiddling with the window of the room that had once been his.
    The lock is loose. Shake it, and it gives, Summer signed. Sky knows how to get in.
    Crash hoisted Summer up to give him better access. Within seconds he had prized the window open and was inside. Crash glanced around at the overgrown walkway, making sure no one was around to see, and followed him.
    The house smelled as gloomy as it looked—half-damp, half-stale, a little forgotten. Summer’s room seemed so much smaller and darker without any furniture in it, empty and devoid of the light it had once known. Crash wondered what had happened to all Summer’s textbooks, if he’d taken them with him to Ren’s. It seemed unlikely. Summer had probably kept those dreams hidden deep inside himself—even when he lived here, he’d hardly let them show.
    Looking around for any movement in the shadows, Crash made his way onto the landing. He had no idea where Summer had disappeared to. He was probably pulling the house apart room by room. Cautiously Crash pushed open the door opposite. The bathroom. He’d forgotten. Then again, he supposed his whole focus when he was last here had been on Summer. Stupidly it still probably was. He closed the door to the room to shut out the smell and the sight of the mold creeping like ivy across the ceiling.
    The door at the end of the landing was wide open. Crash walked toward it, sensing something …. Sometimes he wondered if he did actually sense anything at all in situations like these, or if it was just his brain compensating for his lack of one sense by filling the space it left, like the tingling people sometimes spoke of in a lost limb.
    But when he saw Summer on his knees in the middle of the floor, an even slighter figure curled in his arms, it didn’t matter what he sensed…. Sky was here, sobbing in her brother’s arms, and Crash took a deep shuddery breath of relief.
    Without turning around Summer held out his arm and beckoned Crash toward them, pulling him down when he was close enough, then crushing their three bodies together.
    Feeling his protective instincts kick in, Crash stretched his arms around them, imagining he could gather them up and carry them home with him somehow. Keep them safe there and look after them.
    After Sky had calmed a little, Summer phoned Estella to tell her to call off the search, that Sky was safe. Crash got up and backed away to give them a little space. He looked around Sky’s old room at the peeling wallpaper and posters half falling from the walls.
    I remember you. Sky signed to him when he looked back at her. You played games, but you never came back.
    At twelve she was small for her age, but her features echoed Summer’s in every other way. If she was older, they could have been twins.
    Crash smiled and crouched down. I remember you too. Are you hungry? Want me to go get you something to