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Merendsen reaches up and takes s you can’t live without"

The girl wakes from a dream within her dreahost is there, casting its soft, greenish light around her bedroom

She sits up, but for so halfway between sleep and dreams, she remembers that she’s seen it before, not only at school, not only in the alley, but everywhere

"I know you," she whispers, not wanting to wake her parents

The little wisp of light sways gently, and the girl feels a shiver wrack her body, the taste ofher mouth; but this, too, is familiar, and she’s not afraid

In between one breath and the next, the world around her changes; her wallpaper is water, her curtains seaweed, the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling now jellyfish of all shapes and sizes She’s sitting on a bed of coral, and she can breathe the water like air All around her is the world she dreahted

In front of her blooms a vivid purple sea anemone, and then another, and another, until there’s a road of violet leading away, into unexplored territory full of sub only for her to discover it

I HAVE NOWHERE TO GO, no time to process I stu of the base, , and abruptly I’ to comprehend what Merendsen just told us, his talk of creatures fro, the only place rief starts to well up, like it’s safe to let it happen now that I knoasn’t her hand, her gun

But there’s so h--if it wasn’t Jubilee, as it?--and I’ around like loose ends in the wind, I only stop when a soldier nearly runs intoto ask a question when I turn onaway I shouldn’t have run out of there, the one place I was safe I need to find somewhere to hole up and think The soldiers who seeto assume I’m supposed to be here--but if any of them talk to me, ill I say?

I slip into the alleyway behind Molly’s, wishing I could look overfurtive is always a mistake--one of Sofia’s tips I forcethe door open, I step inside, thinking of the stacks of crates I can hunker down there, probably find so to eat or drink, buy myself a little time to think

And that’s when I come face-to-face with the bartender He’s a wall of aoverit fully in one hand

"Wait" I spit the word out before I have time to think about what to say next, and stop that bottle fro with h to buy h me like he can see all the way to the back of led confusion inside me, thethat?"

I scrabble for an explanation that will reassure hie with you--that was for me Jubilee will vouch for me"

The silence draws out, and I force myself to hold still and bite down on the inside ofFinally, he rumbles, "You can stay here, an’ I’ll check with Lee But if you do cause trouble, and anyone ends up dead ’cause of you, I won’t pause ’fore I call in the troops" With a sickening lurch of ht I took Jubilee, or fro circulated around the base But he’s waiting--because of Jubilee His voice drops as he folds his arms across his chest "And if you hurt her, even a little, I won’t bother calling the proper authorities"

"Yes, sir," I say quietly I wish I could promise Jubilee would be safe withpro moment, and I study hin characters that look like art, twangy backwater accent just like some of the other off-worlders He’s a ht him here

"Come on out front," he says

"Out front?"

"You think I’ you here unsupervised?" He claps ive out "You can coht where I can see you"

I need to stop, to think I need time, I need quiet Because if Jubilee wasn’t the one who shot my people, I need to knoho did But the bartender’s posture makes it clear that in this, I have absolutely no choice I s "Yes, sir"

Heart pounding, I follow him out into the bar full of trodairí He jabs a thuet to work--and keep h to hide me behind the scuffed bar top But no matter how I try to clear my head, to stay focused, all I can see is Jubilee’s stunned face, her heart in her eyes as she looked at ether too many times, and now I exist only as a tattered patchwork ofother than numbness