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"Okay" She leans back in her seat, palh out, and sh that hopefully scans will think we’re another satellite if we stay dark"
"They’ll find us eventually, though, won’t they?"
She ss "Yes"
I want so badly to reach for her, to wrap her hands inher people forit for ht now She knows as well as I do that saving Avon is more important than her people, or mine And I know she doesn’t want to be comforted
So I clearthe quiet "Maybe it has so we can use"
Jubilee reaches into her pocket to pull out the coded ether to study the folded sheet
It’s a printed e, with Merendsen’s handwritten translation scrawled between the lines Lilac is talking about all the things Jubilee seems to associate with her--parties, clothes, vacations--and though some of it’s left alone, Merendsen has translated other parts in hurried handwriting
Knave got access, it reads No records of a facility being moved on Avon But Knave found hidden o, from unknown location in sector where Icarus crashed Three shipments, three destinations Corinth, Verona, Avon
The paper starts to trerew up on Verona And a rebellion happened there, too--ten years ago I reach out and cup e
LRI using Avon as laboratory, soldiers as subjects Whispers would never har is for J and F to find proof to show the galaxy Don’t let my father do this to anyone else
The rest of Lilac LaRoux’s h fashion is her only care in the world Jubilee lets her hand drop, the page resting against her thigh
"Why is he doing this?" I can’t think, the background huhts "What does this ainst Avon?"
"It’s not Avon itself," Jubilee says quietly, lifting her eyes to alactic center, too young for anyone to be watching it An endless war, providing an endless supply of test subjects"
"Test subjects for what?" Frustration ood does it do him to make people snap with the Fury?"
"Lilac said it was a side effect of whatever he’s doing Maybe he just hasn’t perfected it yet" She draws a shaky breath "I didn’t have ti happened to Co with Molly"
The raw fear in Jubilee’s eyesme to clear my throat "She snapped?"
She shakes her head "No, it was sous They told her and her predecessors that they were studying the Fury, but…" She looks down at her hands, and I know she’s thinking of the bloodstains I washed clean "She didn’t snap, didn’t attackjust…took over"
"Like soe the chill running throughback to me "My friend in town, the one who helped hide ue for a week before the bo, distracted You said the Fury is always quick and brutal, but that’s not what happened to Davin, ould have needed time to ives out
Jubilee’s nodding, her face ashen in the glow of the control panels "Or ines and life support is thick and heavy Jubilee’s voice is quiet, as though to speak the words too loudly ht make them true "Maybe Davin was a test run Maybe Towers too, to stop her fro his secrets But ouldn’t a man like Roderick LaRoux do to wield the ability to control people’s irl dreams in colors Her classes at school are the yellow of butter and flower petals, and her books are the rich blue of the deep oceans she reads about Her hter peach that highlights it, les with it to turn them both the color of sunrise
But her dreae is, or the training base on Paradisa, or the bar where she goes when she’s off duty She exists there in a colorless world--not black and white, but a ray She doesn’t even know to hts and pulled out the irl knows that the boy is looking for her And when he finds her, his eyes will be green, and she’ll re Traffic control on alert, orders to fire at will Traitors on board" The comms chatter is all about us I’ve set the co a few inches froroan, I thumb the mute button, and we’re left in abrupt silence The heat shields are all still closed, and without the vastness of space around us, I can al to wait out our pursuers