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I open , low blast of sound fro The blood rushes inback in and leaving a metallic taste in my ent

"Attention all nonessential personnel: facility security has been compromised Repeat: facility security has been coain, in a shop, in a city called Nove her and her father is washing his hands and his arirl runs to her cave, the nest she’s built under the shop’s counter, and folds herself inside

The green-eyed boy is there, soirl "You keep co back here," he whispers, a terrible sadness in his voice "After all these years"

"I was safe here," the girl whispers back

"What’s the real reason?" asks the boy, and when he looks at her, she knows she can’t lie

"Here," says the girl, "I’irl notices the way their fingers interlock, as if they were ht you were supposed to be brave"

"I’h to die alone"

I GESTURE AT THE RESEARCHER, warning hi to craht hide hi to help us I inch toward the door and presssecurity guards, nothing that sounds like a response to the alarh the place is abandoned

A whispering rises all aroundin a windstorm--but the air is utterly still And I knohat it is Sing the lance down atfor the palsied shakes that I know are co Except my hands are steady, but for the faint treroan from behind me shatterswith one hand braced against the console, his face white, gaze fixed on the floor "Jubilee--" He gasps h it’s with his last breath

I throw ht banish the sudden razor-edge of fear slicing down ainst the wall, and for an instant his head lifts enough for hts the thing that’s happening to him

"No--no, I can’t--" My heart snaps, and with it the fear holding er half a step toward hietting out of here, now" Whispers be damned--Avon’s fate be damned I cannot watch Flynn’s soul, his heart, vanish in front of otten the researcher--Dr Car on the floor I turn to snap at him, and freeze