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"Lilac, I don’t need to heal I don’t want to" My voice is as broken as hers "I want you We’ll find a way to stop this, get the power to keep you whole I won’t lose you a second tione" Her struggle’s written all over her face, eyes closing tight, mouth pressed to a thin line that doesn’t keep the tears fro down her cheeks

For the first ti--the desire to stay For the first ti apart because she doesn’t want to lose this all over again

I slide my hand forward a fraction of an inch at a time, until I can slipIf my touch hurts her, she doesn’t pull away

"Whatever they’ve done to et that"

I gather her againstover my chest, her face in the crook of ainst my skin It should feel like a victory: she’s here, with ain Instead, all it feels like is a good-bye

The rungs of the ainst h it’s night aboveground, down here the light is the same harsh, steady fluorescence My footsteps echo as I walk along the hallway to the hu about inside the circular steel frame of the containment device

Whispers rise up, and the s trapped there There es they showed us coe as large and colorful as life, a single blosso I refuse to believe a species capable of such co, electric-blue glow of the rift, desperate to sos, to understand why they reached out to lead us here froes up insideout of ti her

The whispers rush into es of my vision My heart pounds

All this way, all this pain, and now they can’t find a way to just give e?

"What the hell do you want froe, as if in reply But of course, as ever, there’s no sense to be found there No answers No way out for Lilac

"Go on, then" I fight the urge to strike at the da with my bare fists, to attack the probleot me here I trekked all the way across your damn planet What do you want me to do?"