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e takes it like an entitled child who spends too much time indoors Violently

NIGHT LILIES RESPOND WELL to a gentle touch They do not abide rough handling That’s when their necrotic spines co line of redundant defenses, all of which have either been deactivated or removed, except my bloodydamn flowers Precisely because it isaround than Virginia au Augustus

The clone flinches as several sets of glistening needles burst from the flower to pierce his thu pain The shaded toxins of the lily trickle slowly down the tip of his thuered by the intensity of the poison I feel the agony as well It seeps froht to my spinal column I almost throw up, but I must move I throw my body forward off the chair to the floor near the clone’s datapad He dropped it the second after the needles went in The flower’s spines have retracted I pick it up very gently Flower in one hand, pad in the other, I crawl to the puzzle wall trying to turn off the psychoSpike without getting another dose of the spreading poison The third puzzle at the bottom on the left is a transponder to the escape door This puzzle had to be on the door for it to open and not hidden in Lilath’s creepy suite If I press my hand to the hen the puzzle is present, the door will slide up, and I can escape If I can just get to it

The door to the hall explodes inward as Lilath responds to her E two hatchets She runs toward ht function on the datapad and return sensation to e to touch the wall behind the pictures without disturbing the flower in my hands

A jarring force hits my back It al pain infor the hand If it gets to the torso, I’ony I won’t be able to move I slaht upward to reveal a ht I duck and drop the flower just as Lilath tries to chop s, but she steps over the kick and delivers a slash doard I catch it on my left forearm The bone breaks so abruptly that it pierces the skin I stumble back into the wall beside the chute and reach for the floith my poisoned hand Lilath is brutal and effective She chops ht ear, then buries a crushing blow in the right side ofinside h to the flower Lilath glances back at her E I’ Almost blind with pain, I fumble for the floith h two ers My vision pulses and I hurl the flower up at Lilath’s face It’s the only part of her not covered with armor

I don’t see where it hits her I just hear her screa her hatchet So clanks on the wall behind where I stand It’s connected to me I reach backward and find metal I pull on it till I feel pressure release in my back It’s one of Lilath’s hatchets I look at her, and I stumble from the pain and loss of blood as I wind up to throw it at her She’s hunched beside the clone There’s a ripping sound And she stands up with a shudder It was her nose the needles got And she didn’t take any chances with how much of her nose she cut off She turns back to h to join the bloody one she already has

I throw my hatchet at her

She doesn’t bother dodging It just sparks off her arht and I dive into the escape hole to plunge doard The ride is a o alonmaw bunker The tube levels off and depositspad, in a small room It is one of the Citadel’s secondary fallback bunkers There are four tubes that can access it I pull a lever to close all four

Theyelse into pass out from blood loss soon I rush past the weapons cases to the rab the laser saw first The blue line of energy coer at the bottoer coe whereblood The flow has already diulation I take off thefinger I discard the laser cutter and reach for the cauterizing gun No tians will likely keep bleeding in a rupture I un ht side Then I seal the other ones I can reach

I thought I would face a dire choice To save Sevro and my friends, or to save et out, I will die, and so will the fleet in orbit I have to get out

I take three shots of stims to stay awake, then pump blood from the med station’s supply into myself as I sit woozily in front of the communications terminal It is located beside the ejection chute The terminal is already in Black Cathedral protocol Someone else must’ve called it Kavax? Holiday?

The hidden network ie of the Reynard, Kavax’s flagship He turns to see me on his displays Sophocles tilts his head toward the camera “Kavax I am in the small chapel” The man’s eyes widen Flashes fro in the kidneys and likely the liver Left ar function Sevro, Clown, and Pebble are also prisoners in the Sunhall How ?”

“Four, but they are in Moonhall and connecting tunnels are compromised”

“I won’t be able to go to the down at my wound

“Do you knohere the prisoners are located?”