Merendsen reaches up and takes my hands, wrapping them briefly in both of his. “Some things you can’t live without.”
The girl wakes from a dream within her dream, safe in her bed above her mother’s shop.
The ghost is there, casting its soft, greenish light around her bedroom.
She sits up, but for some reason she isn’t afraid. Hovering 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 of metal flooding her 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 dreams of, as real and vivid as life, and she laughs, delighted.
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 submarines and sea monsters, waiting only for her to discover it.
I HAVE NOWHERE TO GO, no time to process. I stumble as I make my way down the muddy main drag of the base, my mind churning. My clothes are still soaking, and abruptly I’m freezing, my teeth chattering. I should be trying to comprehend what Merendsen just told us, his talk of creatures from another universe—but right or wrong, the only place my mind wants to go is Jubilee. The grief starts to well up, like it’s safe to let it happen now that I know it wasn’t her hand, her gun.
But there’s so much to think through—if it wasn’t Jubilee, who was it?—and I’m surrounded by trodairí. With my thoughts flapping around like loose ends in the wind, I only stop when a soldier nearly runs into me. Our eyes meet, and I ease my weight back, lifting my hands to claim the blame. His mouth’s opening to ask a question when I turn on my heel, striding away. 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 see me here, out in the open, are all going to assume I’m supposed to be here—but if any of them talk to me, what will I say?
I slip into the alleyway behind Molly’s, wishing I could look over my shoulder and see if I’ve been followed. Looking furtive is always a mistake—one of Sofia’s tips. I force my shoulders down, make myself lift my chin instead.
Easing the door open, I step inside, thinking of the stacks of crates. I can hunker down there, probably find something 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 a man, looming over me, and as I stare at him, he reaches for a bottle, hefting it meaningfully in one hand.
“Wait.” I spit the word out before I have time to think about what to say next, and stop that bottle from connecting with my temple. “Wait, I’m with Jubilee.”
That’s enough to buy me a stay of execution, but his gaze bores through me like he can see all the way to the back of my skull. See the tangled confusion inside me, the mess of questions and hurt and need. “And why’m I believing that?”
I scrabble for an explanation that will reassure him. “She left a message 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 of my cheek to stop myself from speaking. Finally, 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 my stomach, I realize he recognizes me. Either from the night I took Jubilee, or from the footage of my face being 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 with me. But we’d both know I was making promises I can’t keep.
He studies me for a long moment, and I study him back: shaven head, tattoos all the way up his arms in foreign characters that look like art, twangy backwater accent just like some of the other off-worlders. He’s a mystery. I wonder what brought him here.
“Come on out front,” he says.
“Out front?”
“You think I’m leaving you here unsupervised?” He claps me on the shoulder, and my knees nearly give out. “You can come an’ polish some glasses right 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 know who did. But the bartender’s posture makes it clear that in this, I have absolutely no choice. I swallow. “Yes, sir.”
Heart pounding, I follow him out into the bar full of trodairí. He jabs a thumb at the bin of clean glasses under the bar, so I get to work—and keep my head down, praying my tan and my hair are enough 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 me. My world has been torn apart and stitched back together too many times, and now I exist only as a tattered patchwork of myself—unable to think, unable to feel anything other than numbness.