My eyes keep picking out familiar features—a man of just the right height, or a flash of sandy-colored hair, or a flash of indigo fabric that matches his backpack—but it’s never Gideon I’m seeing, only fragments of memory. If he and Tarver have run into the husks above by now, then it’s possible they’re somewhere down here too, trying to bypass Lilac’s army the same way we are.
But I can barely keep Jubilee and Flynn within line of sight with the jostling and milling of the frightened crowds—Gideon and Tarver could walk by ten meters away and we’d never see them.
Abruptly a hand closes on my arm and jerks me back, my lips forming a half scream before I can stop it. I’m whirled around to see a middle-aged woman with a curtain of dried blood down one side of her face—her pupils are dilated, and for a moment I’m certain it’s one of Lilac’s husks. But the woman’s eyes search my face vaguely, and I realize: she has a concussion. She must’ve been struck by a piece of debris.
“Mandy?” she’s asking. “Mandy, is that you?”
“N-n-no,” I stammer, my mouth dry and heart pounding. I cast a frantic look around, but Flynn and Jubilee have vanished in the press of the crowd. “Sorry, I don’t—”
“Mandy?” the woman asks again, drawing me closer; her fingers tighten painfully when I try to pull my arm away.
Then Jubilee appears again, elbowing her way back through the crowd. No sign of Flynn. “Let her go,” she orders, voice quick and sharp, hand on her gun.
“It’s fine,” I gasp, prying at the woman’s fingers. “She’s confused. Not dangerous.”
“I’m just trying to find my daughter,” the woman moans, before her hand slides away from my arm.
Jubilee pulls me away, dodging the crowds. “Too many people,” she says in my ear, over the noise of voices and sirens and destruction. “We’ve got to find some place to hole up until night, when it’s safer to move. We’ll get trampled if we don’t.”
I glance over my shoulder and see, for a brief, frozen second, the woman standing still where we left her, hands clasped, confused gaze sweeping back and forth; then the crowd swells, and closes around her, and she’s gone.
We barricade ourselves inside what had been a restaurant before looters got to it. There’s no food left, and most of the chairs and tables are gone, or in pieces. The front part of it was little more than a stall, but farther back the door is still sound, and the kitchen’s one of those hole-in-the-wall places with a metal security gate. It’ll hold for now, especially since there’s nothing left inside worth stealing.
Flynn and Jubilee are efficient, working together like they were born to it, moving tables and chairs toward the door, searching for other exits—one leads to the back alley but has a deadbolt strong enough to suit them. It isn’t until the work is mostly done that I see Jubilee’s hands are shaking where she’s dragging furniture, and that her face looks ashen despite her darker skin. It’s Flynn who finally puts a hand on her arm, saying something in her ear that makes her nod and take a breath. “We’ll have to stay until nightfall,” she says quietly. “It’s chaos out there.”
We settle in to wait in silence, taking cover behind the counter and trying to get some rest. They’ve gotten new flashlights from an abandoned stall, and set them up like lanterns in the shelter of the countertop so we won’t have to wait in the dark. We find another gun under there, jammed in where its former owner could pull it out in case of a holdup. I wonder what happened, that they didn’t have time to bring it with them when they fled. It’s probably a certifiable antique, but since Sanjana’s EMP fried our cutting-edge weapons, this antique is looking pretty good.
As we wait for the noise outside to ebb, and I try to force down a handful of crackers and peanut butter from our supplies, my mind drifts back to Gideon and Tarver. Somewhere above us, they’re surrounded by husks. “Do you think Lilac’s aware of it, in there? Do you think she knows what it’s doing?” I hear myself ask.
“She could be.” Jubilee’s voice is quiet. “I grew up on Verona and had quite a few encounters with the whispers there, though I was just a child. I met the same one again on Avon.”
I drop the handful of crackers, crumbs scattering across the floor. “You talked to one of them? The whispers?”
Jubilee’s lips twitch as she glances at Flynn. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” She sees my expression and raises her eyebrows. “They’re not all bad. What LaRoux’s done to them—he’s been torturing them. Turning them into weapons.”
My throat feels tight, forcing me to swallow before I can speak. “The right kind of pressure can turn anyone into a monster.” The sound of the gun going off. Lilac falling. Tarver’s face as he looks at me. “Anyone.”
Jubilee’s eyes swing toward me, and though I could be imagining it, for a moment I think I almost see sympathy in her face. She nods. “The one I spoke to…it hadn’t given into that rage. It was—it was my friend.” Her voice grows rougher, and she’s forced to clear her throat after she finishes.
“On the Daedalus, the whisper said it wasn’t just the last one left—it was also the oldest one. The first one he started experimenting with.” Flynn’s voice is quiet. “He’s had a long time to twist that creature into something evil.”
“But they’re not human,” I protest, mind spinning. “Sanjana said they were entities of pure energy. Concepts like vengeance and pain and hatred…For all we know, they don’t even feel emotion.”
“They do.” Jubilee’s quick to contradict me. “They may not have started out understanding emotion, but the one I knew…it did. It felt everything. It died to save us from the other whispers on Avon.”
“That doesn’t help us now.” I let my head fall back against a shelf with a thump. “Lilac is the only whisper left on this side of the rift, so we’re on our own. We don’t have others of its kind willing to help us. And if Lilac is still in there somewhere, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything she can do.”
We all fall silent after that, and I only wish I could silence the one thought circling around and around in my head. Gideon’s still up there.
And if he’s still alive, he’s getting closer and closer to the whisper.
It’s only when I lift my head, blinking away sleep, that I realize I somehow managed to doze. Jubilee’s asleep, or at least pretending to be, her head in Flynn’s lap. He’s gazing down at her, and his hand keeps making the same small gesture, fingertips stroking the hair at Jubilee’s temple. I swallow and he lifts his head, blinking once and then looking at me. His lips twitch a little into a faint smile. But there’s something in the back of his gaze that tips me off.
“Is she okay?” I whisper, glancing at Jubilee, who doesn’t move.
Flynn nods, eyes following mine and lingering on the girl asleep in his lap. “She’s tough.”
I find my own lips twitching. “That’s not what I asked.”
Flynn looks back up at me, exhaling a faint laugh. “Forgot who I was talking to.” He leans his head back against the shelves behind him. “This is bringing back bad memories.”
“Verona?”
He nods again. “She grew up there. Her parents were killed during the riots following the bombing attacks. Shot in front of her.”