This Shattered World
Page 72

“It wasn’t her. I give you my word. She was there, but she didn’t do it.”
He watches me in silence, making me wonder if my word holds any value for him now. Beside me, I can hear Jubilee’s harsh breathing, keeping time with the pounding of my own heart. If Turlough can trust me, then I can believe Sean might. I can believe the gulf between us might close, that we might be able to grieve together.
My voice is soft. “Where’s McBride, Turlough?”
His expression flickers, the grief and anger giving way to a quick, icy flash of fear. “I don’t know,” he says tightly. But his loyalty is brittle, that terror more real than anything he’s shown Jubilee.
“You’re afraid of him,” I say softly. “Tell me.”
He hesitates, gaze flicking from me to Jubilee and back again. “He shot him,” Turlough gasps finally. “The bartender, the big one. We went in looking for Captain Chase—we were only going to scare people until someone told us where to find her.”
“Go on.” Jubilee’s expression is unreadable, her anger draining away to something else, something cold.
“McBride kept screaming at the guy, over and over. The guy wouldn’t tell us where to find you, trodaire. So McBride shot him and set fire to—” His voice catches, fear making it difficult for him to speak. But when Jubilee turns away, her shoulders tense, Turlough’s grief surges again. “She was there, Flynn. Everybody knows it. She has to pay.”
I feel like there’s a weight on my chest. “I know she was there, but her weapon was never fired.”
“Well, those people—Mike, the others—they weren’t killed by ordinary gunfire. It had to be a Gleidel. Who else has a weapon like that, except a soldier?”
Suddenly the room’s silent. Jubilee’s looking up, and the same realization hits all three of us. The bottom drops out of the world, and my skin’s all pins and needles as a wave of dizziness sweeps over me. We all know who has that kind of weapon, because he just used it to shoot Molly in the back of the head.
Gunfire roars in the distance as Jubilee and I cross the base. The air splits with the crack of the old-fashioned ballistics weapons the Fianna use and the shriek of the deadly Gleidels. The stench of singed plastene and burned chemicals hangs in the air. I want to put as much distance as I can between us and the holding cells. Away from Turlough Doyle, away from Molly’s, which will never be Molly’s again. As my feet drag and I start to stumble, Jubilee grabs at my arm to keep me moving.
McBride. For all our differences, for all his thirst for war, I always believed we wanted the same thing—prosperity for Avon, peace and justice for our people.
But he murdered Fergal. He murdered Mike. He murdered every person who lay dead in our sanctuary, just to light the fuse behind this war. And now Molly, because he wouldn’t betray Jubilee.
And he’s still out there somewhere, with Sean. Oh God.
I’m jerked back to the present as the com-patch on Jubilee’s sleeve buzzes, and she ducks into the shelter of a building to hear it better. The voice is tinny with interference, but familiar. “Lee, this is Merendsen, report.”
She lifts her wrist to speak into the patch. “Go ahead, sir.”
Merendsen’s voice is muffled, but clearly identifiable. “Lee, Commander Towers has raised your threat level and ordered all nonessentials off the base and off Avon. That includes me.”
“Because of Molly’s?” She closes her eyes as she speaks his name.
“Because they’ve confirmed the Fianna have anti-aircraft weaponry. The next shuttle out of here could be the last, and I’m on it. I’m willing to accept the risk if I stay, but the commander said if I don’t board myself, she’ll have me escorted. I’m heading for the orbital spaceport. You’re my security detail, but if you aren’t here to pilot it, someone else will.” He pauses, the static hissing. “I wouldn’t mind a chance to say good-bye.” Though the words are casual, I can tell what he’s trying to say. I tried to stay, they won’t let me. I have to talk to you before I go. But their comm system is not private.
“On my way,” she replies, pushing her shoulders back, voice crisp. Back on duty, Captain Chase once again. Whatever Merendsen has to tell her, we need to hear it more than ever.
“There’s one more thing, Captain.”
“Sir?”
“They’re rounding up all the civilians over in the mess hall for a security check, scanning their genetags.” He pauses, the silence hanging heavily. “If you see any, you should send them that way.”
She looks across at me, her gaze worried. “Got it, sir. Thanks for the heads-up,” she replies, voice even.
My mind’s still thick with fog—McBride’s name beats against my skull like a drum. But then Jubilee’s yanking my sleeve down more, better hiding the spiraled code of my genetag tattoo. Then she plants a hand between my shoulder blades, and with a shove, she gets me moving.
We break into a jog toward the launch bays. An explosion echoes in from the swamps, a shuddering reminder of McBride’s madness. And we’re about to lose our only connection to LaRoux Industries, our only chance to find out what’s killing Avon.
The girl is searching for her November ghost. She is so certain that it’s here, somewhere, in the endless halls and chambers. It’s never left her before, and a ghost shouldn’t care what planet she’s on. She’s been searching for hours. The orphanage is emptier on the inside than it is on the outside, and she’ll never search all the rooms.
In one of the dormitories is a miniscreen, smuggled in by one of the other children, old-fashioned but durable. The room is empty, but someone has left the screen on to crackle and jar the silence. On it, a woman is talking about a war ending on some planet far away, as hovercopter footage of destruction and refugees scrolls by.
The girl looks at the screen, and the city is November.
But when she moves closer, she realizes it can’t be her November. The city on the screen is healing, buildings being rebuilt, children there in the street lighting firecrackers. It looks like a toy, a model, a copy of where she used to live; images on a screen will never be real for her.
The November inside her was torn apart, and it always will be.
And the November ghost is gone.
MY BODY’S PROTESTING THIS ABUSE. The constant fighting, running, hiding. Not enough sleep, and too much grief. I can feel it burning through my blood as I run harder, aiming for the launch bays. If I’m not there to pilot Merendsen’s shuttle, I’ll lose my chance to find out whether he heard back from Lilac—and judging by the urgency in his tone, I’m sure he did. We have to have that information. I haven’t even told him or Flynn about Commander Towers yet. What could I possibly say?