Their Fractured Light (Starbound #3)(106)
“You think shooting at LaRoux was the right thing?” Flynn raises an eyebrow. “The thing your heart was telling you to do?”
I want Gideon to know that the only reason I didn’t tell him about my plan was because I knew he would try to talk me out of it. And I knew he’d succeed.
My jaw tightens. It doesn’t matter. Gideon’s gone. I let my gaze skitter away from Flynn’s, seeking out something, anything, that isn’t his look of empathy, of concern, of caring. The floor is strewn with garbage and broken bits of glass, and cards with the restaurant logo printed on them. My heart gives a sudden lurch as I reach out to pick one up—MRS. PHAN’S, it reads, next to the scan code to pull up the menu.
We’ve holed up in the restaurant where Gideon went to grab us dinner the night we spent in the arcade. The night before I found out he was the Knave. The night we—My breath chokes itself in my throat, sparking tears in my eyes as I try to keep from coughing.
“Sof?” Flynn’s voice is alarmed. Jubilee stirs, mumbling something that sounds like a question—half-asleep, she reaches for her hip, where her gun is.
“No—I’m fine.” I shove the card into my pocket.
“I wasn’t trying to upset you, Sof.” He fixes me with a searching look for a moment, and then Jubilee shifts in his lap, and he’s distracted.
“I’m fine. I…I’d really like to get some air, if that’s okay. It sounds quiet out there.”
Flynn rubs his hand up and down Jubilee’s arm, and she settles back again. “Are you sure? It’s not exactly safe out there.”
“Come on. It’s me.” I flash him my old smile, still easy to locate, despite everything. “I can take care of myself.”
Flynn’s still hesitant, craning his head back as though he’d be able to see whether the streets are clear.
“If the world’s ending tomorrow,” I add, voice dry, “I’d like to get to stretch my legs one last time.”
“Give her your gun,” mumbles Jubilee, without opening her eyes. “’S quiet out there now.”
Flynn’s mouth twitches, and he looks back up at me as he reaches for the pistol he set aside. “You heard her.”
I make sure the gun’s safety is on before I tuck it into the back of my pants, set the whisper shield down quietly so Flynn won’t notice, and argue, and get unsteadily to my feet. There are so many people down here that there’s no reason for the whisper to pick me out of the teeming crowds of refugees, and I desperately need a moment alone to breathe. Grabbing one of the flashlights, I slip toward the back exit and glance over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of Jubilee sitting up sleepily and laying her hand against Flynn’s cheek. He’s leaning toward her, but the door closes between us before his lips touch hers.
I shiver, though it’s not just from the chill. It is colder, though—all the machinery and cars and people and vendors and life that heat up the undercity are silent now, and without the sun above, the temperature is falling in a way it never could normally. If this is the place Gideon went to get us food, then it’s not far from the arcade. And without making any conscious decision, I find that’s where my steps are leading me.
It takes me a few minutes to get my bearings, searching my memory banks for the landmarks I saw at the mouth of the alley. Without the lanterns overhead, and only my flashlight to guide my steps, it all looks different. But eventually I find the faux-brick façade I remember, and find the loose one Gideon used to open the crack in the wall to slip through.
The space beyond is dark, but the sound of my footsteps changes, echoes speaking of the vastness of the hidden arcade behind the wall. In my memory, I hear the sound of a switch flipping, see the neon lights snapping into existence once by one, their milky reflections sweeping across the dusty marble floor. I can hear the Butterfly Waltz, and taste Gideon’s kiss.
I swing the flashlight around, my hand shaking—and my heart sinks.
Half the storefronts here are gone, piles of brick and stone and broken glass in their place. The few neon signs still visible are smashed to pieces—even if there were electricity, none of them would be shining now. I let the flashlight’s beam fall, my gaze following. The marble floor’s been shattered, the dust disturbed by showers of debris from high above that must’ve been dislodged when the Daedalus hit a few blocks away. I can’t even see where our footprints had been, the patterns we made while I taught him to dance.
I step back and scan the flashlight along the wall until I see the tangle of blankets where we slept. It’s all still there, as though Gideon left in a hurry after I ran from this place. The footprints are long gone, but I can still see the shape of us in the blankets, two bodies curled against each other, like interlocking commas—like yin and yang pendants. The cheap plastic kind that always break.
“Hey, Dimples.”
The voice shatters the silence and sends me stumbling backward with a gasp, flashlight swinging wildly until I can see who’s there—even though I already know, even though part of me isn’t even surprised. The night before battle, the calm before the storm—where else would we come, but the last safe place we knew?
Gideon’s got his hands in his pockets, leaning against the doorframe, head down so that when the flashlight beam falls on his face, it doesn’t blind him—and it also means I can’t read his expression. How well he knows me. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back here.”