Page 76 of Ava Stargazer

His face twisted to the side. “Gone. Sold long ago.”

“What do you remember about them?”

The Yar broke into a sadistic smile. “Their flesh was soft. I was sad to see them go.”

Vox winced, and Ava’s stomach churned at that and she looked away, hastily.No . . .She was never touched like that, since she was classed as a worker and needed to be unspoiled merchandise when sold, but she remembered others yelling to stop when the Yar entered their rooms. She looked at the baton, now on the floor. They used that instead on the ones meant to be sold later. Where it didn’t leave any marks. And Ava quickly learned to never misbehave. Ava looked away.I’m so grateful for Ebel.

Vox asked instead. “Do you have the data? Of what happened to them?”

The husk pointed down the hall. “Yes. It is in the monitoring room, in the older files. Archived.”

Vox cut in, breathing heavily. “Lead us there. In the way that will arouse the least suspicion. You creatures are evil, beyond being controlled. I don’t want more in my mind.”

The difference between her gentle Vox who had showed her the stars and angled his hands just the right way to touch hersoftly was sharply contrasted with the feral male before her willing to kill on her behalf. His eyes held no softness in them now. The two images were hard to merge as Ava half ran to keep up with him as he lengthened his stride.

“Ava?” Vox looked back at her. “Are you ... ?”

She looked up, away from the Yar, and forced her face to be neutral.

He took in her expression before turning ahead and walking a bit faster than before. “We will be done soon.”

Another Yar saw them and charged at Vox, pulling a thin baton out of his belt as he ran.The baton dropped as Vox broke him midstride. The two broken Yar walked behind them as odd shadows. Vox breathed heavily, and she noticed his arm starting to tremble.

She glanced up at his face, which showed determination.Is Vox hurting?

He looked down at her. “Focus, Ava.”

Ava was sure of him struggling when another one came, and Vox’s arm trembled as he turned that one as well. “Vox, maybe you should call for Rhutg.”

He shook his head. “I do not want to cause any further delay. I can sense no more guards in this area.” He balled his hands as he turned to the newly broken Yar, who looked at him in compliance.

Ava took him at his word as she tried to control her breathing. It was useless, as her limbs were trembling and her gut told her that they were getting close to something. Something important.

The Yar took them into a laboratory area, then down a hallway where the lights popped on and buzzed as they walked through. The air was damp and stale. Finally, they walked into a room off the main halls, and the Yar snapped on the lights.

Ava blinked at the medical-looking room, and her gut clenched. She dragged her finger over the dust that had settledon the counter by the entrance, her eye snagging on a singular exam chair in the middle. A monitor lay in the corner, lit up as the systems in the room came back online after the Yar flipped some switches to power it up.

Her head pounded.I’ve been here. In here and in that chair. She looked away to see that Vox had gotten the computer running in the time she had lost staring at the exam room chair.

He had his fingers over the feed. “On the main system, it all looks scrubbed. I’m trying to look locally in this area, to see if there’s some data that is still stored, even if the shared data has been wiped. Individual computers sometimes keep their own backups, offline. A legacy system in case the online ones get hacked. There are some here, I can find them, but I just need some more time.”

Backups.Ava looked back at the machinery, remembering her small hand being scanned on one of the components that was lit up now.

Anxiety made her body tremble. She wanted to walk away, but her eyes stayed trained on the fabric seat, which looked very similar to the one onCelestial.No wonder I always hated the medical exams there.

She forced herself to take a big step forward, toward the chair, her eyes snagging on the scanner next to it.

Would it have a backup?

Another step.One that was just never cleared?

She extended her hands, fingers hovering over the scanner, her memory feeding her the image of her hand being forced down many, many times before. Impulsively, she pressed her hand down and watched it scan her fingerprints again, feeling bile rise in her throat as the red light moved across her.

“Ava ... ?” Vox’s voice came as he turned around. He turned back a second later as the screen in front of him flashed.

And then it showed a photo of a younger Ava on the computer’s personal memory. Complete with the testing logs done on her in this room. Done to the young Ava the fingerprints belonged to.

She removed her hand fast, cradling it at her side.It still can recognize me.Shock and revulsion flooded her. The fact she was still in the system, anywhere, was a stark reminder that she really was born here.The past remembers me too.She said as much a second later. “It remembers me, Vox. It was all really real.”

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