WE’D NEVER HAD AN OFFICIAL leader. Sometimes it was Cage, sometimes it was me, and sometimes Mia or Alexei seized control. Legion, on the other hand, was accustomed to following Priya’s commands, and it showed. When she spoke, they leaped to attention. “We need to establish round-the-clock watches,” she said now. “If someone comes back for our supplies, we catch them in the act.”
“What we need to do,” Imani interrupted, “is find out who they are and try to talk to them, not imprison them. This isn’t Omnistellar. They’re probably trying to survive, just like us.”
“Then they can scavenge, just like us. No one steals from Legion and gets away with it.”
“From us,” returned Jasper sharply.
Priya sighed and closed her eyes. Her lips moved as though praying or counting or mumbling a mantra. “Okay,” she said at last. “What do you have in mind?”
Cage slipped in easily. “The round-the-clock watch isn’t a bad idea, but I suggest we go a step further. Let’s set a trap. Do some really obvious scavenging today. Then, when our thief strikes, we follow.”
Priya rolled her eyes. “Great. All ten of us chasing after someone in the desert. Sounds like a plan.”
“Not all eleven of us,” said Mia. She shimmered and disappeared. When she spoke, her voice was clear and disembodied. “Me, because I can move quietly and unseen. I can probably keep two other people invisible without too much effort.” That was a new bit of her power, the ability to make others invisible. Contact with the aliens seemed to have altered our DNA, made us stronger, given us greater abilities—or at least, some of us. Others were still waiting to see what, if anything, would happen.
“So who goes with you?” Rune asked.
“I do,” said Alexei at once.
“No,” Mia replied, slipping back into the visible spectrum. “You stampede around like a wild elephant. Sorry, Lex.”
He shrugged, giving her the tolerant smile he seemed to reserve specially for her, and accepted that without argument.
“Matt,” said Priya decisively. “He’s the quietest of the three of us, he can sense people before they sneak up on you, and his implants give him additional abilities. He’ll be useful.”
“And me,” said Cage. “If we find something, I can return and warn the others in a fraction of the time it would take someone else.”
“And me,” I said.
Mia frowned. “I can only handle three of us.”
“Except I can mimic your ability,” I reminded her. “At least if I’m near you. And more importantly, if you find someone who speaks another language, I’m the one with the best shot at communicating with them.” And of course, I had no intention of letting any of my friends wander into danger without me at their side. Not this time.
Mia scowled but didn’t answer. What was her problem, anyway? I’d thought we’d mended things between us and she’d forgiven me for my role in Matt’s apparent death. Maybe not. Maybe that was a temporary truce caused by the alien attack. I sighed. I was tired of trying to keep Mia straight.
Cage nodded. “Me, Matt, Mia, and Kenzie.” He flashed a grin at Matt. “Just like old times.”
Matt smiled reluctantly. “Except we didn’t usually pal around with the prison guards,” he said, but although his words sent a spike of annoyance through me, they held no real heat, and he didn’t seem angry.
“Fine,” said Priya. “Hallam and I will do some scavenging now. Anyone who wants to join us, feel free. We’ll gather a nice big pile of temptation for tonight—or at least I hope we will. Matt, Cage, Kenzie, and Mia will lie in wait, which means you should rest up today.”
“I’ll come scavenging,” Rune volunteered. “I was able to power those tablets Reed found last night, but there wasn’t much on them. I want to check for any other electronics and see if they have more information.”
“If you’re talking electronics, I’ll come too … er, in case anyone gets hurt,” Reed amended quickly, grinning when Rune rolled her eyes at him.
I glanced around the room, weighing my options. Priya had said we should rest up. She was right. But if Reed and Rune were headed out … Hallam and Priya were more than capable of protecting them, I knew that, but still.
Mia nudged Alexei and nodded at Rune and Reed. He sighed. “Yes. I will come too.”
Relief surged through me. Alexei, I could trust. If he went along, I was probably safe to stay behind.
“I think that’s enough,” said Priya. “We’ll head out now and return in a few hours.”
They advanced in one direction and the rest of us scattered. Mia slipped through the door, and I frowned after her. Enough was enough. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Cage.
He must have read my mind, because his eyebrows flew up in alarm. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to have a conversation.” I smiled. “Don’t worry. If she attacks me, I’ll make myself invisible. Power leech, remember?”
He grinned in spite of himself. “Just … don’t rile her up too much. Things will be awkward enough tonight.”
No kidding. Matt, Mia, Cage, and me … could there be four people with more history among them?
I left the apartment and knocked on the door of the apartment Mia was sharing with Alexei. A long moment passed in which I wondered if she was even there, and then the door slid open. If she was surprised to see me, she didn’t show it, looking through me with blank eyes. “Yeah?”
“Can I come in? We need to talk.”
She stared at me a moment longer, then sighed and stepped aside, letting me pass.
The apartment was little different from my own. Mia tossed herself down on a sofa, raising a cloud of dust, folded her arms, and glared at me.
I settled into a chair across from her, searching for words. I’d already apologized for lying to them, for hiding what had happened with Matt, a thousand times. I didn’t feel like doing it again. If Mia couldn’t forgive me, well, another apology wasn’t likely to change her mind. But I was sick of letting her glare at me without saying anything.
“Listen,” Mia snapped before I found my words, “I get it, okay? And I don’t blame you for being pissed. I can’t, really. Poetic justice and all that.”
I blinked, trying to catch up with what she was saying. “Mia, I—”
“I’m sorry.” It was probably the least apologetic apology I’d ever heard, considering she had her arms folded over her chest and was glaring at me like she hoped I’d evaporate. “Doesn’t mean much, does it? Words are empty.”
“Mia, what are you talking about?”
She sighed and leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. “You want me to say it? Fine. I am sorry. I’m sorry I killed your father.” A laugh tore from her throat, a harsh, unhappy sound. “And now you can say whatever’s been on your mind.”
I blinked, replaying the moment in my mind. The aliens had shredded through the bulkhead, ripping into my father, and Mia had …
Mia had tried to kill them, and the bullets tore my father to pieces.
I’d known that, of course. I’d seen it. It had impressed itself on every part of my mind. And yet, somehow, I’d never thought of Mia as killing him. In my mind, the aliens stood out in stark and vivid detail, eclipsing everything else.
I stared at her, processing this new information. “Mia … ,” I said slowly. I got what she meant now about poetic justice. She’d blamed me for killing Matt when I’d been aiming for an alien, and here she’d done the same thing. “Mia, I don’t blame you for what happened to my dad.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Then why have you been so distant?”
I threw up my hands. “I don’t think I have been! You’re the one pulling away. But if I am acting differently, Mia, maybe it’s because my dad did die and I have no family left? Or because we’re stranded on some apocalyptic wasteland of a planet with no way to escape? Or maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that you’ve barely looked at me, much less talked to me, since we got here!”
She hesitated, gnawing on her lower lip while she mulled over my words. “How can you not blame me?” she asked at last, and there was something in her voice I’d never heard before, something like the bitter self-recrimination I’d carried around when I’d thought I killed Matt. “I pulled the trigger. I—”
“Mia. My dad was already dead.” I swallowed. It hurt to talk like this, to talk about him like he was nothing—a character in Robo Mecha Dream Girl, maybe, not a real person, not my flesh-and-blood father who’d so recently breathed and walked and schemed. “The aliens would have torn him to pieces. If anything, you kept him from an incredibly agonizing …” I trailed off. I couldn’t talk about that, not even now. “He made his choices,” I said instead. “He followed Omnistellar, and he brought those aliens to Obsidian. He betrayed Legion. And in the end, those choices, well … they resulted in his death. I don’t think my dad was a bad person, but Omnistellar got in his head like they did with my mom. Like they did with me.” I read the confusion in Mia’s eyes. I was babbling, letting my thoughts and feelings about my family pour out of me, and I forced myself to focus. “My dad died because he let Omnistellar summon the aliens to Obsidian,” I said slowly, emphasizing each word. “And Omnistellar lost control of the situation, as anyone could have told them they would. The aliens killed my father, Mia. Maybe Omnistellar played a role. You? You were trying to save him, to save us all.”
She glared at me for another second, then shot to her feet and stalked to the window, resting her hands on her hips. We stayed like that for a long minute, her silhouetted against the sunlight, and me … well, me waiting. I’d never expected anything like this. I didn’t think I’d realized Mia was capable of feeling guilt, at least not where I was concerned. Knowing she’d been carrying the same burden as me made her a little more human, and it gave me the strength to say, “I know we have a … strange relationship. But you’ve had my back through everything we’ve seen, even if you didn’t like me much. If you need to hear me say I forgive you, then I forgive you. But really, Mia, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Kenzie,” she replied. “Stop. Talking. Just …” She spun on me and because of the light behind her I couldn’t read her expression, but a moment later she’d pulled me into a fierce hug, so tight she almost cracked my ribs. Within seconds she shoved me away just as violently and stomped into the kitchen. “So anyway,” she said, “about this plan tonight.”
“I … what?”
“Do you want something to eat? I think we have some nuts left.” She leaped onto a shelf and rummaged through a cupboard. “Alexei always puts things so high. Here we go. Cashews, maybe? That’s what they look like. They’re kind of stale, but not too bad.”
I shook my head. This was the best Mia had in terms of friendship. And who could blame her? Years forced to work for criminals who murdered her sister and then more years in a cold, sterile jail cell … When exactly would she have had time to develop her people skills? “Cashews sound good,” I said, taking the olive branch for what it was worth. “Let’s hammer out the details for tonight before Cage and Matt can take over.”
She leveled a finger in my direction and slid a tin of nuts down the counter. “Now you’re talking.”
And if her face had been wet when she hugged me, well, I wouldn’t mention it. We sat together and a glimmer of hope sparked inside me. If Mia and I could get past the miles between us, maybe I really did stand a chance of keeping everyone safe.