I GASPED IN SPITE OF myself. Alexei moved behind me, pulling me close with one big arm, pulling Mia in with the other. Neither of us resisted. It wasn’t like there was anything much he could do to help us if the aliens broke through, but I appreciated the contact.
The claws on concrete grew louder and stopped. We all waited with bated breath, hoping, praying, the creatures were gone.
Suddenly the doors smashed against the chains. A startled cry—Rune, I thought—came from nearby but was quickly cut off. The doors continued to clatter again and again, and all we could do was stay still and shiver and beg the lock to hold. Alexei’s grip tightened around me until it became almost painful and the muscles in his arms tightened with his own fear. I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood. I fisted one hand in Alexei’s T-shirt and found Mia with the other. Her fingers clamped over mine and the three of us clutched one another in the shadows.
And then, as quickly as they had begun, the rattling chains stopped.
The claws receded outside.
No one moved. Alexei, Mia, and I remained in a clenched huddle. Had the aliens gone? Was it a trick? What if we made a noise and they returned?
I had no idea how long we stood like that, frozen, straining for any sound, any sign of the aliens. And then suddenly Eden sighed, low and heavy, so unexpected in the silence it made me jump. “All right,” she said. “I think it’s safe. Watch your eyes.” She did something, and the strange lanterns along the walls flared to life again, throwing the department store into flickering relief.
Now I saw Cage, his arms around Rune, who had both hands clamped over her mouth. She met my gaze and shook her head, communicating so much in that simple gesture: frustration and terror and dismay. Behind them, Imani, Reed, and Jasper were clumped together much like me, Alexei, and Mia. Only Legion seemed relatively calm. Matt was leaning against the wall next to Priya, and Hallam was actually examining his reflection in the shiny surface of his knife, smoothing his hair back into place. “Damn dusty on this planet,” he explained cheerfully when he caught us watching.
I rolled my eyes, simultaneously hating him and envying his calm under pressure. Reluctantly, I made myself abandon Alexei’s sheltering grip and cross to Eden. “Thank you,” I said. “Really. What you did—”
“What I did,” Eden snapped, leveling a finger in my direction, “will never be discussed. Not in front of anyone. Not even just between us.”
“What did you do?” Hallam asked, of course.
“She saved us,” I said simply, before things became any more complicated. She’d saved us the way my own mother hadn’t, and she’d betrayed everything she believed in to do it. “She let us in here before the aliens tore us apart, and she did it without knowing if we were a threat or a danger. So drop the attitude and be grateful for once, okay?”
Hallam arched an eyebrow, then flashed me a grin. “Yes ma’am,” he said, and then, to Eden, “and thank you kindly.”
Eden sighed, tugging on her braid. “I couldn’t leave you there to die,” she said at last. “Besides, I need to know more about where you came from, what you’ve been through. What the zemdyut have done in your world, and how you got here. I need information only you can provide. So it wasn’t entirely altruistic.”
“Information only we can provide?” Rune asked dubiously. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Eden smiled slightly. “I’ve known for a long time that staying here was unsustainable. Now, with Gideon gone …” She hesitated, a mass of emotions warring across her face before she settled into a professional mask. “Well, come with me and I’ll show you.”
Eden refused to let us through the curtain to where most of her people were hiding. “You’ll terrify them,” she said, ushering us instead into what might have been a break room. It was a long, windowless chamber lined with lockers. A table and a few scattered chairs sat in the middle. “There are families there, children who’ve never known anyone but the people in this bunker.” She forced a weak smile. “Please. Just stay here for a bit.”
“Where are you going?” Mia demanded.
“I have to check on the others, tell them about Gideon before rumors start flying. I’ll be back with food and water, and we can talk.”
“We won’t violate your hospitality,” I promised her. I didn’t care what Priya, Cage, or anyone else thought of the matter. Eden had turned on her own commander for us. The least we could do was give her the space to deal with the repercussions. “We’ll be right here.”
“Thank you. I won’t be long.”
The door closed behind her and a long silence followed. I turned to face Priya, whose eyes blazed. “What happened?” she barked.
At the same time, Reed and Imani shoved past her to get to Mia. “Are you okay?” Imani demanded.
Mia sank into a chair with a sigh. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t object to some healing.”
“Hey,” snapped Priya.
Imani swiveled in her direction. “You can wait,” she said. “Our friend is injured.” She and Reed bent their heads over Mia’s foot and examined her wound. Alexei, of course, hovered nearby, and Rune, always the first to respond to anyone’s pain, drifted over to sit beside them.
Mia pulled the dart out of her pocket and examined it. “He shot me with this,” she said. “If it matters.”
Reed snatched it and inspected it. “Hollow. Could’ve held some sort of poison. How do you feel?”
Mia glared at him. “My foot hurts,” she said, enunciating each word as if speaking to a child.
Reed scowled and tossed the dart onto the table. “I guess it doesn’t matter. We’ll heal you as best we can whether he injected you with something or not. If it was going to kill you, it’d have done it by now. Probably.”
I winced on Mia’s behalf, but she seemed indifferent, leaning back and closing her eyes. Meanwhile, Legion had taken up a position on the far side of the room. I went to join them, and Cage and Jasper followed. No point delaying this conversation. “How’d you find us?” I asked.
“Matt has a tracker.” Hallam gave him what might have been an affectionate grin, then shoved him so hard that Matt—who was not a small guy—almost went over. “With the little tech bug’s help, we knew the second you were in trouble.”
“Another unrequested and unknown gift from Omnistellar,” Matt said sardonically.
Priya shrugged. “Yeah, well, it served its purpose.”
“We followed you here,” Jasper said, more to me and Cage than to anyone else, “and promptly got attacked by those people. What’s going on?”
I filled them in quickly. Cage knew most of the details, but even he seemed shocked by what had happened between Eden and Gideon aboveground.
“So we’re dealing with someone who would murder her own commanding officer,” said Hallam darkly. “A man who, by her own admission, saved her life on multiple occasions.”
I shook my head frantically. Somehow I’d become Eden’s defender. Maybe I understood her position better than the others, having been torn between my family and my friends, my corporation and the dawning truth. Maybe I saw in her what my own mother could have been, ready to turn on an unjust system to protect the innocent. Regardless, I couldn’t let them vilify her. “He didn’t leave her any other choice. He was going to kill her. I don’t know what Gideon used to be, but this life destroyed him.” I looked to Cage for help. It was so hard to explain what I’d seen in Gideon with words.
“The guy shot Mia without a second’s hesitation,” Cage said, nodding. “He would have happily killed us all. The woman, Eden, I didn’t get to talk to her as much as Mia and Kenzie did. But I trust Kenzie. If she says Eden did what had to be done, then I believe her.”
Unbidden, a smile touched my lips, and I found his hand and threaded our fingers together. His answering squeeze told me everything I needed to know.
But the others weren’t ready to back me so easily. “How about the aliens showing up?” Jasper snapped. “Can we talk about that for a second? How far did you teleport us, Kenzie?”
I glared at him. “How the hell should I know? You guys were the ones screaming at me to save you when the creatures attacked! I didn’t have time to chart a path.”
“Everyone calm down,” Cage broke in. “Jasper, I know you’re worried about your family, but don’t take it out on Kenzie.”
Jasper faltered, then looked away. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Sorry, Kenz. I just keep thinking about them on Mars with that alien ship overhead, you know?”
“All the more reason we need to get off this planet as soon as possible,” said Priya grimly. “We have no idea what’s happening on Earth and no way to help from here. Kenzie, do you think there’s any way Eden can get us home?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t see much of their operation, but I got the sense it was pretty low-tech. They’re powered, like us. That might mean something. If someone else has the ability to teleport, maybe I could borrow it again. But there’s absolutely no guarantee I’ll take us home.” I frowned, considering what we’d seen so far. “I mean, assuming we’re as far from home as we think. Like we said, this planet is uncannily similar to Earth. I can’t help but wonder if we’re closer than we think.” An idea played at the corner of my mind. There was Rune’s theory, that we were on a planet with a species who had evolved so similarly to us that we’d somehow connected and mirrored each other in our development. That no longer seemed impossible, not after all I’d seen.
But weren’t there other possibilities? For example, what if this race had been watching us, aware of us? Or what if we were aware of them? I wouldn’t put anything past Omnistellar anymore. Hell, this could be some sort of human settlement, for all I knew. Regardless, there had to be an explanation for the parallels between this world and our own.
A long silence stretched between us. On the other side of the room, Imani and Reed seemed to be arguing about the best way to finish with Mia’s foot, and Alexei and Rune were physically restraining Mia herself from hopping up and being done with the whole thing. “We’d better come to some sort of decision about what to do next,” I said, pushing my reflections on the planet aside for the time being. “Eden’s organized. And let’s be honest. We’re not. We’re a group of people who barely know each other, half of who were enemies until a few days ago. We can’t work together to save our lives.”
Cage stroked his chin reflectively. “Kenzie, do you trust Eden?”
“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “People change. I know that better than anyone.” If Cage could trust me so completely, offer me a total second chance, I could do the same for someone else.
He smiled at me, but doubt lurked in his eyes. Still, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “If Kenzie says we trust Eden, I’m in.”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t see that we have much choice,” he pointed out. “We’re kind of at her mercy here. And if the aliens are on this planet …” A shudder went through him. “You saw what they can do,” he said to Hallam and Priya. “We don’t stand a chance against them alone.”
Priya leaned against the wall. “That’s all well and good, but we’re not looking to fight them.”
“But Eden said we could help her,” Jasper persisted. “What do you think she meant by that?”
Priya scowled. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I have family too, Jasper. I’m just as worried as you are. And no matter what it takes, I am going to find my way back home.”
Something scraped behind us. We pivoted to find Eden standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes were tired, but she was smiling. “What if,” she said, “I had a way for you to do both?”