“I CAN’T DO THIS,” REED whispered, burying his face in his hands. “Not again.”
I bit my tongue to keep from snapping at him. Mia didn’t bother. “You never even saw the aliens on Sanctuary. It was me who fought them, me and Cage and Alexei and . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she glared at me, Matt’s name dying on her lips.
I swallowed hard. “And . . . Matt,” I finished for her, meeting Mia’s gaze defiantly. “And Tyler. And my mother. And Rita. And a hundred other people we’ll never see again—”
“And Kenzie,” interrupted Cage, his voice a dagger, his stare targeting Mia as if he could lock her in place. “Kenzie fought those things as hard as you did, Mia. Maybe harder. All of you seem to be forgetting that.”
To my amazement, Mia broke eye contact, as if she’d realized she’d edited me out of her own traumatic memories. But although Reed ducked his head in embarrassment, I didn’t blame him. He had heard and seen enough to scare him. The same with Jasper.
And Imani . . . Imani had choked on the slime they’d used in an attempt to mutate her, and her sister had died from the same process. But she wasn’t crying or screaming, only staring ahead with a horribly blank expression. “Imani?” I whispered, crouching in front of her.
Her head shot up, and I recoiled in shock. It wasn’t fear or anxiety in her expression, but raw, utter fury. “They’re here,” she said, her voice steady. She drew the stun gun and considered it. “We’re going to need better weaponry. Something more than the security team had. Something with a hope of destroying those things.”
“Imani?” I repeated.
She met my gaze straight-on. “Those things killed my sister. They sure as hell aren’t going to kill anyone else if I can stop them.”
Our eyes met and understanding passed between us. “No one else,” I agreed, and she nodded. Imani, at least, didn’t hate me. My heart rate slowed a few beats per minute.
She rolled her shoulders and got to her feet. “We should move if we’re going to stop those things.”
Well, if nothing else, you had to admire her courage. Part of me wanted nothing more than to crawl into one of these cells and hide. I swallowed that down and glanced at the others. “Can we work together on this? Or do I have to worry about getting stabbed in the back?”
Alexei arched an eyebrow. “Do you have to worry? I think that should be our question.”
“Lex, stop,” said Cage, exhaustion seeping into his voice. “We’ve been through this over and over. I’m not going to apologize for hiding what happened on Sanctuary. As for later, well . . . maybe we should have told you. It’s too late to do anything about it now.”
“He’s right.” To my surprise, it was Reed who spoke up. He met my eyes and gave me a quick wink. “Kenzie’s proved herself more than once. So has Cage. They’re allowed to make a stupid decision.” He sighed when Mia shifted her glare in his direction. “Come on. Does anyone actually think Kenzie shot Matt on purpose?”
Even Mia glanced down at that. An uncomfortable silence settled over us. I could almost see their minds racing, and I clenched my fists at the sense of judgment, at being on trial. This was what Cage had wanted to avoid. But ironically enough, it seemed like they were willing to forgive me for shooting Matt. Only Rune and Mia still seemed angry enough to shove me out of an airlock. Mia, I could take. Rune, though . . .
If I’d followed my instincts and told them the truth as soon as we had escaped Sanctuary, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation? There was no way to tell. I had made a choice. Who knew how people would have reacted in the moment: knowing me less, trusting me less? Cage and I couldn’t change what we’d done. All we could do was try to make amends and keep moving forward.
Mia examined me a moment, then sighed. “We don’t have much choice but to keep going together if we’re going to survive. We can argue about this later.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Mia might not have forgiven me, but if she said she was putting things aside for now, then she was.
The others nodded as if that settled things, and Rune swallowed hard. She’d been cringing against the wall with her arms wrapped around herself, but now, with a visible effort, she stood and clenched her hands into fists. “If we want better weapons, we’ll have to get them from security,” she announced, her voice steady and strong and much more like herself. “That’s on the main level, where we met Grigori Danshov the first time.”
“Can we get there?” Alexei demanded.
“They’re under lockdown.” She flashed a tight smile. “Fortunately, that doesn’t mean much when you have me.”
“Yeah,” Jasper agreed. “And apparently not when you have Kenzie, either.”
I blinked. I’d been trying not to think about my powers. But maybe I should start. If we were going to survive this, we needed as many advantages as possible.
“I want to help,” I said at last. I glanced to the others for support. To my horror, a veil of tears misted over my eyes. I blinked them away, but not before people saw them. Surprisingly, though, expressions of anger and frustration melted into sympathy at the sight. Slightly encouraged, I pressed on. “I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to control these new abilities, or how to . . . how to . . .”
“Kenzie,” said Imani softly, “it’s okay. When we need you, you’ll pull through. You always have before.” The others nodded, even, after a moment’s hesitation, Mia.
I squashed my weakness and forced my spine straight. “Thank you,” I whispered. Whatever I could do now, I was going to figure it out. But in the meantime, Imani was right: In times of stress, when I needed my powers most, they were there for me. I had to trust that. For now, it was all I could do.
We hesitated, looking at one another across the room. “No one has to come,” I said at last. “Some of us are better suited to fighting than others. If you want to stay here, it’s fine.”
Imani shook her head. “We’re not safe here, either. If those things are on Obsidian, we’re not safe anywhere.”
“But once they’d done their initial sweep on Sanctuary, they seemed to prefer picking us off one by one to attacking in a big group,” Alexei pointed out. “Safety in numbers.” The others nodded, although no one moved, trapped in their own fear.
I hadn’t planned on staying behind anyway. I’d merely wanted to give everyone else a chance. “All right. Then no sense delaying.”
But still no one moved, as if to take a step would be to irrevocably commit to reentering the nightmare we’d so recently escaped.
At last Mia heaved a sigh of dramatic exasperation. She cursed under her breath and, with no further ceremony, stalked toward the door. Alexei shot after her. Cage and I exchanged a glance, then ran to catch up. The others followed on our heels.
Mia poked her head into the corridor, stun gun in her hand. I missed the heavy weight of my own, but I trusted Imani to take a shot if she needed to. Between Mia and Imani with stun guns, Alexei’s fireworks and Jasper’s ability to rearrange matter, and our foreknowledge of the aliens’ tactics, maybe we had an edge this time. Maybe we had a hope.
Mia must not have seen anything, because she proceeded into the corridor and climbed the stairs. Our footsteps echoed in the uncanny silence. I glanced into the next prison area as we passed. It looked exactly like the one we’d just vacated. Where was everyone? Were we the last people alive on Obsidian? No. Impossible. The aliens had taken hours to work their way through Sanctuary, and this station was at least three times bigger. The survivors were probably locked away on the main floor with every weapon they could find. Alexei had theorized that they’d barricaded themselves somewhere. Maybe they were safe.
Or maybe the aliens had killed them and left their bodies stacked where they fell.
Or kidnapped them, taking them back to their ship. I didn’t know. I couldn’t know . . . at least, not yet.
Which led to another problem: Grigori Danshov, who might shoot us himself. Or some of us. I glanced at Mia, wondering if there was a polite way to ask her to vanish without triggering her rage. The girl spent three-quarters of her time invisible anyway. Trust her to suddenly discover the joys of putting herself on display at the exact moment we most needed her imperceptible.
We clambered up two more staircases and found more of the same. There could have been people in the farther cells, but we didn’t check. In fact, Mia moved so quickly we were almost running. Fear seemed to edge out her caution.
I couldn’t blame her for being afraid, though. My legs and lungs burned, and adrenaline was about the only thing keeping me on my feet. We’d been awake for nearly twelve hours, running on almost no food or water, constantly fighting for our lives. Aliens or not, we couldn’t keep going much longer.
A vent caught the corner of my eye, and I stopped short. Cage grabbed my arms to steady himself as he crashed into me. “What’s up?”
“Liam,” I said, staring at the vents. “This is his worst nightmare, the thing he tried to avoid at all costs. Where do you think he is?” And what is he doing? Liam’s fear of the aliens was very real, but his motivation . . . that was something else. Was he huddled in a bunker with Grigori Danshov? Searching for weapons like us? Or something else, something more sinister? Preparing to vent the entire station and save his own life? I wouldn’t put it past him, not for a heartbeat. After all, he’d abandoned his own family to escape the creatures before.
“Hey!” Mia snapped from ahead. “What the hell’s going on back there?”
“Good question,” muttered Jasper from behind me, and I realized I was blocking the staircase.
I shook my head and got my feet moving. My suspicions about Liam had to wait. I had no evidence of any kind, and no idea where he was or what he might be doing. I couldn’t divert us from our mission to go on a wild-goose chase. “Sorry!” I called, keeping my voice light. I would regain their trust, I vowed to myself. Because I suddenly knew that if I was in the same situation again, I wouldn’t lie to them. I trusted these people, even Mia, as unpredictable and violent as she could be. And I wanted them to trust me. I glanced up to where she and Alexei leaned over the railing, looking at me, and opened my mouth to tell them so. At some point, you had to take a risk. I’d never been good at talking about my feelings or being vulnerable, but what the hell. I’d fired the shot. I’d lied about it. I couldn’t change it, but I could own it.
But before I could say anything, Matt appeared behind them, his face caked in blood and glowering in fury.
I screamed a warning, but a bolt of electricity struck Mia. She jerked ramrod straight, her body spasming, and slumped to the floor against the railing.
At almost the same instant, Alexei spun and dove into Matt. They collided and crashed, rolling out of sight. I raced ahead to help Alexei, although I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. But Cage grabbed my elbow and yanked me backward. I stumbled, smashing my ankle on the stairs as he jerked me to the previous level faster than a human eye could follow. A blast of electricity erupted where I’d just stood. “Bian,” he shouted. “Everybody run!”
We spun and bolted down the stairs, but Jasper, now in the lead, threw out his arms, smacking me in the face. “They’re ahead of us too!”
With no other options, we ran into the nearest prison sector. Stun guns crackled behind me—the other hunters, presumably, targeting us from below. I shot forward with a burst of speed I didn’t intend, stumbling around the corner into a commons area and plastering myself to the wall. Cage, Rune, and Imani followed. There was a server room here, but it was bolted shut. I didn’t see anywhere else to hide, anywhere to run.
I’d used the portals a few times now, but they still scared me. I’d only managed to move us to something right on the other side of a wall, and being in space made that dangerous if I didn’t know our exact location. But there had to be something I could do. My mind raced, searching our list of powers. Alexei’s fire? Jasper’s telekinesis?
“Where are Jasper and Reed?” Cage demanded.
Rune shook her head, gasping for air. “Hit. They went down.” She closed her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead, and the hall door rumbled shut. We all froze. Had she closed it in time? Why hadn’t I even tried to do that? Keeping track of all these powers was a nuisance.
Priya’s voice echoed from the hallway. “They’re in the commons room. Keep moving!”
“Stop!” I shouted in response, as Imani clutched her stun gun and crouched behind a box, her eyes wide and panicked. “Priya, listen to me!”
She laughed, the sound sharp and humorless and much too close. “The only thing I’m interested in hearing is your surrender.”
“Are you that single-minded?” I screamed, hysteria finally gaining the upper hand. “Goddamn it! Didn’t you notice there aren’t any other people on this whole station? What is here is much, much worse than anything you can imagine, and it’s coming for us!”
Her voice turned dark and dangerous. “The only thing I’m concerned about right now is my contract.”
Something shimmered, and Hallam appeared in a flash of light, crouched in our midst. The son of a bitch was a teleporter, too. How many powers did these guys have? Were they like me? Or was something else going on here?
Imani opened fire, catching him with a stun gun blast. He froze, shock registering in his expression before he dropped to his hands and knees, still struggling to get up. Imani hit him again and he collapsed. Our eyes met, wild and frightened. Even on the stun gun’s lowest setting, it shouldn’t have taken two shots to drop someone like that.
“We have to find an escape,” Rune gasped.
Cage was already moving, wrenching a grate loose. I shook my head at him wildly. “What if the creatures are in there?”
“We don’t have much choice,” he pointed out. “You three go. I’ll follow.”
“I have the gun!” Imani replied.
“And I can run faster!”
She leaned around the box and fired a shot at someone advancing. “There’s nowhere to run, Cage. Go!”
Cage hesitated a second longer, swore, and dove into the vent. “Come on!” he urged Rune, taking her hand and dragging her after him.
I followed, squeezing my shoulders through the narrow opening. This was a much smaller shaft than the one we’d used before. As soon as my feet cleared the grate, I twisted to shout to Imani, “Okay, we’re in. Hurry!”
She scrambled along the floor, firing over her shoulder. At the same moment, the bald man with the British accent—Finn, I remembered—burst onto the scene, rolling beneath her stun gun blast. He stretched his hand in her direction, brushing her ankle, and she froze.
Our eyes met, and I read her fear, her confusion, her desperation. But she clearly couldn’t move a muscle. Somehow, Finn had manifested yet another power. He could freeze people in place.
Priya appeared in a burst of wind, much like Cage (and now, I guessed, me) when we moved at top speed. “Imani!” I shouted, shoving myself backward. I could reach her, I knew I could. My fingers caught in the metal and then Cage’s hand closed over my wrist.
“We can’t help her!” He dragged me forward. In the same instant, Finn lunged at the vent. His fingers grazed my shoe, but Cage yanked me out of his grip just in time.
Finn and I faced each other, me staring over my shoulder, him half hunched in the grate, his lips twisted in a sneer. His brow lowered as he calculated, no doubt debating whether he’d fit into the vent.
Cage’s grip on my wrist became painful as he wrenched me along. “Imani,” I repeated, almost in a whisper, but I was scrambling after him already. I didn’t have more time to think before Cage dragged us forward with phenomenal speed, bashing our elbows and shins as he accelerated in bursts, putting distance between us and the hunters.
At last, after what felt like an hour of twisting and turning, we stopped, collapsing against a dead end. Our breath echoed in the tiny space. I couldn’t see anything in the shadows. My joints ached where Cage had slammed me against the walls in our hurried flight, and his body trembled with the effort of carrying us.
In a matter of seconds, Matt and his new friends had reduced our group of frightened but capable anomalies to three terrified teenagers huddling in a vent on an alien-infested space station. And just like we’d abandoned Matt, even without meaning to, we’d left our friends behind at the hunters’ mercy. Imani, Alexei, Jasper, Mia, Reed. All of them gone in less than five minutes. How long before the hunters caught up with us, too? I dropped my head to my folded arms and faced the truth. One way or another, we were going to die on Obsidian.