PRIYA JERKED TO ATTENTION AT Hallam’s words. “Check the outer perimeter,” she barked, and Matt and Hallam shouldered past us, off to follow her orders. Priya herself snatched a knife off a nearby counter and made to go with them.
“Hang on a minute,” Cage interrupted, arresting her movement by stepping into her path. The look she shot him could have frozen a volcano. “We’ve seen no signs of life anywhere. Just because someone thinks they’re too good to trip …”
Priya’s eyes drew into a tight, narrow band. “He doesn’t think he’s too good to trip. We are genetically engineered to be faster, stronger, and more agile than you can possibly imagine. If Hallam says someone hit him, then someone hit him.”
The rest of us exchanged glances. Imani and Jasper were both sitting on a counter, their expressions worried as they hovered between Cage and Priya. Mia and Alexei lounged near the door, seeming almost bored. The rest of us remained near the shelf. “Listen,” Rune said now, glancing up from where she still knelt on the floor. “There’s no other sign of anyone being here. Nothing on this counter is disturbed. I know Legion is genetically engineered to be the best, but I really think we might chalk this one up to fatigue. How long has it been since any of you ate or rested properly?” She offered Priya a conciliatory smile, a Rune special, and even Priya seemed to struggle to resist its power. If Cage led through charm and energy, Rune was learning to lead through compassion and kindness.
At that moment, Matt and Hallam returned. “We can’t find any sign of anyone,” Hallam grumbled, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. It came away sticky with blood he was no longer shedding, and he looked at it in surprise. “Golden Boy here even scrambled up the building next door to get a bird’s-eye view. Nothing.”
Priya glanced between him and Rune and Cage, her expression inscrutable. “All right,” she said at last. “I guess there’s nothing more we can do at the moment. We’ll keep exploring the area, but keep your eyes peeled. And no one goes anywhere alone.” She swept out of the kitchen, Matt and Hallam on her heels, although Matt frowned over his shoulder in our direction. For a second he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something, and then he was gone.
I closed my eyes and released a shuddering sigh. Part of me had been scared Hallam and Matt would find someone, yet another threat I needed to stand against. I glanced over my friends, the fierceness of my protective impulse catching me off guard yet again. When had I become so dedicated to these people? I guessed survival situations had that effect.
But no one was here. We were safe, at least for now. I met Cage’s gaze and shrugged. “We might as well go with them.”
He sighed and shook his head, then smiled ruefully. “We might as well,” he agreed, and we set off.
Several hours later, after we’d ransacked the neighborhood and pillaged everything we could carry, we finally retreated to the apartment the others had discovered. If you squinted, a pleasant neighborhood still underlaced the area’s current decomposition. Large patches of dead ground and weeds marked where parks and gardens had stood. A rusty children’s playground graced one end of the street, and fading awnings and shop signs lined the road.
The apartment building was ten stories tall, with what I suspected had been a well-furnished lobby. The lifts resembled the antigrav lifts I remembered from back home. Actually, the entire place could have been a mid-class corporate apartment on a sponsored street in any city on Earth—more evidence for Rune’s bizarre theory. I stumbled over that thought. I just couldn’t accept the idea of a telepathic connection with aliens thousands of light-years away. But I also couldn’t come up with a better explanation, at least not right now.
We had taken over the second floor of the building, close to the ground in case we needed to make a quick escape, although Mia assured us she’d personally spent the night inspecting every room on every floor, and her bloodshot eyes seemed to back her up. “We’re using this larger apartment as a common area,” Priya said, indicating a corner apartment with the door propped open. “If you choose a different location to sleep in, make sure everyone knows where it is.”
A muscle worked along Cage’s jaw. I took his hand and squeezed it. “We’ll be sure to keep you posted,” I said in what didn’t sound, even to my ears, like a very diplomatic tone. “Cage, can I talk to you for a moment?”
We picked an unoccupied apartment at random, and I pushed him inside. The small entranceway led into a dusty but well-equipped kitchen and living room, and Cage promptly began pacing back and forth across both. The sun shone through the window, illuminating the white leather couch, the hardwood flooring, and the layer of filth over everything. “Who does she think she is?” he fumed. “Like we’re going to sit back and take orders from the woman who tried to capture us on Omnistellar’s behalf?”
“Would you calm down?” I demanded. I opened cupboards methodically, searching for anything of use, but nothing much remained. I found pots, pans, things you’d expect for a kitchen. I did not find weapons beyond a few paring knives, usable food or water, or a large book entitled THE NAME OF THIS PLANET AND THE HISTORY OF ITS INHABITANTS. “There are more important things for us to think about.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I gave up on my search and sat at the table, noting the large vase of fake flowers dominating the centerpiece. It was hard to tell what color they were under the dust. “Like the fact that we’re on an alien planet with no way home. Or that something horrible happened here, and everyone seems to have fled quickly. We don’t know if we’re safe. It could have been a radioactive event, for example, or a pandemic, and we might be breathing in poison without even knowing it.” My words came faster, spilling out of me in a panic. The last twenty-four hours were a blur, and in this moment of silence, my mind was working overtime, my heart hammering an unsteady beat. “Why would people leave everything they owned? Not even salvage that grocery store? If people died, where are the bodies? And what about the fact that everything on this planet looks exactly like it would back on Earth? Don’t think too hard and you could be in Arizona. What are the odds I somehow stumbled across another species in the universe that’s just like us? And if it wasn’t random, what brought us here? Oh, and of course there are still the aliens, and my parents are dead.” I threw those last words at him with a vicious, cutting precision that surprised me. I hadn’t realized I’d been angry, holding this in, until this moment.
Rage and grief warred for supremacy inside me, and I gladly gave in to the anger. I was so tired of crying, of feeling sad. It was almost a relief to lose control. My voice rose as my fists tightened on the table. “It’s fantastic you and Priya are caught in a power struggle for control of our little group, but it would be nice if you took one damn moment to think about the rest of us. About my parents. About your sister. Even about Matt and Priya and Hallam, because Omnistellar betrayed them just like they betrayed the rest of us! And I—”
During my rant, Cage had closed the space between us. Now he dragged a chair forward until our knees were touching and caught my fists between his hands. “You’re right,” he said simply, interrupting me. “I’m sorry. I’m stressed too, and it comes out like … well, like this. And for what it’s worth, you’re not the only one who’s noticed the similarities between this place and Earth. Remember Liam, though. He was an alien, but he was about as close to human as I’d ever seen. Maybe ravenous monsters who reproduce by creating kids with superpowers and then murdering them aren’t the norm. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
I smiled in spite of myself and tipped forward so our heads touched. Cage sparked up fast, it was true. But it was easy to bring him back down, and when you pulled him outside himself, he became the most unselfish, gentle, kindhearted person I’d ever met. That was why I …
I slammed the door on that thought. Cage and I had known each other a few weeks now. Our relationship had started hard and fast, kissing in an airlock on our way to potential death, and then stalled as we’d dealt with all the trauma of the aftermath. Now we were together again, stronger and better. So how did I feel about him? I ran my hand over his face, the sharp familiar lines, the softness of his skin, and I knew in my heart I didn’t want to live without him.
But if I said that, I might scare him half to death, so I replied, “Thank you. And I guess things aren’t so bad. I mean, we have food and water. We’re not going to die quite yet. We have time to work these things out. But Cage … my ability to copy other powers is what let me get us here. I pulled from Liam, and he died in the explosion. I can’t take us home.”
“I know. We’ll figure it out, okay? Together.” He leaned in and kissed me, and for a blissful moment I let emotion sweep me away, let the pull of his lips draw me into a world where nothing mattered but the two of us and the connection between us.
And then the door to the apartment slammed open and Mia stomped in, and the spell was broken. “This is bullshit,” she announced, vaulting onto the counter, not seeming to notice as Cage and I scrambled apart. “I need your help, Cage. We have to get out of here, and Priya seems to be settling in.”
Alexei trailed in behind her, looking more exhausted than usual. I sympathized. It couldn’t be easy, keeping up with Mia. “Mia mine,” he said, “you haven’t slept in days. Please lie down.”
“And let whatever attacked Hallam come after me? No, thank you. It’s time to move, not rest.”
Cage groaned, letting his head drop to his hands. “You didn’t buy Priya’s crap about a mystery assailant, did you? Rune called it. Hallam bumped into a shelf like an idiot, and a cast-iron pan smacked him in the head. That’s enough to topple even a mutant bounty hunter.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Priya’s right about one thing: Legion is strong, fast, and powered. They have metal parts where they should have flesh and bone, and they have tiny iron lumps where they should have brains. It’s possible Hallam tripped. But I’m not buying it.”
Alexei sighed, and I suspected this was a continuation of an argument they’d been having before. He’d probably dragged us into it hoping we’d talk some sense into Mia—or that Cage would. I still wasn’t sure how Mia felt about me. Right now, even though she was ostensibly including me in the conversation, she was refusing to meet my eyes.
“Look,” I said. “Let’s make a deal. Let’s take twenty-four hours to decompress. Tomorrow at lunchtime, we’ll sit down and discuss all of this as a group. That group can include Priya and Hallam and … and Matt, if you want it to, or it can just be us. Your call. But Mia, we need rest. All of us, even you. It’s been a long time since we weren’t being chased by someone, and we’ve all lost so much since this started.”
I expected an argument, but to my surprise, Mia’s head lowered and she nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. I guess you’re right.” She slid to her feet and headed out of the apartment, punching Alexei lightly on the chest as she went. He glanced at Cage, one of his eyebrows arched, a frown on his cinder block face, and then went after her.
“What just happened?” I asked. I’d never seen Mia give in without a fight.
Cage shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe you made so much sense you actually convinced Mia to listen to reason. Is that possible?”
“That is not possible, no.”
He grinned. “Then chalk it up to another mystery we’ll unravel tomorrow. In the meantime, we have this whole apartment to ourselves, and there’s food and water in Priya’s common area. Let’s follow your advice and take a bit of time to unwind.”
“That,” I said, a relieved smile breaking out over my own features, “sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard.”