by Caryn Lix
Mia righted herself and nodded to Cage. “Let’s go!” she ordered. “Jasper?”
The boy holding the wall in place grinned. “With pleasure,” he said. He set his legs wide, closed his eyes, and pulled back his arms. As he thrust them forward, the wall exploded in the other direction. Shouts told me there had been guards on the opposite side.
I’d thrown up my arm instinctively to shield my face. When I dropped it, Mia was nowhere to be found. A second later, a guard screamed. Another cried: “What happened? Who’s there?”
“That’s our cue,” sighed Cage. We peeked outside. Mia had chosen the spot well: an isolated area separated from the city only by a massive wall, through which someone—and I didn’t have to think hard to guess who—had already blown a hole. There were two guards on the ground. The remaining four searched frantically. As I watched, another dropped, presumably struck by Mia. The other three opened fire. I winced, but no telltale spots of blood appeared.
Alexei wound up and unleashed a blast of flame at the guards, apparently unconcerned with hitting Mia in the crossfire. Sure enough, she deftly dodged his blast. “Now!” he ordered.
I staggered a few steps, still unsteady from the stun gun blasts. Then Cage was there, sweeping me into his arms and whisking me dramatically to safety, or at least, to the other side of the wall. The others were only a few seconds behind. Jasper’s eyes narrowed, and he reached for a conveniently placed metal sheet, telekinetically manipulating it over the hole. A blast from Alexei welded it into place. “That will buy us a few minutes at most,” he said. “Let’s go.”
As much as I wanted to demand explanations, this wasn’t the time. “I’m okay,” I assured Cage, managing to stand on my own two feet. He braced his hands on my shoulders and examined my face, his own a mask of worry. My heart surged in spite of itself. This wasn’t the first time he’d pulled me from danger. Maybe we were really only at our best when saving each other’s lives. Did that mean we had nothing to fall back on when no one was trying to kill us?
I stepped out of Cage’s grip, facing our rescuers. Imani holstered the stun gun at her waist and looked me over, her face unreadable beneath her makeshift hijab. She hadn’t really recovered from losing Aliya, who’d died on the ship after the aliens injected her with whatever they used to transform us into creatures like them. Since then, she seemed to wear a mask of constant indifference. In unguarded seconds, though, glimpses of her abiding grief slid through: unshed tears, bitter anger. Her emotions mirrored my own, and I understood all too well what she was going through.
“We’d better get moving,” she said at last. “Reed’s waiting.”
The others seemed to know where they were going, so we followed them. I hadn’t been sure what to expect from Mars City. From a distance—and on all the movies and vids—it was a glamorous, exhilarating place, full of high-priced hotels and fancy casinos.
Wherever we were now, it definitely didn’t resemble the fancy Mars City they showed on vidcasts. We made our way through narrow alleys of packed red dirt, corrugated metal huts on either side of us. Cloth draped the windows, and the place seemed deserted. Alexei ducked between two houses, turning sideways to accommodate his broad shoulders, and we followed in single file: Jasper and then Rune, Imani, me, and Cage. Presumably Mia was somewhere nearby. Who the hell knew?
Alexei led us through a series of twisting alleys that all looked the same. Subtle differences marked the homes: splashes of paint here, metal sculptures there, wind chimes fashioned from old cans, homemade rag mats flanking doors. Most of the residents of Mars worked for one of two corporations: Mars Mining or Tourism Rouge. This area clearly belonged to Mars Mining. The Tourism Rouge workers lived closer to the fancy area of Mars City, not in anything resembling the high-priced hotels, I was sure, but probably in dorms or hostels a lot nicer than these metal shacks. The only noncorporate citizens on Mars were criminals, and no one was entirely sure how they kept getting in—helping one another, probably. So far, we hadn’t run into any of them, either.
I kept my eyes peeled, but I didn’t see anyone, and there were no changes in the architecture until Alexei stopped by what looked like a large warehouse. “Here,” he announced, shouldering open the door.
Mia appeared nearby, crouched on a dumpster. “I’ve been trailing you,” she told us. “As far as I can tell, no one’s following. The guards took a while to recover from our attack and they set off in the wrong direction.”
Alexei’s face relaxed and he smiled. I’d noticed before how he held himself tenser and tighter when Mia wasn’t around, as if only her presence truly relaxed him. It might have been worry, but he’d never shown any indication that he didn’t trust her to handle herself. I honestly thought he didn’t feel completely himself without Mia by his side.
We entered the building, which was exactly what it looked like: a mining warehouse. Crates along one wall bore neat labels, ready for shipment back to Earth. A few offices and desks were scattered near the front. When Alexei flipped a switch, dim lights flickered around us, revealing a windowless interior caked in red dust.
Reed leaped off a crate, his face collapsing in relief. “Could you have taken any longer?” he demanded.
“You’re the one who wanted to stay behind,” Mia pointed out.
Reed scowled at her. “Yeah, Mia, it was totally a choice. I would have been incredibly useful in a fast-paced prison break.” He met my gaze, shook his head ruefully, and indicated his left ankle. “I think I sprained it jumping off the ship. Ironically enough, I’m the only one I can’t heal. Speaking of which . . .” He limped over and took my face in his hands, turning it with a frown. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure,” I confessed. As the adrenaline of our escape wore off, the effects of the stun gun blasts returned: a general sense of dizziness, like my insides had been scrambled.
“You’d better sit down.” Reed guided me to a nearby crate and settled me against it. He closed his hands over mine and shut his eyes. A moment later, a sense of warmth and well-being flowed through me, like a gentle finger running over the interior of my spine. A fog I hadn’t even noticed lifted in the wake of his touch. I shifted my position, and no pain echoed through me as a result. Everything sharpened, coming into clearer focus.
Of course, with my physical pain dulled, the emotional toll only expanded. Dad’s face swam in front of me, and Matt’s, and even Tyler’s, the soft-spoken boy who had forcibly read my mind on Sanctuary. I’d forgiven him for it by the end. I hoped he’d known that in the moment the aliens gored his stomach, tearing him to shreds.
If I could forgive that violation, why couldn’t I forgive my dad, or Cage, or even myself? I knew shooting Matt had been an accident. I knew I couldn’t change it. But it stayed on my shoulders, an omnipresent burden of fear and self-loathing. I had to get it out in the open sometime soon, because every moment I spent with my friends made that bundle of emotion a little heavier.
And that included right now, with Reed channeling healing energy through my battered limbs.
When he stepped back, I rolled my shoulders experimentally. Even the lingering pain from the weight of the cuffs had disappeared. “Thanks,” I said, shoving my guilt aside for the moment. “That’s better.”
Mia tapped Reed’s shoulder and nodded at Alexei. “Check out the tough guy over there.”
Reed straightened, his head snapping in Alexei’s direction like a homing beacon. He was the cheerful joker and prankster until he sensed an injury, and then . . . “What’s wrong with Alexei?” he demanded.
Alexei waved his hand in dismissal. “Nichego.” But he peeled off his shirt without argument to reveal his terrifyingly muscled body, marred by the angry scars running down his chest and the freshly burned skin all over his right arm. Reed muttered a curse and moved behind him, closing his eyes and setting to work.
I turned to Mia. “Thanks. That was fast.” I didn’t voice my earlier fears, that she’d arrive too late to help us—or abandon u
s altogether. The fact that she’d returned strengthened my trust in her, reaffirmed what Cage had always said: there was more to Mia than met the eye.
“Yeah well, somehow I didn’t think we could trust a corporation to keep their word.” Her face twisted in a scowl. “The ship’s still broadcasting.”
“Easier to deal with now that we’re free,” Cage pointed out. “Where’s everyone else?”
Her scowl deepened. “Cowards. They scattered and took off. The only ones willing to come back with us were Reed, Imani, Jasper here, and Anya.”
“Anya?” I demanded. Anya was a ten-year-old girl without a spare ounce of flesh on her birdlike bones. “Please tell me you didn’t bring her into this mess.”
Mia sniffed. “Don’t be stupid. We said absolutely not and left her with someone Jasper knew. That’s what took so long. We had to stash her safely before we moved.”
I turned to Jasper. “I don’t think I’ve said thank you.”
He grinned, tucking his long, dark ponytail over one shoulder. “I spent every day on that ship wishing I’d been brave enough to cut out my chip and help you guys on Sanctuary. This was my chance to step up.” I struggled to remember his file, but only recalled a few tidbits of information. Jasper Many Chiefs, sixteen, with a power something akin to telekinesis that only applied to inanimate objects.
Imani joined us. “I’m not sure what help I’ll be, but I’m here for the long run. I’m not going to let what happened on Sanctuary happen to anyone else.” She twisted her long, delicate fingers in front of her as if imagining an alien between them, and I knew she was picturing Aliya.
What I saw in that warehouse didn’t fill me with hope. Imani was determined, but her ability to heal herself wouldn’t be much use against Mars Mining or Omnistellar, not to mention the aliens. Rune, Cage, and I leaned against the walls in varying stages of exhaustion. Reed was almost finished healing Alexei, who slumped on the crate, wincing occasionally. Only Mia and Jasper seemed to be in good moods and ready for the next battle. “So, this is it,” I said. “The eight of us against two major corporations and an entire race of pissed-off aliens.”
Mia shrugged. “I’ve had worse odds.”
Cage leveled a finger in her direction. “Name one time the odds have been worse than this.”
She grinned. “I don’t know. Maybe a few weeks ago, when we decided to break out of an inescapable prison in the middle of space?”
“Yeah, that didn’t exactly go off flawlessly.”
Mia glanced at Imani with what, for Mia, passed as guilt. “I guess not. But we survived, and we’re here, and we’re going to survive this, too.”
I nodded, letting her determination inflame my own. “You’re right. This isn’t the time to quit. Let’s share what we know and—”
At that moment, a buzzer rang through the room. We all jerked upright as the front door rattled. “Hide!” Cage growled. He grabbed my arm and swept me along with him, raising a blast of dust as he pulled me behind the crates seconds before the door swung open.
EIGHT
CAGE SHOVED ME INTO A corner, physically shielding me. Even in the tension of the moment, I registered the strength of his body against mine, and an uncertain thrill raced down my spine. Resolutely burying it, I peered around a crate. Imani, Rune, and Jasper crouched behind a similar stack opposite us. Alexei and Reed had ducked behind their own crate, which barely hid Alexei’s broad shoulders. Mia, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
Loud voices reached us, and I winced. It wasn’t the guards from the prison, so that was something. But we were dealing with at least three miners. Mars Mining wasn’t the best corporation in the solar system. They didn’t offer a ton of perks to their citizens, and they weren’t exactly a political powerhouse. But they were on the map with their proprietary dome technology, the only reason cities even functioned on places like Mars or Jupiter’s moons. That meant that even without paying their citizens particularly well, they tended to attract people with ambition. My mom always said Mars Mining was a corporation to watch. They weren’t much now, but she said if we gave them a decade unchecked, they’d rival Omnistellar in power, and people who saw the winds shifting that way were willing to put up with a lot to get in on the ground floor. Mars also attracted loyalists—not of the Omnistellar brand, which was its own unique type of fanatical, but loyalists all the same. The corporation might not bind their hearts, but the community did. People who lived on Mars viewed off-worlders as trouble, a perception Mars Mining didn’t exactly discourage.
Which meant that when all was said and done, I’d rather not attract miner attention. We could take them down, of course. We had a stun gun on our side, not to mention Alexei, Jasper, and Mia. But I didn’t know when they were expected to check in or who their disappearance might alert.
Now I prayed that Mia followed my thinking and waited them out. She was useful in a fight but completely unpredictable and unreliable outside one. My temples throbbed. I’d never had to deal with this kind of uncertainty before. Omnistellar had clear rules and regulations to govern any situation, and sometimes I really missed knowing exactly what to do. People like Cage and Mia, though, wouldn’t have stuck to the rules even if they’d known they existed.
There was no sign of Mia as the miners advanced into the warehouse, not giving any indication that they noticed anything amiss. Two men and a woman approached, joking and chatting, checking crates against something on their tablet. Cage’s chest convulsed against me with each breath, and my fingers turned white as I clutched the edge of a box, frantically scanning for anything that might reveal our presence and coming up empty. We were safe—for now.
But what if they didn’t leave? They wouldn’t come in merely to check one crate. Whatever they were doing, they’d make their way through the whole warehouse, which meant sooner or later, they’d find us. I closed my eyes, fighting for a plan. I hadn’t fled a secured prison only for some errant miners to capture me.
I gauged the distance to the doorway. If we stayed quiet, we could escape without alerting them and make our way to safety, wherever that might be.
I twisted in Cage’s arms. “Hey,” I whispered, and he turned, brushing his cheek against mine. “If we—”
A crack of electricity and a yelp of pain erupted from the other side of the crates. Without thinking, I shot to my feet in time to see the female miner pivot as her companion went down. Before she made a sound, a burst of stun gun fire, seeming to originate from nowhere, struck her in the back, and she collapsed too. The third miner met my eyes, his gaze wild. “What . . . ?” he managed before he joined his friends in the dirt.
“Mia!” I shouted, fury overwhelming common sense.
She appeared with a shimmer and arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Yes?” she asked.
“Where did you get that?”
“From Imani.” She returned it to the other girl. “Here. Thanks.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” I demanded.
Mia produced a revolver from her waistband. “You’d rather I used this?”
I closed my eyes against a wave of revulsion. “I thought we agreed to leave that on the ship.”
“Why would we? It has seven shots yet. It’s useful.”
Useful for killing people. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. How was I supposed to explain my sudden, irrational terror of that gun? It was the gun I’d held in my hands as I targeted the alien, when my shot went wide. Matt’s face suddenly appeared before me, his blond hair streaked with red, his eyes wide and staring. Because I’d missed. And I’d missed in the worst way possible.
“Kenz,” said Cage softly, a hint of warning in his tone. He was the only one who knew about Matt, and the only one who could follow my thoughts at the sight of the gun.
Somehow, I managed to keep my voice calm and steady. “Mia, there had to have been a better way to deal with this situation.”
“Sure there was. I could’ve killed them.” She tossed her head, her greasy
dark hair reflecting the red of the dirt. “Are you seriously going to pussyfoot around this mess? We have one goal here: to destroy the alien ship. If we have to take out a few guards to do it, I’m not going to shed any tears.”
“Those weren’t guards,” said Jasper coldly. “They were miners.”
I tried to remember and drew a blank. “Jasper, did you grow up here?”
“I did.” He leveled Mia with a dark, challenging glare.
She shrugged. “Friends of yours?”
“No.”
“Do they need to be?” Reed demanded. “If we start killing people, we’re exactly what the corporations say we are.”
Mia ignored that, keeping her focus on Jasper. “You loyal to Mars Mining?”
“No. My family is part of Tourism Rouge.”
“Then what does it matter?” she exploded, jabbing an accusatory finger in his direction. “Why are we even discussing this? I didn’t kill them! They’ll wake up in an hour with a headache like Kenzie’s. Is that really such a bad thing? You guys better grow up. There’s no way we’re going to destroy the ship without hurting someone. Maybe even killing them.”
“She has a point,” said Imani softly.
My jaw dropped, and I spun on her. She shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m not on board with killing anyone. But if those things arrive, they’re not going to share my scruples. I mean, I know it sounds awful, but if it comes down to a few dead guards versus an entire planet?”
Rune and Reed both shook their heads, but the others went strangely silent. I drew another deep breath. I expected Alexei to follow Mia’s lead, and I didn’t really know Jasper. But it troubled me to see Imani and especially Cage yield to her logic. It troubled me even more that I kind of understood her point. “All right,” I managed in a reasonable tone of voice. “I get what you’re saying. I do. And if we have to knock out a few guards, that’s fine. But can we please leave violence as a last resort? There are always unintended consequences. We don’t know who’s waiting for these people, or who will come looking for them. And when they regain consciousness with those headaches you mentioned, they’re going to report us.”