by Caryn Lix
We passed the pin through the bars, and Mia and Jasper knelt back to back. Her face screwed up in concentration, she set to work. She faced me, sweat beading on her forehead, her eyes squeezed into creases. None of us spoke. I don’t think anyone even exhaled. I certainly didn’t. One wrong move and Mia might not only blow our only chance of escape but electrocute Jasper in the process. These cuffs might have actual locks, but they also contained electronic components to power the inhibitors.
After what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes, Mia gave a gasp of relief and Jasper’s cuffs clattered to the floor. She drooped against the wall as Jasper flexed his arms and rose smoothly to his feet. Two seconds later, the molecules of his cell door rearranged themselves, leaving a hole large enough to walk through as alarms once more shot through the ship. A heartbeat later, we were all free. Or at least, we were free of our cells. “Can you get these off?” I raised my cuffs.
Jasper shook his head. “I don’t dare mess around with something right against your skin like that.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Mia. “I broke the pin in Jasper’s cuffs.”
We all blinked. “You did?” asked Jasper.
“Yeah, and somehow picked the cuffs anyway, if you missed that feat of prowess.” She glanced at Imani. “Sorry.”
Imani shrugged, pulling off her scarf and folding it into her waistband. “It’s all right. I don’t always wear the hijab. I just feel safer with it than without.” She smoothed her hair into place, curling it behind her ears with the practiced ease of a beauty belle. Now that I knew, I couldn’t believe I’d missed the signs earlier. Did anyone else know they had an online sensation in their midst? I offered her a smile, but she only half returned it. Everyone was too concerned with escape to target me at the moment, but I knew I hadn’t heard the last about our lies. And I deserved it. Yes, Cage had led the charge to lie, but I went along with it.
I needed to prove myself to them again, and even without powers, I wasn’t useless. “Could you come here, Jasper?” I asked, shouldering my way to the panel. He was the one who seemed the least hostile at the moment. In fact, when he joined me, he even gave me a gentle nudge, although he kept it out of sight of the others.
“What do you need?”
“The code. Maybe we can find something useful. And since you’re the only one with hands . . .”
He nodded, understanding, and I directed him to unlock the console, searching for visual code. If I could only find something to release the cuffs, or at least learn what had triggered the alarms . . .
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything quite that easily, not like before. The hunters had made their system harder to navigate. It was also incredibly frustrating describing things to Jasper when my own fingers would have flown through the commands. Rune fairly jumped up and down with impatience, and I didn’t blame her. Without her powers inhibited, it took her mere seconds to hack a system.
At last we gave up in frustration and stood in a rough semicircle, staring at one another. “What now?” Reed asked dryly.
“Jasper,” said Imani, “come over here, would you?”
Cage and I ignored her, searching each other’s expressions for answers. “I don’t know why no one’s come for us yet,” I said, half to myself. “But whatever the reason, we can’t have much longer.”
He frowned, pacing in a tight circle. “You couldn’t find anything in the system?”
“Not trying to direct Jasper. Maybe if my hands were free . . .”
Someone cleared their throat behind me. I ignored it at first, and then Imani was there, jabbing me in the side with her elbow. “Hey,” she said, brandishing what looked like a computer chip.
“What is that?”
“The key,” she said dryly. “This isn’t my first run-in with bounty hunters. I found it over there in a lockbox.”
“How’d you open the lockbox?”
“Hello?” Jasper wiggled his fingers.
Imani grinned. “Hold still and let me uncuff you.”
Sure enough, within minutes she had us all free. Rune lunged directly for the console, sinking her hands into it, and the alarm vanished.
The sudden silence echoed, almost as deafening as the klaxon. I held my breath, every muscle poised for action. My mind created footsteps echoing in the corridors. What would we do when the hunters came charging into the cells? And seriously, why hadn’t they come already? The alarm had been going for at least a minute or two. No matter how distracted they were, they couldn’t have missed it.
The others must have followed my train of thought. Mia vanished. Alexei and Cage took positions on either side of the door, poised for action, and Jasper retreated to the rear wall, his fingers twitching, ready to use his power. The rest of us huddled out of harm’s way.
Seconds passed, then a minute. Cage and I exchanged glances. Was nobody coming? Why? Either the alarm hadn’t activated outside the cellblock, which seemed like a pretty stupid setup, or the hunters were deliberately not responding. Because something else had their attention? It would have to be something pretty major. Or because they’d secured us with some other method?
Either way, it gave us a few minutes of breathing room. If the hunters had planned to rush in, they’d have done so by now. Everyone relaxed imperceptibly, although Mia didn’t reappear and the boys stayed in their positions, and I glanced at Imani in admiration.
“How’d you know that was the key?” asked Reed, cracking his knuckles. The echo made me wince, but I wasn’t in a position to criticize. “Or where to find it?”
“There’s always a key in the prison sector in case of emergencies. Medical, evacuation, stuff like that. I told you, I’ve encountered bounty hunters before. They arrested me and Aliya after we’d been in hiding for a month.” Her face crumpled slightly at her sister’s name, but her voice remained steady as she carefully tied her hijab around her arm, fashioning it into a bracelet. “We passed through three of their ships. I got good at spotting their hiding places.” She didn’t quite meet my eyes, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because of Aliya . . . or Matt.
“Rune.” Cage tugged at her shoulder, then growled in frustration. “She’s in deep. We need to get moving. I can’t figure out why no one’s come already. That alarm was ringing for too long.”
I didn’t echo the scariest thought I came up with: something was going on that took precedence over even an escaped bounty. I didn’t want to consider what that might be.
“I’ll watch the corridors with Mia.” Alexei shouldered off the wall and into the hall. After a moment, Jasper followed, leaving Rune buried in the console and Reed, Imani, Cage, and me staring at one another in frustration.
“Kenz,” said Cage slowly. “I hate to ask. But . . .”
“Can I detach Rune from the console?” I walked around her, examining the computer dubiously. I ran my fingers over it. It felt solid and strong, but something shimmered beneath my fingertips, something I’d never felt from electronics before. My heart stuttered into overdrive and I forced it still. “Maybe,” I managed around my tongue, which seemed to have swollen to twice its normal size. “But maybe I shouldn’t. She might be onto something. Let’s give her another minute before I . . . before I try.”
The awkward silence descended again, and it felt like everyone was staring at me, questioning the extent of my abilities. “How does this happen, exactly?” Imani demanded. “So you’re a copycat now? Kenzie, you might be the most powerful of us all.”
I shook my head. I wanted to be offended by her harsh tone, but I had to take responsibility for lying to her. She deserved to be hurt. And worse, she wasn’t wrong. “I honestly don’t know,” I told her, letting some of my exhaustion seep into my voice. “I’m not even sure how this works. So far I’ve copied Cage’s power, and Mia’s . . . and maybe Liam’s.”
“Liam’s?” Cage said thoughtfully. “You mean the portals?”
“Unless one of you has an ability you’re not telli
ng me about.”
Imani chewed her lip. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was attacking you. I’m just . . . well, I’m scared. Exactly what can you do, Kenzie? Or more accurately, what can’t you do? Can you heal us? Make fire like Alexei? Maybe even copy some of the abilities of the prisoners who didn’t make it off Sanctuary?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, struggling to catch my breath. Their eyes fixed me in place, not hostile, but not exactly friendly, either. I was glad Mia wasn’t here for this conversation. “I’d love to find out, believe me.”
For a moment no one responded, and I wondered if that was enough. Were they scared of me, scared of these powers even I didn’t understand? This ability that had come out of nowhere with no warning? I swallowed, waiting for the next barrage of questioning.
But then Reed shook his head. “I can’t believe Matt threw in with these jerks. I mean, I never knew him that well, but he seemed like a decent guy.” He gave me a slight smile of acknowledgment as he deliberately changed the subject, and a rush of gratitude raced through me, even if I didn’t like this topic much better.
“He is a decent guy,” Cage interjected sharply. “I betrayed him. That takes a toll.”
There was so much self-loathing in his tone that it broke through my haze of anger and confusion. A part of me wanted to reach out to him, but there was still too much lingering unsaid between us. “We both betrayed him,” I said, my voice unsteady.
Cage shook his head, running his hands through his hair and standing it on edge in a familiar nervous gesture. “I appreciate the sentiment. But I’m the one who convinced you to lie about things. You were ready to tell the truth.”
I really hoped Mia believed that, because I had a sense she’d forgive Cage more readily than me. Instantly guilt suffused me. Here I was worrying about whether my newfound friends would be pissed off at me instead of about Cage, about Matt, about my approaching father, about any of the myriad of things that took precedence.
Friends. I paused at the word. Were these really my friends? We’d been thrown together by circumstance more than anything. Three weeks ago, we’d been enemies. They’d taken me hostage and threatened me, threatened my family. But then, my family had betrayed me too.
Friends. I’d never had friends before, not like this. Not people you loved and would die for. I glanced behind me at Reed and Imani, standing close together, their faces taut with worry, and almost choked on the desire to make that worry go away, to keep them safe. It clenched around my heart, sending blood to my cheeks and tremors to my hands, giving me both vulnerability and strength.
Friends.
“You all right?” Cage asked.
I’d never been much with words, especially when I had to speak them out loud. But . . . “Cage,” I said, staring at his chest under its flat green T-shirt, “I want you to know, whatever happens here . . .”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he replied, his voice calm and assured, too calm and assured. It was the same tone he’d used to soothe the prisoners on Sanctuary. I was close enough to see through him now. “To any of us. We got off Sanctuary, and we’ll get through this.”
He’d misunderstood. I didn’t want reassurance. I wanted him: his fears and his lies and his truth and just all of him, every breath, every sigh. I wanted to surmount the obstacles between us, the lies and the death and the betrayal. He examined me, and something slipped in his confident mask, his exhaustion breaking through and giving me a glimpse of the heart of him. I lowered my eyes, searching for words. Somehow, I knew there was something I could say, now, in this moment, that would undo all the hurt, that would set things back to the way they used to be. I just had to find the words and the courage to speak them.
Suddenly Rune broke away from the console with a gasp. Her eyes fluttered open, and Cage flashed across the room to catch her before she fell. “You all right, meimei?”
The unspoken words, still unformed, shattered on the edge of my psyche and disappeared. I didn’t resent Cage for running to his sister, not for a second.
But God, did her timing suck.
Rune blinked as if returning to reality, seeming to take a moment to focus. Then she said, “You’d better listen to this. I tapped into the ship’s comms.”
A second later, Priya’s furious shout filled the room. “. . . docking ring, do you understand me?”
The answering voice was female, cold and impassive, lightly tinged with a Russian accent. “You understand me, Legion. We have an unexplained hull breach and no contact with the residents of that sector. No one is leaving this station until we know what happened.”
“You’re going to have to answer to Omnistellar if they don’t get their prisoners.”
The other woman chuckled. “Right now, that is the least of my problems. Obsidian out.”
Reed and Imani gasped as one, the sound echoing through the enclosed space. My knees weakened, and Cage and I turned to each other, our faces identical masks of horror. My mouth went dry. Hull breach.
This was exactly how the alien attack had started on Sanctuary.
TWENTY-NINE
“MOVE.” AS USUAL, CAGE WAS the first to find his voice. “Move. Now. Rune. Come on.”
Rune released the console and Priya’s furious cursing faded into oblivion. At the same moment, Mia, Jasper, and Alexei appeared in the doorway, their drawn faces reflections of my own. “Hull breach?” Mia demanded.
“We were too late,” Imani whispered. Her eyes were pools of terror. “They killed my sister, and now they’re back. We didn’t destroy the ship quickly enough. We were too late.”
The room erupted into a babble of chatter, but Cage’s powerful voice cut through everyone else’s: “All right, calm down! So far, all we know is that there’s a hull breach. Don’t go jumping to conclusions. Let’s get off this ship and take it from there.”
“Off this ship?” Reed shrieked. “Dude, if there are aliens on Obsidian, then off this ship is the exact opposite of the direction we should be going! No wonder the hunters didn’t come for us! They don’t think we’re stupid enough to run toward the danger. We should be booking it to the other side of the solar system.”
“With the bounty hunters?” Cage demanded. “The ones determined to hand us over to Omnistellar, who plan to attack the aliens for their tech? Great plan.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” I muttered. He spun on me, his jaw dropping in surprise, but I ignored him. So much for that moment. Aloud, I said, “Whatever we’re going to do, we can’t do it here. Let’s move.” Without waiting for the others, I strode into the hallway—
And crashed right into Matt, with the Asian woman, Bian, at his back.
Instinctively, Matt steadied me, then shoved me away as if realizing what he’d done. In the blink of an eye he drew his gun and aimed it at my chest. “Goddamn it!” I shouted without even thinking. Matt blinked, and I jabbed a finger in his direction. “Enough of this, already! What’s happening on Obsidian?”
He hesitated only a fraction of a second, but I saw it. “Get in your cells,” he said coldly.
“We’re not doing that.” Cage took half a step in front of me, his arms spread wide. I withdrew. Usually that kind of protective gesture annoyed me, but in this case, Cage knew Matt better than I did. And also, Cage hadn’t shot him to death. So there was that.
Bian snapped, “Get moving or I’ll shoot.” It was the first time I’d heard her speak.
We didn’t even look at her. Cage focused on Matt, and the rest of us focused on them. “If you want to take us captive again, you’ll have to shoot us,” Cage said. “All of us. You okay with that? Because if not, we’d better have a conversation.”
“Stun them,” said Bian coldly. “Or I will.”
Matt’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, what’s happening on Obsidian?” he asked me, deigning to meet my gaze over Cage’s shoulder.
My heart skipped a beat. “You don’t know? Matt. There’s been a hull breach. A big one they can’
t explain. Ring any bells?”
For a split second my own terror reflected in his eyes, and then he shook his head. “No. There’s no way. The aliens aren’t anywhere near here. We’d have picked them up before now.”
“Sure about that? Because Sanctuary didn’t.”
“Matt. Dude.” Reed held up his hands placatingly. “Why’d it take you so long to respond to the alarm?”
He hesitated, glancing at Bian, who frowned. “Priya wouldn’t let anyone leave command,” he said slowly.
“Because of an emergency, right? An emergency so serious it mattered more than escaped bounties? Think about what Kenzie’s saying. We can stand together against this. We have to. Otherwise . . .”
My peripheral vision reflected movement an instant before Cage slammed against me. He swept me off my feet, pulling Rune and me out of the way as walls and ceilings suddenly collapsed. We hit the floor, Cage hurling his arms around us and taking the brunt of the force on his back. For a moment I didn’t know what was happening. There were sound and vibration and impact, but nothing that made sense.
And then it ended. Cage released us and stood, wincing as he stretched his arms. I pulled Rune to her feet along with me and staggered in a sudden pile of debris. She yanked out of my hands, but I barely had time to register a tinge of hurt before I noticed Jasper standing with his arms outstretched. Matt and Bian both slumped unconscious on the floor.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded.
Jasper shrugged. “Bian was about to shoot us.”
Imani stomped her foot. “How do you possibly know that?”
“Because while all of you were watching Matt, I was watching her.” He cocked an arrogant eyebrow in challenge. “Either way, now we have a clear path off this ship.”
“And weapons,” agreed Mia cheerfully, helping herself to Bian’s stun gun.
After a moment’s hesitation, I picked my way to Matt and took his stun gun before Alexei or Jasper did it. At least one person who would think before pulling the trigger should have a weapon. I checked the setting three times, compulsively making sure it was set to stun. I wouldn’t risk killing someone, not ever again. The relief of knowing I hadn’t murdered Matt was so intense that I wouldn’t trade it, not even for my own life.