“I want you to know something,” I whisper in his ear softly. “I want you to know that I know where I can find a gun. If you don’t know what a gun is, look it up in the Recorder Hall. My father taught me how to hold a gun steady, how to breathe out as I squeeze the trigger, how to group my shots in a target so that even if the first bullet doesn’t stop you, the next will. When I was fourteen, my father took me hunting with him, in Colorado, and I killed an elk. He did this so that I would know what it is to take a life, so that I would not hesitate to do it when I needed to. I am telling you this, now, so that you know I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Luthor’s eyes dance back and forth; he’s trying to get the power to turn—away from me or toward me, I don’t know.

I lean closer to him, so close I can smell his skin, and when I speak, I can see how the little hairs near his ear move with my breath. “I also want you to know that I won’t kill you right away. But that you’ll wish I had.”

I stand up and offer Victria my hand. She takes it, but as we head to the door, she breaks away from me and delivers one last vicious kick to Luthor’s face.

We leave him, broken and bleeding, on the floor.

Chapter 35

35

ELDER

THE NEXT MORNING, I WAKE TO A COM.

“Are you up yet?” Amy’s voice is excited.

“I am now,” I say, stretching. “Is anything wrong?”

“Nope,” she says. “Come down to the cryo level.”

“Amy, is this about Orion and his frexing clues?” I ask, pulling on pants. “I don’t have time for that. I’ve got to focus on the engine and keeping the ship going—look at what happened yesterday while I was on the cryo level.”

“Don’t get sassy. Just come down here.”

“Sassy?”

“Come on!” she says. “You’re going to want to see this!”

“Oh, really?”

“Elder, remember the video last night?”

“The vid that got cut off? Amy, either Orion was loons or someone else messed with that video. Either way—”

She cuts me off. “That’s beside the point. There was still enough information for me to figure it out. Remember when Orion said Eldest started to scare him? He said it happened after he got off the ship.”

“Off the ship?” I say, so surprised that I pause on my way to the grav tube.

“Whatever he found, he saw it outside the ship.”

“Which means . . .” I say, not daring to finish my thought aloud. I start running to the tube entrance.

“That the next locked door must contain spacesuits.”