Victria finally turns her attention to me. “You know, Elder did exist before you came along. Frex, he even had friends and a life, all without you.”

“I . . . I know.”

Victria’s face is stony, but I can see the muscle in her jaw clenching from how hard she’s keeping her emotions in check.

“Can you please go?” she asks. But she doesn’t look at me. She’s looking at the cryo chamber where Orion’s frozen, his eyes bulging, his hands clawing at the glass. I shut the door to the gen lab, giving her privacy.

Elder said he and his group of friends broke apart after Kayleigh died. Victria, I think, as the only other girl in the group, lost more than any of them, with the exception of Harley. I can see her, the writer who loved books, spending most of her time in the Recorder Hall. Where Orion was.

She must hate me. First I took away Elder and Harley, two of her last childhood friends. Then I took away Orion.

I somehow never thought of anyone caring about Orion. My memories of him revolve around the last time I saw him alive. Even though I thought when I first met him that he was kind and gentle, generous and friendly, all I can really remember about him is the crazed look in his eyes as he shouted at Elder to let my parents and the other frozens die. But of course, Victria never saw that. All she saw was her friend, the Recorder, with his face twisted and frozen.

And, on a day when Elder locks down the entire ship, when she must be scared because we’re all scared—on a day like this, she ignored the command to go to her room. She goes, instead, to Orion.

I realize then: she didn’t disobey Elder’s order. He told her to go home. Well, sometimes home is a person.

I turn back to the cryo chambers. Victria has unwittingly given me the answer; I finally understand what Orion meant. He told me to go home. And I did, even before I understood what he meant.

I put my hand on the handle of cryo chamber 42. It’s where I should be. It’s the only home I have left.

I pull open the door.

I talk to my parents every morning, but this time, the lingering scent of the cryo liquid brings bile to the back of my throat. I gag, my body remembering how it felt to drown in the sickeningly sweet liquid. I can’t breathe, and then I’m breathing too much, and with every breath comes the scent of the cryo liquid, and that scent is killing me.

I remember the way the liquid burned my nostrils, the way my vision blurred cornflower blue.