We retraced our steps with Mia once more in the lead, Alexei and Jasper bringing up the rear, and me shepherding our three more nervous charges. I kept glancing over my shoulder. Where the hell was the Silver Oni? The bounty hunters couldn’t be this incompetent, could they? An unlocked door? One guard left behind, and that guard nowhere to be seen? Not to mention how easily I’d unlocked their cell.

My stomach plummeted into my feet as I took in the ship’s careful organization, its meticulous order.

No. They weren’t this inept.

“Wait!” I said, at the same instant as Mia shouted from ahead.

We broke into a run, rounding a corner to find ourselves facing the Silver Oni and all four of his companions, weapons drawn, arrayed around the airlock. Mia knelt on the floor, breathing heavily, completely visible.

The hunter I’d seen with Priya in the marketplace grinned. “Welcome aboard,” he said. “Hope you enjoy your stay. It’s gonna be a long one.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I RAISED MY HANDS IN the universal gesture of surrender. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Let’s not.” Priya gestured for the others to follow my lead. They did: Rune, Reed, and Imani immediately, Mia, Jasper, and Alexei more slowly. “We figured you’d be here for your friends. How many more of you are there?”

One of the men smirked, revealing a cracked front tooth. “Now that we’ve got this crew, I say we sit back and wait. We’re not gonna run down the speedster. Let him come to us, and any others with him.”

That was . . . exactly what would happen. My heart stuttered. If we let them take us prisoner now, we were finished, all of us. But what options did we have? Alexei couldn’t set fire to an airlock. That was a colossally bad idea, even if we hadn’t been standing in it. Mia might slip away, but the rest of us were pretty much screwed.

“We are not on different sides, you and I,” said Alexei conversationally. I glanced at him. Where was he going with this? He took a few steps, placing himself between us and the hunters. At the same moment, Mia shifted ever so slightly toward us.

Oh no. What did these two have in mind? It was super charming that they knew each other so well, but I wasn’t following the plan.

The man with the cracked tooth chuckled. “Really, boy? This is your strategy? Tell the big bad bounty hunters we have more in common than we think?”

“We have plenty in common.” Alexei spread his hands, as nonthreatening as someone well over six feet and composed of pure muscle could make himself. “For instance, money. You like it. I have it. My uncle . . .”

Priya snorted and mimicked his tone. “We have a contract. We fulfill the contract. It’s how this works.”

The rest of us were within Mia’s reach. She glanced at me. “Portal,” she mouthed.