I glanced both ways to make sure no one was in earshot and said, “I’ve been thinking . . .” About Matt. About what happened back on Sanctuary, that terrifying, horrible moment when the gun jerked in my hand. The shot I thought would save him, which ended up being the shot that ended him.

“Did it hurt?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s a joke my dad would tell.”

Cage smiled, although the effort never quite made it past his lips. “That’s what I’m known for. What are you thinking about?”

Everything. The moment he’d argued in favor of killing the aliens on this ship, and how little the thought of genocide seemed to bother him. Rune shouting at her brother, desperate to prevent him from murdering an entire race of creatures, Cage’s furious response, his desperation to eliminate the creatures before they awoke and came after us again. The way every sound in every corner made me freeze in terror as if an alien might leap from behind a wall. The tension on the ship, so thick you could almost bathe in it. I settled for the thing most frequently on my mind: “Matt.” Matt. My friend, Cage’s friend, everyone’s friend, really. He’d been one of the only prisoners to treat me with respect from day one. And then the alien had attacked him, and I’d been the one with the gun.

I’d shot, of course. Who wouldn’t? To save a friend?

But I’d missed. In the wake of that horror, of Matt lying breathless and sightless on the floor, it had been Cage who’d dragged the body away, Cage who’d convinced me to lie, to say the alien killed him. And I’d been lying ever since.

A cloud settled over his face. “Kenzie, we’ve talked about this.”

My stomach twisted and scuttled for cover. So much easier not to discuss these things, to laugh and change the subject. But I’d been searching for the opportunity for days. “I know. And you were right, at first. Back on Sanctuary, we couldn’t tell anyone what I’d done.” The prisoners on Sanctuary had already viewed me with suspicion and hatred. If they’d known that I shot their friend, even accidentally, they never would have followed me off the ship. The truth would have killed us all. But now . . . “We’re all stuck together. I’ve gotten to know people better. They trust me, or I think they do.”

“They do.” He leaned forward, fixing me with his earnest gaze. “Or they’re coming to. But what do you think will happen to that trust if they find out you’ve been lying to them for weeks?”

That tore through me. “I’ve been lying to them?”

“We’ve been lying to them,” he amended quickly. “But that’s not how they’ll see it. And even if they do, I have history with them. They’ll forgive me before they forgive you.”