Something rattled in the bushes, and I jerked to attention, my heart slamming into my throat. Automatically I grabbed for a nonexistent stun gun, my knees dropping into a near crouch as I waited for something to charge through the greenery. I froze in place, terror ricocheting through my frozen heart, not moving a muscle.

A small robotic cleaner, painted green to blend with the grass, buzzed along instead. I closed my eyes, hoping no one had noticed my momentary panic. Not an alien. Not a monster. Get it together, Kenzie.

If anyone had noticed my flashback, they didn’t say anything. The park absorbed their complete attention. “Where are we?” asked Reed wonderingly.

“The courtyard of the glamorous Spring Veil Resort,” Jasper replied. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll follow me?”

“Hang on a minute,” Imani said, raising her hand. “I need a minute to catch up. Why are we here exactly?”

“Oh, fine, ruin the surprise. This is my family’s hotel.”

“What?” Imani and I demanded in unison.

Even Alexei raised an eyebrow. “You told me your family ran a hotel on Mars,” he said. “I didn’t realize you meant Spring Veil.”

“You’ve heard of it?” Rune asked.

“Everyone’s heard of it,” Alexei replied. Imani and I nodded in agreement, but no one else seemed to know the name. Alexei and I exchanged glances, neither of us finishing that sentence: everyone who grew up relatively wealthy had heard of it. I scrutinized Imani out of the corner of my eye, wondering what her background was, but she was too busy examining the fountain to notice my inspection.

“Spring Veil is one of Mars’s more exclusive resorts,” I said, filling the uncomfortable silence. “A lot of Omnistellar’s upper brass like to vacation here, which makes it a terrible place for us to hide.”

“Or it would,” countered Jasper smoothly, “if we couldn’t trust my family to cover for us. Look, we can spend the night in an alley in shantytown hoping no one stumbles over us and turns us in, or we can do our scheming in a luxury hotel suite. It’s your call.”

Well, when he put it that way . . . “You’re sure your family won’t freak out?” I asked, imagining my parents’ reaction if I’d arrived on their doorstep with a bunch of escaped convicts in tow.

Of course, my dad had already managed to make his opinion of my antics clear, and my mom, well . . . she’d never get mad about anything ever again. I closed my eyes as grief threatened to break over me once more. I couldn’t even mourn my mother properly. She’d turned on me, lied to me, tried to kill me. I couldn’t bring her back to life, but I wanted to just miss her without the turmoil of anger and betrayal. Even that small comfort was denied me.

A tremor racked my limbs. I drew on all my training, forcing myself under control. Do not break. Words floated through the mist of grief, and I grabbed at them, latching on to Jasper’s voice and using it to steady myself.