My heart melted slightly. “I appreciate that,” I said softly. And I did. Cage was right. I blamed myself for Matt’s death. But was that any less than I deserved? Intentional or not, I had killed him. He might have survived the alien if not for me.

As for Cage’s past, well . . . I had my answer. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it wasn’t as innocuous as I’d hoped. I should ask for specifics. I should press him for details. “My dad’s on the Omnistellar ship,” I told him instead. It was the coward’s way out, a safer topic, but still one I desperately wanted to discuss.

Cage blinked, surprised. “You talked to him?”

“At the prison. He called.”

“You okay?”

I smiled without quite meaning to. Cage always cut through the noise and got to the heart of a problem. “I will be. It was weird. He was really angry. And so was I.” Too angry, I realized. Or maybe not. I had a right to be angry. But I shouldn’t have lost control before I got answers, not when so many questions lingered between us.

Speaking of angry . . . “Mia still has that gun,” I said, thinking out loud. A shiver went through me. I’d fired guns so many times in my life, at training camps, at target practice. I’d never been fantastic at it, but it had always seemed like a game. I’d known on an intellectual level that guns were weapons, of course. Designed to kill and nothing else. But it didn’t seem that way until Sanctuary. “Can you convince her to give it up?”

Cage hesitated. “Maybe,” he said at last. “I think it’s making her feel safe. Mia won’t just get mad and shoot someone, Kenzie. And that gun might come in handy.”

I sighed. “Fine. We’ll let her keep it and just hope she doesn’t kill anyone.” Like I did. But Mia was a better shot than me. Hopefully she wouldn’t screw up. And hopefully I’d never find myself in a position where I needed to take that gun. The thought sent a chill down my spine. Could I do it? If I had to grab that gun to defend myself or one of my friends, would I even be able to close my finger around the trigger? “Carrying that gun opens the possibility of someone dying. Or after killing countless people, does that not matter to you?”

Cage glared at me. “You asked for honesty, and I’m trying to give it. You’re not helping.”

He was right, but I didn’t have an apology in me. A long, angry silence lingered between us, long enough for me to regret my words. “We should get some rest,” he said at last. We’d decided to let the hunt for us die down for a few hours before we attacked, and I’d managed to recharge my comm device. Jasper reclaimed his from his sister too, so we had a way to communicate. We’d both set alarms for four a.m. We’d judged it the best time to attack. It also gave us a few hours to sleep, as we were all exhausted. No one had rested well on the alien ship, and I didn’t exactly count my semiconsciousness after getting zapped with stun guns as restful.