And of course, I saw Matt . . . my friend Matt, lifeless on the floor because of my misaimed bullet.

To my horror, answering tears welled in my own eyes. I swallowed them firmly and laid a hesitant hand on Imani’s. Her fingers closed over mine and squeezed tightly. She tugged on her ear, gaze fixed on the window. “Sorry, Kenzie,” she said after a moment. “I know you’ve lost a lot too. It’s not only me.”

“We’ve never talked about it.” I took a deep breath of air, ignoring the tremble of my lungs around it. “Our families.”

“I guess I felt everyone’s awkwardness whenever they looked at me. I knew they were thinking about Aliya, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to say it. When I was with you, it was different. You had your own grief, your own pain. Not like you didn’t care about Aliya, but you didn’t look at me and wonder what to say. It was nice to just hang out.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” I slid closer and tucked my arm around her shoulders. “And for what it’s worth, I get why you lied. I wasn’t exactly honest with my dad, either.” I could have contacted him from the ship before my battery died, let him know I was okay. I’d chosen to let him suffer. Whether because, like Imani, I was afraid and didn’t know what to say, or because on some level I’d wanted him to experience the same pain and betrayal as me, I didn’t know. I didn’t dare consider the question too closely. “When the time comes, we’ll figure out what to tell your parents. I’ll help you if I can. Okay?”

She nodded, tipped her head onto my shoulder, and then quickly wiped the tears away with her knuckles. “Okay.”

Awkward silence stretched between us. “So,” I said, desperate to break it. “Hunting?”

She laughed through her tears. “I know. Not what you’d expect from a belle, but . . .”

“Belle?” I stared at her, taking in her delicately shaped eyes, perfectly formed lips. “You were a beauty belle?” Conversations from the ship drifted back to me: Imani analyzing my facial structure, my skin tone, talking about beauty blogs. I’d known she followed them, but I hadn’t realized she had her own.

“Top five hundred,” she returned defiantly. “My beauty channel was the most watched in Egypt two years running. I was sponsored and everything.”

I continued to gape, trying to imagine Imani running makeup tutorials. I mean, yeah, she was beautiful, and I’d noticed her habit of healing blemishes and hangnails, but . . . “What happened?”

“Omnistellar happened,” she replied, unable to keep a bitter edge out of her voice. “They found Aliya, and I couldn’t let them take her. We spent almost a year on the run before bounty hunters caught us.”

“And they put you on Sanctuary?” I asked. “How did they know you were an anomaly too?” Imani’s power didn’t lend itself to easy notice.