And though they stood surrounded by the enemy, Lira knew that they were finally home.

CHAPTER 36

ANDI

They were back.

Tears poured down Andi’s face, and she didn’t even try to stop them from flowing. So long, she’d dreamed of this moment, holding back the fear that they would never return to the world again, not as they’d once been.

And yet here the girls were, crossing the gap from Nor’s side over to hers.

She wished, desperately, that she could remove her cuffs, wrap her arms around her crew, her family, and feel at home again.

But instead she simply stood there, joy enveloping her heart as the girls reached her side.

“You came for us,” Lira whispered, practically falling against Andi as she wrapped her arms around her. Gilly came next, and then Breck, and for a moment it was just the four of them again, not standing before an enemy queen, but standing free, in the bridge of the Marauder, surrounded by the shining stars.

“I’m so sorry, Andi,” Breck said, and there were tears rolling down her cheeks, too. “For everything we did. For everything we thought.” She was sobbing, hardly able to catch her breath as she squeezed the girls tighter. “She made us believe we hated you. Made us believe that we were wrong to have ever been on your side.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Andi said, shaking her head. “None of that matters. It wasn’t you.”

Gilly pulled away from the hug first, sneaking out from beneath Breck’s embrace to turn and glance back at Nor and Valen.

“I want her dead for what she did to us,” Gilly said. She shook, whether from holding back tears or the joy of newfound freedom or the long overdue rage spreading across her face, Andi couldn’t tell. But when Gilly looked back up at her, that beautiful, tiny gunner who had always been so fearless...

She was afraid.

Afraid of the queen.

And it made Andi’s heart ache all the more for what she was about to do.

“It’s time,” Klaren said. The droid’s voice was jarring, like a jagged blade about to sever the joy that Andi felt, seeing her girls walk free. “Are you ready?”

Lira’s smile, so beautiful, so alive, crumbled. “Ready for what?” She looked past Andi then, to the empty space and the cold, waiting ship. “Where are Dex and Lon?”

Andi couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t.

Not now.

She felt that invisible hand again, squeezing her wrist from behind. Dex. Gentle, silent support in this moment.

Andi pushed her fear down, forced it to settle beside the newly blooming sorrow. For none of them knew. Not the girls, and especially not Dex. She gently pulled her cuffed wrists away from Dex, feeling the solid weight of the blade hidden beneath her sleeve, and she thanked the Godstars that he had not asked about it.