“He’s really watching?” That felt so much worse than having a crony overseeing me.

“Probably. We have to be careful.” His jaw ticced as he leaned back in his chair. “I should just take you and run like I should’ve done on Earth that very first night.”

“None of this was your fault. You can’t be held responsible for your brother’s actions.”

“No, but I can be held responsible for my idiotic lack of action.”

This was absurd. “Ahiga.” I slapped his shoulder. “Tell him it’s not his fault.”

“I actually agree with Declan.” He didn’t look sorry at all. “We should’ve run with her the second you found her.”

“I couldn’t. Albuquerque was swarming with officials. There were a million checkpoints. No one was getting through.”

“Then Lorne should’ve come.”

I gave Ahiga a shove, but it didn’t move him much. “Stop it. This is bad enough as it is.”

Ahiga shrugged at me. “I’m not the one who has PTSD.”

“I don’t have PTSD.”

“You don’t sleep because of the nightmares. You’re so stressed and scared that you upchuck the little bit that you eat—”

“The food here is disgusting!”

Ahiga gave me a sad look, and I wanted to slap it from his face.

“I don’t need your pity!”

Ahiga wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into his chest. “Stop it. You’ve been through hell, and you’re a mess because of it. You need help, and I don’t regret calling your family.” He pulled away from me and turned to Declan. “Declan needs to get that through his head. He needs to reach out.”

“I will,” Declan said. “Believe me. No one feels worse about this than I do. I will call Lorne as soon as I hang up with you, but he’ll take a few days to get here. So…”

“So nothing’s changing. You showing up. Calling Lorne. None of that changes what I have to do.” I resigned myself to what I had to do tomorrow. “I’m going on the mining run. It’s one run. After that, you’ll be here, and we’ll take off or wait for Lorne or whatever.”

Declan shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

“And you think I do?”

“No. I’m sorry.” He blew out a breath. “Ahiga?”

“I’m listening.”

“Tomorrow I want to be looped into her coms. If shit is going to go wrong, I want to know about it before it happens. Maybe I can—” Declan was silent for a second before he started typing something fast. “Lorne got your message. I’m relaying about the possible weapon.”

“When you said it was all about to come to a head two days ago in the med bay, you really meant it,” I said quietly to Ahiga.