My bottom lip trembled, and I pressed them together. I couldn’t stop the sniffle though, or the way my eyes burned when I thought of getting to see my mom again. And I really couldn’t stop the way my heart ached when I realized how farfetched and stupid it was for me to really believe I’d get to see her again.

There were so many things that could go wrong. I’d already lost count of how many times I’d almost died on Abaddon, and there were so many more deaths I could die between here and there. I couldn’t—

“Breathe. Six in. Three out. Come on. I can’t hear you. Six in. Three out.”

I stood up and leaned against the wall of the ship. My exhale was shaky, but there.

“Good. Come on. Keep breathing. Three in. There you go. Six out. You’ll be okay. I promise. This didn’t go how I intended. I hate—hate—what’s happened. And before you ask, yes, I saw the vids from your suit.”

I gasped. No. I didn’t want anyone to see that. I’d been in pain and weak and defeated. Those vids needed to be deleted. It made me sick with anger that they even existed. When I got away from here, I wanted to shove everything that happened on Abaddon into a deep, dark room in my mind, lock the door, and forget about it. I couldn’t do that if everyone knew. If they saw. If they looked at me with pity.

“I sent them to your father. I know that’s not what you want to hear, and maybe I shouldn’t have looked, but once I saw—”

I dropped my head down. “Privacy,” I whispered fiercely.

“What are you talking about kid?” Carl said in my ear.

“Nothing. Ignore me. I’m just muttering to myself.”

“All right. Just a few more minutes,” Carl said.

I rubbed my shaking hands through my hair. It was still a little crispy, but I wasn’t cutting it. I wouldn’t let SpaceTech take one more thing from me.

“I have a lot to apologize to you for, but not this,” Declan said. “I hear you on the privacy thing, but he deserves the choice to see the vids. If you think that you have something to be embarrassed about, let me tell you that you don’t. What I saw… Your strength. Determination.”

“Fear,” I whispered the word, not wanting Carl to hear it, but I didn’t care.

“Yes. You were afraid and vulnerable. I saw that, too. But you never gave up. You kept putting on that suit, facing it over and over. I don’t know how you did it.”

I didn’t want to think about that. Not ever again. I checked the basket of supplies. Three pickaxe-hammer tools. A scale. A purple marker.