I wiped off my bloody fingers and the earbud on my leggings. There were too many drones hovering around me, watching my every move, so I knew they could probably see the earbud. I tried to be covert about it, but at this point I wasn’t sure how much I should care. I was bleeding. I didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t be good.

I bent over and lifted my tank top to wipe off the rest of the blood. After a few wipes, the blood stopped, and the fear pounding through my body eased a little. I tried to hide putting the earbud back, but I was over it. Over Jason and his stupid cronies. Declan would be here soon anyway.

There was a long silence, and I assumed that they were all watching me clean up. After years of hiding, having them see me like this made me feel naked. I told myself that it didn’t matter. That I was wearing clothes and that they couldn’t read my mind and that I shouldn’t feel this way, but it didn’t help.

“You scared the crap out of me, kid,” Carl said finally. “It’s almost like these crystals are hurting you.”

I didn’t want to admit that they were but damn it—they were more than hurting me. I was pretty sure the crystals were killing me.

“Ami?” Declan’s voice had a hint of a quiver to it.

He’d never said my name like that, and I knew that meant he was as scared as I was.

I grunted.

“You okay?”

I couldn’t answer that.

“Get your ass up and start mining,” Jason’s jerkwad of a friend said.

“Ignore him,” Declan said. “Cough once if you’re okay. Twice if you’re hurting.”

I coughed twice.

Hurting was laughable. Every bone in my body ached, and my head was beyond pounding. I couldn’t even think about how bad my ears felt.

I didn’t want to test any more crystals. Not even one. I was terrified of what they were doing to my body. I’d never had a headache this bad before.

“You might be reacting to the crystals. I didn’t think about what this would be like for an Aunare. I didn’t… I didn’t know you’d have this kind of a reaction.” Worry made his voice waver. “The bleeding is a bad sign, Ami.”

I closed my eyes and let that sink in. At this point, the number of things that had gone wrong since Declan came into my life was laughable.

“And I hate to say it, but it’s important that SpaceTech doesn’t know how badly the lucole is affecting you.”