If there was one thing I could always count on, it was Roan. I wasn’t sure how I’d ever pay him back for this, but I’d find a way.

The abandoned train depot was just outside of town. I’d hidden my bag in one of the trains because no one ever went there. During Liberation Week sixteen years ago, the city turned into a murdering mob slaughtering the Aunare, and the humans needed a place to put the bodies. They’d left thousands to rot at the depot. It’d been officially decommissioned nearly seventy-five years before then and was turned into a train museum. But after Liberation Week, the depot was a much different place.

I was pretty sure that the humans felt at least a little bad about what they’d done because as far as I could tell, no one came within eight kilometers of the depot. The surrounding neighborhoods sat empty and abandoned. Locals liked to say that it was haunted.

Since no one came close to it, there was no monitoring at the depot. Running electricity to the cameras alone was considered a waste of SpaceTech resources. Which meant it was a dead zone in a lot of ways. It was the perfect place to hide until I figured out my exit strategy.

The bag I’d stashed there had money, clothes, and essentials to get Mom and me moving. Except I was going to have to run without her. That hit me like a laser burning through my chest, and it took everything in me not to turn around to go find her. I had to believe that Declan would go ahead with his plan. That he’d leave today and take her to Sel’Ani. She didn’t deserve to be punished for my screw-up.

Buildings flew by, making streaks of color along my vision. I replayed the last hour in my head as we entered the dead zone. There was no way in hell I’d get away with what I’d done. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that running might be pointless. I couldn’t believe that I’d survived homelessness, poverty, and hunger, only to be taken down by one powerful SpaceTech pervert.