I stood and stretched out my muscles. I wasn’t sure what was happening now, but I was in no rush to get wherever we were going.

A woman with blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun stared at me with her arms akimbo and feet slightly apart. Her badge said Officer Hill.

Her squinty scowl and tight lips told me she was either a fan of Murtagh or not a fan of me, the prisoner. Whichever it was, we weren’t going to be friends.

Officer Hill didn’t speak to me as she cuffed my hands and led me through the hallways. I wondered where we were going but didn’t need to know badly enough to engage in any sort of conversation. If my test results had finally come in, then I’d find out soon enough. Delaying that as long as possible was my best way to stay sane.

But with each step we took, my nerves wound tighter. I pressed my fists into my stomach, hoping to ease the ache there—nerves, not hunger—but there was nothing I could do except put one foot in front of the next.

She paused at a door labeled IR 5. Interrogation room. She knocked twice before opening it.

A man I’d never seen before sat in a metal chair on one side of a small metal table. He wasn’t in a suit, but he managed to look fancy enough in his crisply pressed button-up. His long hair was tied back in a low ponytail. Fine lines spread out from the corners of his eyes, but he wasn’t smiling.

I was about to ask Officer Hill who this was, but then I noticed Declan standing in the corner.

My knees started to fold at the sight of him, but Officer Hill uncuffed me, then shoved me toward an empty metal chair. “Sit there and wait.”

I didn’t quite register her barked order before she left the room. The relief I felt seeing Declan… For a split second, I thought everything might be okay. His job was to find me and protect me. He could fix everything. But then I saw my reflection in the mirrored wall behind them. The bright orange of my jumpsuit hurt my eyes.

Declan couldn’t fix this. Not even if I wanted him to more than anything in the world. I was about to say something but the way Declan held himself—his spine rod-straight in his navy and silver officer’s dress uniform—made me pause.

The four cameras hanging in the corners of the room buzzed as they repositioned themselves to focus on me. They could’ve been so small that they’d have been virtually unnoticeable by the naked eye, but SpaceTech liked their presence to be known—and felt.