Charles gasped. “You’re hurt—”

“No, don’t worry. It’s not my blood.” Robin wiped the back of her hand over her sweaty forehead, leaving a smear of pink gore in its wake. “The creature winded me. That’s all.”

“What—”

“DeSouza was telling the truth. There’s a monster in this station. I was able to shoot and wound it, but it got away from us before I could finish it off.”

Charles glanced at Ellan, whose eyes appeared even rounder than they had before, if that were possible. She was shaking but kept her hands on Robin’s shoulders to steady her.

“Jeeze,” Jay hissed, hurrying up to them. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Robin was gradually collecting her composure. Her hands were trembling as she rubbed them clean on her suit, but her face had regained its serene mask. “We need to finish this thing off, though. We’ll split into teams. Charles, you’re with me. Jay, look after Ellan.”

Jay didn’t even try to hide the delight on his face. “Absolutely.”

Robin hoisted her gun up and checked its ammunition level. “Charles and I will start in the work area. You two take the recreation room and kitchen. We’ll meet up in the middle. Yell out if you see anything, okay?”

Jay fired off a mock salute then raised the gun in his right hand and placed his left on Ellan’s shoulder. She gave him a shaky smile and leaned into the touch as he led her down the dark pathway towards the rec room. Charles waited until they were out of earshot before hissing, “Are you sure he’s safe with her?”

“Oh, yes,” Robin said, leading her down their path. “I trust her.”

“Really?” Charles asked. She wrestled with that as they entered the destroyed workroom. “Just like that?”

“Search the back of the room,” Robin said. “The creature is small and dark, so look carefully.”

Charles sucked a deep breath in through her nose then raised her gun so that she could look through the scope. Visibility was poor in the dimly lit room, so she moved carefully, her boots grinding on the broken glass and overturned specimen samples. The dancing shadows played tricks on her eyes, convincing her that she saw something small and menacing hiding in every dark crevice. Something nagged at the back of her mind, though, and she was only halfway across the room when she stopped and turned back to her leader.

“You said the blood on your suit wasn’t yours. Whose is it?”

“The monster’s.” The older woman’s eyes seemed very strange in the flare’s dancing red light, and her mouth twisted into a wide smile. “It’s all the monster’s now.”

That was when pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Something about the two corpses in the bedroom had bothered her, but it had taken the sight of blood on Robin’s suit to make her realise what was wrong. The corpse on the floor had gummy, black blood in a pool around its head. It had stuck to Robin’s gun when she’d poked it. Charles had assumed that being exposed to the air for a week had turned it that way, but the blood from the body in the bathroom had been dark brown and dry—the way blood was supposed to look. Natural. Unlike the first body.