She looked up and, to her shock and knee-buckling relief, found Fulbreech standing in the light in front of her. She nearly threw her arms around him, despite her earlier anger; instead she stepped away from him and said, “What are you doing down here?”

He looked at her, bemused. “I didn’t like where we left off. And I wanted to make sure that you didn’t have any nasty run-ins.”

She felt a little chill at the base of her spine. “Nasty run-ins?”

“With Boone,” Fulbreech said. His eyes had that earnest look in them again. “You know—an encounter that would end with you in the freezer.”

“Right,” Park said. “Of course.” She shook her head; he was thinking about her protection, again. But she didn’t quite have it in her to be annoyed with him this time.

Then she realized something. “How did you get down here before me?” Park asked, bewildered. She glanced behind her, at the empty corridor. “You didn’t pass me on the way.”

Fulbreech blinked. “You took a long time. I must have gotten here first.”

“But I went straight here from your room.”

Fulbreech spread his hands. “I don’t know, then. I assumed you stopped off somewhere.”

Park had to bite her lip to keep from questioning him further; her mind buzzed, questing and examining her fuzzy idea of the geographical improbabilities of his claim. As far as she knew, there was only one ladder down to Deck C, and that was the one she had taken. But there were a few different routes to get to it from Fulbreech’s bunk; could he have possibly taken another path after she’d left, arriving at the hatch far before her? Or was there some other secret entryway to Deck C that she wasn’t aware of?

“Did you . . . notice anything unusual, on your way down here?” Park asked finally.

Fulbreech looked blank. “No,” he said—and he was honest, as far as she could tell. “Did you?”

Park didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to say anything—she was afraid of giving herself away. The way she had taken was not the way she had gone the first time. She was sure of that. And the feeling that she was being followed . . . She hadn’t imagined that, had she?

But what other explanation was there? Was her memory that faulty? Or was her troubled mind playing tricks on her?

The possibility frightened her deeply. She was stressed, yes, but she had never experienced delusions from her stress before. Or felt such a preternatural feeling of fear. Is this how it starts? she asked herself. What if I’m experiencing the first symptoms?

What if this is what Holt and Ma felt?