My lips quirk up in a grin when the rumbling sound echoes again, but then my own stomach growls and my amusement dissolves. Like my companions, I’m eager to hunt down some food—that I didn’t create from thin air—as soon as we return to the zoo. A bathroom break would be nice, too.

“At least we’re getting our ten thousand steps in today.”

I snort at Cami’s barbed optimism. Arryn snickers quietly, proving that she does have a sense of humor—and that she’s much better company now than she was a few hours ago. I almost think she might be starting to like us. And the feeling is possibly mutual.

“What’s your story, Arryn?” I dare to ask. “How did you end up with the Remnants?”

She’s quiet for a moment, as if considering whether or not to answer. I half expect her to remain silent, so it comes as a pleasant surprise when she says, “It’s pretty much your standard sob story, really. My mum had trouble conceiving so she entered the Xanaphan program, and eventually I came along.”

There’s a pause, the dripping of water the only sound I hear echoing down the dark tunnel.

Arryn clears her throat and continues, “When I was seven, we took a family holiday to the Whitsundays. We were staying at a hotel on Hamilton Island—my parents, my grandmother, and me. On our final day, we were meant to take a helicopter tour of the reef, but I woke up that morning puking my guts up with some kind of virus. My grandmother hated flying, so she opted to stay and look after me, insisting that my parents should still go without us.”

Another pause, this one more telling.

“They never made it back,” Arryn whispers, prompting goose bumps to break out on my skin. “Their helicopter went down just off the coast of Whitehaven Beach. Engine failure. No survivors.”

She recites the facts as if they’re bullet points that she’s reading from an official report. My heart aches for her, for the loss she experienced at such a young age. I don’t need to look at Cami to know she feels the same, having lost her own parents when she was eight—only a year older than Arryn.

“My grandmother was my last remaining relative, so once we returned to Sydney, she took care of me,” Arryn continues, sounding as though she’s trying to hurry up and finish the story, her voice now devoid of emotion. “But when I was ten, she had a brain aneurysm. There was no warning—she was alive one minute, dead the next.”

I have … no idea what to say. No idea how to take back my request to hear her story. No idea how to soothe what is clearly a deep wound in her soul.