‘They’re your—’
‘—family, oh, I know.’ His voice is low with bitterness.
I try desperately to reach for some way to make this make sense. ‘Well, it’s better than being attacked by one of your corporate enemies, right? I’m sure they’d love nothing more than to get their hands on you.’
It’s as if Hunter doesn’t hear me. He shakes his head, gazing at the wall opposite us. ‘This isn’t who we are,’ he murmurs. ‘We always say we’re rule-breakers, but we mean stuff like …’
I feel the words welling up inside me – the words I’ve been keeping so carefully bottled up. Every time I’ve bitten my tongue to avoid an argument with him over Graves is turning on me now, and I can feel years of frustration and anger and fear rushing to find an outlet. ‘You mean stuff like breaking aUN convention so you could blast off to Mars and settle it first? Or inviting all your friends to join you while screwing everyone you left behind on Earth?’
‘We don’t do that,’ he insists. ‘We play hard, but fair.’
I can see him reaching for an explanation, for a reason that everything that’s happened here is somehow a big misunderstanding. He’s spent a lifetime dreaming about his family legacy. He’d rather twist himself in knots to justify it than face the truth.
‘Hunter, please, you’re smarter than this. Nothing GravesUP does is fair, you have to see that.’
‘I know what this looks like …’ he murmurs.
‘What this looks like is an illegal invasion of the United Nations.’
‘There are a lot of complex factors at play here,’ he mumbles, gazing at the wall opposite us. ‘Perhaps there’s some kind of corruption—’
I hang my head.Please, I’m begging him silently.Be better than this. Be who I thought you were.
‘—this isn’t who we are,’ he repeats.
‘Hunter,’ I snap, ‘GravesUP takeseverything. Whatever they want, whenever they want it, legal or not. You’re the ones who broke NASA, who abandoned “for all mankind” and made it “for us and our friends”.’
‘It waswaymore complicated than that,’ he shoots back, voice low. ‘NASA used to be incredible. NASA used to say, “Dare mighty things.” But they got sucked dry of all their funding, and they got small, and slow, and somebody elsehadto step up. My grandfather did.’
My voice is like ice. ‘There isnothingmighty about saving yourself, and nobody else. Once you’ve decided you’re the only ones who matter, why not take Pax? Why not kill people, to keep it all to yourself ?’
‘No, there’s an explanation for this,’ he insists, ignoring my words. ‘We don’t attack bases. We don’t try to kill people.’
Oh, but you do kill people!I want to scream.I’m sorry your father died the way he did, but GravesUP kills people like my father every day. They just do it in a different way.
They took our last penny, sent their enforcers, who then sent their bounty hunters after me even when there was nothing left. They ruined my family and then they chased me all the way to a new planet.
That’s when I realize something in me has shifted. It’s like I was asleep, having this lovely, stupid dream about kissing this boy. But now I’m awake, and with every word he speaks, I’m remembering who he is, what his family and their company stand for. What he would think of me, if he knew who I really was.
I swallow bitterly. I have to give up arguing about whether his family is evil and make myself focus on practicalities. I have to get back on that exhausting path toward survival that I know so well. ‘Well, whatever your sister and her team are doing here, do we talk to them? She isn’t going to shoot you, right?’
Hunter doesn’t reply.
My stomach drops. ‘Hunter.Your sister won’t let them shoot you, will she?’
He just lowers his head to rest it against our joined hands.
This can’t be happening. I pull my hand from his, suddenly stiff.
Either I’m going to die because his family doesn’t want witnesses to what they’ve done here, or I’m going to die because his sister wants him dead, and I happen to be holding his hand. Just when I thought GravesUP couldn’t find another way to screw me, I’m caught in the family’s crossfire.
Even my last-ditch way out is blocked now. If this really is GravesUP, then Sabrina lied, or was lied to. They’re obviously not here to help hitchers – this is some bigger, corporate game they’re playing – and there’ll be no deal for me. My chance at a new name, at a new life, at freedom – that’s all gone. One by one, my ways out of this are shutting down.
My throat is thick and it feels like I can’t swallow. Slowly I wrap my arms around myself, hands curling to fists.
I’m jolted from my thoughts when a voice rings out – too near for comfort, and raised in anger. ‘They can’t have gone far.’
Our heads snap up at the same time. Rover –Marguerite–knew we were here to meet her. Of course she’s hunting for us.
