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I stared at him. “Perhaps?” The word came out louder than I meant it to, bouncing off the transport walls. “Perhaps?”

“The record may have been falsified,” he said slowly, as if explaining to a child.

“May have?” My voice climbed toward something hysterical and I bit it back down. “Say it properly.”

“You are asking me to reach a conclusion without sufficient evidence.” His hands stayed folded in front of him, patient as stone.

“I’m asking you to use common sense.” My hands shook. I pressed them flat against my knees so he wouldn’t see.

“I prefer evidence,” he said.

“Of course you do.”

Something moved at the far entrance. His head snapped toward it.

This time, I saw what he had been watching for.

One of the males from the corridor. He appeared for less than a second before stepping back out of sight. The stranger’s hand went to his waist. I finally saw the weapon.

“Inside.”

I didn’t argue.

That frightened me more than anything else. My mouth opened anyway. Nothing came out. I pressed my lips together and climbed into the transport. He followed, sealed the hatch, and took the controls. The engine activated almost silently.

I strapped myself into the nearest seat. “Are they going to shoot at us?”

“If necessary.”

“That is a terrible answer.”

“It is accurate.”

The transport lifted. Pressure shifted beneath my feet. Outside the narrow viewing panel, the docking structure dropped away.

I watched Bren recede beneath us. Again.

Another place I had reached and immediately lost. My hands twisted in the strap across my chest, and I made them stop.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“A secure location.”

“You’ve said that.”

“It remains true.”

I looked at him. “Do you have a home?”

The question came out before I decided to ask it. I regretted it halfway through, which did nothing to pull it back.

He looked at me. Not surprised. Just still. His hands stayed on the controls, but his shoulders shifted a fraction, like something small and internal had been rearranged.

“No.”

Something about the answer caught me. The way he said it—one syllable, no weight behind it, no room in it at all.

Not not here. Not not anymore. Just no.