Kenna wiped sweat from her brow, flashing her stiletto knife tattoo, and grinned. We'd been sparring all morning. It felt nice to be back in a routine. "Not bad, space girl. Who'd you say you trained with?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I didn't." Only Cal had heard about my friends, and even then, I'd kept the exposition to a minimum. There was only so much he needed to know.

"I guess I wouldn't know them anyway," Kenna said, shaking her head. I could tell she was fishing. She still didn't trust me, not that I blamed her. "Anyone ever tell you you're a little closed off?"

"Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?" Cal called, stepping through the door. Kenna rolled her eyes, and swept up her bag from the floor. Cal glanced over to me and grinned. "What are you doing right now?"

"Starving, actually," I groaned. We'd eaten breakfast, but worked it off before it even had time to settle. "But I don't have time to grab lunch, I've got to go check out the southwest quadrant with Kane. He's working on plans for a settlement, and asked me to come with."

"Wanna blow it off?" Cal asked, wiggling his eyebrows up and down.

Kenna made a gagging sound as she headed for the door. "You guys are gross."

"Let's do this again tomorrow," I called after her. "Knocking you on your ass is fun!" She threw a middle finger up over her shoulder as she disappeared into the hallway. "I'd skip, but I actually want to see more than the inside of this ship."

"Hey, me too." Cal held up a bag. I watched it swing back and forth. "I packed lunch. Let's take a walk."

"Ooh, a picnic? How romantic," I teased. "Wait until Gav hears about this."

"That's a yes?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I think Kane will be fine for few hours. He did make it six whole years without me, after all." I headed toward the door, grabbing the bag out of his hands and looking into it. The novelty of having real food again had yet to wear off. I wasn't going to pass up a chance to eat.

Besides, this was a solid opportunity to get some intel away from the prying eyes of the Gagarin camp. Even though I was enjoying the food and the company, I couldn't forget that I had a plan here. Or at least half of one.

OoOoO

We hiked for an hour before stopping at a clearing. I'd forgotten how beautiful Earth could be when you weren't running for your life. After six long years of metal walls, even the weeds looked like works of art. When I turned to face Cal, I saw him twirling a leaf between his fingers. "I guess the asteroid wasn't the most scenic location either, huh?"

He scoffed. "Yeah, you could say that."

I sat down in the grass, folding my legs beneath me. "What was it like up there?"

Cal looked out over the valley for a minute. "Dusty, grey, dark. But hey, I got to go to space. How many people can say that?"

"Of Earth's current population, I'd say it's pretty much fifty-fifty."

He laughed quietly. "And the Ark?"

"You mean the tin can in the sky?" I joked. We were quiet for a moment, and I bit my lip. If I wanted Cal to let me in, I was going to have to give first. "It was lonely. Maybe not for everyone, but it was for me. When your whole livelihood depends on being a criminal, and getting caught means death, you tend to stick to yourself."

"But you had your sister, right?"

"Bellamy's sister actually, but yeah, I had her. The Blakes took me in when I didn't have anyone else. I loved them. Even Aurora. She was a terrible mom, but she tried in her own way. I probably wouldn't like stories so much if it weren't for her." I smiled sadly to myself.

It was strange to think what my life might have been if it weren't for the library. It was my safe place, even more so than our apartment had been. The one place where I didn't have to worry about finding our next meal, or agonize over how to give Octavia a good life. I could pick up a book and fall into a better world.

"The Shadows were like that for me. They were my family, even if we weren't blood," Cal said. "But even with them, I was an outsider. I always felt like I had to be someone I wasn't, because it was what they needed me to be. My mother was the only one who didn't expect me to be special. I wasn't a Malikov to her, I was just a kid."

"How'd you go from an outsider to leader of the pack?"

"Twist of fate," he mumbled. When he reached for the bag to unload our lunch, I was sure I'd pushed too far too fast. He divvied up the fruit and sandwiches in silence. Just when I was ready to change the subject, he continued. "My brother was supposed to take our father's place one day. Nik was just like him: smart, determined, and greedy. When our mother died, he made me his pet project out of spite. She never wanted me in the life, so Nik made sure I lived and breathed House of Shadows."

"And you were better than him," I filled in.

Cal nodded. "Nik's plan backfired, and Andrei chose me to follow in his footsteps." I bit into an apple, while Cal took a swig from his water bottle. "Your turn."

I raised an eyebrow. "My turn for what?"

"We're unpacking our baggage, go."

"The last time I did that, it didn't end so well." I shook my head. Cal leaned forward with exaggerated curiosity. I rolled my eyes. "You asked about Murphy before, right?"

"Diyoza's prisoner?"

I nodded. "You were right, partly. We did have a messy breakup, but that wasn't all. The whole relationship was messy. Being up there, on the ring, it wasn't good for either of us. I think that's what pulled us together. The others didn't get it. For Monty and Harper, it was paradise. They were never fighters. Everyone else was too busy worrying about getting us home to think about the things we'd left behind. Not me though, I couldn't get away from it."

I took a small sip of water, more to give myself a breather than to quench my thirst. "I'm not good on my own. I need people or books or a problem to solve. Something to keep my mind busy. Every regret, every person I couldn't save, they stick with me. If I can't keep moving forward, I get buried under it all." I sighed.

When I'd been in solitary in the Skybox, I'd tortured myself with what ifs. What if I'd made Octavia stay home that night? What if I hadn't killed that guard? What if I'd stayed out of the vents when I was a kid and never met the Blakes at all? Returning to the Ark had been like déjà vu. Maybe I hadn't been a prisoner, but I was still just as trapped.

"Murphy was different, but the same too in a lot of ways. He needed a purpose, or else he deflated. He wasn't good at sitting still. So, we found the answers in each other. He let me talk about the things I felt like I had to hide from everyone else, and saving me from myself gave him the purpose he was looking for. And it worked for a while, until it didn't." I leaned back in the grass, staring up at the clouds.

"We knew all the buttons to press. I was isolating myself from the others more and more, and when I tried to pull away from Murphy, he'd guilt me into staying. So I pushed back, digging into old wounds, reminding him of all the things he hates himself for." I folded my arms behind my head. "We had a good thing, but we let it fester into something terrible."

"What about Roan?" Cal asked. I drew in a sharp breath at his name. I pressed the heel of my hand into the scar on my chest as if I could turn off the feelings. "Your other friend, the girl, she mentioned him?"

"I loved him and he died. Not much to say." I shook my head. "Anyway, I showed you mine, now you show me yours."

He watched me for a few moments in silence. "You know, they say talking about things helps you work through them."

"Some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express it, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before," I quoted.

"Invitation to a Beheading," Cal recalled. "You read it."

"It was good," I said, before steering us back to the subject at hand. "Your turn." Cal was still looking at me like he was waiting for me to tell him more. I pushed myself up on my elbows. "Seven years ago my boyfriend traded me for his sister, and I killed a man while resisting arrest. They put me in solitary because they thought I was too dangerous. It fucked me up, but I don't talk about it because I don't want to go back there," I spat out, my tone cold and flat.

Cal opened his mouth to speak, but I continued. "The day I was supposed to be executed, I was sent to a potentially inhabitable planet with 100 kids to see if we'd die. A few weeks after, 48 of us were kidnapped and tortured like living science experiments. Kids who trusted me died, and I couldn't save them. Those things are easier to talk about because at least I didn't go through them alone."

"I've lost more friends than I can count. I was separated from my best friend and my sister for six years, and in that time they started a fucking murder cult. So you want me to talk? There's not enough time in the world." Cal and I sat in silence for a few minutes. "Your turn."

"I know what it's like to hold onto things until they tear you apart," Cal said quietly. "It's the reason I'm here. There was a girl, a thief. Mostly she stole art, stuff she could sell on the black market. I loved her. Andrei was turning me into a person I didn't recognize, but she let me be the man I wanted to be. We were supposed to run away, but before we could, she was killed. No one leaves House of Shadows, especially not a Malikov."

"I should have left after that, but I couldn't. I didn't have anyone else," he said quietly. "Maybe part of it was spite too. I couldn't be anyone's golden child from a prison cell. So I took stupid risks, almost got myself killed a couple of times. Not even that could shake me. I lost the only person I'd ever really loved, so nothing else mattered. Eventually my recklessness got me caught, and the rest is history."

I let out a long slow breath. Even though it was what I wanted, getting the story out of him wasn't satisfying. I just felt empty. "You don't seem so reckless now."

"That was Kenna's doing. If it weren't for her, I'd be dead by now. She scraped me up off the floor, and got me on my feet. Waved that pretty knife tattoo in my face and reminded me that I was a Malikov."

I sighed. "In the end you became the thing your father wanted you to be."

"I hope not," he said, shaking his head. "I hope I'm a better person than that."

Cal looked down at his hands, as if he could still see blood on them. I watched him, the sadness in his face. Even if he'd accepted this, stop letting it eat at him, it was still hard to talk about. Some things always would be.

I was doing it again. The same thing I'd done to Murphy, picking at imaginary scabs and pressing on invisible bruises. "You are," I whispered. Cal looked over, grief weighing down his eyes. I shook my head. "I don't know if I'm a good person any more. I don't think I remember how to be."

When Cal looked at me, I knew he understood, which only made me feel worse. "You can always relearn." He held out his hand, and I interlaced my fingers through his.

"We should get back, Kane is probably looking for me," I murmured. He nodded, and I squeezed his hand once before letting go.