Mik wasn’t sure what time it was when she limped up to Delphine’s door—somewhere in the middle of the night cycle, or the beginning of the day cycle, too odd of an hour to find her at Moonrise.

She banged on the door, which was as white and smooth as an eggshell.

A long second passed before the door slid open, and there was Delphine: her hair mussed from sleep, her eyes dark and bleary. The space behind her was white and empty: just Delphine’s little bed and some small pieces of furniture, the flat surfaces all teeming with blooming terrariums.

For a second, she looked up at Mik in confusion. Then her face drained of all color. “Mik?”

It was strangely sweet to see her again, Mik thought, all in one piece. She’d worried that the Jed would’ve paid Delphine another visit while she was gone.

“Do I really look that bad?” Mik asked, a halfhearted attempt at a joke.

Her face felt like one big bruise. It probably was by now. The rest of her body didn’t feel much better.

Delphine didn’t laugh.

“You think I care what you look like?” she said in a tight voice. “I’m just glad you’re here. They let you go?”

“Eventually.”

When her captors realized they wouldn’t get any information from her that would lead them to their missing human cargo, at least, they let her go. She counted herself lucky for now, but knew this might not be the last of her troubles with the Jed.

“How long was I gone?”

“About a cycle and a half.”

“That long?” Time had floated from Mik. She was still disoriented.

“Are you OK?” Delphine pressed. “What did they do to you? Stars, you’re covered in blood—”

Mik looked down at herself and realized that her shirtfront was brown with half-dried blood—it had spilled from her nose and her mouth, which still tasted like copper. “Oh.”

Delphine edged closer, looking up into Mik’s face with dark eyes. “What happened?”

“I didn’t give them anything,” Mik told her. “Not about you or anyone else.”

“You could’ve.”

Mik hummed. “Wouldn’t have made a difference,” she said, and she knew it was true. It would’ve made things worse, in fact.

“You got everyone out?”

“Yeah. Yes, I did, but…”

A rush of relief went through Mik. That was all that mattered. “What?”

Delphine’s hands came up to cup Mik’s jaw. Her organic hand was soft and warm; her metal hand was cold, but no less gentle. Even that slight pressure hurt, but Mik didn’t pull away.

“I was so worried when you didn’t come back. I thought—I thought they might’ve—” Delphine seemed unable to finish her sentence, but she didn’t have to. Mik knew what she must’ve imagined. Finally, Delphine swallowed, lowering her hands.

“You need to see Orville. Come on, I’ll take you.”

•••

NOMAD Station’s medbay was about what Mik expected: a little run-down, full of old-looking equipment under buzzing fluorescent light. At least it looked clean. Orville, one of the station’s medics and apparently a friend of Neal’s, was fastidious about the state of the place. That was what Delphine said, anyway.

At this time in the cycle, Orville was the only medic on shift. He looked human to Mik’s eyes—mostly human, anyway. There was a gleam to his dark eyes and a structure to his bones that spoke of some other heritage.

Delphine offered to stay while Orville looked her over, but Mik insisted that she go home—it was early enough that she could still catch a few hours of sleep before it was time to open the cafe. Besides, nothing was going to change for Mik in Delphine’s absence.

Still, she was touched by the gesture. That was who Kono was to her, once: the girl who stayed. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to have someone like that.

But it was no good to think of Kono.

Orville gave her a once-over, cataloguing a list of injuries: a broken nose that he had to set, a cut above her brow that needed stitches, more contusions than he could easily count. All of it would heal, given enough time.

To his credit, Orville didn’t ask any funny questions, just did his work. Mik suspected he knew better than to pry, living and working on a station like this one.

He even scrounged up a change of clothes to replace hers, which were stiff with blood and sweat. Mik carelessly peeled off her top and trousers, leaving her undershirt and shorts on, while Orville hurriedly glanced away.

Still, she caught him squinting at the white knot of scar tissue near her hip, like an ugly starburst. “What happened?”

“Got shot.”

“With an actual bullet?” He sounded incredulous.

Wasn’t he supposed to be a doctor? “What about it?”

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Orville asked, picking up a handheld scanner. “I mean, I see plenty of plasma burns, but people don’t really shoot each other like this anymore.”

“Beg to differ,” Mik said. Then she shrugged, once, and let him wave the scanner around near her leg.

“Yeah, well, whoever patched you up did a real hack job,” Orville said, frowning at the readout. “The scan’s showing metal—I think there’s a fragment still in there.”

“I know,” Mik said.

“You know?”

She nodded. Back then, Hana had done the best she could, but she wasn’t a proper medic. They didn’t even have anesthesia, so one of the girls gave Mik some spice to make her senseless before Hana set to work. It helped, but not enough—Annis and Bree had to hold her down while Hana struggled to dig the slug out of her hip.

Mik didn’t remember that part. She just remembered the blinding white sear of the overhead light, and the worst pain she’d ever felt, turning her inside-out.

Ultimately, the slug didn’t come out in one piece; there was a fragment embedded in the bone. Hana lacked the finesse to remove it, and she couldn’t leave Mik bleeding on the table any longer, so she stapled the wound closed and that was that. Now Mik carried it around with her wherever she went.

Orville looked faintly disturbed. “I’m also picking up on what looks like nerve damage,” he went on. “I don’t know if it’s from the shooting or the surgery. Maybe both.”

That wasn’t a surprise, either. Mik’s leg was never the same after she got shot. Radiating pain aside, the muscles in her left hip always felt tight—she’d lost some range of motion. “Sounds about right.”

“Your leg hurts when you walk, doesn’t it?”

She made a noncommittal noise.

“There might be something we can do about that,” Orville said. “If you’d let me run some more scans—”

“No,” Mik said, in a flat tone. The last thing she needed was some backwater space station medic cutting her leg open and making things even worse. She doubted she could afford whatever procedure he might have in mind, anyway.

Orville hesitated. “Well, if you change your mind—”

He stopped short, jumping a little, when a loudspeaker crackled on the other side of the bay. There was a three-toned chin, which Mik knew indicated a station-wide announcement.

A voice spoke, toneless, filling the room:

“Attention, residents and travelers. Silver sector has been quarantined. Repeat—silver sector has been quarantined. No beings will be permitted to enter or exit the sector until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Mik looked at Orville, who had gone pale. “Quarantine? That happen much?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Hardly ever. I’ve been here three years and never had them close off a whole sector like that.”

“So it’s serious?”

Orville barely seemed to hear her. He was already busy with his comm, probably trying to contact the other medics or someone from station control who could tell him what to expect.

That was when it hit her—Delphine’s pod unit was located in Silver sector.

Mik gathered up her bloody clothes and hurried out of medbay, as fast as her throbbing leg could take her.