She had no clue how to behave in these situations. “Can you teach me to be normal?” she said.
Dylan choked.
“Us teach you?” Milo snorted. “We’d have to be normal to be able to do that. Normal is vastly overrated anyway.” He looked around. “Seems like we’ve lost our followers, but I still have no clue where the hell we are.”
“Let’s keep going in the same direction,” Dylan suggested. “If we don’t come across a way out in…say an hour, we turn around and head back, and hopefully they’ll have stopped looking for us.”
“Why are they looking for you?” Destiny asked.
“Well, they obviously don’t want anyone to know what they’re hiding under Luther’s brand-new castle.”
“Luther?”
“Luther Kinross. He’s our Lord and Master.”
She frowned, trying to remember if Dr. Yang had ever mentioned this Luther. But she couldn’t recall anything. “What about President Beauchamp?”
“Disappeared into a black hole.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yup. Along with the whole of the Trakis One.” Dylan studied her for a moment. “Where have you been?”
Locked in a lab and then locked in a cell. But she didn’t say the words because they sounded a little…disloyal. And she owed Dr. Yang everything. So she just gave a shrug. “I was in cryo until only a few days ago and I haven’t caught up on everything yet. Where do we go next?”
She wanted to go everywhere, see all there was to see. And she wanted Milo to teach her everything he knew. Everything.
“I reckon we’ve come about half a mile due north,” he said. “Which means, right now, we’re under the lake.”
Destiny glanced up at the ceiling, imagining all that water on top of them.
“And if we keep going in the same direction,” Milo continued, “then hopefully there will be some way out of this tunnel system on the other side.”
“That will be the opposite side to where the encampment is,” Dylan pointed out.
“Not a bad thing. Away from prying eyes. With luck, they won’t suspect it was us down there, otherwise we’re fucked.”
She tried to recall where she’d seen, or heard, that word before—certainly not from Dr. Yang. “Getting fucked is a bad thing?” she said.
Dylan laughed, but Milo just blinked at her. “In this instance? Yes.”
“And what do we do with our new friend?” Dylan asked, waving a hand in her direction.
Destiny held her breath, waiting for Milo’s answer. He wouldn’t send her back, would he? She had every intention of going back. Of course she did, just not yet. A day or two. Just to look around. To maybe climb the mountain and swim in the lake. To lie under the sun and watch the birds fly overhead.
“She can’t come back to our shuttle,” Milo said. “I imagine someone will be searching for her.” He cast her a look, his eyes narrowed as if trying to work out who or what she was.
“I won’t be a nuisance,” she said. “I can sleep in the tunnels. I don’t need much.”
He stared a moment longer, then gave a shrug. “Let’s get out of here first and then we’ll decide.”
She beamed him a smile and he shook his head. Was he regretting letting her come along? Probably.
“Who do you think made these tunnels?” Dylan asked. “They’re not natural. If you look closely you can see the machine marks. And no way could Kinross have done this in the time he’s been here. And why would he, anyway?”
“I’m thinking aliens.” Milo grinned. “Are you thinking aliens?”
“Hell, yeah.” They both glanced around. “Do you think they’re still here?” Dylan asked.
“Invisible aliens? Or maybe they’re just shy.”
“According to Dr. Yang,” Destiny offered, “there is a less than 0.001 percent chance of encountering an intelligent alien life form here.”
“Killjoy,” Dylan muttered.
He clearly didn’t like her comment, though she wasn’t sure why. Were all people this hard to understand, or just men? She’d never had this problem with Dr. Yang.
“Maybe they were visitors not indigenous to the planet,” Milo suggested. “And now they’ve gone back to wherever they came from.”
“Or perhaps they’re waiting around the corner, with laser guns to blast us.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t—” Destiny started, but she stopped when Milo rolled his eyes. “What did I miss?”
“He has a wild imagination, that’s all,” Milo said. “Let’s keep going.”
Dylan headed off down the tunnel opposite the one they had come out of. Milo looked at her. “Are you okay to walk?”
Did he want to carry her again? Certainly, part of her wanted him to. The sensation of being held had been…nice. But she also didn’t want