herself away from Lucky.
“Mali!” Cora yelled. “You need to wake up Anya now.”
But one look at Anya’s splayed body, blood caked in her nose, said she wasn’t waking soon. Cora’s mind spun. Anya . . . Bonebreak . . . Nothing seemed to matter as much as this boy bleeding out on the floor.
“Lucky,” she choked. “Please, talk to me.”
A few words garbled up his throat. His body spasmed and suddenly he was breathing again, though blood came up with his gasps for air.
“The journal,” Lucky said in a weak voice. “I need it. Notes inside . . . could help . . .”
The journal? She looked around blankly. That notebook he’d taken from his pocket . . .
She shoved to her feet, searching for it in the chaos. There—under Bonebreak’s foot. Cora darted for it. She had to duck as Bonebreak got a hand free; she slammed her fist into his shin and snatched the journal from under his foot, then scrambled back to Lucky.
“Here. I’ve got it. You’re going to be okay. Just tell me what to do.”
The book felt too small in her hands; surely a few scribbled notes couldn’t save him. Her eyes widened at the mess of his midsection. The skin was torn; gone in some places. Half a rib jutted out, the end broken off.
“The torn-out pages . . . ,” Lucky muttered. “It’s a manual override.”
Manual override?
How was an override going to save his life? She flipped anxiously to the last page and skimmed over handwriting that wasn’t his. There weren’t any descriptions of medical procedures for stopping bleeding, only a diagram of symbols like the ones the Kindred used to open locked cabinets.
“You have to go back.” He coughed. “Dane wrote the notes. The manual override codes open a compartment in the medical room. There are weapons, in case the animals get out of control.”
“Weapons?” she whispered.
“I was only going to use them as a last resort. Put the animals out of their misery . . . if . . . things got bad.” He strained for breath. “I still had hope for the Gauntlet. But now . . .” He winced and shook his head. “There’s kill-dart guns. Powerful enough for an elephant. Powerful enough for a Kindred, I’m sure.”
She sank to the floor, stunned.
What did she care about weapons now, while he was dying? She had hoped the scrawled pages contained information to save him. She could barely even think about the station now, or what weapons would have meant.
He coughed louder.
The journal fell out of her slack hand. It slid away as the ship lurched, but she didn’t lunge for it.
He was going to die.
She collapsed over on top of him, not worried about being too fragile now. Warm blood soaked into her dress.
“Cora!” Leon bellowed. “We need you!”
The others didn’t know about Lucky. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bonebreak by the control panel, twitching as if he still wasn’t used to his own body. He squeezed his fingers into a fist, again and again, until his fingers obeyed his head. Dread sweated down Cora’s face.
She turned back to Lucky.
His lips moved; blood came up, not words, and she pressed a finger to his mouth. “Shh. Don’t try to talk.”
“Go back,” he choked. “You can’t leave the others behind. Use the weapons.”
There was such utter conviction behind his voice. As though he’d crawled back to life—just for this second—because this one thing was so very important.
“Shh . . . ,” she started, but unsure this time. “We can’t go back, Lucky. A few dart guns aren’t going to make a difference. They’ll arrest me just like they did Cassian. The Gauntlet and everything else . . . it’s over. Cassian was right. Not giving up is noble only as long as it doesn’t get us killed. At some point, we have to think logically.”
“Logic?” Lucky said. “No. We’re not Kindred. We don’t give up when it’s something that matters. This is our place. This is our cause.” His fingers clenched onto her as though someone was trying to rip her away. “Go back, Cora.”
She stared in stunned horror. Go back? She thought of that glimpse she’d had of Cassian, screaming in pain as they tortured him. Of Fian, who had turned on her. Even if there really were weapons they could use, how could she possibly go back to that chaos?
She let out a sharp exhale. A tear landed on Lucky’s cheek.
“I can’t,” she pleaded, though