was a chance he hadn’t seen the lab if he hadn’t walked around the ship, or that he didn’t even know what it looked like. From the outside, it was just a hulking cargo space, and the Endeavor was a cargo cruiser. It fit.
“Then you’ll provide it again. It’s as simple as that.”
I darted panicked looks around the bridge. Jax and Fiona were on my left, a few feet from each other. My father and Miko stood right in front of me, near my console. Shiori stayed close to Miko, silent and petrified. Miko was her life and breath.
I didn’t think anyone was armed. Only Shade and I were.
And Dad.
His finger was steady on the trigger, and I knew the cold-hearted bastard would pull it unless I gave him what he wanted. Actually, I was terrified he’d pull it anyway.
Miko’s small nose flared on sharp breaths.
I held up my hands. “Let her go, and I’ll come.”
Fiona shouted first. “No, Tess!”
The Overseer whipped his gun toward her and shot.
I screamed. Jax howled in anguish. Fiona flew back against the wall with a crash.
Dad pointed his gun at Miko again. The whole thing took three seconds, if that. I ran toward Fiona.
“Don’t move!” the Overseer barked, squeezing Miko until she yipped.
I screeched to a stop, lifting both hands back up. Jax crouched next to Fiona, his face washed of all color and his big hands pressing hard against her shoulder. Blood flowed through his fingers, and Fiona panted, her chest heaving. She clamped her eyes shut but then opened them again, as if she couldn’t bear not to see. She was looking at Jax. He looked back before turning his horrified gaze to me.
I faced my father. He was an expert marksman, a military man from the start, but he hadn’t taken the time to aim. If he had, Fiona would be dead, a bullet right between the eyes. I’d seen him do it before, to people who worked for him, to people I’d known. I’d seen him just pull out a gun and shoot. Not even out of rage, or in distress, or in defense. Simply, I’m done with you—boom.
“I’ll back out of the ship,” I said, my voice echoing inside me as if coming from far away.
I glanced at Miko. I could hardly hear her terrorized breathing over my own pounding blood. Miko. My Miko had already been through too much.
“Just follow me out,” I said, “and leave everyone else alone.”
I bumped into Shade as I stepped back. His arm brushed my shoulder as he leveled his gun on my father.
“Drop it,” Shade said.
The Overseer jerked Miko more firmly in front of him. Miko cried out, and Shiori bleated an awful, animal sound.
“No! Grandmother, get back!” Miko’s pleas went unheeded as Shiori moved, not needing sight to know she was in front of Miko, whose frightened breaths sawed in and out.
Slowly, I turned my head enough to address Shade, my father still in my peripheral vision. “There are some things I won’t ever forgive.”
The line of Shade’s jaw hardened. “You’re my priority.”
“I will be nothing to you, ever, if he kills someone here because of you.”
Shade must have believed me, because after a moment, he lowered his gun to the floor.
“Kick it to the side,” the Overseer ordered, nodding toward the empty, right-hand side of the bridge.
Shade kicked the gun, and it slid away, landing in the shadows under Jax’s console.
“Why do you need me?” I asked my father, backing up another step to try to coax him off the bridge. I knew what my uncle had said, but I didn’t believe I was the origin of type A1 blood. Maybe the Overseer had convinced Bridgebane that he didn’t carry it, but I thought he did.
“Why can’t you just take what you want from yourself? We both know I didn’t get it from Mom. It has to be you. You’ve got it, too. You’ve got your own supply of freakish blood.”
He laughed a little, the sound dreadful and dark. “You’re not mine.”
I stared, not understanding. “Not yours?”
“Did you think that when anomalies were found, I wouldn’t test? You’re not mine, and Caitrin was a lying bitch.”
I went cold, then nuclear hot. Relief couldn’t happen, considering the situation, but his angry words blew through me like a bomb that leveled all things past.
I looked him right in the eyes, over Miko’s head, with her thick black hair catching on the stiff collar of his uniform as she shuddered in fright. “I