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T he main gallery hall branches into several smaller rooms, each with a different display and a different item to bid on. I drift around. I know Rian’s watching me; I can feel his eyes tracking my steps, but every time the crowd thins, I move on to another display.

I have been hunted before; it wasn’t like this.

When I was younger, before the volcanic eruption at Yellowstone, my parents and I lived at the park. The park itself—by then privately owned, of course—was enough of a money-maker that some of the best security wrapped around it. I joke about how most civilized areas of Earth are under bubbles, but for the most part, that’s not literal. Obviously, the bigger cities have protection, but there are plenty of smaller areas, mostly manufacturing districts or production zones, that just rely on people using their own gear rather than filtration bubbles. If it’s raining, get an acid-proof umbrella; if it’s sunny, take a radiation supplement.

At Yellowstone, however, the protection zones were very literal. I mean, the area itself was over three thousand square miles, so there wasn’t, like, a huge glass bubble over the entire park. But the tourists who came to Yellowstone were usually of two groups. One type liked the adventure and danger of a wild nature reserve. Extreme sports enthusiasts want a challenge, regardless of the planet, and having to backpack for survival appeals to some weirdos. And Yellowstone remained remote enough—before it exploded in a supervolcano eruption—that it wasn’t as polluted as some other areas. Acid burns were only a danger during particular rainy seasons, and while pollution is slowly killing the planet, it does make for a gorgeous sunset, you have to admit.

So, vast areas of Yellowstone were left open, and the tourists who paid extra for the luxury of danger signed a lot of waivers before they were allowed to start hiking...and even then, patrols and carefully hidden fences along the paths helped keep the more dangerous mutations of wildlife at bay.

Literal bubbles were around some of the bigger, more well-known sites, with landhoppers carrying tourists from the plaque where Old Faithful used to be to the different sulfuric pools and hot springs. The waterfalls were still there, and although the water was, by that point, absolutely not safe to drink prior to treatment, the falls were still pretty, even through the clear, round protective zones. The tourism board did a lot to make the bubbles as unobtrusive as possible, and it was only in certain light that you could notice them anyway.

The environmental protection zones we had around the full-time staff living areas weren’t as slick as the public-facing ones, but they were pretty sturdy. Around the housing units, there was the highest security—that’s where the fencing was most obvious. To leave it, you had to physically go through a secure door cut into the composite protection material. But the park liked to pretend to be open, so after that, there was another zone that had no physical walls, just a combination of electrified fields and scented pheromone posts that “encouraged” wildlife—mutated or not—from crossing over. It was generally pretty safe during the daylight.

But obviously, none of us wanted to go out during the daylight.

During a party one night, my friends all started daring each other to cross the zones. This was just before the seismic activity got worse and people started evacuating, so I was young enough to think nothing bad would actually happen but old enough to be the exact right level of stupid to risk it.

Getting through the first layer was hardest—there were guards whose job was to make sure dumb kids didn’t do exactly what my friends were egging me on to do. But I’ve always been good at improvisation. I got through the door, then found the boundaries to the secondary zone, the more open area. I decided a full lap around the housing units would sufficiently prove my badass-ness as a preteen who had stuff to prove and no reason to prove it.

Back then, both my parents were alive, Yellowstone hadn’t exploded, the continental United States were still united both literally and figuratively, and while there were things that weren’t the best...that moment, running under the stars, it meant something. I remember pausing, my back to the housing units, just looking up without any barriers and realizing how safe I felt, even if I knew it wasn’t safe, and how big the sky was, how big the Earth was, how small I was.

I don’t know. I can’t define it.

But it meant something.

Even now, I can close my eyes and feel that night. Anything felt possible. All that mattered was being there, knowing that I had done something none of my friends dared to do, that I was unconquerable.

And then I went back inside the safe bubble of my home, certain of its permanence, its safety.

· · ·

“You’re a ghost,” Rian says when I circumvent a crowd gathered around something or other.

His words are enough to make me pause.

“I’ve gone over every report we have on you,” he says, matching my pace. “Aside from that spot of vandalism when you were younger...”

“Clean record,” I say.

“Sparkling.” He frowns. Good. That was money well spent. “And you have very good friends.”

“I do,” I chirp, then pause. “What do you mean?”

“You’re an obvious security threat. I tried to have your name removed from the guest list and your ticket revoked.”

“Bought and paid for,” I say.

He lifts a shoulder. It doesn’t matter if I have a ticket. He could have me kicked out of an event like this, what with me being a self-confessed high-security risk.

But apparently, I have friends that kept that from happening. Friends who have, no doubt, also been bought and paid for.

I suppose I should thank my client for that.

Rian’s frown deepens. I slide my finger over the center of his forehead, down between his brows. “You’re going to give yourself a headache,” I say gently.

“ You are a headache.”

“You love me.”

“I’m going to arrest you. You’re here to steal something—”

“As I’ve mentioned.”

“—and I will catch you. And your record will no longer be spotless.”

Until I pay to get it blanked out again.

Rian glowers at me as if he can guess my thoughts. He probably can; I don’t mind if he sees this about me. I like to watch him twist. I like to be the one to make him annoyed.

Nothing I did during my time on the Halifax with him was illegal. The Roundabout was a salvage, so taking anything from it wasn’t stealing. Nothing I’ve done here at the MIH, so far, has been, either. And much as he thinks he can pin something on me now, he’s wrong.

Even when I’m standing right in front of him, he still doesn’t see what I’m doing.

· · ·

After that night I left the protective enclosures at Yellowstone, for shits and giggles and just because I wanted to, I hacked into the security sys and downloaded the feeds the drones outside recorded.

It’s important to know: To me on that night, there had been nothing but triumph and stars.

But on the feeds?

Another story. A different reality.

The night vision cams used old tech—it was just the staff living area, after all; the park wasn’t spending bucks on our security. So, the image that fed back to me was eerily ghost-like, my body bouncing in happiness, oblivious to the pale shadow padding silently behind me, the green eyes glowing with unwavering focus on my unprotected flesh. Timing was the only thing that saved me. I slipped back into the physical border just as the cougar crouched to leap at me, and even after the door was closed and locked, she prowled, tail lashing side to side, fury at her missed meal evident.

I had paused to gaze at the night sky and then trotted around outside without once even knowing that a beast was trailing me. I had felt so powerful, looking at the stars, but when I saw the cougar on the feed, I tasted ashy mortality on my tongue. My muscles, slim as they were, trembled.

I had not known I was being hunted.

And just because luck had drawn me to safety before the claws eviscerated my flesh made me no less prey.

I had felt victorious—that was the emotion threaded through my panting breaths and bright eyes. Triumphant joy. But it was only ignorance that had given me that false pretense, and every twinkling star in the black void reminds me of that moment, of how my insignificance does not extend to the possibility of my being a meal.

I turn now in the luxuriously appointed, hallowed halls of the Museum of Intergalactic History, my movement languid, sea silk swishing over my hips, glittering in the bright light of a planet lightyears from the shattered remains of the last place I felt safe.

Rian leans against the wall, waiting for me to make a move, watching, watching.

He thinks he’s stalking me as I clack my silver heels from display to display. He thinks his law is as powerful as fangs and claws. He thinks I don’t know an escape route, that I will have nowhere to run when he springs his trap, whatever that may be.

I have been hunted before. The difference is: I never felt the eyes on me, not like I feel Rian’s eyes burning through my silk, searing into my skin. But there’s a beautiful synchronicity to that, no?

His eyes never leave me, but all that does is confirm that even if he thinks he’s hunting me, he’s wrong.

I’m the predator here.

And he has no idea what I see.