Over the next two weeks, I played the events of the compound in my head constantly. It played like a horror movie on repeat, day in and day out.

As if the shock of watching Kade get shot off the wall hadn't been enough, a few seconds later and the compound went up in flames. The blast was so big it sent me stumbling to the ground on the top of the hill. After I managed to scramble to my feet, I sent Axon and Lenna for the ship. It wasn't far, and we were going to need a quick getaway. Then, I had scrambled down the hill towards the spot where Kade had been.

Before the building had exploded and hid him from view.

The explosion wasn't supposed to be that big and it wasn't supposed to go off until we were back on the ship. Something had been miscalculated. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. I ran for the pile of rubble closest to me, the last place I had seen Kade as he had fallen off the side of the building. Smoke filled my nose as I dug my way through pieces of metal and other debris.

Wait, that wasn't smoke. Smoke wasn't iridescent. CD. The blasted drug was filling the air like smoke.

I couldn't be bothered to worry about what it could do if I inhaled it. I knew what happened when other's took the drug but I doubted it would do anything to me. I hoped. But I wasn't so sure about Kade.

With renewed vigor, I scrambled in the mess to find any sign of him. My heart had pounded so hard with real fear in a while. Even my own father didn't make me feel so downright terrified.

A hand, I could see a hand. But a giant piece of metal was between me and him. I had to get him out of there; I had to know if he was...if he was okay. For the first time in years, I didn't care if anyone was watching. I didn't care if the whole damn GPF could see me on some camera I missed. I lifted the piece of metal without moving a muscle and freed Kade.

After freeing him and getting him back to the ship, Axon had piloted us out of the system faster than we'd ever run before. And somehow, we had gotten out. I hadn't bothered to question it at the time but now I couldn't stop myself.

Someone had shot Kade off that building and I wasn't stupid to think that the explosion had gotten whoever that was. They had let us get away. I just couldn't figure out why.

We had fled the area and headed for Antares and Zed. We only had limited medical supplies on the Phoenix - the shit was expensive, we couldn't afford top-of-the-line stuff. But I knew that being the owner of a business like The Palace meant that Zed would have access to top medical supplies. It was the only reason why Kade had survived the shot to his back.

"TJ?"

Turning from the window I had been staring out of, Axon poked his head into the room. Even after all the recent time spent in the Palace, I would never get used to the overly decorated rooms. Red was definitely not my color. "Yeah?"

He gestured behind him, "Uh, someone just came in downstairs asking for you...you're going to want to see who it is."

Glancing at the bed, where Kade was resting - finally - after a rough night of pain, I nodded. No one knew where we were; that we had taken refuge with our only ally. So there were only two people that could find me when I didn't want to be found. Walking passed Axon, I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed, "Keep an eye on him?"

As Axon headed into the room, he looked back as I walked to the stairs, "You've got your com, right?"

I smiled and tapped my wrist. Then I headed down the stairs to find out if it was my father or another set of equally blue eyes waiting for me.

Sitting in one of the far corners of the large entertainment room, I kept my eyes on Kam as he surveyed the strange environment he found himself in. Deep reds blanketed the space, from the carpet to the curtains separating booths from the rest of the room. Gold accents glittered in the low light but I knew what they looked like when the show was on and the lights danced. Crazy to say it, but I was getting used to the decor of the Palace.

It was early in the day, so there weren't many people around. A couple workmen sat off the stage in the middle of the room, but I was pretty sure they hadn't moved since the final show the night before. A few of the dancers wandered around, getting the place ready for another day - or night's - work. Otherwise, Kam and I had the whole space to ourselves.

"What are you doing here, Kam?"

My voice seemed to snap him out of his perusal of the room. His eyes focused on me again, brows drawn down just slightly. He wasn't wearing his uniform today. Instead, he wore an incredibly nondescript ensemble of brown trousers, a green tunic like top, and an oversized gray trench coat. He looked like a traveler from the Outer Rim, not a high officer of the GPF.

He cleared his throat, "We were worried about you. When we heard about the compound fire - about someone getting shot - we thought..."

"You thought it was me? Wouldn't that have been convenient."

Groaning, he scrubbed a hand into his usually perfect silver hair. It looked disheveled like he hadn't combed through it in days. "What do I need to do to prove to you that we're trying to help you? To keep you safe? I've been searching for you for weeks!"

Well, that was a waste of energy. I thought back to the conversation with my father, "There's nothing you can say. Did he tell you he caught me? We only got away because of some system failure or something. He left us-."

"Alone. And unguarded with all of your tools."

My mouth snapped shut. He didn't mean...no. There was no way my father had faked the emergency. Was there?

"The emergency was lucky, otherwise he would've come up with something on his own. But did you seriously think that he would've left you armed, unrestrained, and unguarded if he really wanted you as a prisoner?" He shook his head, his eyes pleading when I looked at them "Come on, TJ...you're smarter than that. Think it through."

All of those weird looks on my father's face started to make more sense. The way he clasped his hands so tightly behind his back, like he was trying to stay in control. Kam's frantic and almost panicked expression back at the GPF station. My father's final look before he had left us alone in that office. Kam was right - my father knew I'd be able to get us out of that room, old-school lock or not. He had let us get away. I began to shake my head, the world around me getting smaller and smaller. No, this couldn't be happening. Everything I knew couldn't be wrong. It couldn't be.

Kam's hand slid across the table between us and squeezed my own. When had I made a fist? I didn't remember doing that. "TJ...I've spent my career trying to keep you - and others like you - safe. I swear."

Looking at our hands, my stomach felt like I was on a stupid roller coaster again. "But the secret station...the CD...the-."

"I know, everything looks bad and is stacked against us. But TJ," his hand squeezed mine until I looked up. His eyes were begging me to believe him. "We've been working to shut it all down but there are bigger fish in the sea than us. We have to be careful or..." His eyes looked at the table between us, "We have to do it smart or not at all."

My lungs felt like they couldn't take in air fast enough, my chest rising and falling in quick succession. My head wouldn't stop shaking. "But...the Maji...the drug..."

"Your dad has known about it all for years, he's been trying to stop it. But then..." His mouth snapped shut, lips pushed into a thin line. His eyes searched my face for a minute before he suddenly stood up and offered his hand. "Come on, I'm going to show you something. It'll prove everything."

I looked from his hand to the room around me; thought about Kade laying upstairs in a bed healing from a blaster wound; about Lenna and Axon who were somewhere inside. But I had to know. I couldn't walk away from this without seeing this proof he claimed to have. Biting my lip I took his hand and let him lead me out of the Palace.