「Three hours later.」

Julian Chambers, who had been standing guard outside, came in. "This residential area is no longer safe," he said. "I think we need to get out of here."

He glanced at Zoe Pierce. "How much longer until she wakes up?"

Nathan Lockwood checked the time on his Intelligent Brain. "Probably within half an hour."

They all heard the evacuation sirens blaring through the residential area. They knew Julian Chambers was right—the Xenobeasts were starting to spread, making it too dangerous to stay. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

He stood up, his fingers brushing across the cotton bedsheet. Then, before anyone could react, he bent down and scooped Zoe Pierce into his arms. "Zoe will be in my mecha. It’ll be easier for me to look after her and monitor her condition."

Without waiting for a response, Nathan Lockwood left the room, walked to the front entrance, and deployed his mecha.

Catching the shifting glances around the room, Julian Chambers made a snap decision to stay out of it. He turned and ran outside, calling to Nina Hayes, "Nina, you’ll ride with me!"

He rubbed the back of his head, looking guilty. "Sorry about this. If I hadn’t asked you to stay, you could have left with your parents."

Nina Hayes smiled faintly. "It’s okay. I’ve never been in a mecha before, so this will be a new experience."

They boarded their mechas right after Nathan Lockwood did. Only then did the remaining three people emerge from the house.

Dawn had broken, but the daylight was nothing like the bright, clear skies they’d had during the joint exams. A thick pall of black smoke, visible to the naked eye, drifted across the sky.

The air was foul, thick with the pungent smell of burnt saltpeter.

There was also the acrid, charred smell of burning trees and Xenobeast corpses.

When Erin Xavier and the others came out, they only saw Nathan Lockwood’s mecha. The two people inside the cockpit were sealed off from view by layers of metal.

There was nothing more to say. The group boarded their respective mechas, and then Nathan Lockwood’s voice came over the channel. "Let’s head for the officially designated safe zone."

Nathan Lockwood was betting that with the situation so chaotic, Planet B36 wouldn’t have the resources to deal with them.

With Zoe Pierce still unconscious, the Alphas in the group had no heart for a fight. This was especially true after learning how Planet B36 had created so many mecha-piloting Betas; they certainly had no desire to risk their lives for this planet.

And just as Nathan had predicted, they encountered no other mechas along the way—only a constant stream of fleeing hovercars.

About half an hour into their journey, Nathan heard the rhythm of the breathing beside him change.

He glanced sideways to see Zoe Pierce let out a soft groan, her hand moving to her temple as she slowly opened her eyes.

The mecha cockpit looked familiar at first glance, but it still took Zoe a few seconds to realize she was in Nathan Lockwood’s mecha.

Nathan switched off his microphone on the comms channel before speaking. "You’re awake? How do you feel? Does your head still hurt?"

Zoe leaned back against her seat, glancing around the cockpit. "How long was I out?"

"I remember... Erin and I were trapped under a pile of rubble."

Zoe’s memory stopped in the pitch-black ruins, where she remembered waking Erin Xavier.

"Is he okay? I had to bang on his cockpit hatch for a long time to wake him up."

’Hearing her ask about someone else the moment she woke up... it left a bad taste in his mouth.’

If Zoe hadn’t mentioned it, Nathan wouldn’t have even known that Erin had been unconscious.

Of course, it wasn’t like he cared.

’He’s an Alpha, tough as nails. So he passed out from the shock? He wasn’t even scratched. Nothing to worry about.’

He replied coolly, "He’s fine. Seems okay."

"Your condition was much more serious. Your spiritual power was unstable, which caused a hormonal surge from your glands. We had to give you a tranquilizer. It’s been about five hours since you passed out."

Hearing the words "hormonal surge," Zoe’s fingers instinctively went to the back of her neck.

In her dazed state, she’d felt a wave of coolness spread from her feverish glands, but now that she was awake, she couldn’t tell if it had been a hallucination.

There was no sensation there now.

Since there was no feeling, Zoe didn’t dwell on it. She looked at Nathan. "I think I remembered some things."

In that chaotic, dreamlike state, she had remembered many things, though many details were still hazy.

At the thought, her face paled and her expression grew grim. "My brother, Damien Pierce... I don’t think he’s my biological brother."

Nathan froze for a second, then frowned. "That would mean it happened a long time ago."

His investigation into Zoe had shown that Damien had been by her side since they were young children.

Zoe couldn’t explain it to him. In her memory, she was only one year old, and Damien was only three.

It had happened nearly twenty years ago, and not on the Capital Star. No one would have ever thought to look into it.

Who would think that a child, not even a year old, would remember something they’d overheard their parents say?

No one. No one would think a child that young could remember anything.

Zoe’s parents hadn’t been on the Capital Star when she was born.

They were traveling through interstellar space at the time, for a good four or five years.

When they returned, they had a son and a daughter of rare secondary genders. Who wouldn’t have been envious?

"Did you remember anything about the ledgers?" Nathan asked after a moment of thought.

Zoe shook her head. "I just remembered some scenes involving my parents."

The way they held her, laughing and affectionate, during her early childhood; the way they shielded her from falling rocks during the mine disaster just before they died.

From the moment she was born, they had given her nothing but infinite love.

"Then what’s the story with Damien?" Hearing that he and Zoe weren’t biological siblings, Nathan’s mind immediately jumped to the relationship between Erin Xavier and Sheldon Xavier.

Half-siblings.

Zoe lowered her gaze. "He’s the son of an Alpha who helped my parents a long time ago."

The situation was a bit complicated.

During their travels through interstellar space, Zoe’s parents had run into Interstellar Pirates.

The Alphas had been separated from the other passengers.

Everyone knew how powerful Alphas were in combat. Zoe, just an infant, was held tightly in her mother’s arms, unable to do anything.

All she knew was that her father had returned injured, and with him was an equally dazed and frightened Damien Pierce.

It was from listening to her parents’ conversations that Zoe learned Damien’s father had died resisting the Interstellar Pirates.

That was why Mr. Pierce had brought him home.

As fate would have it, Damien’s Alpha father also had the surname Pierce, so Damien never changed his name.

But after that, even though his wounds healed, Mr. Pierce’s health was never quite the same. He returned directly to the Capital Star to inherit the family business.

Zoe gained a brother, and Damien, after crying for a while over the fact that his father wasn’t coming back, eventually accepted this new reality.