Page 3 of Choosing Jenny
Mal laughed. “Then we should get back to Orhon soon. It sounds like you’ve gotalotto show me.”
Handsome swept his hand toward the cruiser’s lowered ramp. “After you.”
Mal strolled ahead of him, casual and blood-soaked, disappearing up the ramp with his mystery flirt. Within moments, the pair left Credo’s beach.
Tiger’s snarl broke through the silence in the ship. “What the fuck was that?”
“Flirting, if I’m not mistaken,” Longshot muttered, dry as ever.
“Oh yeah,” Surge agreed, nodding slowly. “That was definitely flirting.”
Tiger’s hands fisted at his sides. “Why the fuck was my boyfriend flirting with that guy like he knew him?”
“That’swhat you’re worried about?” I asked, turning toward Tiger. “Not thebloodcovering them both?”
“He seemedfine,” Tiger muttered, jaw clenched, eyes still locked on the monitor like it had personally betrayed him.
Discord ignored Tiger’s tirade and brushed past us to the hatch. “Come on. We have a mission to accomplish,” she reminded us, her tone clipped.
The rest of us followed her out the hatch. We all wore Tiger’s float suits, so we could soundlessly drift up the outside of the house without anyone seeing us. Dodging windows was the trickiest part of it, though Surge’s lack of weight made his suit work too well, so Rhonda bit his suit to keep him tethered to Longshot.
Once we got to Credo’s window, I screamed. Blood. So much blood everywhere. And in the center of it all, lying motionless on the floor, was a ghost.
Credo’s ghost.
“No chance they didn’t hear that,” Discord grumbled.
Tiger started forCheesecake, but Longshot grabbed him yet again. “What?” he snapped.
“Listen.”
There was no alarm after my scream. No sound of scurrying feet inside the house. There was nothing at all.
“Screw this.” I climbed into Credo’s window.
“What are you doing?” Tiger hissed.
“Checking him.” I knelt on the floor next to Credo’s ghost and vaguely recalled that I was the only one who could see him last time, so that might be the case now, which was why no one understood my scream.
I glanced back at the crew still on the other side of the window. “Can any of you see the ghost on the floor?”
Discord frowned at me. “No.”
The others agreed with her.
“It’s Credo,” I told them.
Tiger nodded. “The last time we were here, Jenny was the only one who could see him then, too.”
Discord shook her head in confusion. “But we’re on Halla, a microplanet of ghosts. This is where you go to see the dead. If there’s a ghost on the floor, then all of us should be able to see him, not just Jenny.”
“Jenny’s a conduit. They’re the only ones who can always see ghosts,” Surge explained. “It must be a side effect of The Long Death curse that was put on Credo. That is one damned efficient curse. Jenny, is he—”
“He’s dead.” I looked down at the faded ghost, devastated by the sight.
All ghosts had a transparency about them, no matter what clothes they wore or the food they ate. Credo’s ghost body was much lighter than the last time I had seen him, like when Sarah’s doctor friend killed the ghost of Rex Terian. Within minutes, Rex’s ghost form had become almost like an old photograph, weathered and faded, colors dulled. Ladrians believed that once a person’s ghost died, it went back to the ether, a place where all ghosts come from, only to eventually be reborn once more. Like a cosmic recycling program.
“We’re too late,” I whispered, blinking back tears.
