Page 16 of Vicious
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We'd madeit into the air and off Orin hours ago, and this ranked pretty high on my reliefscale.
I sat against the wall opposite the Vicious room, staring at the closed door, as I plucked the iron from my tongue and placed it in my pocket. The room was located near the end of the dining room hallway near a hanging light. A few steps to my left stretched another hallway that led to the infirmary and Mase. Ellison had said he would be fine, that the bullet just skimmed his shoulder. Good thing Captain Glenn knew how to shoot. But Ellison also said that traces of the drug She still lit him up. Mase had said he’d been clean ever since Captain Glenn hired him, but a short trip to Orin had brought his sobriety to a crushing end, through no fault of his own. I should’ve castrated Parker when I had thechance.
Ellison had also looked over my bumps and bruises, too, though for once in my life, my bones and organs felt safely tucked inside. Always a good feeling. Other than the bandage around my wrist where I’d cut myself to test Poh and a bump on the back of my head, I was fine physically, but my mind kept straying toMase.
As I shifted to stand to check on him again, the florescent light above hanging from twin cables rocked back and forth. I froze, waiting for it to flicker and buzz, for the cold burst of air that signaled a ghostly presence was near. But I didn’t feel cold, not even in my corset—on sale due to the rip in the side, now held together with a safety pin—that left my arms and shouldersbared.
This ship was no longer haunted, at least not with angry spirits. The haunting had been focused in this hallway and inside the Vicious room. The swinging light didn’t quite catch the off-centered letters stenciled across the door:VICIO. Someone had scratched the last two letters out in an attempt to hide theViciousship’s true history. Two hundred years ago, it had been used to steal away Saelis females and bleed them of their parasites, the same parasites swimming through my blood, to power the Ringers’ space-bending rings. Once the Saelis females were no longer useful, they were hanged from the ceiling and had haunted this ship and its crew until their secret wasrevealed.
So, now that they had passed through to the other side, now that Red was gone as of this morning, what had caused the invisible breeze? Not an air vent. One rattled farther up the hallway, but there wasn’t one near thelights.
I pushed to my feet, my hair cascading to my elbows and the embedded chains clinking together. I loved that song, a harmony between chains and hair, once so comforting and...me.
As I headed around the corner toward the infirmary, movement to my left caught my eye. A dark figure rushed around the next corner at the very end of thehallway.
"Ellison?" I called, and the words echoed back and forth. Silence met all ofthem.
She’d mentioned she hadn’t been feeling well, which was why she’d chosen to stay on the ship this morning. Maybe she was…trying to outrun her stomach flu? Or maybe it was Poh prowling her new home to get a sense of where everything was. In a hurry. Or maybe it had to do with the greasy feeling in the engine room, the same place Red had tried to warn me about. I hadn’t told anyone about that yet since we’d had a bit of a crazymorning.
I let out a slow breath and strode down the hallway after the figure. When I rounded the same corner it had, an empty, dark hallway stretched in front of me. To my left, down the hallway I’d just come, the light that hung from the ceiling rocked back and forth once again, harder thistime.
A familiar dread settled in the pit of my stomach, but I refused to let it linger. There weren't any ghosts on this ship. I’d cleared countless Saelis out. Even Red, though I hadn’t wanted to. Besides, the air didn’t feel like winter like it had when ghosts had crept through the ship’s halls. Still, my fingers twitched over the iron in my pockets, an involuntary reaction to standing alone at a titanium crossroads, one that ended with a swaying light and a dark hallway that had swallowed…something.
"Poh?" Icalled.
I crept through the gloom toward the nearest door and rapped against it with my knuckles, hoping to draw something else out other than a series of more knocks that broke up and down the walls. There were more doors farther down, but I didn't have my phone on me to light the way. And ghosts or no, I had a lifetime supply of fear of thedark.
So, I went back the way I came, but a familiar tug slowed my steps, prickling a shiver across my shoulder blades. I wasn't alone in these hallways. I'd had my fair share of that feeling before, especially on this ship. Someone was here with me,watching.
I hoofed it back to the dining room. Below the light that had stopped swaying, I rounded the corner past the Vicious room and toward the safe haven of iron on the periodic table map in myhead.
Inside the dining room, a brand new wooden table sat in the center. I frowned as I skirted past it. We’d had wood before in here, and it had been reduced to lethal splinters. I actually quite liked our gurney table, which probably revealed more about my mental state than I should’ve probably been comfortablewith.
Randolph came through the double doors of the kitchen with a stack of plates and stopped when he saw me. His already flushed cheeks brightened when his gaze snagged on my corset. He quickly looked away toward the Esmerelda the Space Vixen poster hanging on the wall, then almost threw the stack of plates over his shoulder in his rush to cover hisface.
“My eyes!” he said. “I don’t know where to putthem!”
I snorted, even though my heart went out to him, the poor guy. “This is me embracing who I am, but since I’m your apprentice, I’ll cover up if youwant.”
He blinked at the new table as if he’d decided that was the safest spot to put his eyes. “This is just as much your kitchen as it is mine. For you, I like it. For a chef's apprentice, you need a hairnet. Hair and chains don't make goodgarnishes.”
“I can live with that.” I took the plates from him with a smile, set them on the table, then shoved through the kitchen doors for ahairnet.
Randolph followed. “I likeit.”
I grinned over my shoulder while shuffling through random drawers. “Thank you. That means alot.”
He tilted his head toward the back of the kitchen. “They're in the stasis pantry, second shelf from the top behind the wax paper. You'rewelcome.”
“I love you, Randolph,” I said and I meant it. I turned in time to see his bulbous nose brighten and a wobbly smile leap across hisface.
"Yeah, well, you can prove it by helping me sort out lunch. The meat vendor gave me a cup of au jaus. If I wanted to drink my sandwich, I’d put it in a blender. We marinate. No au jausever."
I frowned on my way past him toward the stasis pantry. "I have no idea what you’re saying, but bless you, Iguess."
He threw back his head andlaughed.
