Page 20 of Vicious
Or unless Ellison didit.
A shiver of unease raced down my back. Did she have a Mind-I she hadn’t bothered to tell me about? All these thoughts pinwheeled though my mind on repeat while I finished lunch and Randolph set the table. The door opened, and in strode Captain Glenn andPoh.
“What was that, Captain?” I asked, setting down the steaming plate of freshly cut marinated meat. “Did somethinghit—?”
He held up his meaty hand, his nostrils flaring, and rounded the table to his spot. “Wait until the rest of the crew getshere.”
Holy Feozva, what else had happened? Our stop on Orin seemed to have caused a rippling shitstorm.
Poh’s yellow gaze pinned to mine for several beats before she scanned the rest of the dining room with vague interest. She hadn’t changed out of her brown duster, and her gun was still holstered at her waist and her knives still strapped to her pants as if she expected to slaughter her own dinner. She hadn’t brought any bags on board with her. It was almost as if she didn’t plan on sticking around. I glanced at the butter garlic-sauced veggies in the middle of the table. Had Mase done enough to check her credentials? Maybe we should’ve contacted her references twice, had her plot a family tree, played charades,anythingmore than what we’d done before we invited her on thisship.
Yet she’d helped us at the bar and kept us hidden. That wasn’t part of the joboffer.
“Um, Poh, that’s where the engineer typically sits,” I said, pointing to Nesbit’s old spot across where Randolph usuallysat.
She held to her wrist and leaned awkwardly against the hallway doorframe. “If it suits the captain, I prefer tostand.”
“Do what you want.” He took his seat at the head of the table and gave me a hard stare. “Everyone elsedoes.”
I offered a strained smile and ducked back into the kitchen for everyone’s drinks. Now didn’t seem the appropriate time to remind him that I’d gone to Orin to help try to get word out about the Saelis’s plans and had also inadvertently helped save his pilot. He didn’t appear to be in a listening mood. Despite spending most of my childhood trying to hide from ghosts, my people-reading skills were…average.
As I set Ellison’s and the captain’s waters in front of their places at the table, Mase and Ellison came in, but Mase didn’t shoot me one of his brain-melting smiles like he usually did. The ends of his blond hair brushed his stiff jaw, and worry puckered between his eyebrows. I caught his gaze for a moment, but he just shook his head as he sat at his spot across from the captain. More good news, it seemed. Mase and the captain looked like they might self-destruct with it and ruin the new table at anysecond.
I quickly served everyone, then poked my head into the kitchen to fetch Randolph and his bottle ofwine.
“Do we need anything else?” he hissed from his perch at the littletable.
A breath at my neck whirled me around. Poh stood right behind me in the doorway and tried to edge around into the kitchen. I kicked out my boot against the doorframe to stop her, a burst of distrust curling my mouth into asneer.
“No engineers in the kitchen,” Iblurted.
“Why?” Her big yellow eyes narrowed. Under the hard lights of the dining room, the twin lines of scales down the center of her pale face gleamed multiple shades of green and blue, not just gray. “It’s just akitchen.”
“Because we have…” I looked to Randolph, at a completeloss.
He hiked up his shoulders around his ears. “Rats?”
She gazed around at as much of the kitchen as she could see from the doorway. “Then cookthem.”
“Why didn’t we think of that?” I moved into the kitchen and let the door flap closed on her face. “Mase needs milk,” I toldRandolph.
He rose. “I can getit.”
“No.” The sharp tone with which I said it wilted him like a dying plant. I squeezed my eyes shut, but he looked just as shriveled when I opened them again. “I’m sorry, Randolph. I’ll get it. You go try to smooth out everyone’snerves.”
He brushed a piece of fuzz from his vest, avoiding my gaze, gave a short nod, and drifted through the doubledoors.
With a glass of freshly poured milk, I stuck a fake grin on my face and swept back to the dining room just as the captain lay in to Mase with sharp words and an even sharper finger point. That right there dripped the smile down my chin as I set Mase’s glass at his tablespot.
“You brought this on yourself, Mason. Why can’t you just pay the man?” Captain Glenndemanded.
“Because it’s not money he wants,” Mase snapped. “He literally feeds on people’s addictions. He creates She, the drug I used to inject myself with. But he also creates He, and when those two drugs are combined, it’s a massive high for both him and me. I’m not myself when I’m on both drugs. Hell, I’m barely myself with She electrocuting my veins even after you goddamned shotme.”
The room went dead quiet. I jerked backward as if I’d been struck. I knew he was lying when he said he was fine, but to hear him admit the truth cracked my heart intwo.
“Mase…” I started, but I had no idea how to finish. I wasn’t exactly one to offer advice on addictions since I had a stash of iron in my pocket and doused my tongue with hot sauce everyday.
He shoved his hand through his messy blond hair and glanced at me. “Parker’s following us, Absidy. At close range, likely so he can stop when we stop, and then slip meHe.”
