Page 27 of Vicious
Mase took my elbow, his grip desperate. "There's no reason you have to do this all byyourself."
“Yes, there is. Go fly the ship so the captain can convince the Ringers to let us through. Poh can stay here.” I glanced at her, and she gave a faint nod. “I have iron. I’ll befine.”
“But iron didn’t work on Orin after you invited the ghost in,” Mase said, squeezing my arm like aplea.
“Are there…more ghosts?” Randolph forced a swallow as if he might be sick. “But I thought you got rid ofthem.”
“I thought so too. Try not to worry,” I said, and with a deep breath that did nothing but sting my lungs with cold, I left Ellison, Randolph, and Poh in the diningroom.
I hated leaving them alone when they would be so much safer with the ring of protection iron gave me, but I didn't have much of a choice. Ghosts became corporeal around me so they could torture me into letting them inside my mouth, but to others, the only way to harm them was to use their energy to poltergeist something into them. Like a kitchen table, forinstance.
The door to the dining room clicked shut as Poh closed herself in with Randolph and Ellison. Two pairs of footsteps crept after mine as the captain, Mase, and I started toward the hanging light at the end of the hallway and the elevator beyond. The light swung harder on its twin cords the closer we drew, whirling light and shadows into a dizzyingmix.
I held back by the Vicious room as Mase and the captain strode forward, their wide gazes glued to the light, their movements stiff. Captain Glenn turned right toward the elevator, but Mase stopped to look at me over hisshoulder.
“I love you,” he saidsimply.
His words anchored in my chest, pulling everything else to a stop for amoment.
“I love you too,” Isaid.
He turned the corner just as the elevator doors dingedopen.
I stayed put as the elevator swept them upwards, hopefully to safety, then stepped closer to the Vicious door. This was the area of the ship that always seemed to hold the most paranormal activity, though this didn’t feel at all like what I was used to. I’d heard Ellison’s scream from somewhere on this ship, plain as day, as she’d sat at the dining room table. It made nosense.
Yet I was relieved to be searching for answers alone. If the rest of the crew looked for the source of the scream with me and weren’t who they said they were—whether because of a Mind-I or enter-another-possibility-here—then I would have more problems than I needed at themoment.
The light swung harder as I moved toward the Vicious door. I pushed it open, and it swung inward. The stale air inside carried a scent like copper and cleaning chemicals. Silence at my back, just as impenetrable as the impossibly dark room. Unease spiked the hairs on my neck. I fished my phone out of my pocket, but its light barely penetrated the midnight black. Haunted or not, this room’s nightmares still darkened it. I moved closer to the door, braced myself against the frame, and leaned in, holding my phone out in front of me. My fingertips brushed something soft, warm, and so out of place in an empty room on a cold, metal ship that I jerked back with agasp.
The room wasn't empty at all. Someone, something, lurked in here with me. Not a ghost. This thing felt the very opposite of dead. That thought chased my next breath out with a barely containedwhimper.
Still searching for the light switch with one hand, I snapped the ice pick from my necklace with the other and held to it so tightly that my fingernails carved into my palms. “Who'sthere?”
No answer except a faint clatter somewhere else on theship.
I dragged my fingers over the wall for the Feozva-damned light switch. Why was it so impossible to find? Finally, it rubbed between my knuckles and flipped on. I blinked under the sudden brightness, my heart kicking into my throat at what I mightsee.
Ellison’s doctor smock hung over the back of a wooden chair that faced the wall. It was slightly warm to the touch as if it still held a trace of body heat, as if she’d been wearing it not too long ago. Even though she hadn’t been. Not when I’d seen her just minutes ago in the diningroom.
It hung in a wrinkled wad, not smooth and precise like every other article of clothing Ellison owned. Not like Ellison atall.
The chair faced nothing but the light switch, which was unsettling. Jezebel liked to sit and stare thoughtfully at the walls, but that wasn’t as creepy as imagining a human doing it, especially someone like Ellison, who didn’t have time for suchnonsense.
Unless the chair hadn’t been used for sitting. I glanced up and around the rusted metal walls and floor covered in neat rows with claw marks—a record of how much time the Saelis females had been trapped in here, I guessed. On the other side of the room about an inch away from the ceiling, an air vent disappeared into the wall like a black hole. The grating that had covered it lay in the corner. I didn’t even have to look too closely to know it didn’t have screws, because in my thieving mind, I needed them more than itdid.
I gripped the back of the chair, taking what little comfort I could in the warmth of Ellison’s smock, and dragged it behind me across the room. Using the wall for support, I climbed up onto the chair, its uneven legs teetering wildly underneath me. The air vent was pretty large, I supposed to allow more air to circulate since it was so cold in space. I hadn't paid much attention to the vents on theNebulous, likely because they were much smaller since we only orbited Mayvel and Wix and not cold, deep space. Also because they were air vents. Not somewhere for a girl who lived in constant terror to goexploring.
“Hello?” My voice leaped down the shaft and backagain.
A faint scurrying sounded, coming from deeper within the vent. Possibly no more than an old, creaking ship sound. And possiblynot.
The overhead light behind me buzzed and faded, strobing a dimmed glow over theroom.
Tight, enclosed spaces were my very favorite things, especially in a once-haunted room with a freaky light. Maybe if I told myself that a few hundred times with conviction, I would start to believe it. But whether I wanted to climb in there or not, I needed to know why Ellison had shouted my name when she clearly hadn’t. If worming my way through the ship’s air vents helped explain why, then there was no question I would doit.
With a deep breath, I scrambled up into the hole in the wall. A two-foot wide titanium tunnel stretched out in front of me, choked in darkness. The farther I went, the more the walls seemed to test that estimate as they pressed in and sealed my lungstogether.
I forced in a shaky breath and shined my phone’s meek light both down and up the tunnel. My metal surroundings reflected it back as a moving orb I kept crawling toward but never caught. The tunnel dead-ended and forked both right and left. I wormed my way to the left, dragging myself along by my elbows. Strands of my long hair and chains pulled painfully when they snagged underneath my forearms. Short hair sure had itsperks.
