Page 31 of Vicious
No, I definitely didn’t think we’d be safe atall.
* * *
Idoubtedanyone slept well that night since the dining room felt like an ice box. Normally iron repelled the cold energy surrounding a ghost, but because the seventh lifeform wasn’t a spirit, the cold seeped up through the metal floor and shook our bones viciously. Mase and the captain had even ventured out to turn up the heat, but it hadn’t made adifference.
Mase and I leaned against the titanium wall below Esmerelda the Space Vixen while soft snores drifted around us. He leaned his head on my shoulder as She-filled spasms racked his body. My heart clenched for him, and I squeezed his hand tighter inmine.
Underneath the table, I spied Poh’s legs. She’d been guarding the hallway door, awake unless she could sleep standing up. Randolph slumped back in his chair, and the captain and Ellison both rested their heads on the table. It was peaceful, except for my quiet distrust for almost all ofthem.
I forced myself to stay awake, ready to spring to my feet in case anyone wandered into the kitchen or acted twitchy at all. My eyes burned and watered, but I refused to close them. I wished I knew what else was going on. Mind-I control? Or something to do with the seventh lifeform on this ship? Enquiring minds had all the questions and zeroanswers.
Randolph blinked himself awake first, so I carefully unwound Mase from my side and nodded toward the kitchen so Randolph would followme.
Once the door swung shut behind him, he whispered, “You sure you want me inhere?”
I pointed to the small table in the middle. “Just sit and talk to me while I makebreakfast.”
He sighed, sat on a stool, and pulled out his silver flask from inside his coat. “Hotsauce?”
“I thought you had alcohol in it,” Isaid.
“I have two flasks.” He shrugged. “This one’s for you. And me. Wantsome?”
I tipped my tongue with the word no, but thought better of it. I could use something to liven my sleepless senses, so I took the flask and drank deep. It fired down my throat and swam with the uneasiness in mygut.
Randolph took the flask back and cupped his hands around it. “I’ve tried to quit drinking dozens of times, but my family seemed to hate me more when I tried. They said I was even worse without it, and I would inevitably fall back into the bottle. Not that I’m blaming them. I just… It fills something inside of me. Kind of like being achef.”
I rested my hand on the table across from him as a show of solidarity. Iron filled something inside of me, too, almost as if it made up my entire inner structure. Without it, I probably wouldn’t be standing here today. Unlike alcohol, iron had saved my life. So I didn’t know exactly where he was coming from, but I did know what it was like to be stripped of what mattered most, of what made meme.
“When I’m not cooking, I remind myself of who I am without a drink, and….” Randolph gazed at me, his dark eyes haunted. “I miss being a chef. I even dreamed about it lastnight.”
“I’m sorry.” I bowed my head, the weight of his sorrow almost toomuch.
“It’s… I understand why you won’t let me near the food again. But isn’t it funny how I dreamed about cooking instead of the nightmares on thisship?”
I crossed to the cupboards for a mixing bowl and a pan. “Your opinions about what’s funny are different than mine, Ithink.”
He tipped his head back and chuckled, then gazed down at his feet, his laugh petering out. “Great boogly bags, will you look at what Idid?”
I glanced down, and what I was seeing had to roll through tired brain sludge before I comprehended. He wore two left shoes, one beige and one black tip pointing in the samedirection.
“Eh.” I waved my hand dismissively. “At least you matched the first letter of the colors. That’s closeenough.”
With his large shoulders shaking with amusement once again, he stood and crossed to the double doors, then glanced behind him with a small smile. “I think my life would’ve been a lot happier if you had been in it sooner.” Then he pushed through, and the doors flapped closed behindhim.
I blinked as the full meaning of his words hit me. That might’ve been the single nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, especially since I’d refused to let him work his literal dream job. In that moment, I hated what this ship had made me become—a secretive, distrustful bitch. Yet maybe that was part of the reason we were all still alive. Or maybe I was giving myself way too muchcredit.
After I’d scrambled up a quick breakfast of waffles and red sornish eggs, we all sat around the table bleary-eyed while the captain offered options of what to donext.
“What we’re looking at is a ring behind us that we can’t cross through, Parker’s ship on our right, which is steadily pushing us toward the magnestar on our left. The magnestar is a star that creates an extremely powerful magnetic field. We definitely don’t want to go too far to the left or the force of the magnestar will tear this shipapart.”
Poh settled her fingers on her gun, her brown duster swinging around her ankles with the movement. “Why is this guy Parker pushing this ship toward themagnestar?”
“He thinks it will force us to let him board so he can slip me He,” Mase said with asigh.
“So we push back,” Pohsaid.
Mase shook his head while crackles of She lit up his needled veins, so bright they shined from under his dark green sleeves. “His ship is too big, toofast.”
