Page 39 of Vicious
I stood and rounded the gurney to Mase, my stomach tying around the food I’d just eaten at the thought of leaving them. “We’ll need a secret code or something so they know it’s truly us and they can unlock thedoor.”
Mase wrapped me close to him and pressed a kiss to my temple. “That’s my collegegirl.”
“Well, wait a minute.” Ellison held up her hands. “How do we know any of us are who we say we are in the firstplace?”
“None of us has tried to kill anyone in the last ten minutes,” Mase said. “I’d say that’s goodenough.”
“The job that Ellison hired us for this morning,” Poh said, glancing at Captain Glenn. “That’s our secretcode.”
All eyes shifted toward me. I hated being the center of attention, especially when I didn’t knowwhy.
“What job?” Iasked.
I searched the crew’s faces to clue me in to whatever I had missed, but they all stared resolutely back, even Randolph who held his chin high. Except Ellison, whose shoulders sagged slightly and wouldn’t keep mygaze.
“I’ll tell you later,” Ellisonsaid.
“But how will you know it’s me if I don’t know the code?” Iasked.
“Alive,” Poh said, flicking her white-blonde ponytail off her shoulder. “There’s yourcode.”
"Fine." Captain Glenn herded those of us who were doppelganger-hunting out into the hallway in front of him. "Bring a weapon if you haveone."
I stopped in the hallway to peer back at Ellison, more questions on the tip of my tongue. Alive? That was the job she’d hired everyone for? What was she not telling me? She worried her swollen lip with her teeth while she gazed at me, her forehead creased, but the captain shut the door behind him before I got any answers. The lock clicked into place on the otherside.
We crept down the hallway in silence, our breaths pluming in the air. The light swung as we neared, harder and faster, crawling horrific shadows up and down thewalls.
After a right turn, Captain Glenn slapped the elevator button then turned to us. "Nobody separates from this group, you hear me? Not for any reason. We move together, or we don't move atall."
When the elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and we slippedinside.
“Poh, give us another visual on the engine room,” hesaid.
She aimed the Mind-I at the shiny doors, and the ship’s map appeared there with clusters of blinking red dots. Two in the kitchen. Four in the elevator. One slinking away from the engine room. Towardus.
Mase checked and rechecked his gun, the metallicclicksandsnapsthe only sound as we rode up to the third floor. Captain Glenn curled his fingers tight around the long dagger at his side. Poh stared straight ahead with no weapon in sight exceptherself.
The elevator shuddered to a stop anddingedopen. We stepped out. The engine room door stood open as if whatever lurked inside had been expecting us, as if we were walking right into itslair.
“Did you leave the door open?” Mase muttered as we strode towardit.
“I did not,” Pohsaid.
I glanced at her for any indication that she was lying, that she knew this was a trap, but her expression stayed hard, her pace determined. Which didn’t prove anything one way oranother.
Captain Glenn edged up close to the doorway to peer inside, then jerked his head for Mase to enter with his gun blazing if he needed to. Mase swung around the corner, gun leveled toward the right then left. He backed up a few paces behind the wall out of sight, his half-blind gaze flickering around the room. Poh followed, then me, and the captain brought up the rear. He closed the door behind himsilently.
The four of us spread throughout the room wordlessly, the whir of the engine in the center drowning out our footsteps, but not the rush of blood between my ears. Poh aimed her Mind-I at a wall while the captain and Mase crept toward the air vent high on the opposite side of the room. I tiptoed around to one tip of the engine to keep everyone and the door in my line ofsight.
Poh zoomed in to the engine room. Only four dots pulsed there. Not the doppelganger’s fifth dot. A moment of panic twitched my legs, and I immediately wanted to run back to Ellison and Randolph. But they would be okay. We’d made sure of it by blocking the vents. Yet greasy dread swamped my gut that something beyond the obvious wasn’tright.
Poh zoomed the map back out, searching. Mase and Captain Glenn turned away from the wall with the air vent, listening,waiting.
Poh’s map showed six dots on the ship. Only six. But that made no sense. We flew in deep space, so it wasn’t as if anyone could open the door and step out for a smoke. Where was the seventhdot?
Poh waved the captain and Mase over to see. I stayed put next to the engine, its bulk towering above myhead.
I blinked. Above my head. Top and bottom. Two lifeforms could be right on top of each other and look like one. My stomachedclenched.
