Page 61 of Vicious
I leaped back, choking on my terror. Poh’s fingers slipped off myshoulder.
Click, click, click.The Saelises were almost uponus.
I couldn’t stay here with the dead woman because she might attack. The chains in my mouth didn’t appear to repel her. I couldn’t pass her through me. An entrance to another cubicle yawned open across the aisle to my left. Before the woman had turned her chair all the way around, I lunged toward the oppositecubicle.
Poh’s fingers weaved through the ends of my hair, but it was too late. We were separated. And I was no longer invisible to theSaelis.
The fronds of a potted red plant whisked together when I brushed past it. Had they heard it? Did they know they weren’t alone in here? I shoved a third chain into my mouth and sent up a prayer toFeozva.
Their footsteps stopped, but their riotous clicking didn’t. It filled the room, knocked at the back of my skull, and hundreds more answered back. Whether it had sounded from inside me or not, I had a sinking feeling we were the subjects of an alienconversation.
With my back braced against the frosted wall of the cubicle, a sudden chill quaked down my spine strong enough to shake the glass. I pushed myself away from it, my breath pluming out in front of me with a stuttered exhale. Goosebumps sprang up my arms. The hair on the back of my neck lifted, stirring my senses away from the Saelises’clicking.
Something—somethingelsewashere.
I popped a fourth chain into my mouth and sealed them and the building scream inside with my flattened lips. The sweet metallic taste rolled across my tongue but didn’t awaken my parasites into an uproarious high. Maybe the metal wasn’t an alloy at all. I willed any traces of iron inside them to cast a safety net around meanyway.
The clicking stopped. The sudden quiet roared. Had the Saelisleft?
Several footsteps thumped outside my cubicle. Not heavy like the Saelis. Lighter. Hurried. And paired with frightenedvoices.
“Hurry! We need to un-magnetize ourselves from the ring,” a woman said, her voice squeaking withpanic.
“Then we’ll float directly into the magnestar,” a man said. “We’ll bedead!”
“But so will the Saelis,” the woman said. “Comeon.”
More footstepsapproached.
“Hurry! We need to un-magnetize ourselves from the ring,” the same womansaid.
This wasn’t happening in real time. This was a residual haunting, ghosts reliving the same memory again and again. Which meant they hadn’t made it. They’d never stood a chance. Minus any weapons, neither didwe.
“Absidy?” The faintest of whispers sounded from behindme.
I turned my head, listening for something other than my own slamming heartbeat and the residual ghosts’ memory repeating outside the cubicle. As silently as I could, I moved to peer around the wall. More footsteps rushed closer, the same panicked voices, but on my exhale, they drifted into the darkness. So my chains did have at least a little iron in them. I allowed myself one small victory forthat.
Across the narrow path in the opposite cubicle, Poh crouched, her expression fierce. She cautiously stepped out and motioned me toward her. I went, and with her hand on my shoulder, we stood in the middle of the path and moved withstealth.
From somewhere on the space station, a slight whir began and rumbled the floor. Neither of us stopped to wonder atit.
At a box of squat, walled-in offices in the center of the room, we stopped and squinted in the dark at the plaques next to each door. One of them read Don Summertack. Inside the offices, the lights didn’t work, but we searched anyway and came up empty. This guy was likely already dead, and we were just spinning our wheels when we needed to get out of here. We’d have to find another way through therings.
I was just about to whisper as much to Poh as we stood inside Don’s doorway, but the glass door opposite his office clicked and shuddered against its frame. We froze between the two offices, Poh’s hand tightening on my shoulder while our breaths plumed out in front ofus.
The door opposite Don’s swung open on silent hinges, darkness crowding every corner inside. But only a split second before a large steel desk flew out. We lunged out of the way, but Poh was too late. The desk barreled into her and slammed her into Don’s office. His door banged shut behind her hard enough to rattle theglass.
Poh.Please don’t bedead.
I turned my head to look at the open door, the movement slowed by the violent tremors shaking throughme.
Inside the dark doorway stood a man, his head split down the middle to his nose. His body was drenched in blood and entrails, and a silent scream propped his mouth open. His empty black eyes drilled holes into the space in front of him, searching for the ghost magnet behind her thin iron shield that he must’ve still sensed, but his gaze skated rightby.
The whirring noise grewlouder.
An iron ring paper weight that must’ve spilled to the floor from the desk floated up in front of my face. I blinked hard at it, willing this sudden break from reality to come back at a more convenient time. What was happening? The chains in my hair lifted, too, rejecting the space station’s gravity. A flutter erupted in my stomach, then unfurled outward as my feet left the ground. Someone had turned the gravity off. Or instead of un-magnetizing the station to the iron ring, they had doubled thecharge.
A body flung itself through Don’s frosted glass door, white-blonde ponytail swinging over the shoulder of her duster. Poh. Still alive. Shards exploded outward and sliced through the unfazed ghost standing at herside.
