Page 5 of Vicious
“This isn’t open for debate, Mason. Watch your tongue.” Captain Glenn rose from the gurney, his massive size just as intimidating as his hard stare, and threw his wadded napkin on his plate. “Sorry, Absidy. Randolph can handle the food on hisown.”
I pinned Ellison with the darkest look I could summon while the captain stalked out. She pursed her lips in the most annoying way imaginable, pretending to ignore me, thenfollowed.
“I’m getting off this ship, Mase,” I said once the door had shut behindthem.
He stood, his hand still linked with mine. “Well, seeing as how I owe Randolph a favor anyway on account of my milkhabit…”
Randolph scowled at the gurney, his fists squeezed tight on either side of his emptyplate.
“I’m not saying to pretend that you forgot your food list, Randolph, to give the captain a head start so you can come back for my girl here.” He squeezed my hand before letting it drop and started for the door, his cowboy boots clipping over the titanium floor. Shoving the door open, he turned toward me, a smile turning up his devilish lips. “But I might be.” He winked and then he wasgone.
2
My heart slammedinto my throat as I stepped off the elevator on the third floor, facing the engine room. TheVicioushad slowed to let Orin’s gravitational force guide it down, and the ship shuddered and groaned as if seeking respite for its old titaniumbones.
Trembles vibrated up through the soles of my boots, urging me to hurry. I had maybe five minutes to find Nesbit’s old Mind-I before we landed and I sneaked off the ship with Randolph for supplies. Five minutes to search through a dead man’s things. Was that why the air felt so oppressive, like it coated my lungs with slime when I drew abreath?
If I didn’t find Nesbit’s old Mind-I in there, I would need to buy one on Orin, and I doubted anyone handed them out like candy. I would need to get the computer chip implanted inside my head, an already wacky place brimming with mayhem. With a Mind-I, I would be able to warn Moon Dragon and Pop about the Saelis aliens right then instead of waiting until my ancient phone picked up a signal. As far as I was aware, that was the only thing capable of communication over far distances that was even remotely secure. I didn’t trust theVicious’s telecom. Maybe Orin would surprise me and have some advanced type of technology I hadn’t yet heard of that I could use instead of a Mind-I, but I would keep my expectationslow.
The Saelis had created human/Saelis hybrids who looked just like us and could be controlled with a Mind-I. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected everyone with a Mind-I could be controlled and tasked to end the rest of humanity for good. If I had a Mind-I implanted, I would also be susceptible to Saelis mind control. It was a major risk, but one I needed to take, especially if I popped it out fake-eyeball style when I’d finished. No harmdone.
There wouldn’t be any need to worry, though, if Nesbit still had his somewhere. Still, the thought of prodding a dead man’s belongings, especially a Mind-I that had been inside his head, a man who had tried to kill me, rushed doubts through myveins.
I started forward, but my steps faltered when one of the hanging lights above my head flickered. A pocket of tobacco-scented cold cocooned my body for a second, rushing goosebumps across my skin, then it flitted away toward the cockpit andMase.
That was Red, the one ghost left who haunted theVicious, though haunted didn’t exactly fit. I stopped to listen for a sign from the red-headed, dark-skinned ghost with the broken neck who had tried to save me numerous times, not from other ghosts, but parasite-starved Saelis-human hybrids. My life lately. It hurt my head to thinkabout.
Hopefully she wouldn’t rip Mase’s door open so he could see me enter the engine room when he’d warned me not to go in there. Why had he thought he saw me go in therebefore?
“Red?” I hissed, the sound bounding across the metalfloor.
Scratching my fingernails against my palms, I strode forward again, but my feet angled away from the direction I headed. A wintry pressure pushed me sideways toward the cockpit instead of the engineroom.
I shoved back against the clear, arctic wall that flattened the fabric of my sweatshirt against my arm. “I’m not up here to see Mase, Red. Let methrough.”
She did, too suddenly, and the absence of her knocked me off balance. I caught myself with a well-placed foot before I landed hard on my ass, but just barely. Why was she so intent on steering me away from the engine room? Mase had said it wasn’t safe, but I didn’t plan on throwing myself into the ship’sengine.
Steeling my shoulders, I marched toward the engine room door once again. I needed Nesbit’s Mind-I or I’d have to get one of my own, end of story. Whatever Red didn’t want me to see inside, I was sure I would survive it. I’d cleared the whole Feozva-damned ship of Saelis ghosts and recently vacationed at The Black, the rogue planet that hovered near Earth’s haunted remains. It was a shitty vacation, one I wouldn’t recommend, yet here I stood, alive andwell.
The closer I drew, the thicker the oily feeling in my lungs became. The air tasted like it had been poisoned, but not with anything my senses could place. The door, the sliver of orange light creeping out from under it, the low hum of the churning engine from inside—all of it felt wrongsomehow.
The ship gave a slight jerk, then several more, punctuated by what sounded like a wicked cackle. I flattened my lips in an attempt to keep it together. Just the landing gears. Nothingelse.
“Crew, we’re about to land,” Mase’s voice said over the ship’s telecom. “Might want to hang on to something sturdy since landing is… Well, it’s not my favoritething.”
My gut cramped when I lifted my hand to the door’s lever. Sweat tracked down my temple, and I realized part of what felt off about the engine room. It wasn’t cold. Just dark and vicious. Like a malevolent ghost, but at the same time not. I swallowed hard and touched thelever.
An arctic, tobacco-laced breath hit my neck, spiking the short hairs all across my scalp. Two iced hands grabbed my shoulders from behind, snaking a shiver between them, and threw me with monstrous strength away from thedoor.
I crashed into the titanium floor hip first, followed by my limbs in a messy pile. My head cracked the floor last, zipping stars across my eyes. I blinked them away, slowly, one after another, all of them magnifying the pain racking mybody.
Red crouched at my side, her broken neck twisting her head so bones popped from her dark skin at wrong angles. Her black eyes fixed onme.
“Red, stop,” I croaked, tasting her betrayal from the blood pouring across my split tongue. “I need Nesbit’s Mind-I to warn people about theSaelis.”
The ship slanted out from under me as it made its descent. I snatched at empty air, unable to stop my slide across the slick titanium floor. The ship shuddered, slamming the metal into my back again and again. My body landed in a heap against the wall next to the elevator, the wall that was slanting so much it became the floor. The ship had tilted sideways so the open engine room door hung open above me. It wasopen, not by my hand, and definitely not by Red’s since she didn’t want me in there. Dazed, I flashed my arms out to hang on to something, but there wasnothing.
Red leaped on top of me. She straddled my waist, her hands on either side of my head. The bouncing ship swung her broken neck from side to side, but her blackened gaze still found mine, freezing my soul with the ferocity that lurked there. Where had that come from? She’d always been the single ghost who’d actually helpedme.
