Page 42 of Vicious
Mase and I twined our fingers tight. Poh rested her hand on my left shoulder, pulling out a steak knife from somewhere unseen. I supposed my nerves should’ve been jangling alarms at having a knife at my back attached to a person I didn’t trust, but getting to Ellison and Randolph concerned me themost.
The captain took hold of Mase’s coat sleeve then turned off the light in the room. “I’m not turning more on since it could see us. It might see usanyway.”
I squeezed Mase’s hand and heaved abreath.
“Think fast thoughts, everyone,” Masemuttered.
Captain Glenn opened thedoor.
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Somehow the silencewas thicker in the hallway, almost as corporeal as the darkness, but the quiet broke with the blood thundering through my ears. We stepped out with the captain in the lead, hugging the wall to the right by touch alone, away from the Vicious room. Away from Ellison and Randolph. I hoped that doppelganger thing didn’t have sharp hearing because our footsteps, as soft as they were, crashed against thetitanium.
Captain Glenn soon angled us left around the corner. A shuffling noise, somewhere in the hallway, stiffened Mase’s hand in mine and hesitated all our steps. But we pushed on as fast as possible through the dark, even though the thing likely hunted our everymove.
Another left. One more and we’d be in the same hallway as the dining room and Ellison and Randolph. I hoped they somehow knew we werecoming.
More shuffling up ahead. Or was it behind us? Everything echoed so much in the metal ship, it was hard totell.
When we rounded the next corner, the sliver of light underneath the dining room door shined like a beacon. We rushed toward it. Something farther down the hallway banged. I jumped and inhaled a shaky breath. Mase’s hand twitched inmine.
A pair of legs blocked out some of the light from the door. Captain Glenn, I realized, hopefully searching for the lever. He knocked, barely a whisper of hisknuckle.
Farther down the hallway, glass crunched in a steady rhythm. As if something were walking out of the Vicious room and over what was left of the hanging light. Maybe it wouldn’t see us in the dark. But it would if we opened the door. We didn’t exactly have a choice,though.
“Keep Absidy alive,” the captain murmured into thedoor.
I blinked. The job. The job Ellison was paying them for. To keep mealive.
The lock clicked behind the door, a cannon blast down thehallway.
Something roared. Footsteps hurtled towardus.
“Go!” Poh yelled and shoved in front ofme.
The dining room door flew open. Several hands at my back barreled me through first.Keep Absidyalive.
I whirled around, my gaze not registering anything else but who—or what—came through the door next. Mase fired one shot past the open door, his face pale, but the gun clicked empty. Captain Glenn grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him into the dining room. Poh stood next to the captain, her steak knife gripped tight and her expressionlethal.
Thud. Thud. The footsteps sounded from just outside the door. The doppelganger fired Poh’s lasergun.
Poh lurched backward and cried out. The captain, though massive, had light feet and dodged left into Poh, dragging her to him. They lunged into the dining room, then he shoved the door closed and lockedit.
The thing wailed again, so loud I slapped my hands to my ears. Poh stumbled back into the gurney, gripping her arm, her face twisted inagony.
Captain Glenn grabbed the edge of the gurney and doubled over, breathing hard, while sweat leaked down his face. “Give us a visual on it,Poh.”
With a hiss of pain, she fished out the Mind-I and pointed it at the wall. A lone red dot drifted inside the Viciousroom.
“Let us know if it comes near here.” He ticked his dark gaze up at the open double doors, and the terror etched on his face faded into something that clenched around myheart.
Mase crossed toward the kitchen and gripped the doorway with white-tipped knuckles as he swallowed hard at what hesaw.
A sinking feeling stitched itself into my soul. I shuffled closer, my mind reeling, and peered inside. Ellison with her back turned, on her knees. Her braid swinging back and forth across her back as if marking time while shecounted.
“One, two,three.”
Randolph lay out on the floor in front of her. She bent over his face, then leaned back on her knees and pressed her clasped hands against his chest oncemore.
