Page 50 of Vicious
“I guess that’ll do,” I said, squeezing her hand. “So, when can I blow thisjoint?”
“Whenever you feel up to it, but watch the hand and…” She glanced away and swallowed. “Keep an eye on thosescales.”
“Now there’s a sentence I never thought you would say to me.” I stared up at the dull metal ceiling, letting the last of my tears trickle into my hairline, then hefted myself upright with Ellison’s gentle hands at myback.
“Okay?” sheasked.
“Yeah.”
“Can you go boil yourself some water, or do you need my help? You need to stay hydrated. The captain and I have scoured the ship for food that wasn’t in the stasis pantry, but all we found were some stale crackers. I can go get you some if youwant.”
A wave of dizziness struck me, not from whatever meds Ellison had dosed me with or my singing parasites, but from the pieces rapidly clicking together inside my head. I glanced at my sister, who never cried until lately, and her tear-stained face. My memory flitted through her no-show the morning we’d gone to Orin because she’d feltill.
“Ellison,” Ihissed.
The accusation in my voice jerked her head back. “What?”
“You’re pregnant, too, aren’tyou?”
“Damn it, Absidy.” Her mouth tipped into a resigned frown. “I…didn’t want you to worry aboutme.”
Was that her weird way of admitting it? I gently tugged on her long braid that had fallen over her shoulder. “I know my own sister. Speaking of not telling each otherthings…”
She heaved a breath and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “You don’t have enough to worryabout?”
I swung my legs off the bed and threw my arms around her, willing myself not to cry anymore. “I always have enough room in my worry banks for you.Always.”
We clung to each other, two pregnant sisters on a stranded, haunted ship with crackers as our only safe food source, caught up in a two-hundred-year-oldwar.
“You’re not the only one who’s scared,” Ellison whispered into myhair.
I squeezed her tighter, allowing our combined fear to sharpen my senses before I walked out that door to face the unknown. “Iknow.”
15
Aghostly chillpenetrated the hallway outside the infirmary, drilling into my bones with needle points. The sick, twisted part of me welcomed the cold because I knew it, could stick a label on its familiarity, when days ago I hadn’t felt it at all, even though mine and everyone’s breaths had caught in theair.
I ran the glove on my broken hand along my itchy scales on the other. Maybe my theory about the ghosts still being inside me held weight. MaybeIwas haunted, and the cold the rest of the crew had felt was because of me. Now, with the doppelganger’s ghost on the ship, I had to hope I would be fine. I had iron to repel it, and I had fresh, happy parasites to spark my addiction. Once again, I was dressed in my corset, leather pants, boots, and ice pick necklaces—thanks to Ellison’s help. And jammed down the front of my corset was the cylinder of consumectalons I’d filmed, only because I had nowhere else to currently put it. I was me again.Mostly.
Still, I worried about everyone else. When Poh and I left this ship for Parker’s, I would be leaving the crew vulnerable to both Parker and the ghost. Which meant I needed to cross one of those threats off the list permanently. But how to do that since I wasn’t sure I could invite any more ghosts insideme?
I flicked the iron cube from inside my lower lip out to my palm and strode toward the elevator at the end of the hall with the cube tight in my fist. The cubes that had vanished from my pants pocket after we’d come back from Orin must’ve gone to the same place as socks from thedryer.
Poh must’ve fixed the hanging light at the cross-section, but as soon as I drew closer, its glow sputtered. It pulsed onto the Vicious room door, which was open. The light was on inside, too. I rounded the corner toward it, the hallway light arcing wildly above myhead.
“Hello?” I called, stepping to thedoorway.
Nothing stirred except a waft of copper and cleaning chemical-tainted air. The light insideflickered.
I glanced down the hallway toward the dining room and kitchen, listening, breathing steam. All wasquiet.
Inside the Vicious room, someone had covered the air vent with the metal cover. The room held an orange glow because of the red walls and the rusted orange flakes that had peeled off each of the two-inch Saelis marks scratching the entirety of the walls andfloor.
Something bitterly sweet scraped at the back of my tongue. I froze, my nerves jolting, and my shuddery breath puffed from my lungs like an exhale of smoke. Like Red’s tobacco. Frominsideme. Maybe my theory about the ghosts not crossing to the other side wasright.
I blinked around the room, and out of the corners of my eyes, the sharp claw marks that had scored titanium scattered and moved to form something different. When I shifted my gaze, all I caught were snatches of letters before they settled back to normal. F-C-A-N. The Vicious room, and maybe Red, too, was trying to tell mesomething.
The floor juddered under my feet, and the ship heaved a groan that I was pretty sure it shouldn’t make. Outside in the hallway, the elevator dinged and the doorsopened.
