Page 67 of Vicious
“Warning. Two minutes to self-destruct.”
A violent tremor ripped up my back. Another ghost. Someone else had died. Ellison? Mase? The captain? Darkness crowded my eyelids, but I forced it back so I couldsee.
“Don’t be dead,” I whispered. “Please don’t bedead.”
The two feet stopped in front of me. A light touch, frozen but gentle, grazed my scaled arm and flipped my hand over, palm up. Something trickled into it with metallic clanking noises, a comforting melody I’d heard so many times before. Saliva rushed at my tongue. Fingers folded mine closed around the iron, the cubes’ sharp corners digging into my skin. Someone was giving me ironcubes.
I focused on the shoes until my vision cleared. Beige and black. Two leftones.
Tears filled my eyes. A sob heaved from my mouth, and I finally found the strength to look up at Randolph’s ghost. His skin was tinged blue, and his neck appeared swollen, diminishing his double chins into one grotesque ball. His black eyes drooped, not a hint of malevolence inside them, but the sadness there drilled a hole straight to myheart.
“Randolph,” I choked. “I’m sorry. Sosorry.”
He smiled and glided his hand down the side of my face like a father’s caress. His touch froze my tears to my face. Pushing to his feet, he shook his head then crossed to the scratched wall behind me and faded throughit.
I gripped his iron gift tight and fought to get my legs underneath me instead of collapsing into a puddle. Part of me wanted to do just that, to give up. There wasn’t enough time to save myself by boarding Parker’s ship again anyway. But the other part, the part that didn’t know when to quit, wanted to knowwhy. Andwhere. This ship’s crew and Parker’s minions couldn’t have just vanished, and I refused to even consider thealternative.
“Warning. One minute to self-destruct.”
I dragged myself off the Vicious room floor to the telecom in the corner and hit the green button. “Poh?”
A burst of static fizzed out, interrupting the robot’s warnings, followed by a string ofcurses.
“Tell her almost!” she snapped in thebackground.
“Almost,” Crispinwhimpered.
One minute. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. Almost wasn’t going to cutit.
“Are you in the cargo room?” Idemanded.
“We’re in this…big room with a bunch of crates,” hesaid.
I hauled toward the cargo room as fast as I could. Not fast at all. I kept myself moving by my sheer need tosurvive.
Maybe the crates had been rigged somehow to explode, but who had the know-how to do that? And the supplies to do that? As far as I could tell, Parker and his crew had only been carrying weapons, not explosives. And that still didn’t explain where everyone went when there was no place togo.
“Thirty seconds to self-destruct.”
As soon as I opened the door, I zeroed in on Crispin next to Poh and the crates. When he turned to see me stalk toward him, I smashed my fist into his face. His head jerked to theside.
My fingers sang with pain, but I growled through it, “What are you not tellingus?”
“Nothing. I don’t know anything.” He looked at me with his hand at his mouth, his lightning eyes hurt. His fingertips came awaybloody.
“I already threatened him ass to eyeballs if he knew anything,” Poh snapped while she coiled two black wirestogether.
“Twenty seconds,” the robotsaid.
Crispin swallowed hard. “Maybe this ship was boarded by another ship. I don’tknow.”
I heaved a choked sob. Behind Crispin, Poh yanked wires and twisted them together with shaky fingers inside a black box attached to one of the crates. A box that hadn’t been therebefore.
“Tenseconds.”
“Poh!” Iyelled.
“Almost!” shegrowled.
