Page 72 of Vicious
Moon gasped. Franco stoodabruptly.
Daryl screamed. A monstrous shape appeared through the smoke, hazy but there. The image flipped when the Saelis ghost poltergeisted the floor out from underneath Daryl. Then it cut to me again in the Vicious room, with sounds echoing from the walls, and finally to me, or the doppelganger’s version of me, crashing into the real me to silence thetruth.
I turned it off then, suddenly desperate to catch my breath. It was one thing to live it. It was an entirely different thing to see my life play out from another’s point of view and confirm I wasn’t crazy. Still, I didn’t dare look at Moon or Franco in case they somehow missed that confirmation. Their opinions mattered more to me than almost anyone’s, but when silence hung thick and heavy in the room for too long, I couldn’t take it a secondlonger.
“Please say something,” Ibegged.
Franco scrubbed at his eyes as if to dig out everything he’d just seen. “There’s just… There are things you should never say to women. Like that. What that guy said. All of that should never have happened toyou.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but it touched me that he seemed to care somuch.
Moon turned to me at the same time I gazed at her. Her dark eyes shimmered in the dim light with a question she didn’t even have toask.
“You’re my only friend.” I shrugged, aiming for a matter-of-fact answer, though my voice cracked and my eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t want to scare you off. Still don’t. That’s why I didn’t tellyou.”
Her face crumpled then, and she lunged off her bed and onto mine, nestling into the side not already occupied by blue fur. Sniffling into my hair, she took my hand and traced her fingers over the scales at my wrists. “I’m not afraid of you, Absidy. I don’t think I ever could be, but Iamafraid.”
“Me too.” Gross understatement, but it would have to do. I didn’t want them to see me break under pressure any more than they already had. They needed a leader to help get us through this, a sign of strength, not the quaking, terrified mess I really was. I glanced at Franco, who paced in tight circles from the bathroom to the TV. “Franco? I can give you a hug, too, if youwant.”
He chuckled, a humorless sound. “I’m debating whether or not to throwup.”
“That’s a definite no on the hug,then.”
He stopped pacing and faced me, his mouth hardened into a determined line. “We need to get the video out.Yourvideo, the real one that doesn’t spin the truth. People may not believe it because they saw the other video first, but they need to see your video. I know a guy who knows a guy. He’ll get it out to everyone so they’ll know your side of what’s happening. That’s a start,right?”
My throat pulled tight at how much he believed in me, but I swallowed through it to keep my emotions in check. “Yes. Definitely.” I nudged Moon and nodded at Franco. “You did good with thisone.”
“It’s hard not to fall for a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.” Moon pulled away and swiped at her cheeks. “Tell us what else we need todo.”
I took a breath, arranging my super short plan in my head. “Someone needs to stay on Mayvel and keep their ear to the ground for anything out of the ordinary. It would help if someone could do the same thing on Wix. We’ll also need more ships to begin loading people who actually believe us onto them so we can get them away to safetysomewhere.”
“The Black War’s threat was very real two hundred years ago,” Franco said. “But even then, millions of people refused to leaveEarth.”
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We can’t force anyone toleave.”
“Back then, ships were slower, probably even Saelis ships, which meant we had more time. We had enough warning. But this time…” Franco looked at me for a long moment. “Willwe?”
“All we can do is try,” Isaid.
“We’ll do what we can,” Moon agreed. “Where will you be? What are you going todo?”
“I don’t know if the Saelis aliens have landed here yet or not, but I need to find them. And stop them. For good. Somehow.” And if I could find my sister, the rest of theViciouscrew, and some way to get the ghosts out of me, that would be an extra sweetbonus.
The weight of how I might go about accomplishing that drooped my shoulders until I wilted onto the bed and spooned myself around Jezebel’s warm body. I half listened to Franco and Moon discuss who might be trustworthy enough to help us, but soon gravity dragged at all our eyelids and we decided to snag a few hours ofsleep.
Except I couldn’t. Worry gnawed at my nerves until there was nothing left. My plan to save humanity was just a vague outline drawn in mercury on the uneven planes of my mind, and it was all running together into liquid soup. Everything seemed to hang on me, on what I could or couldn’t do, but I wished—no, Ineededthat not to be the case. I had no idea what I was doing and only a handful of people on my side. The odds were stacked at astronomical heights, already slipping loose and crashing toward me. It was too much pressure, especially with a baby growing inside me, the one person whom I would let down the most if Ifailed.
I’d already lost her father in deep space, and even if I found him again, would he be the same person I fell in love with if both He and She swamped his veins? Would he forgive me for allowing that to happen tohim?
I blinked into the dim room, not really seeing it.Herfather. I’d already decided my baby was a she, though of course I could’ve been wrong. Still, I pictured what she might look like, if she would have my gray eyes or Mase’s deep blue. Already, I felt terrible about her having me as a mom, and I prayed to Feozva that my daughter would be nothing like me. I didn’t want her to suffer, to be ostracized for who she was, to grow up inside a spaceship’s cupboards for fear of being found by malicious ghosts who sought to torment her by breaking all of her bones. I would love my daughter, even if she turned out to be a son, with all of my heart, but one thing stood in the way of me and my baby’s future—the unknown. A series of tomorrows that might not everbe.
Terror cracked me wide open. I tried to muffle my sobs into Jezebel’s soft fur, but my whole body shook withthem.
“Hey, shh.” Moon’s voice floated over my shoulder, and the bed sagged a little with her weight as she climbed in next to me. She folded her body against my back and wound her arm around my waist, her hand seekingmine.
I gripped it for the rest of the night, my lifeline, and finally allowed myself to sink into nothingness for a couple ofhours.
A sliver of dawn crept through the window when I woke. My face felt puffy from all my tears, and Jezebel’s lovely morning breath was blowing straight into mymouth.
