Page 13 of Consume
“I foundherto deliver her head to the Saelises,” Poh corrected.
“You work for the Saelises and no one bothered to sayanything?” Josh looked at her for a beat with his mouth open, then stared the rest of us down. “Has everyone lost their fucking minds?”
I snatched the paper back from the captain, scribbled,You worked for the Saelises, with a double underline underneath You, and shoved the note at Josh.
He snapped his mouth shut again. Apparently he’d forgotten that he’d delivered humans who were lost in space for free labor to the Saelises on The Black via his space taxi. A funny thing to forget.
Poh eyed him as she secured her knife in the only empty sheath strapped down both legs. “Worked, as in past tense. I work for Absidy and her ilk now. And before you ask, yes, I’m a distant relative of the Saelises. It doesn’t make me one of them.”
Josh leaned forward, his brown eyes flashing. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
A sudden rush of nausea splashed acid over my tongue, and I doubled over the gurney, my eyes squeezed shut. Pop and the captain rushed to my side. I fought everything back down with deep breaths, angling my head away from everyone’s shoes just in case. It turned out morning sickness happened in the afternoons now too. Oh good. I straightened, my eyes stinging at the burn still at the back of my throat.
“Absidy...” Pop sighed. “You shouldn’t be going to the Byrians’ house. Going anywhere is the last thing you need to do.”
“It’s fine,” Poh said, shrugging. “If she throws up inside their fancy house, I bet she won’t feel one ounce of guilt over it.”
“Are you sick?” Captain Glenn asked, rubbing my back like Pop was.
“She’s pregnant,” Poh said. “With pretty boy’s baby, in case that wasn’t obvious.”
The captain sliced his wide eyes to me. “Pregnant? You and Mase?”
“Surprise,” I tried to say with a watery smile.
His dark skin paled some. “There’s no way I can let you go, then.”
“Mase doesn’t know yet,” Poh said, the usual bite in her voice softened a fraction.
Pop cleared his throat as he squeezed my hand tighter. “Not even I can talk her out of this, I don’t think. We already know the lengths Absidy will go to in order to find and protect her sister and the man she loves.”
Josh nodded solemnly down at the gurney.
Captain Glenn searched my face as if looking for a crack among the scales. But he knew as well as I did that I was the only one who could keep the ghosts away long enough to find Ellison and Mase, and I would not leave that house until they were free.
“Poh,” he said. When she lifted her chin toward him, he pointed at me. “Keep yourselves hidden behind your chameleon camouflage. Donotseparate. And take care of each other.”
Poh cut her yellow gaze to me, a sincere promise written all over her battered face. “I swear I will, Captain.”
For the next two days, the ship was chaos, full of last-minute planning, changes to those plans, and me with my ear to the walls, listening. Once again, I didn’t trust the ship I’d grown used to, but I didn’t hear any more footsteps that weren’t caused by someone I could see. It was just us, alone.
Crispin had promised to look after Pop, just in case, while the rest of us went to Wix. We took one of Parker’s small cruisers instead of his giant spaceship. A stealthier decision.
Josh, the captain, Poh, and I crouched low behind sad little desert trees on a sandy hill in front of the Byrians’ sprawling house. Made of tan stone with a rust-colored roof, the house towered three stories high and stretched three separate wings out from the main part. Two curved staircases lined with manicured shrubs merged into one grand set of steps that led to the double front doors.
While lying flat on his belly, Captain Glenn pulled a pair of high-powered binoculars away from his eyes and looked at Poh and me, his face tight with worry. “If you’re not out in thirty, we’re coming in.”
“If anything happens to you, Ellison will have my neck.” Josh also lay on his stomach, another pair of binoculars forgotten in his hand while he gazed at me, the sunlight glinting in his dark eyes. “Be safe. And try not to take up too much time throwing up on everything.”
The cruiser ride over here had been a fun mix of pregnancy woes and too-tight nerves. I nodded and popped an iron cube from my pocket into my mouth. The metallic taste sparked over my tongue and made the consumectalons rushing through my blood come alive with a roar. My head swam, and my heartbeat tripped faster. It had been so long since I’d used iron that the resulting high clarified everything, sharpened reality, as if I’d been trying to peer through a thick fog. I refused to believe the effect would harm my baby because it would be much, much worse without it.
“Poh,” Captain Glenn said, focusing once again through his binoculars. “Give those Byrians hell.”
She nodded, an evil smile on her lips. “Will do.”
I wiped a trickle of sweat from my temple. It was summer here on Wix, but Mayvel was still caught in the dead of winter.
I turned and arched an eyebrow at her. “Ready?”
