Page 35 of Consume
Yeah, Mase shouldn’t have asked. Every word Captain Glenn had said had speared into my heart with deadly precision. I tightened my grip on Mase’s hand, sucked harder on the iron in my mouth, seeking every ounce of comfort I could.
“They beat us to Ring Guild Station 144.” My eyes burned at the panic building inside of me, all of it anchored with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Reluctantly, I pulled away from Mase and pressed my palms to my temples as I paced in front of the Space Vixen poster on the wall. “They’re very, very close, likely waiting to strike when we’re all consumed with distractions.”
Moon made a choking sound, and Franco rubbed her back, his face grim.
“They are?” Ellison stared at me, the creases fanning out from her eyes deep with worry. “They’re that close?”
“Yes,” Crispin rasped from his stance by the dining room doors. “We barely got out of there alive.”
“I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re coming.” Josh looked to Ellison, the beads and feathers woven into his dark hair clicking and whispering together. “Still though...”
“What do you propose we do, Absidy?” Pop asked, his voice low.
The answer seemed so obvious. I stopped pacing, the answer teetering on my tongue because voicing it would mean I’d already considered it. Which I had, in a shadowed corner of my mind. The answer filled me with the kind of terror that bumped my pulse, stiffened my body, and buckled my knees.
“I need on their ship,” I said.
Stunned silence thickened the air in the room. Moon’s jaw trembled as she looked at me like I’d deceived her just by saying it, and I had to look away.
“If we knew where their ship was and boarded...” Franco rubbed his whiskered jaw. “Then what?”
“No.” Moon thrust a finger at his face, her dark eyes wild and shining with tears. “We are not even going to entertain the idea.”
“Then,” I started, doing my best to ignore Moon, “I stop them from the inside of their ship.”
“How?” Pop whispered, his hands spread out, his expression utterly defeated.
I was ripping their hearts out with this idea. I knew this, but it was the only way. They had to know that.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I won’t know that until I’m on their ship.”
Mase pushed off the wall next to Esmerelda’s poster and blocked my pacing. His finger traced under my chin, urging it upward to look him in the eye. “You meanwewon’t know until we’re on the ship. Like hell I would let you do this alone.”
Moon slammed her hands down on the gurney. “She wouldn’t be alone anyway. She’s pregnant, remember? She’snotgoing.”
“Moon, look at me,” I pleaded, gently pulling away from Mase. “I already look like them. Without iron, I sound like them. If Poh were here, she’d say it has to be me who gets on that ship because I have a greater purpose. It all comes down to me.”
“No.” Moon stood and jabbed her finger toward me, her face contorted with heartbreak. “It all comes down to you and your baby.”
Tears scorched my throat and fired down my face. Rusted balls, this sucked. We’d never disagreed before like this, but I knew I was right. “There won’tbea baby if I’m dead, Moon.”
“Exactly!” Her whole being quaked with emotion, and I half expected her to charge at me to slap me, bind me to keep me here, or hug the shit out of me. Maybe all three.
Franco stood and held up his hands between us as if sensing a Moon implosion himself. “Say you do go through with this. How do you get on the ship? How do you keep the Saelises from seeing you if you do happen to get on board? You might look a little like them, but you’re not one of them.”
“He’s right.” Pop rubbed his hands up under his stocking cap and sighed heavily. “There are too many unknowns, Abs.”
“Then we die because we did nothing to try and stop them,” Mase said.
I turned to face him, caught off guard by the soft sincerity in his voice.
“Absidy singlehandedly cleared this ship of its haunts and rescued her sister. There was one time when she was doing both at the exact same timewhilefighting a Saelis.” A broad smile lit his face as he looked down at me. “She pulled it all off because she’s fucking amazing.”
An awkward laugh tripped out of my mouth, but I choked it off. I’d never allowed myself to think too hard about what I’d done, but I had come a long, long way from the little girl who hid from ghosts in my sister’s office cupboards aboard theNebulous.
Nodding as if thinking the exact same thing, Ellison folded her hands on the gurneytop, her expression hard. “Mybaby, and I, wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for her. She knows the risks, but she can handle them.” She flicked her gaze to me, a tougher, stronger version of my sister I’d only just met and was still getting used to. “She can handle anything.”
My chest warmed at her belief in me. She’d been the last person I expected to actually support this crazy idea, but the fact that she did highlighted how much I’d changed. How much we’d both changed. Always fussing, always overprotective, even going so far as to inject me with consumectalons to start my iron habit to keep the ghosts at bay, but now... Now she trusted me to protect myself.
