Page 3 of Consume
“S-step one of walking into a trap is knowing it’s a trap. Right?” I slapped my hand on the gurney with finality. “Let’s go.”
“Or...” Pop squeezed my hand, his gray eyes, so much like how mine used to be, searching my face. “Just Poh could go. Let me be the voice of reason for a second, Abs, even though I can already see you’ve stopped listening to me. While I want to find the captain in the hope that he’ll lead us to your sister and the man who got you pregnant as much as anybody, you need to stop and think. You’re pregnant and you’re wanted by the police.”
“And the Ring Guild want you dead as well. You might even have another doppelganger the Saelises hired who wants to kill you too, so...” Poh snapped the magazine on her gun closed. “There’s that.”
Well, damn it, they both had points. “Yes. Okay. Everyone wants me dead. Everyone else thinks I’m a dangerous psychopath.”
Pop huffed an exasperated laugh and shook his head. “You’re not a psychopath.”
A stab of guilt hit me in the heart, sharp and painful. I was the reason Pop was here now instead of working as the engineer on theNebulous, our old home and the passenger cruiser ship that circled Mayvel. When his bosses had found out everything I was accused of, they’d practically tripped over themselves in their hurry to find a reason to fire Pop. I didn’t know exactly what I could’ve done differently, but if it meant saving Pop’s job, the livelihood that had spoken to him since before I was alive, I would’ve done it. I would’ve doneanythingfor him, just like I would Ellison and Mase. Even Captain Glenn. We’d been through too much together.
The double doors leading to the kitchen parted a fraction, as if caught in a wintry breeze laced with the earthy scent of river beans, and then flapped closed again. That was Randolph in there, head chef of theViciousship, and dead. Murdered by poison in an attempt to take out the entire crew.
Crispin glanced over his shoulder, his face paling, and then scooted closer to the gurney.
“Cool your jets, Tits,” Poh said to the swinging doors. That was her nickname for Randolph, and it made my back teeth crash together. “No one’s calling Absidy a psychopath, but she knows too much, which makes her a threat.” Her yellow eyes narrowed on me. “You will be until this is done, one way or another.”
“You said yourself I was destined to be a part of this war,” I said.
“Oh, I know.” Poh patted down the length of her titanium legs and the array of knives stored there as if checking to see they were still in place. Sometimes things on this ship had a bad habit of walking off by themselves. “I don’t want to go to the hospital alone, but even if I kept my three eyes on you, I think it would be too dangerous for you.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Three?”
Crispin lifted his hand to his mouth and shook his head down at the gurney. “You don’t want to know.”
My eyes widened at Crispin, whose cheeks flamed bright red as he tucked his chin. Apparently there was some bodily exploration happening between the two of them, whether accidental or on purpose, and for the first time in weeks, my lips twitched into a smile. I’d noticed how he’d always follow Poh’s every move, how she’d go out of her way to make fun of him, even if it meant dropping her ferocious exterior for a moment. I liked both of them. I liked both of them together even better.
Poh grinned at him, baring most of her fangs. “Move your ass, Crispy. I reckon we’ve got a hospital to get to.”
Crispin nodded and rose from the gurney.
Pop turned to me and scratched his head through his knit cap. “If I had any other skills than ship engineering”—he glanced at Poh moving toward the hallway door—“like a former assassin, I would go with her.”
I shook my head. “If you were an engineer/assassin...I-I’m afraid you wouldn’t be my dad.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He pushed to his feet and settled his hand on my shoulder. “But you’ve been fighting all your life, Abs. You need a break. It’s high time someone else was the hero, so don’t feel bad that you’re not going.”
Before I could argue thathewasmyhero, he moved to follow Poh into the hallway.
“Did you take a look at the...?” The titanium walls bounced the rest of his engineer-speak right over my head as they strode into the hallway. They got along well, those two. Pop and Poh. Poh and Pop. Two engineers whose names sounded like they needed their own ship repair show.
The double doors across from me swung open silently, revealing an empty kitchen and the eerie blue light slanting across the metal flooring from the stasis pantry.
“Saelisssss,” Randolph whispered from nowhere and everywhere. “Where...?”
I gazed down at my hands, my arms, the part of my chest not covered by my spiked corset—all covered in gray scales. The dark hair that hung to my waist had turned Saelis white. The delicate chains weaved into my scalp had all fallen out. It was getting harder and harder to speak in a language I actually knew. And last time I’d checked, my gray eyes had morphed into a glowing green. The ghosts inside me—all of them were taking over one by one by one until I feared there would be nothing of me left.
“Right here, Randolph.” I forced a swallow, willing that particular truth not to drown me in whatever implications it could hold for me and my baby girl. “The Saelises are right here.”
