Page 44 of Consume
He’d fired into a room filled with everyone I loved. Where was Mase and Moon and Franco and Jezebel? The questions pummeled out in a guttural scream. Rage fired through my veins as I searched the dining room then the kitchen. Where were they?
“Lock the door behind me and keep an ear on the telecom,” I gritted out, though my voice sounded muffled in my ears. I swiped at the ice pick dangling from my necklace but remembered I didn’t have it. That part of my memory was right, it seemed. From the kitchen, I took the sharpest knife I could find and then marched into the hallway.
We didn’t have time for any more deaths, but I would make sure we did for Parker. I would gut him dick to sternum unless Mase beat me to it. But Mase was the only one who could get us back to Mayvel since Crispin was... Was he dead?
Oh, Feozva.Poh. She and Crispin... I didn’t know what was going on there, but it seemed like they were developing something they both deserved, and now...
An unfamiliar body lay crumpled in the hallway with blood leaking from his head. One of Parker’s men. I’d seen two, but how many more had he brought with him? And how did they board without us knowing?
As I stepped over him, his body twitched. Feathery black smoke funneled out of his mouth and curled over his lips like spindly fingers.
I retrieved an empty vial from my pocket, which was surrounded by piles and piles of iron cubes. Then I knelt down on top of him, my knee on his neck, and ordered, “Go in, you piece of shit.”
The rest of the ghost vomited out of him and funneled into the glass. Capping the vial, I strode quickly down the hallway toward the elevator, the knife gripped as tight as my claws would allow.
My footsteps whispered underneath me, a sure sign I could now hear somewhat clearly again, but why weren’t there other sounds? Shouting, shooting, anything? Unless we were caught up in a game of cat and mouse.
As I drew closer to the overhead light at the end of the hallway, it flickered like a strobing spotlight for anyone else who might be near. I stopped and hugged the wall near the Vicious door, the cold titanium seeping into my back, then poked my head around the corner. All clear toward the elevator, and to the left, the long stretch of hallway toward the infirmary appeared empty.
I darted around the corner and jabbed the green button for the elevator. Gunshots sounded above me from the third floor.
Maybe that was Mase trying to get to the cockpit and then fly us out of Parker’s ship. He knew what needed to be done. That had to be him.
The elevator rumbled closer, the sound driving spikes into my sixth sense. Someone was on the elevator, and I’d just announced my exact location by calling it to me.
I backed away, almost stumbling in my rush. The elevator door dinged. I lunged right, out of sight behind the corner, and braced my back against the wall. The door slid open. I firmed my lips to silence my ragged breaths, squeezing my knife tight.
The soft tap of footsteps echoed from the right. I homed in on the sound, gauging the shrinking distance between us. But the slightest touch of cool air from the left prickled my senses, like a door swinging open on silent hinges. The Vicious room door that never shut correctly.
Step, step from my right.
A sigh of movement from my left.
Something else was here. Creeping out from the Vicious room. Trapping me between unknown threats.
My ears burned for a sound, any sound from the left, but I didn’t dare look. It was too late anyway. A figure rounded the corner from the elevator. The profile just before he turned his head proved to be foe. Before he saw me, I shoved away from the wall, keeping my gaze trained on him.
But I wasn’t fast enough. A blur leaped out of the Vicious room and swiped a blade through the air. I lunged back, but it caught me on the arm and sliced between my scales. My heartbeat stuttered, a ragged countdown until blood welled.
I blinked up from the wound to two men pressing in from both directions. They both wore leers that peeled back their lips as they slinked closer. Their dark eyes shifted to a glowing green. Their leers morphed into something so sinister, a bone-deep shiver wracked my body.
They lunged. I danced around them so the elevator hallway was behind me, my mind whirring over my limited options. I had about as much chance of outrunning them as I did fighting them both off at once. Not with their tucked chins and hard looks of malicious intent. Not with drool stringing off their lips at the smell of my parasite-filled blood or the weapons gripped in their hands.
I started to turn left, pivoted, then sprinted down the infirmary hallway. Away from the elevator because the timing of the door closing was too damned slow.
Footsteps pounded after me. Hungry growls raked at the back of my neck. They were too close. Too close to dart inside a room and slam the door closed on them.
“Mase?” I shouted. “Someone?”
Where had everyone else gone?
As if in answer, the ship rumbled to life. TheViciousship, its engines roaring. The floor pressed into my feet at a hard angle. We were turning, and hopefully escaping the inside of Parker’s ship.
Almost to the end of the hallway. And then what? Time to fight since I couldn’t outrun them forever.
I stopped, whirled, and ducked as the two hybrids flew past. Gripping my knife tightly, I swung out when they turned back around. A bright red line tore across one hybrid’s cheek.
The other hybrid had circled around behind me and grabbed my head between both hands and squeezed.
