Page 47 of Consume
Chapter Thirteen
When Mase said he’dcrashed us near the waste treatment plant, what he really meant was into. Into the treatment plant.
A flashing red security alarm blared. Steam and dust clouded the lights attached to a ceiling with an enormous hole in it. Dangling wires buzzed and snapped across snack and drink machines on one side of the room. Empty tables had been shoved into each other in a haphazard arrangement, and from underneath them, several heads poked up to peer at us.
Franco. Moon. Jezebel in Moon’s backpack.
“Out,” I hissed, panic rising. “You have to get outright now.”
“And go where?” Moon squeaked. “The only way out is forward.”
She was right. The only exit not blocked by a spaceship was a door on the opposite wall that led deeper into the building.
“Ah, fuck.” Mase tensed, his gaze locking over his shoulder behind us.
Framed in the door of the wreckedViciousstood Parker, his black trench coat swirling around his feet. Over his bald head, much of the upper floors including the cockpit had been peeled away. Long sheets of metal curled unnaturally, baring the ship’s interior like an ugly wound. Behind him, two of his men emerged from the shadows. One had a bruised and bloodied Captain Glenn in a headlock, and the other gripped Poh from behind, his hands on her breast and crotch.
My blood fired up at the sight, but even though she showed no indication of fury, there was no question that would be this man’s last mistake.
“There’s my Mase,” Parker shouted. Electrical currents sizzled over his cracked eyes. “Slippery as always.”
“Fuck off,” I gritted out. “He’s mine, not yours.”
Parker’s drug pulsed and zapped, singing the air. Beckoning. Like always when Mase was around, Parker ignored me. “I have what he wants.”
Mase stood by me, seeming unaffected as he raised his gun. “You really don’t. End this now and let them go.”
A dark chuckle curled off Parker’s lips. “Or what? You can’t kill me, Mase. I’m your only supplier.”
“I’ll kill you just fine if you don’t let them go.” A sharp edge roughened his voice as he held steady, waiting.
All of us waited. The next few seconds stuck to the clock dangling off the wall in my periphery. She and He flirted closer to Mase, so close I could smell its ozone scent, feel it crackle against my taut nerves.
“Well. Fuck you, then.” Mase fired—and caught Parker in the side. Not bad for a half blind man fifty feet away from the target.
Terrible for me, the one person standing in the way of what Parker wanted most.
With a great roar, Parker started forward, lifting the large guns at his sides. All of his rage zeroed in on where I stood.
“Down!” Mase shouted, but I was already diving underneath a table.
