Page 50 of Consume
Above us, a door flew open onto the walkway. Guards rushed through. At the same time, another door opened, the same one we’d entered through. Mase, Captain Glenn, and Poh barreled inside. They ducked and scattered as shots fired from above.
Moon. Where was Moon?
Still searching, I wedged myself against the wall between two transporter tubes while gunfire exploded everywhere. All the while, blue-tinted smoke erupted from the blinking blue lights on the floor. It coated my tongue on my first inhale then scratched my throat all the way down. Tiny black spots burst behind my eyelids, but I blinked them back and held my breath.
No, now wasn’t the time to pass out. Because dragging himself through the open door and into the fray was Parker himself, his bald head split as much as his eyes. Blood leaked into both of them from large gashes, some of which looked like bullet holes and others like bites. He stumbled toward Mase, who was leaning out from behind the shower in the center to shoot more guards standing above.
“Mase!” I shouted but my voice sounded gravelly from the gas.
He whirled.
Captain Glenn finished off the guards, and then the room went silent except for the steady hiss of gas and the sound of retching. Even with the open door, the space was filling up with blue smoke quickly.
I tried not to breathe, tried not to pass out as I fumbled to get the helmet over my head, my movements in slow motion.
We needed passwords to get out of here.Think.
Parker stumbled toward Mase, blood gurgling from his mouth. She and He crackled between his fingers as he reached his arms out, but it wouldn’t stay lit. It was as if he had a broken fuse.
“Come on!” Mase waved him closer, a ferocious kind of victory written on his face.
When the helmet clicked into place, I turned and searched the transporter tubes for a hint at the password. I drew in a deep breath, clear of any gas, but black splotches crowded my vision.
One splotch was tinged red and moved out of the corner of my eye. It was another figure crawling through the open door. Behind it, several more security guards sprinted toward us with gas masks in place.
My gaze shifted back to the figure. A pair of black eyes penetrated mine, and I cried out into my helmet.
Jezebel. The sweet lovable creature who’d saved me in more ways than one hauled her blood-stained body inside the room with only one long working arm. Her other three limbs dragged behind her.
A keening sound ripped from my throat. My eyes burned, and I squeezed them shut briefly to block it all out.
If Jezebel was here, broken, where was Moon?Where was Moon?
The guards were passing by Jezebel and closing in on us, guns raised, shouting at us not to move.
O. The letter O was painted on the wall behind one transporter tube. I wobbled my head to the right and forced my eyes to stay open. C. Were the letters the password? One letter for each tube?
Slowly, carefully, I lifted my hand to the lever of the O container.
Franco dashed out from his hiding spot across the room toward Jezebel, his helmet secure on his head. Poh lunged for him and shoved him out of the way, leaving Poh directly in front of the guards.
Gunfire erupted.
Poh jerked then crashed to the floor.
Tears leaked down my face. I blinked them away frantically as I slithered into the tube and closed the door. Outside was nothing but chaos and blood choked with gas. I could barely see anything. Not my friends. Not my family. They were separate from me now, in another time and place, and there was nothing I could do for them but this. This, right here.
“Password, please,” the feminine voice said.
I didn’t know for sure. I could only guess. “O.”
“Welcome,” she said, and the tube sealed tight and closed me in. A large computerized screen appeared in front of me.
I could still hear the screams, the shots, the warzone stealing those I loved outside. If they weren’t here when I got back, then why was I doing this? There was no point, was there?
Except there was. I rested one hand on my stomach, feeding off the strength I knew my daughter would have, and touched my fingertips to the screen. Frantically, I read the instructions for transporting to and fro, which were surprisingly simple, and typed in the Saelises’ ship’s coordinates from Moon’s Mind-I. If the button flashed green, it meant the transporter had a lock on the ship’s location. Seconds later, it did.
This was it. One chance to end the Black War, and it was up to me. A pregnant nineteen-year-old whose brain had broken against an entire ship of Saelises.
