Sail

Captain Glenn lingered after breakfast the next morning, finally voicing what I was thinking. “Nesbit’s quiet.”

Mase set his empty milk glass down with a nod. “Maybe the sedative finally kicked in.”

“I’ll go check on him and Daryl,” he said, his shoulders drooped, then he wandered out.

Mase’s gaze snapped to me. “Do you think you can make it to the cockpit before lunch?” he asked. “It should be about ten o’clock when we near your sister’s ship.”

Apprehension slowed my collection of dishes from the gurney, though I couldn’t explain exactly why I should feel that way. Because I’d see Ellison’s ship? Because there was a distinct possibility I might not find her on it? Because there was a possibility I would?

“I’ll be there,” I said.

“Let me explain to you where it is.” He began arranging his eggs on his plate in a sort of scrambled-type map.

I put the dishes down to join him at his side, and my hand automatically grazed across his back. Ever since the night before when I’d slept in his arms, a ball of warmth tingled between my shoulder blades. Every stolen glance, every touch, unfurled it deeper into my chest where it took root.

It was like I couldn’t keep myself from touching him either. I’d done the same thing earlier when I’d handed him his milk instead of placing it in front of him just so our fingers would brush. That spark he gave off was addicting, comforting, and he knew it. Which must be why he always touched me right back. I’d have to try to control myself, though, because the captain might see our shared caresses.

His lips tipped up in a smile as he put a hand around my waist to urge me closer. “This is us.” He pointed to the fork and spoon lying on top of each other.

“How appropriate,” I said wryly.

He seemed to misread my tone because he glanced at me then separated the utensils. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said, confused. “I meant that the utensils are made of metal. What did you think I meant?”

He gestured down at his plate. “That spooning leads to forking.”

I snorted. “Well, in a way we’ve already done the forking, which was done before last night’s spooning. So get your mind out of the gutter and show me where this cockpit is.”

His gaze heated as it slipped to my mouth. “Say cockpit again.”

“Okay.” I moistened my lips. “Cockpit.”

With a groan, he pulled me into his lap. “That mouth of yours is going to get you into serious trouble.”

“You know you like it.”

“I love it.”

Hearing that word, love, roll from his mouth fluttered wings through my body. I leaned my back against his chest so he’d hold me tighter against him. “The fork and spoon can be on top of each other. It’s okay.”

“I didn’t know if…”

“Nesbit didn’t do anything to me, Mase. Not really,” I said. “He came close, sure, but whatever came in with you yesterday stopped him from getting that far.”

He sighed and pressed a kiss to the nape of my neck. “I don’t want anything to ever happen to you, Absidy. And I will do whatever it takes to make sure nothing does. You got that?”

“I got it,” I said, nuzzling his jaw line. “But explain something to me? Did you follow the ghosts in here or did the ghosts follow you?”

“That’s a strange story.” His hands clasped around mine on my lower stomach and pulled me higher into his lap.

“I’d love to hear it. Then you can map out your cockpit for me.” I squirmed against him until he gripped my hips and gasped.

“Be careful or I’ll bend you over this gurney so fast your head will spin,” he warned, his breaths ragged against my neck.

I smiled up at him, enjoying how crazy I could make him within seconds. “Start talking.”

“I was in the… I was flying the ship in the room that I do that in. Whatever haunts us generally stays away from the cockpit, but not this time. The door flew open, and I could hear screaming. Not the usual screams you hear on this ship,” he said, his expression troubled. “Absidy screams. So I came running.”

“You heard me from the third floor?”

“It sounded like you were right outside the door. Of course you weren’t, but I had to know you were okay. I kept hearing your name, over and over, almost like a hiss. Doors opened and slammed closed behind me like something was urging me on.” He looked at me, his eyes agonized. “It was like whatever is on this ship with us was racing after you, too, searching for you.”

“Like it wanted to help.” I hung my head, so desperate to understand. “It doesn’t make any sense, though. No ghost has ever tried to help me before. None of them. The ones that aren’t violent have never wanted anything to do with me. Why is now any different?”

“You seem to have all sorts of strange effects on people. And ghostly things, too.”

I sighed. “Well, I want answers.”

“You’ll get one of them sooner rather than later.” He pointed back at his plate. “That’s us. Spooning and forking like the wild utensils we are.”

I laughed. Feozva, it felt good to do that, and after all I’d been through in the last week, I didn’t think I’d be doing much of it ever again. Only Mase could distract me from the total disintegration called my life. Once he’d explained how to get to the cockpit, he pushed me off his lap and rushed to the door.

“See you at nine,” he said, his hand already on the lever.

“But…” I righted myself after being unceremoniously dumped on my feet. “You said ten.”

“Did I?” he said with a wink and was gone.

* * *

I didn’t know if I should be afraid anymore of what lurked on this ship, or if the ghosts had just granted me a one-time reprieve due to what had almost happened. It was strange to think that maybe I didn’t need to feel that blanket terror I associated with them, and I didn’t trust it. Because what if I had this all wrong and they really did want to hurt me?

Just in case, I popped in my last piece of iron. My last one. I worried my lip as I zipped up my coat, my gaze aimed at the broken light I’d have to pass under after I hurried past the Vicious door. Just the thought of walking by it again prickled the back of my neck. But Mase, and maybe, hopefully, please let her be on that ship, Ellison, waited for me once I passed it.

That thought put one foot in front of the other along the opposite side of the hallway as Randolph’s room and the rest of the caved-in doors. Maybe somehow finding Ellison would help me find Randolph. I didn’t know how, but maybe.

Chromium, vanadium, titanium. Vicious.

I slowed, creeping along the opposite wall, while dread spiked my heartbeat into a jagged rhythm. What exactly had happened here when the ship had been called Vicous? Why had those creatures been hung? And who would do that? Whatever had happened here, it was something that paired well with the ship’s true name.

When I finally slid into the shadows behind the broken, spinning light, I ran to the right and to the elevator, relief quickening my feet. The elevator rose in a cacophony of squeaks and groans, then once on the third floor, I stepped out into a wide room. While Mase had explained his scrambled egg map, I’d converted each lump to the periodic table. Eggs to elements. Someone should write a song about that.

If I went through the door straight in front of me, I’d eventually wind up in the engine room. Instead, I turned left toward the cockpit, each step echoing in the cavernous room. Tall, wooden crates piled high with sacks of the teralinguas’ diet, dried vegetables and grains, wound a maze from one side of the room to the other. Above my head, a single hanging light flickered, and beyond it, shadows crawled down the sacks and squirmed unease into my gut.

I breathed deep and walked faster. Between mercury and copernicium, I came to a closed door, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to knock or walk right on in. It seemed rude to just barge inside, but on the other hand, Mase never knocked on the dining room door, though I supposed that was different. I settled on a compromise and knocked while I entered.

The door opened on a small room filled with a giant control panel of various sized levers and a rainbow of flashing buttons. In one of two pilot chairs sat a grinning Mase, looking over his shoulder at me, his eyes dancing with the twinkling lights. But behind him and above the control panel through a sheet of glass was what took my breath away.

Millions of stars rocketed past us in white streaks, and millions more scattered across the dark sky, flickering us toward them like an infinite amount of stunning beacons.

“Oh,” I whispered, and my throat tightened. My eyes brimmed with tears.

Yes, I’d seen the stars like this before, but not since I’d been aboard the Nebulous with Pop and Ellison. We’d stand at the windows and look out just before bed so, according to Pop, the stars would shine down on our dreams and keep us company. Pretty sure he said that more for my benefit than Ellison’s so I could learn to put my fears behind me. Standing there and looking at them always made me feel so small, so insignificant, that all the problems I thought I had seemed to sail away with each passing star.

Could that be why Ellison came out here to deep space? But what problems could she have?

Mase held out a hand and guided me to him while the tears spilled over. “You okay?”

“It’s just been so long since I’ve seen them,” I choked out, folding myself into his lap. “How can you not?”

“Cry at things like this view, you mean? Because I’m a pilot. I have to keep my eyes on the controls, and it’s hard to do that if I’m crying all over the place. But don’t let that stop you. It is quite a sight, though, isn’t it?” He wrapped his arms around me, and neither of us said anything for the longest time. We just sat there, together, star-gazing and tracing each other’s fingers clasped tight between our own.

“Where is she?” I finally asked.

“We still have a little while. See this light here?” He pointed to a red button on the bottom of the control panel. “I have it set to light up if it detects any life forms aboard her ship once we get close enough.”

I nodded, ticking my gaze between it and the stars. “What if I never see her again?”

“It will hurt,” he said. He handled pain better than I did, that was obvious, but I could still hear it in the tightening of his voice. That kind of hurt can never be forgotten.

“How do you do it?” I looked up at him, at the long curl of his eyelashes, at the strength in his jaw, mesmerized. “Cope, I mean, with all that you’ve lost.”

“In a way, I did what you did. I fixated on something, being a pilot, like you fixated on iron. Up here, nothing is as bad as it seems. My problems, my past—I can handle it all when I’m up here. I can handle it…not great, but better.”

“Even aboard a haunted ship?”

He sat silent a long moment, considering, a deep V etched between his eyebrows. “I guess the ghosts are good at distracting me from the…guilt.”

Arguing that it wasn’t his fault the Byrians dropped the bombs would probably scratch open his wounds, so I kept my mouth shut. From what I knew about Mase, no amount of finger-pointing would lighten the burden he’d placed on himself. Not that I could blame him though. If our roles were reversed and I’d lost my family, I’d let survivor’s guilt eat away at me until I was nothing but an empty shell. But up here among the stars, Mase allowed himself to mourn without it hollowing out his will to live.

Still, that troubled crease in his forehead marred his perfect face more than any scar ever would. I tried to even it out with a trail of gentle kisses up his cheek and a change in subject.

“I’ve seen you before, you know,” I murmured against his bristly stubble.

He tilted his head so my lips could travel farther up, his eyes half-closed. The kind of power I had over him, the kind that seemed to melt him as much as he did me, was intoxicating. “Hmm?”

“I saw you in the Waiting Room arguing with some older guy. And don’t laugh too hard, but I was checking out your ass.”

His eyes snapped open. “What? You were checking out … When? I know I would’ve seen you.”

“The day before I came aboard. At the Sky Dock, which I call the Waiting Room because—”

“Yeah, I got it, college girl. Because of all the waiting.” He squeezed me around the middle until I let out a squeal.

“Your back was turned and you were arguing with an older guy.”

“The chef,” he said, nodding. “The one who quit. I didn’t care about him since his food sucked, but the captain sent me after him.” He shrugged. “I tried to tell him the ship wasn’t really haunted, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job. You were checking out my ass?”

“I had to. It was right there, and as soon as I came aboard this ship and I saw you, I knew…” Finishing that thought would be too embarrassing.

“You knew it was an ass match?” he asked with a grin.

I snorted.

“Did you like what you saw?”

I slid a hand down underneath him to give him a pinch, but he must’ve guessed what I had planned and beat me to it, only inside my pants.

“Hey!” I laughed. “Yes, I liked what I saw, okay? Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.” He touched his nose to mine while he kneaded my butt , the skin on skin contact shooting a thrill to my center. It multiplied when the squeezing turned into a steady rhythm that rocked my hips forward. I had the sudden urge to straddle him just so I’d have better access to grind him, but before I got the chance, he took my next breath with a kiss.

Slow and deep, it roused every nerve in my body. It made me ache for those lips to explore every part of me and for that tongue to do more wicked things than it already had. But for him to do that, he’d have to stop kissing my mouth and I refused to let him. I slid my hands up his shoulders to the back of his head to make sure he never stopped. When I raked my fingers through his hair just to taste more of his lips, he let out a moan and pulled away, breathless.

“Absidy,” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Hopefully turning you on,” I said, nibbling his ear. “Is it working?”

“Uh-huh.”

His squeezing on my ass lessened in force, but I had no control over my hips at that point. They continued to thrust, and underneath the one rubbing against his belly, his lack of control went rigid. He circled a hand to my front, still down my pants, and fisted the fabric so that it gathered between my legs in a delicious squeeze. My eyes fell shut, and I gasped as everything below my waistline went damp.

“You started it,” I breathed. “You’re the one who put your hands down my pants first.”

He pressed a rough kiss to my lips, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “And I’m in no hurry to get them out. Did you bring any potatoes?”

I threw back my head and laughed.

“We have only a couple minutes until we come to your sister’s ship. Not enough time for me to fuck you properly.”

“Oh? There’s a proper way?” I asked, gazing out at the sea of stars.

“Slow,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear. “So slow that it drives you crazy.” He shifted underneath me so I felt the thickness of his erection pressing into my thigh.

Every word out of that sexy mouth, every grind of his hips into the backs of my thighs, pulsed waves of slick heat to my core. I wanted this man almost as much as I’d wanted anything in my entire life. And I would have him. Just not right now. Not this close to Ellison’s ship.

“I need to get away from you for a minute,” I said and stood.

He chuckled and leaned back in his seat, putting his hands behind his head and exposing the massive pipe in his pants for the whole universe to see. But his smile faded the more he watched me. “I think you have it all wrong.”

“What do I have wrong?”

“The whole sail thing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s turning your back on humanity, like some people say. Deep space is dangerous, but to some, it’s worth the risk.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How so?”

“The day my family was killed was the day I was supposed to start training at the Ring Guild. My parents were so proud. They hoped one day I’d be in charge of one of the Ringer space stations.” He stood to glare out at the stars. “After the attack, the Ringers wouldn’t take me because of my blindness, but there were too many rules with them anyway and I’d be forced to stay in one place. Up here, away from everything except the stars and the unknown, I’m free.”

“You don’t think you’d be free somewhere else?” Not on a haunted ship in deep space, for example?

Instead of answering, he shrugged out of his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his white thermal.

I blinked, too stunned to do anything else. Faint, circular scars marked the inside of both forearms along the veins. Dozens of them.

“No,” he said, his voice quiet. “I can’t.”

I swallowed the thick lump in my throat and grazed my fingertips up and down his arm. “Track marks.”

“Yes.” He studied me for a long time, as if to gauge my reaction. “The captain saved me when he hired me to pilot this ship, and I’ve been clean ever since. Dealing with my family’s death was too much, but when I’m in deep space, it reminds me how unimportant I really am, and for some reason that makes it much easier to cope and move forward.”

It took a long while for me to process everything he’d just said. Finally, I said, “You freed yourself.”

He rooted through an inside pocket of his coat, plucked what he needed from it, and thrust it into my face. My wanted photo. He still had it?

He must’ve read my quizzical gaze because he said, “There’s a bounty on you, you’re on a spaceship full of ghosts, men who’re trying to kill you, and another man who can’t stop thinking about you. And yet I’ve seen your bravery more than I’ve seen you scared.” He lifted a finger to trace my jaw. “Somewhere along the line, you must’ve decided to be free of everything you told yourself you were afraid of.”

Had I? I didn’t remember making a conscious decision to be free. But Mase, this man who both challenged and comforted me, had showed me through his kisses and his words what freedom could look like, what it could feel like. Was it time to embrace it and make it my own? Or had I already done that? Could I stop fearing the past so I could face my unknown future?

“Do you think that’s what I’m doing?” I asked. “Sailing?”

“Could be. Maybe all those soldiers who quit fighting the Black War needed freedom from something in their pasts, too. Besides, who wouldn’t want to be up here where the view is excellent?” he asked, his mismatched eyes aimed at me. He stepped closer to drop kisses on both corners of my mouth. “Three minutes until your sister’s ship.”

“But if Ellison is sailing, what part of her past could she want to put behind her?” Hers had been spent trying to protect me. As far as I knew, she had nothing to cope with except what I’d unintentionally put her through, though maybe some of those memories haunted her like they did me.

“I’m sure she had a reason to come all the way out here.” He kissed me full-on, distracting me from my next what-if. Then he pulled away to glance at the control panel.

“One minute.”

We stood silent for the rest of that minute, searching the stars for my sister and watching for a flash of the red button. I didn’t dare blink in case I missed anything.

And then there was my sister’s ship. A small speck of floating space dust at first, it grew larger the closer we flew. It hung among the stars like a dark and spinning metal puppet, all alone, drifting to nowhere.

I gnawed on my lip, unable to draw another breath because that light wasn’t flashing. Already her ship took up most of the lower half of the glass, and still nothing. My heartbeat slammed an echo for her through my head: El-lis-son, El-lis-son, El-lis-son. But there would never be an answer. She wasn’t there.

Defeat punched me in the gut even though deep down I’d known she wouldn’t be on that ship all along. I turned in to Mase, grasping at his coat sleeves, trying to make sense of my sister who wasn’t there but had to be somewhere, my gaze never leaving the tail end of her small ship as it drifted past, and then disappeared.

“Absidy…” A pained look rolled across his face. “I’m s—”

“No. Don’t.” I looked at him then, at the beautiful scars and those mysterious eyes that still allowed him to see his life so clearly. He wore his reminders of his survival and strength with pride. Maybe it was time I had a reminder, too, something other than iron. Something I could hold on to. Something like myself.

I wore no iron, and I only had a small piece in my mouth. My armor had been mostly stripped off, and yet here I stood, still alive aboard a haunted ship with ghosts who knew something about Ellison.

Maybe in Mase’s definition, I was sailing. Or had started to anyway. Could I face my past, be who the universe wanted me to be, and move forward into the unknown? Was I brave enough to do that? For Ellison and myself, I had to try.

“Mase,” I said. “I think I might be ready.”

His eyebrows lifted while he studied me closely. “You think it’ll give you answers?” he asked, and I was grateful he didn’t say ‘are you sure?’ because if he had, I wasn’t sure what my response would’ve been.

My stomach twisted into knots at the thought of what I had to do, but I didn’t see any other way. I needed to find out why my sister decided to jump a ship and fly to the middle of nowhere and then vanish, why my blood drew the vampire out of some men, and what this ship’s ghosts knew about all of it.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said, fisting my hands.

Mase planted a kiss on the top of my head, his expression grim. “What do you need from me?”

“I need you nearby, I guess. Just in case.”

“Just in case what exactly?”

“I don’t know.”

“If things get too crazy… We should have a safe word or something.” He snapped his fingers. “Like potato.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Okay. Potato. But Mase, I don’t really know what to do. They always demand I let them in to cross them over, but I have no idea how. I don’t know anything.” I held his gaze for the longest time, so glad he was by my side.

“Well, they can’t touch you with iron in your mouth,” he said. “So maybe they somehow get inside through your mouth.”

Maybe. Every ghost in my past had seemed transfixed with my mouth between their beatings. But I couldn’t exactly let them inside me if they were slamming me into walls either. “But…then what?”

“Then you hurry them up to cross through you with iron?”

I’d never thought of that before. My focus had always been on keeping ghosts far away from me, not inviting them inside for chitchat and tea. But the only iron I had left was now the size of a speck of dust. I quickly pocketed it.

Mase gave a nervous kind of chuckle. “We have no idea what we’re doing, do we?”

“Absolutely not. But thank you,” I said and laced my fingers through his. Both our gazes landed on the pile of our fingers clasped tight between us. “When should we do this?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

At my nod, he slid his hands around my waist and pulled me close, so close I could feel his heartbeat thumping against my chest. When his mouth captured mine, all the doubts and terror I had about my decision gathered into my lips and poured into him. He held me tighter, the fire inside his kiss matching mine flame for flame.

The cockpit door flew open. “What the…?”

Mase and I jerked apart. Captain Glenn stood staring at us, his expression a mix of shock and horror.

“Oh, Mason, tell me you’re not fucking this kid,” he pleaded.