Sail
Chapter Twenty-Three

I gripped the seat cushion to make sure we were still in real life and to be sure he’d just said what it sounded like. “Wh-what did you say?”

“I said she’ll be glad to see you.” He grinned at the dark tunnel stretching in front of us. His eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled, yet I couldn’t see what color they were. He couldn’t be much more than twenty-five or twenty-six, the same age as Ellison. “She’s always talking about you.”

“She’s here?”

“Yes,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I think we slowed that Saelis down. I don’t see it anywhere.”

“Where is she?”

“Relax. I’m taking you to her right now.”

“Where are we?”

“The Black.”

Captain Glenn had mentioned The Black, the haunted rogue planet orbiting near what was left of Earth. Ships disappeared when they flew too close to it. Because the Saelis took them like they took me? But we were nowhere near it when they boarded the Vicio, at least I didn’t think.

So we had landed on an entire planet full of ghosts, Saelis, and men who wanted me for their own plaything. Just like the Vicio, only bigger. Awesome.

The man must have read the worry probably written all over my face, because he dug in his pants pocket and handed me a little cube of iron. “Ellison told me about your…affliction. Go on. Take it.”

I plucked it from his palm, eyeing him warily. He sure seemed to know a lot about Ellison and me. She and Pop had kept my affliction quiet for the most part. The few people we turned to had no answers and eventually shunned us because I was obviously the devil. Because between brutal ghost attacks, the devil enjoyed anything cute and furry, late-night movie marathons, and the occasional explosive chemistry experiment. It made sense if you didn’t think about it. So why had she told him?

I gripped the iron in my hand, not quite ready to trust him, yet needing to know more. “How do you know Ellison?”

“We met on the Nebulous about three years ago.” He slowed the car to a stop in front of an out-of-place-looking steel door carved into the wall of a tunnel. Before exiting the car, he turned back to me and offered a hand to shake. “My name’s Josh by the way.”

I tipped my chin up in acknowledgement but ignored his hand. “Do you work with the Saelis?”

“Well,” he said and blew out a breath that vibrated his lips together. “There’s no easy answer for that question, but I can promise you I’m one of the good guys. I’m not going to feed you to the wolves, alien or otherwise, okay?” He climbed out of the car and stepped toward the steel door, and I had no choice but to trust him.

Unlike the Vicio, Ellison was here on this haunted planet, and this guy, Josh, knew where she was. He seemed okay, but so had Doctor Daryl in the beginning.

I took a steadying breath, got out of the car, and followed him.

He held up a hand and said, “Wait right here. I’ll just be a second. If you’re seen while I’m gone, use that ice pick I didn’t take from you and do the stabby thing again.”

“You didn’t…take it?” Was he the one who left it in my pocket?

He winked like it was some giant conspiracy, opened the door a crack to peer through, and disappeared. I hoped his brain hadn’t rusted out.

I flattened myself against the tunnel wall and slid down some so the car would keep most of me hidden. Silence pressed in. I couldn’t even hear my heart thrashing in my chest, but I knew it was. Nervous energy ticked my gaze in every direction.

The door opened, and I leaped at the sight of Josh. He thrust a white lab coat and an electronic tablet into my arms.

“You’re going to have to act like you belong in the Nursery because it’s monitored from the glass windows at the top, and there is at least one other doctor checking vital signs in there. Ellison’s in there, too. You’ll see her, not like anyone wouldn’t.” He nodded at me, his dark curls swaying, like he was checking to make sure I understood.

The only thing I understood was that he was in love with my sister, but I had too much on my mind to know how I felt about that.

“Thank you,” I said, and I hoped he could tell I meant it.

“Just remember they’re watching.” He stuck out his hand, and that time I took it. “I have to go get something, but it’s been a pleasure, Absidy Jones.” He hurried to the car and drove away.

Maybe I could like him if he loved my sister. Maybe I could like him a lot if she loved him right back.

I shrugged into the lab coat, buttoned it up to my neck, and settled the tablet into the crook of my elbow. Ready or not, Ellison. Here I come.

Somehow with slick palms, I opened the door into a cavernous room. A low ceiling shadowed the entrance area for about eight feet, in which a few small tables and chairs were scattered. A row of lockers edged two walls, and a food replicator with an out of order sign on it crowded the other.

Where the ceiling climbed, the room brightened. Tube-enclosed beds packed the length of it. Rows and rows of them. Lights and dials attached to the control panels at the foot of the beds gave the room a bluish tint, like the stasis pantry on the Vicio. Inside each of the tubes lay men of all shapes, colors, and sizes dressed in nothing but white hospital gowns. All of them had their eyes closed.

I gritted my teeth to try to keep the unease storming through me from washing over my face. Josh had called this the Nursery, the same name I’d seen on the nametag in Nesbit’s memories. But what was this place?

I walked with purpose, eyes cast down at my tablet that hadn’t been switched on yet. Panic fluttered through my chest as I skated my fingers over the front, back, and sides for a power button. To anyone or anything that might be looking, I likely resembled a teralingua before slaughter.

My finger finally brushed a button, and I pretended to scratch my eyebrow with the corner of the tablet while it powered on. A white glow emanated from it, and then the words Saelis Artificial Intelligence Laboratory flashed across the screen. The same words I’d seen in Nesbit’s memories. Did he come from here? Were these men created by the Saelis? But why?

I flicked my gaze up fast enough to see a massive dark shape prowling behind a sheet of glass that bordered the entire upper half of the room. Saelis, no doubt. A shudder knocked through me so hard, I stopped next to one of the tubes so my knees wouldn’t quake. If I acted like I didn’t belong here, if I messed this up in some way, it could be the end of both my sister and me. No way would I screw this up.

A man in a lab coat a few rows down turned a dial on one of the control panels, then consulted his tablet. Several rows behind him and to his right, a glimmer of long dark hair waved in the bluish light.

Ellison. The urge to shout her name slipped down my throat and pulled it so tight my eyes burned. For a long moment, all I could do was stare over the top of my tablet while I willed away the tears.

Dressed in a matching white lab coat, she eased around the tubes with a graceful fluidity I didn’t inherit. The wrinkle etched into her forehead that she’d had since I was born drew her face into a frown. Driven, focused—that was always Ellison. So what had sent her here?

I moved toward her, though not directly and not at a sprint like I wanted. We had to stay under the Saelis’ radar, but I wasn’t positive I wouldn’t be able to prevent myself from making a tearful scene once I stood near her.

After several long minutes of winding around the room, I finally stood at the bed next to her while she studied the dials. I opened my mouth to say something, but words congealed on my tongue.

“Lots of locks make pretty socks,” I finally sang in a whisper. “Don’t you think, Dr. Jones?”

She froze. The frown washed from her face with a sharp gasp, then she worked to control herself by setting her mouth into a wobbly line. She started to turn her head toward me, but must have thought better of it.

“Abs…what are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I said, my voice shaky.

She strode toward me and shoved her tablet under my nose as if to show me something. With her other hand, she took mine and squeezed it hard between our lab coats. The silky hair that tumbled to her waist feathered our clasped fingers, and the memory of curling up next to her when I was little just so she’d hold my hand and make everything better nearly crumbled me to my knees.

“When was the date of your last period?” she asked.

Of all the things to ask me right then. “We’re doing this now?”

“Just point to a day.” Her tablet screen showed a December calendar, but I didn’t even know what day it was.

I tried to think, but life on Mayvel seemed ages ago and I had many more pressing things to discuss than my period. I swiped the screen back to November and pointed at a random day in the middle that might have been right. “That one.”

Ellison stiffened. “We have to get you out of here. You should have never come.”

“That’s a hell of a thing for you say to me,” I hissed, digging my fingernails into her hand. “You should have never come here.”

“Saelis killed a woman earlier for bleeding,” she murmured through gritted teeth. “She didn’t even know.”

Had that been the woman I’d heard screaming? Then why was I standing here when I’d been bleeding when the Saelis abducted me from the Vicio? It made no sense, but neither did thousands of other things. Like why my sister was working in a Nursery run by Saelis.

“Why are you here?” I asked again.

She looked at me then, and the life in her gray eyes sparked bright with tears while she took me in. My sister who never cried was crying, and it splintered my heart. “To save you,” she whispered.

“What else do I need saving from?”

She unclasped her hand from mine then tucked her chin to her chest while she looked at her tablet. “Yes, doctor, I think that’s a wise decision.”

The hair rose along my neck. My gaze tracked the tears glittering down Ellison’s cheeks, and while she swiped them away, I sidestepped in front of her to block her from probing eyes. Saelis or man, I couldn’t tell. Sweat beaded across my upper lip while my throat worked on a swallow.

“Very good, then,” I said with all the authority I could muster and took a dismissive step away from her before I turned back around.

The male doctor stood several feet behind Ellison, gazing at us both quizzically. Above him through the glass windows, nothing loomed, at least that I could see.

“You’re both new, aren’t you?” the doctor asked, and his tone held an accusation. The lights on the high ceiling shined on his mustache and made it look greasy somehow. The hair rolled across his upper lip as he adjusted something in his mouth. Iron?

My hands went clammy, and I fought the urge to wipe them on my lab coat. I’d fooled most everyone into believing I was a boy aboard the Vicio; I should have no trouble fooling him about belonging here.

“Arrived just today,” I said with a bright smile and gestured toward my sister. “Dr. Jones has agreed to show me around, so it shouldn’t take too long to acclimate to my new surroundings. She was just going to show me which locker is mine. Weren’t you, Dr. Jones?”

“Locker?” She blinked. “Y-yes, of course.”

Real smooth, Ellison. “Well, there’s no time like the present.” I gave the doctor a curt nod, then turned on my heel and strode toward the entrance like I owned the place.

Ellison matched my pace, her cheeks rosy. “Doctors don’t have lockers.”

“They do now.” Footsteps sounded behind us, and I gripped her elbow to speed up.

“What did you say your name was?” he asked.

We turned sharp corners around the beds, but he was in hot pursuit. To the Saelis who may or may not be behind the windows anymore, we probably looked like mice running through a maze, even though we weren’t running. Yet.

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” he said, his voice rising.

Every tube slid down the bodies with a mechanical whir. The men’s eyes snapped open, and all of them bolted upright, their gazes aimed at the pair of us. They looked at us with human eyes, but their synchronized movements swept violent trembles across my shoulders. Did the doctor set them free?

I gripped Ellison’s shaking hand tighter and ran. Heads swiveled after us.

The door was just ten feet away. Eight. Six.

Movement behind us, a collective sliding then hundreds of bare feet slapping the floor.

The low ceiling shadowed us. Almost to the door.

The doctor snatched Ellison’s lab coat, spun her around, and pointed a menacing finger at her face. “Jones. I know that name from the newsfeeds. You’re that fugitive, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said, and when he turned toward me, I smashed a locker door into his face. “I am.”

He stumbled back and held both hands to his nose. Behind him, the throng of puppets walking toward us stopped as if they’d hit a wall. Their eyes glowed green. Fingers curled into fists. Snarls peeled back their lips. The doctor’s hands fell away as he turned. Blood streamed down the sides of his mustache, and his mouth gaped open in horror.

Ellison and I didn’t wait to find out what would happen next. I wrenched open the door, slammed it closed behind us, and ran into a metal wall. The car.

A pair of cowboy boots sauntered around the front through the headlights. My gaze travelled up a pair of black pants, a black smock with sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms, a pair of sinful lips, and blue and silver eyes puckered by a sexy scar.

Mase flashed his customary grin. “I’m here to rescue you.”

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