Before lunch, Mase helped me clean up the dining room while Poh and Randolph went to the infirmary for another gurney table. We probably should’ve stuck with it in the first place, but our hope that the ship had been cleared of all threats had clouded reality. Lesson learned.

Despite the crew’s continued search for the doppelganger, it hadn’t been found again. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be found until it was good and ready, and then it would likely find us.

“This is why we can’t have nice things on this ship,” Mase muttered at the pile of table and broken dishes. “Except you, of course. You’re extra nice.”

“Only to you.” I handed him a garbage bag but not because of my niceness. “I’m going to make cupcakes for dessert tonight. If you’re lucky, I’ll leave a special one on your chair with hearts all over it.”

He took my wrapped wrist, and I stiffened, hoping he wouldn’t ask about it. Or why I had wrapped another rag next to the first. With everything going on lately, I refused to voice what was happening—the scales were slowly spreading. It was stupid, but I couldn’t handle any more more terror. Not right then. But I would deal with it, and soon.

Mase dropped a kiss on the top of my head, the ends of his blond hair tickling my nose. “I knew there was a reason I love you.”

“Well, you should.” I gently unfolded myself from his grip, my gaze pinned to his lit-up arm under his heavy coat. “Remember when you thought you saw Parker on this ship? In the hallway when it was still haunted?”

His jaw muscles twitched, and a swatch of hair tumbled over his cloud-laced eye. “I remember.”

“I told you that I passed him through me, but…that wasn’t true. It wasn’t him. It was the ghost of the old captain on this ship. You saw Parker, but it was that thing, that doppelganger, I think. Which means it was here with us long before we stopped on Orin.”

Mase nodded. “I didn’t see him—it—before we stopped on Mayvel to hire a new chef.”

Could the ship have picked it up around the same time I boarded? Had it been hiding in the air vents this whole time, and we’d been too distracted by ghosts to notice? Yet again, the question of why beat at the back of my head. What did it want? And why did it want us dead?

“I have another gun in my quarters I could give to you if you’d rather have that than two ice picks.” He’d already tucked the one attached to the table rubble into the back of his pants. “For more protection.” He gazed at me while absently trying to open the wrong end of the garbage bag, the hand of his lit arm trembling.

He was always trying to protect me, had been since he’d gifted me iron all those weeks ago, and I loved him even more for it. I pushed up onto my tiptoes and kissed his scarred cheek, distracting him so I could take the bag away from him.

“I prefer close-quarter combat,” I said.

“Damn.” He grinned, but the corners of his mouth pinched a little, as if he were in pain. “My fugitive ghost magnet is hardcore.”

“To the iron center,” I agreed.

After a quiet, light lunch of bean and roasted vegetable wraps, everyone appeared lost in their own thoughts. The crew was wrapped in coats or blankets and shivering, except me. I felt nothing.

Poh stopped tinkering with the Mind-I, nodding down at the small plastic computer chip from her stance in front of the hallway door.

Captain Glenn paused his water glass at his mouth and glanced at her. “You have it?”

“I may have something.” With a deep breath, Poh aimed her arm at the wall behind the captain's head. An outline of the Vicious appeared.

“Impressive.” Captain Glenn rose to his feet and turned to look at the projection.

Poh pointed to a cluster of red dots near one edge. “This is us, six lifeforms, right here.”

The captain nodded. "As there should be."

Poh indicated another red dot on the opposite side of the ship. “And there’s the seventh.”

The chilled air solidified in my lungs as I stared at the lone blinking dot. It pulsed near the engine room. The same room Red had warned me away from even before we'd landed on Orin. She must’ve known. Why else would she demand I let her in so she could show me Nesbit staring at himself. Only it hadn’t been himself. It had been that thing wearing his skin, and Red had been trying to warn me.

Mase stood and hunched over the gurney to get a better look. "Holy shit."

Randolph’s hands worried at his napkin, and the wine-colored hue of his cheeks drained away. "My thoughts exactly."

Captain Glenn turned around, and the ship's image warped around his mass. The single red dot pulsed at the side of his neck. "It said we know too much and that it wants us dead..." He looked at each of us while he rubbed his jaw. "Now that we know exactly where it is, I intend to ask it why. I won't tell anyone to come with me to track it, because it might not end well for any of us.”

“Ask questions first. Shoot second.” Mase drew his gun from the back of his waistband and strode around the end of the gurney toward Poh and the door. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”

I glanced at Ellison across the gurney. “Me too, and don't bother objecting. You know I’ll just do it anyway. You’ll be okay?”

She swallowed the last of her food down with a loud gulp. Some of her color had returned, and her hair was still wet from her shower. I’d accompanied her to the bathroom on the first floor because I refused to leave her alone for too long. She’d patched herself up pretty well except for the swelling and deep gash in her bottom lip.

“Of course,” she said. “Yes. Go.”

The lone red dot crawled across Captain Glenn’s neck, slowly on the move as if it had heard our plans to hunt it. Then the entire ship’s map blipped out when Poh powered off the Mind-I.

“Let’s go.” Poh kept her narrowed gaze trained on me while she pocketed the Mind-I.

“Are you two okay staying in here?” Captain Glenn asked Randolph and Ellison.

“All the vents have been blocked off in here, the kitchen, and the stasis pantry,” Ellison said. “We’ll be fine.”

“We have the telecom in case something happens,” Randolph added. “Just go and get rid of that thing.”

I stood and rounded the gurney to Mase, my stomach tying around the food I’d just eaten at the thought of leaving them. “We’ll need a secret code or something so they know it’s truly us and they can unlock the door.”

Mase wrapped me close to him and pressed a kiss to my temple. “That’s my college girl.”

“Well, wait a minute.” Ellison held up her hands. “How do we know any of us are who we say we are in the first place?”

“None of us has tried to kill anyone in the last ten minutes,” Mase said. “I’d say that’s good enough.”

“The job that Ellison hired us for this morning,” Poh said, glancing at Captain Glenn. “That’s our secret code.”

All eyes shifted toward me. I hated being the center of attention, especially when I didn’t know why.

“What job?” I asked.

I searched the crew’s faces to clue me in to whatever I had missed, but they all stared resolutely back, even Randolph who held his chin high. Except Ellison, whose shoulders sagged slightly and wouldn’t keep my gaze.

“I’ll tell you later,” Ellison said.

“But how will you know it’s me if I don’t know the code?” I asked.

“Alive,” Poh said, flicking her white-blonde ponytail off her shoulder. “There’s your code.”

"Fine." Captain Glenn herded those of us who were doppelganger-hunting out into the hallway in front of him. "Bring a weapon if you have one."

I stopped in the hallway to peer back at Ellison, more questions on the tip of my tongue. Alive? That was the job she’d hired everyone for? What was she not telling me? She worried her swollen lip with her teeth while she gazed at me, her forehead creased, but the captain shut the door behind him before I got any answers. The lock clicked into place on the other side.

We crept down the hallway in silence, our breaths pluming in the air. The light swung as we neared, harder and faster, crawling horrific shadows up and down the walls.

After a right turn, Captain Glenn slapped the elevator button then turned to us. "Nobody separates from this group, you hear me? Not for any reason. We move together, or we don't move at all."

When the elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and we slipped inside.

“Poh, give us another visual on the engine room,” he said.

She aimed the Mind-I at the shiny doors, and the ship’s map appeared there with clusters of blinking red dots. Two in the kitchen. Four in the elevator. One slinking away from the engine room. Toward us.

Mase checked and rechecked his gun, the metallic clicks and snaps the only sound as we rode up to the third floor. Captain Glenn curled his fingers tight around the long dagger at his side. Poh stared straight ahead with no weapon in sight except herself.

The elevator shuddered to a stop and dinged open. We stepped out. The engine room door stood open as if whatever lurked inside had been expecting us, as if we were walking right into its lair.

“Did you leave the door open?” Mase muttered as we strode toward it.

“I did not,” Poh said.

I glanced at her for any indication that she was lying, that she knew this was a trap, but her expression stayed hard, her pace determined. Which didn’t prove anything one way or another.

Captain Glenn edged up close to the doorway to peer inside, then jerked his head for Mase to enter with his gun blazing if he needed to. Mase swung around the corner, gun leveled toward the right then left. He backed up a few paces behind the wall out of sight, his half-blind gaze flickering around the room. Poh followed, then me, and the captain brought up the rear. He closed the door behind him silently.

The four of us spread throughout the room wordlessly, the whir of the engine in the center drowning out our footsteps, but not the rush of blood between my ears. Poh aimed her Mind-I at a wall while the captain and Mase crept toward the air vent high on the opposite side of the room. I tiptoed around to one tip of the engine to keep everyone and the door in my line of sight.

Poh zoomed in to the engine room. Only four dots pulsed there. Not the doppelganger’s fifth dot. A moment of panic twitched my legs, and I immediately wanted to run back to Ellison and Randolph. But they would be okay. We’d made sure of it by blocking the vents. Yet greasy dread swamped my gut that something beyond the obvious wasn’t right.

Poh zoomed the map back out, searching. Mase and Captain Glenn turned away from the wall with the air vent, listening, waiting.

Poh’s map showed six dots on the ship. Only six. But that made no sense. We flew in deep space, so it wasn’t as if anyone could open the door and step out for a smoke. Where was the seventh dot?

Poh waved the captain and Mase over to see. I stayed put next to the engine, its bulk towering above my head.

I blinked. Above my head. Top and bottom. Two lifeforms could be right on top of each other and look like one. My stomached clenched.

With jerky movements, I lifted my head to search the high titanium ceiling above the other crew members. All clear. And above mine? I reached up to the sharp point of the engine as if I could feel it tremble with something other than power, but with life clinging to it too.

A loud gasp came over the telecom. “Medical emergency!”

Ellison.

No. I touched my hand to the engine, the rest of my body coiled to run to her. But the engine felt warm instead of cool. Fleshy. Not right.

“Where is this thing, damn it?” Mase shouted, moving toward the door.

“I need to get Randolph to the infirmary,” Ellison yelled over the telecom. “Now!”

Dread gathered at the nape of my neck, lifting my hair with a surge of goosebumps. I gazed up. My hand covered another hand, shaped exactly like mine. I slid my gaze up a slender bare arm to a shoulder, across the safety pin that held a metal-spiked corset together, up into a face I recognized with hair and chains cascading down either side. Two black eyes connected with mine before an unholy wail filled the engine room.

It snatched my wrist and yanked me forward. The low, bright orange safety barrier surrounding the engine caught me at the knees. I plummeted ass over ankles in slow motion.

A gunshot rang, drowning out Ellison’s next panicked plea for help over the telecom.

The metal barrier dragged down my shins as I continued falling until it reached the curve of my feet. That seemed to slam me forward quicker. I took the brunt of the impact with my hands and forearms, then my chin, which crashed my molars together in a painful chatter. Engine oil spattered up into my face.

Another wail. Another gunshot. The door of the engine room crashed open, and something shaped like me skittered out at breakneck speed.

I hauled in a breath. “Ellison!”

Mase leaped over the barrier, his cowboy boots splashing in the engine oil, and towed me to my feet. “We’re going. Come on.”

Captain Glenn and Poh sprinted out the door toward it. Mase and I clung to their heels. Once the elevator dinged, we threw ourselves inside.

“Give me a reading on it,” Captain Glenn demanded.

Poh aimed the Mind-I at the elevator doors. There, already on the second floor, a lone red dot flew toward the dining room. I jabbed at the second floor button even though someone had already hit it.

The doors slid open, and a steady crash from farther away rumbled the walls. Ellison’s screams over the telecom had stopped, somehow magnifying the crashes in a suffocating, horrific echo. I flung myself out of the elevator, ice pick at the ready though now I wished I had something more long range. The four of us turned the corner underneath the swinging light. It bounced shadows down the hallway, elongating the shape that stood in front of the dining room door, stretching it up toward the grated ceiling.

The thing didn’t look like me or Ellison. It looked like a monster from the bowels of hell. Two long, segmented legs bracketed a lean, gray body, most of which consisted of sharp black eyes and enormous horns that curved off either side its face. And all of it pointed directly at us. As did Poh’s gun it held in its taloned hands. It wailed and charged at us.

Mase fired off two shots. The thing dodged them both by leaping on the wall and ceiling while still barreling toward us. It aimed and shot Poh’s gun. A blue laser narrowly missed Poh and zinged into the Vicious room door.

“Draw it away from them!” Captain Glenn shouted, then he turned around and zipped left down the hallway toward the infirmary.

Poh yanked at my arm to follow while Mase stood his ground and fired off more rounds. All of them missed. The thing moved too quickly.

The light swung shadows faster, slamming into the ceiling, throwing all of us into darkness for a split second before the two cords pendulumed in the other direction.

“Come on!” the captain yelled from down the hallway.

Mase fired again. Another wail, so close the light searched the rows of needle-sharp teeth in its mouth. It pulled the trigger of Poh’s gun. The shot went wild.

“Mase!” I shouted from down the hallway.

He turned, and the three of us sprinted after the captain. Behind us, glass shattered. Night blanketed the ship, smothering the air in my lungs just as quick. I reached out blindly at both sides, my feet still pounding titanium at full speed, and snatched at empty air.

A wail at my back scraped icy cold dread up my spine. I opened my mouth to scream, but I had no breath.

Something slid against my left arm, a familiar touch. I grabbed for Mase’s hand. Something rough shackled around my right wrist. That sure better be Poh.

Farther down the hallway, a light inside a room snapped on. Captain Glenn held a door open for us. That promise of safety gave us an extra burst of speed. He ushered us through, slammed the door, then shoved a large metal container in front of it.

A growl sounded from outside, but it soon faded back the way it had come. Toward Ellison. Toward Randolph.

What had the medical emergency been? And why wasn’t Ellison saying anything more over the telecom?

I doubled over to catch my breath while the others sagged against the walls. Poh lit up the Mind-I map again, and we tracked the seventh dot down the hallway we’d just come then right toward the dining room.

“If we can lure it to the cargo area where we kept the teralinguas, we can lock it up there,” Captain Glenn said between gasps.

“With the consumectalons?” Poh asked. “Is that a good idea?”

“Or we can surround it, try to take it out,” Mase said.

“You saw how fast that thing is,” Poh said. “We could distract it somehow, but that’s not me volunteering to be bait. It’s smart. It switched my gun from stun to kill.”

“Shit,” Mase said.

I glanced up at the air vent on the far wall close to the ceiling. The captain and Mase had blocked the vents in the dining room, kitchen, and stasis pantry, but maybe I could break my way through.

“I’m going up through the vents.” I strode toward the back wall. “Someone give me a boost.”

“Hell no, Absidy,” Mase said, jumping in front of me. “What’s keeping it from chasing after you?”

“The Vicious room. The air vent has no grating in front of it, so it would be easier than herding it into the storage area. I can lure it into there, and we can trap it. Now move.” I dodged to his side, but he caught me around the waist. “We need to find out what the medical emergency is with Randolph.”

“Do we?” Poh asked.

I shot her a look over my shoulder that snapped her mouth shut again.

“You’re not going up into the vents, Absidy,” Mase said. “No one is.”

“Rusted balls,” I said through clenched teeth. A telecom attached to the wall in the corner caught my eye, and I crossed toward it and pushed the green button. “Ellison? Do you hear me? Don’t open the door. Ellison? Is Randolph okay? What happened? Don’t open the door.”

The silence held weight, making it impossible to pull in anything more than panicked gasps. Tears burned the backs of my eyes. What had happened in the dining room? They needed us there with them. We were trapped, and no one in here with me was willing to do anything about it. Nothing could happen to them. We’d come too far, been through too much.

“Ellison!” I shouted, my voice breaking in half like the rest of me.

Mase appeared at my side and took my trembling hands away from the telecom to wrap them in his. “Just wait. That’s all we can do right now.” He nodded down at me as if I would agree with him, but I couldn’t.

“It’s on the move,” Poh announced.

On the Mind-I map, the red dot that hovered outside the dining room slid down the hall toward the Vicious room. Slowly, barely moving at all. What was it doing?

Outside the Vicious room, it stopped as if peering inside. Horrible wails lifted the hair on my arms and shuddered my soul. That had sounded like Saelis, a planet’s worth of mournful cries. A shivery wind crawled up my scalp. Not from the outside, but from the inside. I gasped, squirming as if I could get away from myself.

“What’s wrong?” Mase asked me.

I shook my head, unable to answer, and stared at the seventh red dot. It stood in the Vicious room’s doorway for several beats, then rushed inside the room toward the opposite wall and the air vent. Somehow, despite its massive size, it squeezed through and zigzagged up the ninja vent with lightning speed. Gone. But not. It was on the third floor again.

“We’re going.” I tried to jerk away from Mase, but he held fast.

He looked to the captain.

Captain Glenn strode toward the door and shoved the container away. “We circle around past the cargo area. We’re not crossing in front of that…Vicious room in case it’s a trap.”

“And if it’s a trap, anyway?” Mase asked, aiming his gun at the floor.

The captain opened his mouth, closed it again, then settled on holding up his hands. “I don’t know. We’ll make it up as we go.”

“Airtight plan. This will end well, I just know it.” When Poh noticed our glares, she shrugged. “I’m not saying I have a better one.”

“Remember, we stick together. Grab hold of someone,” Captain Glenn ordered.

Mase and I twined our fingers tight. Poh rested her hand on my left shoulder, pulling out a steak knife from somewhere unseen. I supposed my nerves should’ve been jangling alarms at having a knife at my back attached to a person I didn’t trust, but getting to Ellison and Randolph concerned me the most.

The captain took hold of Mase’s coat sleeve then turned off the light in the room. “I’m not turning more on since it could see us. It might see us anyway.”

I squeezed Mase’s hand and heaved a breath.

“Think fast thoughts, everyone,” Mase muttered.

Captain Glenn opened the door.