Crispin landed both ships near the forest on Mayvel where I’d supposedly found my inner serial killer. In a snow-packed clearing that might have been some poor farmer’s crops that butted up against a dense line of trees, we were still a couple of miles from Smixton College. We had no way to camouflage the ships since Poh’s chameleon skill only stretched so far, so they stuck out like two spaceships in the middle of a snow-packed field. We would need to be speedy.

I was thankful we still had a planet to land on. Were the Saelis here already? Or were they gathering an entire fleet? I hoped I had enough time to stop them. However I planned to do that.

Poh only had to threaten Crispin’s life once before sending him on a mission with a message for Moon Dragon and Franco. We were to meet at a negative five-star hotel that charged by the hour near us. After that? We would form our plan to save the human race and hope for the best.

The frozen air iced up my lungs as I stepped off the ship, but it tasted good, fresh, like home. I had dressed myself like my alter ego James with a puffy coat, fur hood, and gloves, but hidden underneath was me in my spiked corset and leather. Normal on the outside and havoc on the inside, in more ways than one.

One half-ass threat had convinced Crispin to bring fuel for both ships so Poh could accompany me under the cover of night just to drop me off at the hotel. She hid her scales and fangs underneath the hood of a dark green coat.

The snow snapped under our feet as we walked in silence. My thoughts squirmed too much with worry and seeing Moon again to notice if it was awkward or not, but eventually Poh flicked her yellow gaze to me.

“I lost both legs and most of my arms in the same ship accident that killed my husband and son,” she said. “In case you hadn’t puzzled that out.”

“Yes.” I offered a sad smile. “And I’m sorry.”

“I’ll help you find your sister and pretty boy again, and not just so she can pay me for keeping you alive.”

“So far. We have a long way to go yet.”

“I know. I know,” she said, and I thought I saw a hint of a smile underneath her hood.

Soon we came upon the motel, a dingy two-story building half eroded by time, and made our way to a bottom-floor room in the corner nearest us. I took a breath and knocked, my chest weighted with a mass of emotions at seeing Moon again. The door opened a sliver, and a familiar eyeball peered through. Franco, fully dressed in a gray Smixton College sweater and jeans. I didn’t think he owned any shirts since he usually wandered the dorm half naked.

Despite everything, I grinned. It was so good to see him again. “I’m only coming in if the bed vibrates.”

“Jesus,” he hissed and dragged me inside the dark room that smelled vaguely of sour armpits.

Poh followed and shut the door quietly behind her. A slight break in the room’s curtains slanted a thin line of light from outside into the room.

A lamp by the bed snicked on, spotlighting a halo on a head of silky black hair blurring toward me. Arms wrapped around my neck, smothering me with a flowery scent. A heartbreaking sob hitched her chest against mine, and I hugged her closer, everything I had to tell her temporarily forgotten just so I could be here with her, my friend, just like it used to be.

“I’ve been so worried,” she whispered into my hair.

I could only nod, my happiness at seeing her again beyond words.

Over Moon’s shoulder, Franco gazed down at his socked feet, a troubled frown marring his tawny features. Something was wrong, something they didn’t seem all that excited to tell me.

“Absidy?” Poh hissed behind me.

I turned. Jezebel, Moon’s pet slothcat, clung to the doorframe with her blue four-inch-long claws, while the other paw had wrenched Poh’s chin upward so Jezebel could peer down into her face. Poh’s hood had fallen back to reveal her scales and fangs, but they appeared less lethal compared to Jezebel’s claws digging into her neck.

“Jezebel,” I scolded.

Moon started toward Jezebel but stopped when she saw Poh. “She’s judging you, seeing if you can be trusted. I…I would just let her finish.”

“Can she be trusted?” Franco asked.

“Yes. Yes, she can,” I said, my voice firm. “Everyone, this is Poh, an assassin hired to kill me.”

“An assassin hired to kill…” Moon’s eyebrows flew up her forehead. Her fingers bunched up the sides of her red silk robe as she aimed a ferocious glare at Poh. “Well, nice to meet you, Poh.”

I nudged her with my elbow. “I’m still alive.”

“For how much longer?” Moon demanded. “Why would anyone want you dead anyway?”

“Hired by who?” Franco asked, crossing toward us.

I slowly rewound my life to over two months ago, trying to find the beginning so I could explain.

“The Saelis,” Poh whispered, and her breath ruffled Jezebel’s blue fur.

“What?” Franco asked.

“Saelis? Jezebel, tear her fucking arms off,” Moon ordered.

“No.” I dodged in front of Moon before she did it herself, then picked up one of Jezebel’s dangling feet behind me, rubbing her blue velvet fur as if that might sway her decision-making. “Hello. I’m not dead. She saved me countless times. She…she had a change of heart.”

“I’m no expert, but aren’t those scales?” Franco pointed. “Is she a Saelis herself?”

Poh grunted. “Distant relative.”

Moon nodded over my shoulder. “There’s her change of heart.”

My stomach tightened. As in literal heart? I turned slowly and prepared myself for Poh’s organs at the mercy of Jezebel’s claws and final judgement. Jezebel had pressed her black button nose to Poh’s to look into her soul, sliding her claws to Poh’s cheek, which was slicked with tears. There was Poh’s heart in full view, even a flash of a smile as she gazed upon Jezebel, who smiled back with sharp teeth. Jezebel had that way about her, to touch one so fully that they fell in love with the furry, deadly beast.

“Okay, girl,” I said softly and peeled her off the doorframe and Poh.

Moon must’ve been feeding her more than crickets since I’d been gone because she weighed a ton. The slothcat curled her legs around my waist and pressed her wet nose into my neck, feeding me strength through her warmth and comfort.

Poh whisked the tears from her face and turned her back to us. “I’ll be back in the early morning,” she said and fled.

Moon strode to the door to lock it then crossed her arms when she faced me. “Spill it. Everything. Why was that scaled woman hired to kill you? Where’s your sister? Where’s Randolph?”

I buried my face into the top of Jezebel’s head to hide my wobbling chin and sat on one side of the nearest bed. Moon and Franco sat on the other, facing me, their expressions tense while they waited for me to begin.

“Did you get the message I sent via Mind-I? Heatherberries?” I asked, sitting and adjusting Jezebel’s bulk on my lap.

Franco and Moon shared a look.

“We took out our Mind-Is,” Franco said. “They’ve been causing some weird technical glitches in some people lately.”

“Weird how?” The words came out like a bark.

“Total strangers with Mind-Is acting in perfect synchronization, several break-ins at power and water treatment plants where the people have no recollection afterward.” Franco shook his head, his brow furrowed. “Almost everyone I know has removed their Mind-I.”

It seemed as though whoever was pulling the marionette strings of those with Mind-Is had been busy. Had areas already been infected with the consumectalon parasites to drive the hybrids into a killing spree?

“That’s good that you removed yours,” I said.

Moon leaned forward and placed her hand on my knee, her dark gaze imploring. “Tell us.”

And so I did. I told them about the haunted Vicious ship, about being kidnapped to the Black by the Saelis, and my ghost magnet ability that helped me learn the truth behind the Black War’s cause. My abilities were especially hard to explain since I should’ve told Moon the truth a long time ago. But she and Franco listened without judgement, barely breathing, and riveted to every word. I only told them what they needed to know right then, but left out the parts about Randolph and the baby growing inside me. Neither seemed appropriate right then with the coming war. Or maybe I was just a coward and couldn’t face those truths quite yet.

“Holy shit,” Franco said when I’d finished. His face had drained his natural tan about fifteen minutes ago. “I mean… Holy shit.”

“The Iron Maiden,” Moon breathed. “I—I knew there was an explanation behind it, but… Ghosts have attacked you your whole life?”

I nodded.

Franco dragged his hand through his chestnut hair that brushed his shoulders and exhaled. “The Saelis are here. As hybrids. And more are coming? As in, the real Saelis?”

“Yes, if they’re not already here,” I said.

Moon blinked at me, her mouth working on her next words for several seconds, and then, “We saw the video of you.”

I frowned. “Well, then you knew all of this already.”

“Hardly.” She shook her head hard, trying to rattle something loose. “I still don’t think it was you.”

“Oh, it was definitely me.” In fact, my video had starred two of me.

Her eyes widened as if I’d said the wrong thing. “Then why would anyone believe you, Absidy?”

“Okay, sure, I’m wanted for murder and don’t exactly come across as sane on my best days, but…” Wait. The doppelganger had said it’d made a video of me and had sent it to the Ring Guild. “Which video are you talking about?”

“How many videos are there of you?” Moon asked, her voice shrilling. “The one with you and the crates, but it didn’t look like you. It wasn’t you.”

Maybe it wasn’t. I dug in my pocket for Nesbit’s Mind-I and flicked the button so it projected on blank space on the wall above the television. I’d brought it with me in case they hadn’t seen the one video I knew I was in.

“Show me,” I said.

Once Moon found it, we sat back to watch. The video showed the cargo room on the Vicious. It had been filmed from high above, likely from the air vent near the ceiling where the doppelganger had climbed out. The Mind-I camera bobbed—I assumed that was what it used to film—but it clearly showed me creeping into the room and facing the stacks of crates. Then I smashed my boot into one of the boxes, took a consumectalon cylinder, and whirled around to face the camera. I gripped the cylinder tight in an arm marked by gray scales, my lips peeled back in a moment of pure panic. At least, that was how I remembered it as an image of my Pop had climbed out of the wall. But here, it looked different. Murderous. The most unnerving thing about the video, though, was how the overhead light reflected back in my eyes, making them appear a luminous green. Just like the Saelis’s.

The video cut to my wanted picture, the very same one Mase had taped to the window screen above his bed. I recognized the angle. It cut again to a policeman standing behind a podium.

“It is unknown what the substance this fugitive is carrying, but the ship she’s on is said to be heading to Mayvel by her last known coordinates. Our Mayvel team has analyzed this video and confirmed it hasn’t been tampered with, but it’s unclear as to what this woman’s skin and eye condition is. We can only assume that this is the result of the contents of that cylinder, but as of now, we’re treating this as a real bioterrorist threat. The suspect is already wanted for questioning for two murders. She should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.”

All the air left my body as if I’d been punched in the gut. Ghost magnet. Murderer. Fugitive. Bioterrorist. I’d never wanted to be any of these things. The video had been twisted to cast me as the villain, but I’d come here to save us from the Saelis, not help them. And yet the ship with the cylinders was here on Mayvel, proof that I was also here should anyone find it. So how was I supposed to convince humanity of the threat they should be concerned about when I was the bad guy?

“It’s not real,” Moon whispered, her dark eyes shining with tears. “Is it?”

“The message isn’t real. But that was really me.” With a sigh, I laid Jezebel’s sleeping form beside me and took off my coat, watching Moon’s reaction as I revealed my scaled arm and hands. “This is real too.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks as she shook her head, the ends of her black hair swaying across her chin.

Franco rubbed both hands down his face. “What does it mean?”

“It means the hundreds of Saelis female ghosts I invited into me didn’t cross over. I guess. I’m kind of new at this whole inhaling ghosts thing.” I took in both their expressions, thankfully not seeing signs of revulsion, but like they might level up to that point soon if I didn’t plead my case more. Maybe I was projecting my fears and my own disgust with myself onto them, but I needed them firmly planted on my side. I couldn’t do this without them. “Let me show you another video.”

Soon, another image of me in the cargo room projected onto the wall. This time, I forced myself to watch, to see it as if I hadn’t experienced it. Me, monologuing about the Saelises’ plans, then a cut scene of the teralinguas crowded my path as I waded through them. My hair had been much shorter then, but it was still me, throwing terrified glances over my shoulder. Doctor Daryl filmed my hurried, yet still impossibly slow, progress with his Mind-I as he circled the room, tapping the walls because of his OCD tendencies, before fully intending to murder me. Blood matted his hair, and his crazy eyes glowed green.

“I smelled it. I want it. I’ll cut you open and slurp it from your insides,” he shouted.

He was almost upon a door I’d been headed away from when it crashed open, and a snarl floated out of the darkness. Black smoke boiled into three finger-like tendrils on either side of the titanium doorway. Its sides bowed outward violently as if shoved apart.

Moon gasped. Franco stood abruptly.

Daryl screamed. A monstrous shape appeared through the smoke, hazy but there. The image flipped when the Saelis ghost poltergeisted the floor out from underneath Daryl. Then it cut to me again in the Vicious room, with sounds echoing from the walls, and finally to me, or the doppelganger’s version of me, crashing into the real me to silence the truth.

I turned it off then, suddenly desperate to catch my breath. It was one thing to live it. It was an entirely different thing to see my life play out from another’s point of view and confirm I wasn’t crazy. Still, I didn’t dare look at Moon or Franco in case they somehow missed that confirmation. Their opinions mattered more to me than almost anyone’s, but when silence hung thick and heavy in the room for too long, I couldn’t take it a second longer.

“Please say something,” I begged.

Franco scrubbed at his eyes as if to dig out everything he’d just seen. “There’s just… There are things you should never say to women. Like that. What that guy said. All of that should never have happened to you.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but it touched me that he seemed to care so much.

Moon turned to me at the same time I gazed at her. Her dark eyes shimmered in the dim light with a question she didn’t even have to ask.

“You’re my only friend.” I shrugged, aiming for a matter-of-fact answer, though my voice cracked and my eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t want to scare you off. Still don’t. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Her face crumpled then, and she lunged off her bed and onto mine, nestling into the side not already occupied by blue fur. Sniffling into my hair, she took my hand and traced her fingers over the scales at my wrists. “I’m not afraid of you, Absidy. I don’t think I ever could be, but I am afraid.”

“Me too.” Gross understatement, but it would have to do. I didn’t want them to see me break under pressure any more than they already had. They needed a leader to help get us through this, a sign of strength, not the quaking, terrified mess I really was. I glanced at Franco, who paced in tight circles from the bathroom to the TV. “Franco? I can give you a hug, too, if you want.”

He chuckled, a humorless sound. “I’m debating whether or not to throw up.”

“That’s a definite no on the hug, then.”

He stopped pacing and faced me, his mouth hardened into a determined line. “We need to get the video out. Your video, the real one that doesn’t spin the truth. People may not believe it because they saw the other video first, but they need to see your video. I know a guy who knows a guy. He’ll get it out to everyone so they’ll know your side of what’s happening. That’s a start, right?”

My throat pulled tight at how much he believed in me, but I swallowed through it to keep my emotions in check. “Yes. Definitely.” I nudged Moon and nodded at Franco. “You did good with this one.”

“It’s hard not to fall for a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.” Moon pulled away and swiped at her cheeks. “Tell us what else we need to do.”

I took a breath, arranging my super short plan in my head. “Someone needs to stay on Mayvel and keep their ear to the ground for anything out of the ordinary. It would help if someone could do the same thing on Wix. We’ll also need more ships to begin loading people who actually believe us onto them so we can get them away to safety somewhere.”

“The Black War’s threat was very real two hundred years ago,” Franco said. “But even then, millions of people refused to leave Earth.”

I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We can’t force anyone to leave.”

“Back then, ships were slower, probably even Saelis ships, which meant we had more time. We had enough warning. But this time…” Franco looked at me for a long moment. “Will we?”

“All we can do is try,” I said.

“We’ll do what we can,” Moon agreed. “Where will you be? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know if the Saelis aliens have landed here yet or not, but I need to find them. And stop them. For good. Somehow.” And if I could find my sister, the rest of the Vicious crew, and some way to get the ghosts out of me, that would be an extra sweet bonus.

The weight of how I might go about accomplishing that drooped my shoulders until I wilted onto the bed and spooned myself around Jezebel’s warm body. I half listened to Franco and Moon discuss who might be trustworthy enough to help us, but soon gravity dragged at all our eyelids and we decided to snag a few hours of sleep.

Except I couldn’t. Worry gnawed at my nerves until there was nothing left. My plan to save humanity was just a vague outline drawn in mercury on the uneven planes of my mind, and it was all running together into liquid soup. Everything seemed to hang on me, on what I could or couldn’t do, but I wished—no, I needed that not to be the case. I had no idea what I was doing and only a handful of people on my side. The odds were stacked at astronomical heights, already slipping loose and crashing toward me. It was too much pressure, especially with a baby growing inside me, the one person whom I would let down the most if I failed.

I’d already lost her father in deep space, and even if I found him again, would he be the same person I fell in love with if both He and She swamped his veins? Would he forgive me for allowing that to happen to him?

I blinked into the dim room, not really seeing it. Her father. I’d already decided my baby was a she, though of course I could’ve been wrong. Still, I pictured what she might look like, if she would have my gray eyes or Mase’s deep blue. Already, I felt terrible about her having me as a mom, and I prayed to Feozva that my daughter would be nothing like me. I didn’t want her to suffer, to be ostracized for who she was, to grow up inside a spaceship’s cupboards for fear of being found by malicious ghosts who sought to torment her by breaking all of her bones. I would love my daughter, even if she turned out to be a son, with all of my heart, but one thing stood in the way of me and my baby’s future—the unknown. A series of tomorrows that might not ever be.

Terror cracked me wide open. I tried to muffle my sobs into Jezebel’s soft fur, but my whole body shook with them.

“Hey, shh.” Moon’s voice floated over my shoulder, and the bed sagged a little with her weight as she climbed in next to me. She folded her body against my back and wound her arm around my waist, her hand seeking mine.

I gripped it for the rest of the night, my lifeline, and finally allowed myself to sink into nothingness for a couple of hours.

A sliver of dawn crept through the window when I woke. My face felt puffy from all my tears, and Jezebel’s lovely morning breath was blowing straight into my mouth.

“What did you eat, girl?” I muttered and hauled myself into a sitting position on the bed.

Moon had her face pressed against the door with one eye peering out the peephole. “We’re about to have company.”

“Who?” I blinked the weariness from my eyes, instantly ready to bolt.

Franco wandered out from the bathroom brushing his teeth, his other hand scratching absently down the front of his pants. Neither seemed particularly worried about our company. I, on the other hand, gripped the ice pick chains around my neck tight.

Moon flashed me a devious grin and settled her hand on the doorknob.

I threw the blankets off me and opened my mouth to demand an answer, but a series of garbled clicks fell out, followed by a guttural sound I’d never heard myself make before.

Franco froze, his wide gaze pinned to me and his toothbrush frozen. Moon’s smile dripped down her face. A loud knock sounded at the door. Moon leaped back, one hand crashing over her mouth to catch a petrified squeal. I stared at both of them, desperate to try to explain but not trusting myself enough to voice it.

Franco dived into action, then unlocked and opened the door.

“What’s the big emergency?” a familiar voice asked from outside.

My heartbeat stuttered. Pop. I rose from the bed on shaky legs, warring with myself about whether to run to him or away. Why had I made that sound? What exactly was happening to me? I shrugged into my coat to cover my scales and hoped I wouldn’t make that sound again the next time I opened my mouth.

He stepped inside and roamed his questioning gaze over Franco and Moon. Franco shut the door behind him, his toothbrush still plugged in his mouth but forgotten. Moon moved in front of the doorway and flitted her gaze to me, her hand still over her mouth.

When Pop’s matching gray eyes landed on me, he huffed out a loud breath. He looked exactly the same, with his winter coat buttoned to his chin and his brown stocking cap he always wore to cover the bald spot on his head, and I wasn’t sure why that surprised me. I supposed because it had felt like a hundred years since I’d last seen him.

“Abs.” He held his arms out, and that was all the invitation I needed.

I swept toward him, so many emotions tightening my throat as I breathed in his familiar engine oil and Pop smell. He squeezed me to him and crushed the air from my lungs, which only made me hold him tighter.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered into his shoulder. Those were the words I wanted to come out, and they were meant for everyone in the room. For every human on Mayvel and Wix. For the Vicious crew and my unborn baby.

As of two seconds ago, I was in complete control. Not the ghosts that haunted me from the inside, threatening to consume me until I wasn’t me—a ghost magnet, fugitive, suspected murderer, and bioterrorist.

Or until I wasn’t at all.