My heart slammed into my throat as I stepped off the elevator on the third floor, facing the engine room. The Vicious had slowed to let Orin’s gravitational force guide it down, and the ship shuddered and groaned as if seeking respite for its old titanium bones.

Trembles vibrated up through the soles of my boots, urging me to hurry. I had maybe five minutes to find Nesbit’s old Mind-I before we landed and I sneaked off the ship with Randolph for supplies. Five minutes to search through a dead man’s things. Was that why the air felt so oppressive, like it coated my lungs with slime when I drew a breath?

If I didn’t find Nesbit’s old Mind-I in there, I would need to buy one on Orin, and I doubted anyone handed them out like candy. I would need to get the computer chip implanted inside my head, an already wacky place brimming with mayhem. With a Mind-I, I would be able to warn Moon Dragon and Pop about the Saelis aliens right then instead of waiting until my ancient phone picked up a signal. As far as I was aware, that was the only thing capable of communication over far distances that was even remotely secure. I didn’t trust the Vicious’s telecom. Maybe Orin would surprise me and have some advanced type of technology I hadn’t yet heard of that I could use instead of a Mind-I, but I would keep my expectations low.

The Saelis had created human/Saelis hybrids who looked just like us and could be controlled with a Mind-I. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected everyone with a Mind-I could be controlled and tasked to end the rest of humanity for good. If I had a Mind-I implanted, I would also be susceptible to Saelis mind control. It was a major risk, but one I needed to take, especially if I popped it out fake-eyeball style when I’d finished. No harm done.

There wouldn’t be any need to worry, though, if Nesbit still had his somewhere. Still, the thought of prodding a dead man’s belongings, especially a Mind-I that had been inside his head, a man who had tried to kill me, rushed doubts through my veins.

I started forward, but my steps faltered when one of the hanging lights above my head flickered. A pocket of tobacco-scented cold cocooned my body for a second, rushing goosebumps across my skin, then it flitted away toward the cockpit and Mase.

That was Red, the one ghost left who haunted the Vicious, though haunted didn’t exactly fit. I stopped to listen for a sign from the red-headed, dark-skinned ghost with the broken neck who had tried to save me numerous times, not from other ghosts, but parasite-starved Saelis-human hybrids. My life lately. It hurt my head to think about.

Hopefully she wouldn’t rip Mase’s door open so he could see me enter the engine room when he’d warned me not to go in there. Why had he thought he saw me go in there before?

“Red?” I hissed, the sound bounding across the metal floor.

Scratching my fingernails against my palms, I strode forward again, but my feet angled away from the direction I headed. A wintry pressure pushed me sideways toward the cockpit instead of the engine room.

I shoved back against the clear, arctic wall that flattened the fabric of my sweatshirt against my arm. “I’m not up here to see Mase, Red. Let me through.”

She did, too suddenly, and the absence of her knocked me off balance. I caught myself with a well-placed foot before I landed hard on my ass, but just barely. Why was she so intent on steering me away from the engine room? Mase had said it wasn’t safe, but I didn’t plan on throwing myself into the ship’s engine.

Steeling my shoulders, I marched toward the engine room door once again. I needed Nesbit’s Mind-I or I’d have to get one of my own, end of story. Whatever Red didn’t want me to see inside, I was sure I would survive it. I’d cleared the whole Feozva-damned ship of Saelis ghosts and recently vacationed at The Black, the rogue planet that hovered near Earth’s haunted remains. It was a shitty vacation, one I wouldn’t recommend, yet here I stood, alive and well.

The closer I drew, the thicker the oily feeling in my lungs became. The air tasted like it had been poisoned, but not with anything my senses could place. The door, the sliver of orange light creeping out from under it, the low hum of the churning engine from inside—all of it felt wrong somehow.

The ship gave a slight jerk, then several more, punctuated by what sounded like a wicked cackle. I flattened my lips in an attempt to keep it together. Just the landing gears. Nothing else.

“Crew, we’re about to land,” Mase’s voice said over the ship’s telecom. “Might want to hang on to something sturdy since landing is… Well, it’s not my favorite thing.”

My gut cramped when I lifted my hand to the door’s lever. Sweat tracked down my temple, and I realized part of what felt off about the engine room. It wasn’t cold. Just dark and vicious. Like a malevolent ghost, but at the same time not. I swallowed hard and touched the lever.

An arctic, tobacco-laced breath hit my neck, spiking the short hairs all across my scalp. Two iced hands grabbed my shoulders from behind, snaking a shiver between them, and threw me with monstrous strength away from the door.

I crashed into the titanium floor hip first, followed by my limbs in a messy pile. My head cracked the floor last, zipping stars across my eyes. I blinked them away, slowly, one after another, all of them magnifying the pain racking my body.

Red crouched at my side, her broken neck twisting her head so bones popped from her dark skin at wrong angles. Her black eyes fixed on me.

“Red, stop,” I croaked, tasting her betrayal from the blood pouring across my split tongue. “I need Nesbit’s Mind-I to warn people about the Saelis.”

The ship slanted out from under me as it made its descent. I snatched at empty air, unable to stop my slide across the slick titanium floor. The ship shuddered, slamming the metal into my back again and again. My body landed in a heap against the wall next to the elevator, the wall that was slanting so much it became the floor. The ship had tilted sideways so the open engine room door hung open above me. It was open, not by my hand, and definitely not by Red’s since she didn’t want me in there. Dazed, I flashed my arms out to hang on to something, but there was nothing.

Red leaped on top of me. She straddled my waist, her hands on either side of my head. The bouncing ship swung her broken neck from side to side, but her blackened gaze still found mine, freezing my soul with the ferocity that lurked there. Where had that come from? She’d always been the single ghost who’d actually helped me.

She wrenched my mouth open wide with icy hands. “Let me in!” Her brittle, otherworldly voice grated prickles up my scalp.

I tried to shake her off, but between the juddering, sideways ship and the bitter terror funneling through my veins, I had no traction. Tears slipped down my cheeks while I searched for answers for her sudden betrayal inside her black eyes. She knew how this worked, likely just as well if not better than I did, and this wasn’t it. I fumbled for an iron cube in my pocket and plucked it out, gripping it tight in my fist so it wouldn’t skitter away.

I jerked my head away from her worming fingertips and choked out, “Go in.”

Her face blurred into a haze of black smoke, and she funneled into my mouth. Old tobacco crawled over my tongue, gagging me, and singed my insides into ash and memories that weren’t mine.

Blood, rope, and Saelis. Stringing them up by the hundreds from the ceiling of the Vicious. A burning hatred toward the slimy captain who made her do it.

And pain. Red’s pain became mine, so much so that it became hard to breathe. I clawed at my throat until the sound of a bone-crunching pop in the neck filled my ears from her memory.

Spinning to my hands and knees, I dry heaved, my whole body trembling. The edges of the iron cube dug into my palm with the force of my grip, and the cube stuck to the sweat there when I forced open my fingers. Before I unglued my tongue from the arid roof of my mouth, an image of Nesbit flashed through my mind. Another of Red’s memories.

Wild hair. Crooked tooth. Him standing somewhere on the ship while gazing into a mirror with wide eyes. Frightened of his own image.

My tongue finally touched metal and chased Red and all of her memories away. Gone to wherever the spirits went after they passed through me. I forced the cube down my throat, just to be sure Red made it to the other side, and the fresh parasites in my body soaked in their food source. Continuous jolts of energy rippled from the tips of my ears to my toes as they devoured it, the same result as what powered the space-bending rings, leading me toward a high that left me more breathless than I already was.

I lay there, gasping, but both my body and mind were mine again. I shoved to my feet and immediately lost my balance and crashed into a wall. A real wall this time. The ship had righted itself while I’d helped—was forced to help—Red.

Had she demanded entry through me to the other side so she could show me that last memory of Nesbit? Did that somehow explain why she didn’t want me to go inside the engine room?

The door was half open now, swaying slightly on its hinges. I started toward it. Red could shove her warning to stay away right up her dead ass. I needed Nesbit’s Mind-I. If she didn’t like it, she could’ve done the search with me and stayed the hell out of my body.

Still, I tightened my hands into fists at her sudden loss. I’d grown used to her being here. For a ghost, I’d liked her and appreciated her spunk. Smelling her signature tobacco scent had put me at ease knowing she was around here somewhere offering guidance and protection. I supposed this was what I deserved for trusting a ghost when my past had proved I never should.

The floor dipped down, taking my stomach with it, and the engine room door swung open a little more, inviting me in. I braced myself against the doorframe and peered in as the ship sank farther down. Around the corner, a guard rail broken in several places circled a large cylinder engine held aloft by titanium poles protruding from the ends. Inside the cylinder, what looked like multi-colored nebulas waved and danced around a million mechanical parts. It whined loudly, paused for a beat, then a softer whir echoed back. That pattern definitely wasn’t how a ship’s engine was supposed to sound.

Pop’s engine room aboard the Nebulous always smelled like oil and was meticulously spotless. This one smelled like sweat and salt, but a greasy feeling slithered beneath my skin and lifted the hair along my arms. Yet I didn’t know why.

Various tools lay scattered in a breadcrumb trail to a thin mattress in the corner of the room. After closing the door behind me, I followed, tapping my fingers on the pocket that held more iron. Heat from the engine swept over my cheeks when I neared it, deepening the greasy sensation into my bones. Something didn’t feel right in here, as if I was far from alone.

The Vicious shuddered and seemed to sink my feet farther into the floor. We’d landed, which meant I had minutes before someone came looking for me and demanded to know what I was up to.

Several dirty glasses lay at the foot of the mattress with white liquid skimming the bottoms. Definitely not milk residue since Mase was the only milk drinker on the ship. I stopped thinking about what it was because I didn’t want to know. Food wrappers and clothes piled where I imagined Nesbit laid his head. Swallowing hard, I knelt and plucked through them with as little touching as possible.

Mase’s voice came over the telecom. “Here’s hoping you’ll sail through the friendly skies again with me, folks. If not, well…ah…it’s been nice knowing all of you.” After a moment, the engine began to wind down and his clipped footsteps strode past the closed door on his way to the elevator.

I turned back to Nesbit’s mattress and searched through pockets, inside food wrappers, underneath the mattress, even inside the glasses. Nothing that resembled a piece of thin plastic the size of a small seed. Maybe he’d had his Mind-I on him when he passed through me to the other side. I did find his currency card, though, and pocketed it. Once a thief, always a thief.

I stood as a shiver skated up my back. My scalp prickled with the sense that something prowled behind me, watching, memorizing. Slowly, my body tensed, I peered over my shoulder.

Nothing. Not even a ghost creeping up behind me. Sweat beaded all over my face instead of the normal eerie chill I usually felt around something supernatural. Something else entirely, then?

I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled in a shallow inhale. Maybe Red had been right. I shouldn’t have come in here.

My ears burning for another hint of sound, I turned left, away from Nesbit’s mattress and around the broken guardrail to the other side of the room. Between the engine’s slow grind to a halt, a footstep echoed behind me, on the other side of the engine, from everywhere. Hot air stroked my neck—an exhale, the engine. I didn’t know.

I backed against the wall, ticking my gaze around the room. A scream welled in my throat, but I swallowed it down. I’d cleared the ship of ghosts. I knew I did. They would’ve violently made themselves known if I hadn’t.

“Mase?” I whispered. “Is that you?”

I slid along the back wall, the engine blocking my view of the door, my palms smearing nervous sweat on the titanium as I went. As I rounded the tip end of the engine, the door became visible. Searching for any sort of movement, I inched toward it, and then shut it behind me on my way out.

The engine chugged like loud, heavy footsteps. Something rattled and banged behind the closed door, like metal on metal.

I backed away toward the elevator, watching, listening, until I was close enough to jab the green button.

Across from me, the engine room door swung open on silent hinges. The engine’s dying chugs, so much like footsteps, poured out on a direct path toward me. With a moaned hiss, I spun around and dug my fingernails into the seam that split the elevator doors in two and tried to pry them apart. Finally, a ding sounded. The doors parted. I threw myself inside and lunged for the button that would carry me away.

Chug. Chug. Step. Step.

When the doors slid back together, I dipped my head with relief. A streak of shiny gray at my wrist caught my attention. Motor oil. But no… Motor oil didn’t smear in a pattern. The elevator sank lower as I hesitantly touched it. Bumpy. Scaled. I ripped my fingers away as my next breath shuddered through my lungs.

What did this mean? Did it have something to do with the engine room?

I blinked hard at the elevator doors, willing myself to drop into someone else’s nightmare instead of this one. But when I looked again at my wrist, the scales were gone.