A small plastic box of iron washers balanced on the edge of a vendor’s table. I only had six pieces left from that bench I’d melted down on top of my dresser in my dorm room, not enough to last me through the weekend, especially since it seemed I was going through them like candy lately. Pop’s handful of nails might push me through Sunday night, but I doubted it.
If I was going to help find Ellison, I needed these. They would get rid of unnecessary distractions so I could focus, and if I was going to find her, I didn’t have time to melt iron scraps down into bite-sized pieces in the chemistry lab like I usually did. I snatched the box up before anyone else could and dug in my pants pocket for my currency card. Which was on top of my dresser, too, resting against my framed periodic table so I would remember to take it with me. Rusted balls.
I glanced at the price tag, and the box grew slippery in my sweaty hands. Two hundred ninety-nine credits for a box of iron washers. Since the Ringers used the precious metal to power their space-bending rings that bordered this galaxy, iron was rare. Really rare. And pricey.
But I had to have these washers, currency card or no. Ellison needed me, and I was wasting time when I should be trying to figure out how to get her back.
The vendor faced away while arguing with a guy in a neighboring booth. He gestured wildly at a rack of shirts whose long sleeves billowed out in the wind and brushed items from the box of washers’ table to the ground. The other guy held a hand in front of the vendor’s face and rolled his eyes skyward. A flush burned red across the back of the vendor’s neck.
I palmed the box against my hip, my heart racing. The vendor might not even notice it was gone. I inched the box up my leg to my pants pocket, my gaze never straying from the two vendors. Smixton had a zero tolerance policy for crime. If caught, I’d be kicked out and possibly sent to the prison planet to do time.
My skin heated with shame, as it always did every time I broke the law. Which was often since I needed iron. It wasn’t so much the precious metal that I’d become dependent on, but the safety and protection it offered. It chased away all my deep-rooted fears, and in the most literal way, I couldn’t live without it. Which is why I never went anywhere without a piece tucked away in my mouth and a stash in my pockets.
Still, I shouldn’t have to do this. Normal people didn’t steal washers just to survive. No one else had to run from their problems by hiding behind a metal wall. Yet despite the risk, I couldn’t stop stealing. The safety iron provided me was too great.
A cold sweat leaked down my sides, making me shiver in the biting wind. Up until now, Smixton College and my scholarship had provided nearly everything Pop and Ellison couldn’t. I had to do this. As soon as I unclenched my fingers to let the box fall into my pocket, a nearby baby gave a delighted babble.
I froze. The box landed in my pocket, but I barely registered its welcome weight. It was the same baby with the bright blue eyes I’d seen at the Waiting Room, now reaching for me with chubby fingers but locked in a man’s arms. The baby’s mom stood next to him carrying the toddler. She stared at the pocket the box of iron had just slipped into while falling snow stuck to her lashes.
The woman flicked her gaze up to meet mine, her mouth twisted in a sneer, and lifted her arm to point. “Thief!”
The vendor whirled around. His eyes widened, then he fixed me with an accusing glare. “What is this? A thief?”
My mouth popped open, not to argue but to come clean. He was talking about me. That word had never been spoken to my face, and it hurt.
“Please…” I started, but whatever I was going to say didn’t matter because the box rested in my pocket. I was a thief.
“I don’t tolerate theft,” he roared and bounded around the table to grab me by the elbow. His fingers dug into my arm, and he gave me a rough, bone-jarring shake. “Empty your pockets, girl.”
Curious onlookers stopped to stare. I swallowed hard and ticked my gaze between the woman who now wore a satisfied grin and her wailing baby. Inside the pocket with the washers, Pop’s nails stabbed into my fist.
The guy in the neighboring booth nudged the shirt rack a little further into the vendor’s territory with his foot and a smug smile. The long sleeves waved over the table, knocking a small clock over and rolling a little bottle filled with amber liquid to the edge. It rocked back and forth, testing gravity and fate.
I would never survive a planet full of criminals, let alone the wicked spirits that likely haunted such a place. Especially without iron. And especially because I knew my sister hadn’t sailed.
The bottle of amber liquid smashed to the ground, snapping me out of my panic-fueled fog. Its fate was sealed.
Mine wasn’t. I jerked my arm away from the vendor and ran.
Chapter 2
Past the edge of the marketplace, my boots crunched over snow on a wooded path that would lead me toward my dorm and safety two miles away. If I could get there, I could figure out what to do next. Whatever I decided to do, it would have to be quick since I’d left a crowd of witnesses back there. Too many eyes would see if I cut through the rest of the marketplace and took the public train to the dorm. The fewer people who saw me, the better.
The crash of adrenaline through my blood and my pounding footsteps drowned out all other sound as I sprinted through the snow. Which was why I didn’t sense someone following me.
My head wrenched backward with an ugly tearing sound, yanking me to a stop and spinning me around. Pain ripped through my scalp.
The guy in the neighboring booth, not the vendor I’d stolen from, stood behind me, holding a handful of my chains and hair he’d torn clean from my scalp. It swung with the gusting wind, and one end dripped blood in a spray of red in the snow.
Warmth slid down the side of my face and gathered in the cleft of my collar bone. Nausea kicked into my stomach at the bursts of agony all over the top of my head. He must’ve torn out at least twenty chains along with chunks of hair.
His eyes morphed from muddy brown to a vibrant green, turning me into petrified stone. A low growl rumbled. It could’ve been an approaching lightning storm. Or it could’ve come from him.
Sticky wetness streamed down the side of my breast and into my corset. I flicked my gaze between the bleeding chains in his hand and his bright eyes, suddenly unsure if I was trapped in some kind of nightmare.
The pain in my head and heart sharpened my senses. I needed to move. Ellison needed me. I felt those truths slither deep into my bones with every shiver that racked through my body.
“He can have his fucking washers back,” I said and threw the box at him. But the man holding my chains continued eyeing me like he wanted to devour my flesh sans napkin. The box lay at his feet surrounded by my blood.
I took a couple slow steps back, but he matched me move for move. Over his shoulder and behind the marketplace, a bolt of lightning stretched thorny fingers to the ground, eliciting a collective gasp and a scramble for cover from the people still there. Even if I shouted for help, no one would hear me above the howling wind.
The hair along my arms lifted, and I became hyper-aware that I was covered in metal during a lightning snow storm. The man blocked my way back into the marketplace, but I couldn’t stand there and bleed all over the place while waiting for him to kill me either.
“I gave them back. What else do you want from me?” I yelled.
In another flash of light, the man’s face glowed pale. He tucked his chin into his chest so his forehead hooded his bright green gaze, and he widened his stance like he was about to charge. Thick cords of drool trailed from both sides of his mouth.
My stomach lurched. I had no idea what was wrong with this guy, but I needed to move. Now. I sprinted across the snowy path that led to the wooded area. Footsteps pounded after me.
“They weren’t even in your vendor booth,” I screamed, but the wind and cutting snow stole my breath.
Almost to the cover of the trees. His footsteps thudded right behind me. The smell of ozone t
hickened, and the air sizzled with electricity between the heavy snowflakes. Something cracked loudly behind me as I lunged into the woods.
Branches tugged at my chains and arms. I tried to jump out of their way, but they leaped out of the dark and through the blanket of falling snow. One dragged across my cheek with a harsh sting, and blood trickled out over the caked mess from my ripped chains.
The man behind me snarled so loud, it quivered my insides to jelly. I pressed my fingers to the growing pain in my side and darted through the trees first to the right then cut to the left. All those hours of sitting while studying weren’t helping me now.
Rumbling clouds blocked the moon, and the only thing that lit my way was the bright white snow. It crunched under my feet, and even if I did somehow lose him, my loud, hurried footsteps would lead him back to me.
My breaths came too fast. The cold drained all my energy with every burning inhale. I had to do something. Think.
Lightning zigzagged over the tops of the trees, spotlighting a rapier fir directly in front of me with sharp, thin branches jutting from its trunk. A vague idea quickly outlined itself in my head, and I faked like I was going to run right into the tree, but at the last second, I skirted to the side. The toe of my shoe snagged on a root. I wind milled my arms to catch my balance but crashed to the ground anyway.
The little amount of air left in my lungs whooshed out. I pulled in a deep breath then struggled to my feet, but something squeezed around my ankle.
“No!” I tried to kick but my ankle twisted. Pain shot up my leg, and I cried out. Icy cold bit into my fingers as I curled them into the snow to drag myself across the ground as far as I could. But the rush of my heartbeat was the only sound. The heavy pursuit of footsteps had stopped. Swallowing hard, I dared a glance over my shoulder.
The man stood perfectly still in front of the tree, except his hands which twitched at his sides. One of the thin branches had caught him through the eye. Another pierced through his stomach and out his back. Blood gushed from his wounds, streaking his face, striping his tunic a darker brown, and over his shoes to soak puddles into the snow.
I shrank back with a gasp. The rapier fir was notorious for killing unsuspecting campers who ran into its sharply pointed branches. I’d just never seen it happen before.
His hands stilled. Was he dead? If I hadn’t lunged to the side of the tree, he’d still be chasing me, and who knew what he would’ve done if he’d caught me? I had to escape him somehow, didn’t I? Even though I knew it was true, guilt still gnawed a hole through my chest. Why had he been chasing me anyway?
I tore my gaze away from him and worked at setting myself free. My foot had lodged under a curved root, so I shifted around so my back faced the man, trying to find a good angle to pull my leg out. It wouldn’t budge. If anything, I seemed to be making it worse. Cold seeped into the butt of my pants and spread iced tendrils down to my toes. I shivered.
Something crashed behind me, and I whirled around. The man lay on his back. Long, black fog-like fingers reached out of his mouth.
I moaned. Terror burst through my body. I’d never seen it happen before. Please Feozva, I couldn’t see it happen. I yanked at my foot as hard as I could and risked another glance.
The fingers curled over his lips and opened his mouth wider.
A scream welled in my throat. I pulled harder. Please, Feozva, please. I couldn’t. I couldn’t see it.
Yet I couldn’t look away from the nightmare either. The fingers stretched upwards, and behind them, a human form rolled up from the man’s mouth in smoky wisps to full height, a warped replica of the man who lay dead. It pinned me under inky black eyes and the angry twist of its lips. Its dreadful, piercing scream swept goose bumps all over my body. Deep trembles shook through me so hard, I choked down the iron in my mouth.
Without it, the ghost would kill me. The iron had to stay perched on my tongue or the ghost would try to force its way inside me. Move. I scrambled for my pockets with shaking hands. Two of Pop’s nails spilled out onto the snow. I shoved both into my mouth and forced my whimpers back down my throat.
It was right behind me. I felt it in the familiar prickle of my scalp, the tingling between my shoulder blades. The man’s ghost was stuck here. Now the only way to the other side was through the nearest ghost magnet.
Me.
Chapter 3
Glacial air chased icicle-tipped needles over my head. I tried not to move but couldn’t help but shudder. My heart banged against my chest and into the forest floor. The nails’ metallic tang mixed with my rising panic. Why wasn’t the ghost leaving?
I screwed my eyes shut at a twig snapping next to my left arm. I’m not here. I’m not here. I’m not here. Something frigid brushed against my hand. You can’t see me. You can’t see me. You can’t see me. A low, creaking groan sounded from my right.
Cracking open an eye, I turned my head a fraction. From under the chains draped over my face, wisps of dark smoke traced a retreating path through the trees. Relief swelled air into my lungs again, and I breathed deep. A full minute passed before I gathered the nerve to roll over and yank on my foot until it finally slid out from under the root.
I stumbled to my feet and limped away from the dead man, the pain in my ankle pulling a hiss through my teeth. Blood puddled away from him and stained the crevices in the snow where I’d laid like some kind of twisted snow angel, and somehow it reminded me of the time Ellison accidentally bloodied Pop’s nose during a snowball fight when we were young. Badass that I was, I’d passed out because Pops weren’t supposed to bleed. Apparently a glowing green-eyed dead man’s blood didn’t bother me as much, but the world tilted at a strange angle anyway because he was dead. Because I’d tricked him into running into the rapier fir.
What was I supposed to do about the body? Tell someone what happened and forget the part about the thieving? Say I was sorry because I really, really was? Yes, all of that. But first, I needed to escape these woods.
I turned and froze. A man, maybe in his early thirties, stood in front of me with a large red backpack strapped to his shoulders. His mouth hung open as his gaze slid from me to the dead man lying in a pool of his own blood. He took a step back and raised a hand as if he wanted to ward me off.
“Wait…” I started. Behind the fear in his eyes lay an accusation, like I was a cold-blooded murderer. But he had it all upside down and fucked. “It’s not what it looks like.”
Snow crunched under his feet when he took a few more steps back. “Right,” he said, winking, and at the same time, something clicked like a photo had been taken. The same click a Mind-I camera embedded into some people’s brains made when they snapped pictures. Then the man turned and ran.
I blinked after him. Oh no. What did he just do? Oh no. I bit back a surge of bile, and all I could think of was Pop and Ellison. How disappointed they’d be in me for getting kicked out of school, for losing my scholarship, for going to the prison planet for the rest of my life because I’d been caught in a lie of a picture. But I would take that any day just to have my sister back safe. I had to find her.
After stealing back my chains from the dead man’s grip, I kicked snow over my warped and bloody angel, thinking it might help hide the splatters that were mine.
A mess of footprints led further into the forest; I followed the ones I thought belonged to the pseudo crime-stopper. If I could get him to delete the picture from his Mind-I somehow, no one would find out about the dead man and me until they’d heard my side of the story first. But the chances of him listening to the girl covered in metal and blood were slim to none. Murdering him was out of the question, so I’d just have to rely on my winning smile and killer social skills. I was doomed.
The going was slow since I could only hobble and had to take frequent stops to rub my sore ankle. I kept ticking my gaze around for the ghost, but didn’t see any sign of it or the Mind-I guy. He might already be at police headquarters with my picture. The thought tightened my chest, and I l
imped faster. If he was already there, I was wasting my time wandering around out here. I needed to patch myself up before I decided what to do next.
My saliva began to shrink the ghost repellant nails in my mouth, so while tapping my pocket to make sure I still had more, I swallowed the iron before they vanished. Yes, my saliva could melt metal. It was the weirdest thing. Ellison said all the iron was changing my chemical make-up, which was fine with me. It was better than the alternative.
By the time I staggered into Demetri Hall, the electrical snow storm had slid away to the east. My ankle throbbed, but I hardly noticed since my mind spun over my next course of action.
The bra hanging over the doorknob of my dorm room indicated that I should keep walking, but just as I always did, I swept the strap off and marched right in. I’d seen everyone’s bits and pieces, dangly or otherwise, since unbeknownst to Pop and Ellison, Demetri Hall was a nudist colony in disguise.
“The Saelis have my sister, and the police are probably on their way to question me about the dead guy in the woods, so you might want to put some pants on,” I said into the darkness.
Moon Dragon gasped, and not the sexy kind either. “Get offa me.”
Sheets rustled to the left and something banged against the wall. “Are you serious right now? Saelis?” asked a deep male voice, and I instantly recognized it as Franco’s, the tawny-skinned hottie who lived down the hall.
I grasped blindly at the handle of my only suitcase in the closet and heaved it onto my bed, still not sure what exactly I planned to do. Or where to go. Deep space? Because what would I do when I got there?
“Your sister? Are you sure?” Moon Dragon asked as she flicked on the overhead light.
Both she and Franco froze their hasty dressing when I turned to face them. Moon’s petite frame wilted under her red silk robe as she took in my appearance, and the expression on my face must’ve answered her question because she nodded slowly, her bluntly cut black hair shining its lustrous halo in the overhead glow.
Sail (Haunted Stars Book 1) Page 2