He wrenches me from my stomach onto my back and drops his body weight down to hold me in place.
Immediately, alarm bells in my head ring.
I lash out at him with everything I’ve got, but I can’t see a fucking thing. Electric pain ricochets up my knuckles after one particularly wild swipe; I think I caught his chin.
But other than one quick, sharp intake of breath from Reed, there’s no reaction. He’s too lost in his paranoid landscape.
He leans down, putting pressure on my upper arms with his elbows until it feels like the bones might shatter, and I cry out involuntarily. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes.
Kane.He’s right there. But there’s no sound of his approach.
“You like that?” Reed demands, leaning close enough that flecks of his saliva hit my face with his words. “Not so tough now, are you?”
Abruptly, the pressure against my arms vanishes, and a desperate exhalation of relief is building in my throat, demanding release. But I force it down, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Fucking Reed Darrow.
Then his hands close around my throat.
My body panics, reacting faster than my mind, which is still locked in disbelief that this is actually happening. My back arches up, trying to buck him off. My hands fly up to pry at his fingers, and then—finally—my brain engages. I push my feet against the floor in a half-remembered self-defense move from my Verux training days, desperate for leverage.
But Reed is so much heavier than he looks. His grip around my neck is unshaken and grows tighter. My pulse throbs frantically in my head and behind my eyes, the oxygen shortage starting to sink in.
All around me, I can feel them watching me, leaning close for a front-row seat to another death. The blinded woman from under the bed. The cackling man who wanted to be released from his room. The formerly frozen girl from the tub who bit my cheek.
They’re waiting for me to join them. One more victim of theAurorato join the hundreds more in this endless fucking parade of the dead.
I scratch at Reed’s arms, but his environmental suit protects him. With effort, I lash out in the direction of his face and catch flesh under my nails. His hands loosen but only for a second.
Bright starbursts of color light up the darkness in front of my eyes.
You’re going to die here.
My vision should be growing darker, but instead, one of those brilliant starbursts explodes into color, light, and sound.
In a flash, I can see the ship as it must have been. The smell of “new” in the freshly varnished wooden panels in the hall, the perfume of those rare flowers on display, and laughter mixed with the faint clinking of glasses and the low-level buzz of voices.
I sit up—pain gone, Reed forgotten—and watch three women come toward me. All of them are dressed in formal gowns, returning from an event. Perhaps in the ballroom or atrium on the level below. The beautiful woman with dark hair seems to float down the hall in a creation that appears to be nothing more than layers of pink netting—which seems familiar somehow, though I can’t, in this moment, pinpoint why.
The youngest of the three, her hair dyed metallic silver to match her dress, carries her shoes by the straps, swinging them carelessly at her side. A bright gold chain dangles from her neck to her narrow waist and at the end, an old-fashioned key, worn as prominently as a diamond. A Dunleavy, the younger of the two. I recognize her, though she looks so different… alive.
These two split off first, entering their rooms, leaving only the final member of the trio, dressed in all black, her blond hair caught into an elegant upsweep. As she moves closer to me, I realize she’snot in a dress, but a sleeveless tuxedo-like creation with black lapels and a flash of white at her chest, leading to a bell of split skirt.
The captain. Linden Gerard. She’s heading for the bridge. Her forehead is creased in a frown, and she’s pressing her fingertips at a spot between her eyebrows, her fingertips turning white with the pressure.
You’re just tired. That’s all.She whispers it to herself over and over again, until she’s even with me.
Then she lowers her hand from her face to stare down at me.
Except she’s no longer Captain Gerard, she’s me.
My own face stares down at me, and I stare back, hypnotized.
Help me. Help us,we mouth. Her hands flutter at her sides for a moment before flying up to her neck, as if she’s choking herself.
A flash of a white lab coat, then, and dark hair at the corner of my vision.
Claire!
My mother. When I turn to track her movement, she’s gone. Everything is gone. In that moment, I’m back on the floor in the absolute darkness of the hall, Reed’s grip tight around my throat.
