“You need to turn around,” I tell her.
She actually snarls at me in response. “Shut up and let me fucking concentrate for one second, will you?”
And yup, looks like the old Beckett is back and worse than ever.
Beckett leans back and studies the console in front of her. “Accelerator,” she says, pointing to a part of the console that looks exactly the same as all the rest to me.
I don’t say anything, though I can feel Kali over my shoulder, watching Beckett’s lesson. I just wait to see what goes down. Beckett touches a finger to it, but nothing happens.
“I don’t think—” Gage starts, then breaks off when she presses her palm down and we shoot forward so fast that Kali tumbles against me.
I grab the back of Beckett’s chair, then wrap my arm around Kali’s waist to stop us both from falling. I have a second to register that she feels good against me—really good—as I wait for Beckett to slow us down.
It doesn’t happen. Instead, we keep going faster and faster, until I can feel my vision blurring. Around us, the others are calling out. Groaning.
“Fucking stop her!” Max says in my head.
But I’m already trying. It’s just taking a while—and all the effort I’ve got—to force my hand forward, grab her arm, and pull it from the console.
We slow immediately—but not before Rain pukes at the back of the bridge.
“What the hell were you doing?” I demand, furious at Beckett and myself as I look around fruitlessly for some kind of towel. This is what a little bit of trust gets you—an acceleration headache and vomit on your bridge.
I definitely should have known better.
Beckett just grins at me, her eyes wild and laser bright. “Just seeing how fast she can go.”
“The answer’s pretty fucking fast,” I growl.
“I think you mean really fucking fast,” she corrects. “Why? Were you scared, Captain?”
The emphasis she puts on Captain turns it into an insult, but I don’t give a shit.
“We were all fucking scared. The question is—why weren’t you?” I ask. But she’s still grinning, and the weird light still shines in her eyes. “You’re really messed up, you know that? You could have killed us.”
“Well, she did just spend who knows how long as the subject of one of Dr. Wicked’s experiments,” Max reminds me.
Which is his not-so-subtle way of getting me to lay off her—not to mention reminding me that we don’t have a fucking clue what shape Milla will be in when we finally get her back.
When someone starts shoving against my chest, I realize I still have my arm around Kali—and she’s not entirely happy about it.
“Let go of me,” she snaps.
“Hey, I was helping you, Princess,” I snap back. “And what is it with you and the touching thing, anyway?”
“It’s punishable by death,” Rain says as she picks herself up off the floor and brushes her hand down her now dirty white robe.
“Death? For touching you?” I shoot Kali an incredulous look even before she nods. “That’s seriously fucked.”
“It’s the law,” she says. “I didn’t make it, and it goes back a long, long time. But it’s never actually been enforced.”
“You sure about that, Princess?” Beckett says without taking her eyes from the viewing screens in front of her.
“Yes,” Kali snaps back, though she suddenly looks a little uncertain. I think this trip may be an eye-opener for the princess, and she’s not liking what she sees.
“I’m sorry I threw up,” Rain says quietly.
If it was Kali apologizing, I’d make some kind of sarcastic comment—but this is Rain, so I shrug it off. Even I’m not that big a shithead.
“It’s just a little water,” I tell her, handing over a towel from my bag. Which reminds me that a sip of water is all she—or any of us—has had for more hours than I want to think about.
“Did anyone find any food or drink on their search?”
The others shake their heads—except Kali, who moves to the chair farthest away from Beckett and sits down in it, hugging her knees to her chest.
Fuck. We probably have enough for a couple of days if we’re careful. Not nearly enough to get us to Vistenia, just like Gage said earlier.
“Looks like we’re going to make a detour to Askkandia. If Beckett can get us there, that is.”
“I’ll get us there,” she says grimly. She leans toward the accelerator, but I put a hand in front of it before she can touch it.
“Why don’t you concentrate on figuring out how to turn us around for now?” I suggest. “At a normal speed?”
“You’re as boring as you look,” she tells me. But she keeps the ship at a normal speed.
I reach for my bag again and rummage inside. The rations Max and I packed consist of protein bars filched from the Caelestis’s commissary. I grab a handful and drop one in front of Beckett before tossing another to the princess.
She catches it, then looks at it as if she doesn’t quite know what it is—or what to do with it. By the time I hand the rest around, Beckett has already finished hers, so I give her mine. I’m thinking she likely hasn’t been eating too well.
She glances up, surprised. But I don’t want to get into a thing with her, so I just lean against the front console and look out at the others.
Kali is staring at her bare feet, her bar in her hands. Rain munches on her rations as she watches Beckett while Merrick watches her. Max is dozing in one of the chairs, his legs kicked out in front of him while Gage watches him.
As crews go, we’re a goddamn disaster. A princess, a priestess, a bodyguard, a prisoner, a con artist, a goofball, and me, self-appointed asshole in charge of them all.
It’s a recipe for catastrophe, but we’re just going to have to figure out how to make it work. Because I’m not walking away from this ship until we’ve rescued my best friend.
“I think I figured it out, Ian,” Beckett says to me from the pilot’s chair. “Get ready to turn.”
Instinct has me grabbing hold of the nearest chair, and it’s a fucking good thing because the next minute, we’re spinning madly around.
We’re in a full-out flat spin, one I don’t know if we’ll be able to recover from. I try to turn around, try to see if the princess is okay, but we’re spinning, spinning, spinning and the force is too great for me to even turn my head.
The screaming gets louder, but over it, I hear another sound. It’s Beckett—and she’s fucking laughing.
That’s when I know for sure that we’re doomed.
Chapter 16
Kali
It’s been two days since we ended up on this ship, and honestly, it feels like a lifetime.
And definitely not a good lifetime.
I thought life at the palace could be a minefield with all the intrigue and backbiting, but living in close quarters with six of the strangest—and, in some cases, the most dangerous—people I’ve ever met is something else entirely.
It doesn’t help that I feel like a total and complete mess. Not just in looks, but in knowing how to do…anything. The only things I’ve ever really been trained in are diplomacy and leadership, and this group has no interest in either one of those.