Aberrant

Chapter 9

Hands scrambling across metal, sliding through gore. Shallow breaths. A pounding heart. Something coming. Something hunting. Something...

Needles—needle-like legs. Stabbing. In the dark. In the blood.

The blood.

A shriek.

"Koel!"

A jolt. Agony splintered her skull.

"Fucking snap out of it, you useless pu'ta."

Another shockwave through flesh; a blow hard enough to light a stinging fire across her cheek. The images in her mind shattered.

Jinx groaned. For a moment, she couldn't move, couldn't even connect with her tongue. Then she managed to blink—then blink again. Pain poured into her head. With a curse, she pried open her eyes.

Light. Too strong after the dark. The tang of vomit lingered in her mouth. What had frigging hit her? A runaway air-sled? God.

She had the urge to throw up. Only the extremely pissed pair of eyes in front of her stopped her.

Olsen looked ready to bury her.

"What. The. Fuck?" he said as her gaze met his.

It took Jinx a few seconds to process the words—and to realise she was on the floor inside the airlock, propped against a wall. Olsen and Rolli were crouched before her, face shields up, exposing dark stares. She scrambled to orientate herself. The last thing she remembered was walking into the Xykeree ship to start her inspection, the andropod behind her, winding up her nerves.

No. A cold feeling slid through her. Entering the ship wasn't all she recalled. She remembered laser beams heading her off, skittering sounds, glinting metal, and...

Panic. Flickering nightmares—a sense of irrational fury.

A flash of heat and light—then drowning darkness.

Nausea returned full force. Denial came an instant later, but the cold metal under her and the eyes watching her didn't allow it to take hold.

She was on the floor, her head spinning, her gut about to empty, and no one had put her there but herself.

She'd lost her grip on her mind.

Real horrors, not imagined ones or data net clips, blinded her. Her father's face contorted with rage. Spittle, curses, gibberish. God, she'd forgotten the babbling, the rocking, the—

"Koel." Olsen shook her, knocking her head against the wall. "Don't you bloody zone on me again."

Jinx barely registered the impact. If she got treatment, she'd be a mindless shell. Better that she just—

"You want to get shot, freak?" Another hard shake. "Keep fucking quivering like that. I'll do it."

Her skull clunked against metal again. Panic bubbled up. Then years of denial kicked in, pure survival reflex. She slammed the door that had been thrown open, walled it up mental brick by mental brick. What had happened... She'd deal with it later, when she was alone.

"Get off me." She shoved Olsen back—then winced, bells ringing in her ears. "Shit. How hard did you frigging slap me?" Her head felt like it might crack open.

Olsen flashed his capped teeth. "You deserved it."

"The hell I did."

"You fainted like a sorry little girl, Koel. Right in the middle of an inspection. Rolli had to drag your arse out of that alien freak show. Weak, pu'ta, fucking weak, even for you."