Aberrant

Chapter 41

Jinx jerked back from the nightmare vision, clutched the bench beneath her—denied the visceral urge to run. No. She was not going to lose it. She wasn't her father. No mental demons—literal or metaphorical—were going to sink their claws into her, drag her over the goddamn edge. She was just having a bad night. Nothing new for her. Nothing she hadn't survived before.

Reaching along the kitchen counter she perched on, she snagged Kaplan's beer off him. Insanity wasn't in her immediate future; alcohol was. A brain-killing, shuttle load of—

Kaplan hooked the beer out of her hand before she could take her first sip toward oblivion. Pointedly holding her stare, he leaned across her to dump the remains of the drink into the recyce. "Give up the death wish on my watch, Jinx."

"Kaplan, my brain's already fragged. To hell with any possible drug interac—"

He moved—planted his fists either side of her, sending her pulse scrambling. "You haven't stepped over the edge yet." He set his gaze level with hers, any prior cool detachment now hot vapour. "Your brain activity is, for the most part, hyperactive but steady. Even when you have these 'glitches', you know what is and isn't real. So, stow the self-pity and keep your head in the game."

"Kaplan—" She flinched as he brushed the hair from her face, the unexpected gesture done with hard eyes. Her stomach dipped then locked. Had the moron not heard a thing she'd said? Had he not seen her head spin in a full circle right in front of him not five minutes ago?

She batted his hand away—only to have him capture her wrist.

He caught her edgy glare next. "Watching you self-destruct isn't an option, Jinx."

"Then shove me out an airlock as promised. In the long run, you'd be doing us both a favour." A clean end, with no one dragged to hell with her. The best future she could hope for.

Kaplan tightened his grip as she tried to pull away. "I'm not looking for any favours. You're not the only one who wasn't made for a long and easy life, Jinx. A lot of people on this ship weren't."

She opened her mouth to argue, but the reality of his situation hit, slapping back the words. Everything she'd just learned replayed. His kind, the Rha Si, had been created to combat the Xykeree, to go to war, and signs were it was coming.

She clenched her hand in his hold, abruptly understanding. "You're personally going after the roaches who took your friend, aren't you?" And he didn't expect a happy ending—for him or his friend. "When?"

"As soon as we have a lead."

Days, weeks, maybe even only hours. Her breath faltered. By the time Kaplan returned—if he returned—she'd be lost to insanity or meds. Even now, as she held his stare, more mental phantoms rose with the buzz he put in her skull.

But they weren't the terror, rage, or blazing agony of her last glitch. They weren't unnerving visions of med equipment and demons. They were something quieter, bleaker.

For a moment, it felt like only a thin wall held insanity back, a sea of whispers.

She wrenched her arm free and gripped the bench under her. The acute need to ditch and run rose again with that unnatural sense of panic. She blocked it out. The impulse, the sense she could escape what was coming for her, was as irrational as the nightmare urge to dive into hell and burn. Both compulsions came from the screaming void.

"Jinx?" A light touch on her arm.

She flicked her lashes up to glower. "I'd tell you to back off and save your concern for someone who could give a shit, but newsflash, I don't have the time to waste."