Page 40 of The Haunted Alien’s Mate

“Everybody out!” Tambi grabbed Doc by the jacket and hauled her toward the exit, Monica leaping out in front of them.

Resin erupted across the entrance in a sheet, sealing the frame in under two seconds, trapping me inside with Rennick.

“This again? What the fuck is going on?” I kept focused on the floating apparitions, but they showed no signs of anger as they moved through the room.

“Hollow Chorus doesn’t want us to leave.” Rennick braced against the wall of resin blocking the exit, but it didn’t shift under his weight.

“My comm is dead, so I can’t tell the others what’s going on. I don’t want them to think we’re in trouble.” I pressed my mouth close to the resin seal. “Tambi! Don’t cut through. Give us twenty minutes to figure this out.”

The spectral shapes had arranged themselves in an arc near the center of the room, hovering off the floor. They really were like ghosts. The tall ghost pulsed brighter, its edges sharpening, and for half a second, I caught the outline of a jaw. The flickering ghost stabilized beside it, smaller, rounder, tilting what might have been a head at an angle that looked curious.

And the third ghost still looked at me. I didn’t see eyes, but I felt the intensity of a spectral stare.

“Um... hi.” My voice came out steadier than my pulse felt.

The tall ghost moved closer, and the temperature dropped with every foot it gained. My breath fogged, and goosebumps raced up both arms and across the back of my neck. It stopped an arm’s length away and extended one luminous hand toward my face.

“Cass, don’t let it touch you!” Rennick’s voice was tight.

I held my ground. Moving now was the worst possible call. Same rules as ordnance disposal. Stay calm, stay still, don’t startle the thing that might kill you. “What do you want?”

The hand hovered at my temple, close enough that the cold pressed against my skin without contact. The floor channels blazed white, and every alcove activated.

That was when a flash hit like a detonation behind my eyes. A corridor. Night, low lighting, and someone running. The corridor stretched ahead in the dark, doors sealed on both sides, and behind the runner a sound that didn’t belong on a ship. A grinding, like the vessel’s infrastructure tore itself apart from the inside.

The runner hit a sealed door and pounded on it as the grinding got closer. Then the memory lurched sideways. Same ship, different deck. Two bodies were on the floor. One still moved, fingers clawing at resin that had grown around both legs, anchoring them to the platform.

The other body was still as the alcove beside them pulsed, and the ship’s neural matrix lit with each pulse, locking in on a dying signal. The body on the platform stopped clawing and went rigid as the ship pulled something out of them.

My knees buckled. I hit the floor, and the vision fractured into a new image. Smoke rolling across the ceiling. Hands gripping a sealed bulkhead. The ship screaming through her hull in a frequency that rattled bone, and underneath it, that grinding, mechanical noise, coming closer.

“Cass!” Rennick dropped beside me.

“Don’t touch me! It’s not safe.” The ship’s ritual infrastructure had locked onto my nervous system, and every point of contact was a data channel. If Rennick touched me, the ship would pull his signal too. And since these two weren’t friends, I couldn’t take the risk that she’d hurt him, mistakenly thinking he was overstepping and trying to force a bond through me.

The tall, ghostly shape stood over us. It extended both hands, and the air between its fingers and my skull filled with cold light.

Resin grew around my boots. It sealed over my ankles and climbed, and the channel running from my feet to the nearest alcove lit up.

“She thinks I’m one of them.” My teeth chattered. “She’s running the ritual to save what’s left.”

“Fuck this. I’m pulling you out.” Rennick reached for me.

I locked eyes with him. “She’ll take you too. The resin is a conduit. You touch me, you’re in the circuit, too. Hollow Chorus could react badly if you force your way into her system.”

“I don’t fucking care. This shit could kill you.” He tried to grab me, but an invisible force threw him across the room before his fingers touched my skin.

“Stop!” I held up a hand to prevent his rage making him do something dumb. “I’m freaked the hell out, but I’m not in pain. Let’s see what happens.”

Three hundred pounds of Kelvane froze, every muscle tense, indecision warring across his face. But he obeyed me and stopped with the alpha shit.

The resin crept past my shins, and the cold deepened. The spectral shapes circled closer, and the smaller one reached for my hand with chilled fingers.

“Hey. I think I know what’s happening. You’re stuck mid-process, aren’t you? But I’m not a part of this ship. Check the data. I’m not one of the crew who died. I’m alive, and I really don’t want to be sucked into this system. Can you help me get free so I can fix you?”

The ritual kept cycling. Okay, asking for help didn’t work.

“Check! Please!” I shoved authority into the words. “Run a diagnostic. I’m a human. I’m not the right input for you. You take me, and I’ll only make things worse. I’m not what you’re missing.”