Sail

When Earth still existed, iron gates often surrounded cemeteries to keep the ghosts contained. Some people nailed iron horseshoes to their front doors to repel evil spirits. Me? I consumed iron like candy. Its tangy, sweet flavor, the safety it promised—it hooked me. Doctors called it pica; I called it living without fear.

But iron couldn’t protect me on the day I became a fugitive.

A soft shudder rolled under my feet, a welcome sensation even though it chased tingles up and down my legs. Bright lights tracked across the floor-to-ceiling windows, shimmering through the snowflakes that clung to the glass. Deep blue ink had poured over the sky hours before, a reminder that I’d been sitting here all day. I stretched my legs out in front of the red circular benches that dotted the Waiting Room as feeling pricked its way back into my limbs.

“Now docking the Nebulous passenger cruiser and the…” a soothing robotic voice said over the loudspeaker, but a nearby wailing child drowned her out.

The Sky Dock, nicknamed the Waiting Room by me for obvious reasons, was the tallest building in the city and shaped like one of those ancient staples on elongated legs. Passing ships that were on the smaller side could briefly dock under our feet to trade passengers or drop off and pick up cargo.

Excited chatter erupted, which thankfully smothered the Christmas carols I’d heard on repeat for the last however long I’d been here. People stood and gathered their belongings. I had only me. I craned my neck over the crowd of travelers, but the icy blonde guard at the other end of the long room hadn’t made a move to open the doors. But once she did, I’d see Pop and my sister, Ellison, again after ninety-three days.

Much as I wanted to stand and position myself to throw my arms around them, I couldn’t. The baby sitting on her mom’s lap next to me had her chubby fingers wound around the chains twisted through my long hair. She blinked up at me with a pair of dazzling blue eyes while she stuck a fistful of iron into her mouth with a big grin. I smiled at both our similar tastes and the thought of seeing my family again.

Her mom, who’d been distracted by a whiny toddler, started to rise. When she noticed who her baby was attached to, she jerked back. Her gaze snagged on every piece of metal I wore: the long, delicate chains spun through my hair that hung past my ass, the tight leather corset with metal spikes running down the sides (not to mention the ladies spilling out the top), the belt with six inch thorns, my iron-toed boots. Yes, I wore pants, but they didn’t count because they were one of the few things I owned not made of iron. I didn’t mean for my clothes to growl ‘I will eat your children,’ but judging from the look on the woman’s face, I might as well have gnawed off an ear already.

“Excuse me,” she muttered and forced her baby’s hand free. The little girl reached over her mom’s shoulder with her face screwed up in a wail while her mom ran people over in her haste to get away.

My chains stuck to my arm with a trail of baby saliva. I shook them into place again, and every looped strand clinked together in a metallic whisper. This kind of garb wasn’t exactly atypical on the planet Mayvel, but to the locals who preferred to blend in with their embroidered earth-colored tunics and sensible shoes, it screamed outcast. I definitely was one.

I stood and made my way toward the double doors that still hadn’t opened, and to Pop and Ellison who would soon walk through them. It’d been too long. I’d gone to Smixton College, or Smarty Pants University as Pop called it, to soak knowledge into my fingertips and blot out as many unnecessary distractions as I could. But I missed how Ellison used to coax the snarls from my hair—chains and all—with a gentle touch, while Pop used to make me laugh until my body turned to rubber.

My throat pulled tight at the memories. I was technically an adult, a full-grown woman in her second year at college, and I was getting all emotional because I missed daddy and sissy. But rusted balls, yes, I did.

I snatched a small piece of iron from my pocket that I’d melted down from the legs of an old bench, popped it into my mouth, and swallowed. The sharp iron zest traced calm over my taste buds and down to my toes.

It didn’t usually take this long to dock or get here in the first place, for that matter. The Nebulous’s passenger cruiser was supposed to be here yesterday, but no one bothered to explain the reason for the delay. The blonde female guard, who I swore was paid to glare at people, stood inside the Waiting Room doors, just as she did now, and ordered us all home yesterday with fists posted on her hips.

“The cruiser will be here tomorrow,” was all she’d barked. Now, she tilted her head to the side, probably listening to her Mind-I, the computer implanted in her head, while sweeping her cold blue gaze over the room as if she expected a riot.

Excitement faded to frustrated grumbling. Some people sank back onto the large red benches. What was taking so long?

Time to move and see what I could find out. I made my way to the nearest wall of windows that bordered the room and glided along their length, stepping over the plush, white carpet and people’s stray children. Many of them had their noses pressed against the glass to watch the falling snow with dreamy smiles. If only we could all be so worry-free.

Stares and biting whispers lanced my back. I should’ve been used to curious glances, but stares always made me feel like a microscopic paradancyl in biology class—all shine and no substance. I’d rather they didn’t look at me at all, but if my metal armor meant a little ogling, I could handle it. It was light years better than the alternative.

The doors behind the guard hissed then finally opened. Two men stood inside arguing. No one was coming down the floor-lit path behind them, and the guard would stop us if we even thought about stepping through the door without her receiving the go-ahead. So I stared at the ass of the man who had his back to me because someone had to. Might as well be me.

His jeans perked up every curve and squeezed it, almost like I was cupping his cheeks myself. Damn. If only I could, though that was likely frowned upon just as much as my armor. Still, the idea tempted me and my horny fingers, so I fisted my hands behind my back and willed myself to focus on something less stimulating. Like the immaculately clean carpet. And then back to that beautiful butt.

A dark brown coat skimmed his waistband and bulked up his wide shoulders. The ends of sandy blond hair played across his collar as he shook his head vehemently at the other man, who stalked away from him and into the Waiting Room.

The man, the cute one, looked after him, the set of his stubbled jaw like steel. “Fuck,” he mouthed, then marched back down the corridor, I guessed to his waiting ship. Good thing, too, because any more memorization of his backside, and my ovaries would’ve surely exploded.

From where he’d disappeared, a string of haggard-looking men and women rushed through and searched the crowd. I stood on tiptoes to see any sign of Pop while people jumped to their feet again. Turning from the window, I jostled myself into the mass barring the doors.

Between a small break in the throng, I thought I saw the brown stocking cap Pop always wore to hide his bald spot, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Pop, over here,” I called anyway.

But something was wrong. I saw it in the faces of everyone I scanned. Wild eyes. Panic.

A curly red-haired girl next to me covered her mouth. Tears stair-stepped down the cracks in her fingers. A man, maybe her dad, shook his head. “Deep space.”

“What about deep space?” I demanded, but he just looked at me like he had no idea who I was. Probably because he didn’t. Even though I’d lived on the Nebulous with these people, no one knew who I was because I’d kept to myself.

Another man took the elbows of his younger version in his large hands. “The Ring Guild say she…” His voice faded as I hurried forward through the crush of bodies.

What did the Ringers have to do with anything? Who was she? The air inside the Waiting Room seemed to solidify.

I grabbed at a chunk of hair and pulled, like I used to when I was little and couldn’t catch my breath. Normally it reassured me that everything was safe. But this time it didn’t.

The brown stocking cap had disappeared. Where were Pop and Ellison?

“Absidy!” a familiar voice called.

At the sound of my name, I sighed my relief. Pop appeared at my side and hugged me to him.

“Something happened, didn’t it?” I asked, pressing my face into his jacket and breathing in ship oil and his normal Pop smell.

“Absidy, listen to me.” He pulled away. Red veins webbed his eyes, and his bronze skin seemed paler in the harsh light. “You can’t come back with me to the Nebulous.”

“What? Why?” The Nebulous was my home. I’d grown up on that ship. I had to come with him to see… Ellison. I looked around him, thinking maybe she hid behind his bulk. “Where’s Ellison?”

Pop grimaced at his shoes. Deep cracks had stitched through his dry lips, and he licked them nervously. “You have to stay here. At Smixton.”

My skin prickled. He never called my school by its real name. I clutched at one of the buttons on his jacket, an anchor in this swell of unease. “Tell me, Pop.”

“Your sister…” he said, his voice tight. “She took a cruiser to Wix a week ago, but she swore she’d be back in time for your visit.” He shook his head and his eyes fell closed. “And now she’s…gone. Vanished.”