***

ELODIE WOKE UP TO THE lights of a new ship cycle glowing overhead. She looked toward Gunner’s cell.

She wanted to excuse her slow reflexes as hunger and exhaustion, but it wasn’t that hunger and exhaustion that stopped her from jerking away and scurrying to the opposite corner of her cell.

It was the prisoner in the cell next to her—Gunner—who was staring intensely at her and pressed up to the bars they shared. He pinned her to the spot.

He’s back.

He’d been brought back while she’d been asleep. Worry careened through her that his return hadn’t woken her. I’ve always been awake when the guards came.

His hand slowly reached up between them to place a single finger over his lips.

Every fiber in her body solidified into a monument erected by silent fear.

He wanted her to remain quiet. Why?

Elodie parted her lips and brought the hand resting under her cheek up to slip over her mouth, hiding the sound of her breath and to partially hide her face from him. If they both reached out, their fingers could interlock through the bars.

“Good morning,” he whispered, his voice low and harsh. She broke out into a sweat. “I see you didn’t wait up,” he said.

I did. At least until...I fell asleep.

His eye was swollen and bruises spotted his flesh. But he returned. Just that alone meant something, that he wasn’t lumped in the same category with her and the rest of the prisoners.

She’d wished for her dad to return, but instead, Gunner had.

He lowered his finger and tapped the metal, making her eyes dart back and forth between his mouth and bar. Their faces were a handspan apart, their fingers barely an inch. She slunk back slightly.

“Don’t.”

She shuddered and stopped, pressing her free arm into her chest. She balled her fingers against her thundering heart. Like her stomach, she couldn’t apply enough pressure to make it stop aching.

“Keep being smart, Ely.”

Elodie stiffened at his words and hated herself a little more for it, knowing he was voicing out loud the same thing that ran through her head a thousand times a day.

She pressed her hand harder against her mouth and took a deep breath through her nose, bringing with it the stench of fresh coppery blood. It pulled her attention from Gunner’s messed up face to what she could see of his body.

He was lounging on his side, not hunched like a man would be if he was in a lot of pain. The old fatigues and undershirt from before were still in place but they were no longer clean, but blood splattered. Nothing stays clean here for long.

“They beat the shit out of me, not literally though. Unless you count blood and sweat as shit,” he told her as she stared at the numerous stains on his clothes. Some spots were still wet and they clung to his body but most of them seemed crusted and dry.

How much time had passed? Losing time was not a good thing.

Gunner’s finger stopped its tapping, bringing her perusal to an end.

He’s baiting me.

“You still won’t talk to me?” he asked.

You told me to stay quiet! She wanted to yell and ask why he cared so much. Baited. Elodie closed her eyes and decided to make him disappear.

“Don’t shut me out...”

She let her hand drop and move back to cushion her head, shifting away from him to lie on her back.

“I won’t tell anyone you’re a girl,” Gunner whispered low enough for only her to hear.

Elodie grumbled and evened her breathing. Bluffer. There was no way for him to know for certain, and no way for him to find out without breaking through steel. The last she checked, men, even those with cybernetic enhancements, couldn’t do that.

The raspy laugh he released fell upon her ears, eliciting a shiver. She shouldn’t be so curious about him, and it troubled her deeply that rather than wane, her curiosity only grew.

She heard him move away and she squeezed her eyelids tighter.

If I talk to him...it would be a distraction. I could learn new information. He’s been outside the brig and came back. He may have seen my dad. Although she knew the chance of that was slim.

If I talk to him and get on his good side, maybe I’ll get to keep my safe place, maybe he won’t touch me like Kallan...

Based on the last two cycles alone, the newcomer hadn’t touched her at all, not even when he had the chance to.

But she knew she could never trust him, right? Elodie curled her fingers under her cheek. She could never expect him to keep his word.

Could she?

Elodie could reach through again and touch him. She could attack Kallan too, but the negative outcomes were more than she cared to contend with. Was it the same for Gunner?

And I’m far from the only prisoner who keeps to himself.

She hadn’t been able to trust anyone since her dad volunteered like a fool.

The wayward thought filled her with bitterness for a brief second before vanishing. He left me. And there was nothing she could do about it, not anymore. Any plans of escape eluded her, still, and the added variable of getting to her dad, as well, made what plans she could muster up that much more impossible in her head.

The tapping returned on the bars but she refused to acknowledge it. Eventually, he’ll grow bored.

Kallan forgot her existence for days sometimes. She’d had a three cycle streak without his attention at one point.

The taps got a little louder.

If I talk to him and get on his good side, we could ally, even for a short time.

Ally for what? She almost laughed at the idea. Gunner wasn’t a plan. He was just another unlucky man.

There was no real escape from this brig, and even if there was, she didn’t know how big the ship was, how many men crewed it. She had no idea how to pilot or where to find the emergency pods. She only knew they were being delivered somewhere, for something, and that delivery could happen at any time.

If she survived until then, the possible dubious connections she could make here in the brig would mean nothing. If blood couldn’t hold two people together, simple words said in desperation held no more weight than a forgotten dream.

Elodie sighed. The tapping next to her head stopped. Then it picked back up. She held in a second sigh.

She couldn’t think of very many pros to getting to know Gunner besides those with immediate gains.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked as if he knew the argument going on in her head.

Food! she yelled internally. You. You and food.

She didn’t have the strength to look and see if there were rations by her cell door. She especially didn’t have the courage to open her eyes and move away from Gunner knowing that he was poised so close that he could hurt her badly if he wanted to.

She also didn’t want to know if breakfast had once again been denied them. Not looking meant she could pretend for a little longer.

I’m thinking of you holding food. You with so much food to offer me that I can remember what it was like to feel full. A picture of his face and his tats came to mind and the way they might move over his cheeks as he chewed. From there, to a feast of everything she loved to eat...

Elodie imagined him with a treasure trove of fresh produce, the kind that was so rare out in deep space, genetically enhanced space fruit and vegetables. Coffee beans that had come straight from the ground instead of the fake powdery stuff that was more common. Gunner didn’t have tattoos of guns on his cheeks but of slices of cake. She’d lick the blood and dirt off his face if there was a promise of chocolate cake beneath.

Her stomach cried at her to stop but she couldn’t.

“You’re thinking about food, aren’t you?”

Her little fantasy died so fast she couldn’t even remember when it began. Her eyes snapped open and she lifted her head up to find an empty space where her rations were normally placed by the androids. Minutes went by as she stared, hoping that they’d magically appear. The tapping beside her continued through her disappointment and her pain, forcing her to look back his way.

“Looking for this?” Gunner held something up.

Between his fingers was a ration, knocking back and forth like his finger had. He was no longer lying on his side, but mirrored her new position and continued to do so as she slid up and leaned her back to the wall.

It wasn’t quite the fantasy she pictured but it was close enough that it frightened her.

“You can have it back if you talk to me. And if you haven’t figured it out by now, I reached through and stole it while you were out. Out like a light, like a bulb, practically already dead. Didn’t want it to go to waste if that was the case.” He leaned in closer. “And your friend over there was reaching for it too.”

The pain in her stomach wailed its sad song, and for the first time, she lashed out and went for it, snatching her ration from his hand. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten it, or her audacity, but the next instant she scurried away with her prize.

Raucous laughter followed her and fuck if she cared. She sank her teeth into the tasteless, chewy gunk and savored every quick bite for the mere moments they lasted.

Kallan grumbled beside her and she knew she’d made herself entertainment again, but was beyond caring as a high of satiation settled in.

When it was over, she found herself sitting and facing Gunner. Her curiosity returned.

He watched her like a predator. She suppressed her sudden unease and nausea that threatened to upend her food.

Elodie made her way back to the wall, knowing his eyes trailed after her the whole way.

“Not going to reward me?” Gunner asked, chuckling. “I think I deserve a reward.”

Reward systems between low-life prisoners... Hah!

Kallan answered for her. “No use trying with our boy here. I offered him the sun and the moon when he first got thrown in and found the more you try, the stiffer his lips get. My boy likes listening though... When he’s in the mood.” He laughed hoarsely. Everything Kallan said sounded disgusting.

Gunner’s eyes flickered with red light, just for an instant, before they went milky again. She was about to lean in to get a closer look when he turned from her and looked at Kallan, his face harder than before.

“Your...boy?” he asked, low and deep. Frighteningly.

“The best boy a man like me could have! Isn’t that right, Ely? Daddy left but a new one took his place. A boy always needs a dad.”

Fuck you, Kallan.

“Is that so? Ely doesn’t look like a boy to me, he looks like—”

“A woman?” Kallan interjected.

“I was going to say man,” Gunner finished, deadpan.

Kallan broke out into another laugh. “Shame that. Still, he only talks to his daddy and we decided who that was now before you arrived. If you want to talk, better pick someone else.” He spat. “Like your jacket buddy.”

“What if I want to talk to you, Kallan?”

“You should’ve thought about that before you gave away your fucking leverage!”

The next moment Gunner moved from her side and crouched at the other end of his cell, startling her. Something shiny and round rolled across the floor, through her space, with enough speed that it wasn’t until it perfectly slipped through the other bars and into Kallan’s unit that she realized it was a water gel. Her stolen water gel.

Kallan caught it, ready for it, taking it before she had a chance to move. He drank it as she watched in despair, smiling cruelly at her through yellow teeth when he was done.

“I have new leverage now,” Gunner said, lifting up the second gel. “I have extra water.”

My water.

“If you’re certain you can get it past Ely here again, I guess I can answer some questions,” Kallan grumbled.

Elodie was gazing longingly at the water in his hand and hadn’t realized that Gunner was speaking to her now. “You can have this back if you say one word to me.”

Her lips parted.

His face was back at the bars in a flash, in line with her head. She jerked back.

Gunner pinned her with his gaze.

She could almost taste the refreshing liquid in her mouth, feel it move across her lips and over her tongue, down her throat, hydrating her from the outside in.

Her lips moved to give him one word...

“Waste of time! I told you!” Kallan’s shrill voice was edged with laughter.

Elodie shut her mouth.

Gunner stood up and gripped the bars they shared, his countenance shifting so precisely, so carefully, that it was almost indiscernible. He sucked up the space and had been sucking it up since he arrived. Elodie watched him uneasily, wondering if he was angry, knowing Kallan held his attention, and really saw him for the first time. Not in comparison to other men, not as a prisoner, or a man with bad luck deteriorating on a cell floor, but as a singular being. One with a lot more power than he should have.

She had been scared before, but now she was haunted.

He’s restraining himself. Elodie didn’t know how she knew, she just did, half expecting the metal in his hands to shatter like glass. Once again, the intimidation his presence created had her imagining him actually destroying the bars. Freeing himself.

If I say something, he’ll give me my water gel back. She knew she was trying to convince herself to talk to him but her instincts still warred.

There was something about Gunner that shook her to her bones, something about the way he moved and surveyed and...lurked that didn’t seem human. Even so, she could never trust his word alone. If she had a tablet she could write a bad rulebook about surviving in a prison, and the first rule she’d put down, the one that would be at the top of the page would be: never trust.

Don’t trust anyone, anything, and don’t trust yourself. Especially not yourself. The direr the circumstances were, the more likely your humanity was going to be buried by the beast.

Kallan appeared to notice the difference as well, and as she looked around at the other prisoners, many were also gazing warily at Gunner who had solidified into a terrifying, murderous-looking statue. The abrupt quiet filled the air with tension.

“Look, I’m only telling you the truth,” Kallan added, hesitantly.

Please be quiet.

“He’s not who you should be interested in anyway,” he continued, attempting to change the subject.

“Who should I be interested in?” Gunner hummed low.

The tension popped like a bubble the moment he spoke and Elodie was grateful for it.

“The men that obviously want something from you,” Kallan said. “My boy wants nothing from you.”

Royce added, “You’re the only one who’s been taken from here and returned. What’s so special about you?”

Gunner turned halfway to face him. “My ship.”

“They stole yours too?” Kallan asked, humphing. “Looks like we all have something in common here!”

“They did, but that’s where the similarities end.” Lethal, angry, low. Did no one see his clenching hands? She couldn’t take her eyes off them.

“Yeah, some of us don’t need to sport tattoos of guns to show how threatening we are,” Royce mocked, causing a slew of snickers throughout.

Elodie remained silent as the men around her jeered, listening, hoping to find out something. She itched to ask her own questions but didn’t want to risk her momentary invisibility.

No one’s paying attention to me. It felt like the first time in days. Her uneasy gaze remained on Gunner but even he no longer paid attention to her.

She leaned her head back and knocked it on the wall with a sigh. I should be thinking about dad and how to get the both of us out of here alive. The only idea that came to mind was to expose herself to the guards and hope for something... And she wasn’t ready for that.

“Here.” Gunner’s voice broke her thoughts.

Elodie turned to find him holding her gel through the bars with his fingers. The moment her eyes landed on it, he rolled it across the floor in her direction until it stopped a foot from her side, hidden to everyone else but them.

Was he just giving it to her? Why?

Her suspicion grew the longer she focused on the gel, so clearly hers once again, and waited to see if it was a trap.

She slid her fingers slowly across the cold floor and picked it up, keeping Gunner in her line of sight, and when he made no move, she lifted it to her lips and plopped it into her mouth, squeezing the rubbery elasticene until it dissolved and exploded in her mouth. Elodie clamped down her lips to keep any of it from escaping but the excitement of having it—when she had written it off—was too much. The water pooled down her throat and settled into her belly far too quickly for her liking. Regardless of her best effort, droplets escaped, and what her tongue couldn’t catch trailed down her chin.

She caught it on the back of her hand and rubbed the moisture back over her lips. No water, not even a drop, could be wasted. Elodie felt his piercing eyes on her the entire time. A heavy breath tickled the hair over her ear, growing heavier and more forceful by the second.

She forced herself to look.

Her lips dropped. Bloody-red irises filled her vision, brighter and deeper than before. They made the metal bars gleam crimson and beyond that, his mouth was parted. His breath came out in pants, and between his lips, she could see the sharpened points of teeth.

Teeth that weren’t human. Teeth that hadn’t been there before. She leaned closer to get a better view but his mouth snapped shut and his eyes returned to normal, startling her back.

He broke eye contact with her first and turned away, settling against the wall.

She continued to watch him for some time afterward, unsure if what she had seen was real or not. The longer she dwelled on it, the more she convinced herself that his incisors had been an illusion, a trick of her mind caused by exhaustion. That she was hallucinating.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered loud enough for only her to hear.

Elodie rubbed her palms across her pants and leaned back again, closing her eyes, drifting in and out of awareness.

Rule number two: don’t expect something for nothing.

If I give him what he wants and talk to him, he wins. If he wins, what does he win? My voice and his game. Elodie knew very well that the only reason why he wanted to hear her again was to satisfy his suspicions that she wasn’t a man. He gave me the water and the ration back for free and he doesn’t know, couldn’t know.

He doesn’t ever have to know.

Her eyes snapped open and she looked back his way. His were shut tight, his hair plastered in waves obscuring them, and his body relaxed.

Elodie gripped the cloth of her shirt and swallowed what she was going to say. It would have to wait.

Even men with crazy eyes, flashy tattoos, and possible fangs needed sleep too.