***

GUNNER CURSED.

And cursed.

A long stream of angry profanity went through his head without stopping. Ely had shut him out.

He didn’t know why it bothered him so fucking much but it did, and the longer he had to endure, the angrier he became. Time ran like a never-ending loop in his systems, and the amount of time that had passed since she shut down had been less than twelve cruel Earthian hours. Twelve. He was already an impatient man but what patience he did have was sorely being tested.

Gunner grabbed the bars between them and rested his forehead against them. He hadn’t moved them from her since she had turned her back to him. He knew he should be focusing on breaking down the ship’s systems from within, should be poking at the encryptions that he had yet to break, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The secret was sucking the air out from between them, making it hard to breathe, and making her scurry away like a frightened animal. The canines buried in his gums poked at his current set of teeth, wanting to be released, wanting to hunt down and bury deep into the animal that skirted him. The metal was hot beneath his clenching fingers.

“Ely...” he said, hoping for a twitch, but she gave him nothing. And Gunner had the eyes of half the prisoners leering at his back.

How could they not notice? The more he ignored them, the more interested they became, and the more interested they became, the more he wanted to kill them off so they’d no longer parade at the edge of his thoughts.

Kallan’s intermittent chuckles no longer sounded human to him, nor did the other voices that spoke. The coughs and grunts from the others held no meaning anymore: they did nothing but make his jackal hunger for silence.

“Ely,” Gunner called out to her again. His eyes traced the curves of her frame, taking in the way her short hair fell over her ears, her eyes when he could see them, and the way her legs clamped together and shifted closer to her body whenever he spoke...and the way his jacket fell over her as if in protection... From him.

Fuck!

“Give up already,” Kallan grunted. “My boy here isn’t a talker.”

Gunner had never wanted to strangle the life out of another man so much. The metal bent beneath his grip. Kallan could at least see her face where Gunner could only see the back of her head. Kallan called Ely his boy and Gunner had nothing to call her.

Even the thought that the squirrely, greasy man made a claim to Ely enraged him. She was his. At least for now.

He made his threats, to her no less, and there was only one way for the two of them to go from here. Even if she didn’t realize it, the moment she put his jacket on, he had marked her. His smell, his property, surrounded her and held her captive in a little bubble of his making. His cock jerked in his pants.

“For fuck’s sake, talk to me!” Gunner roared—not caring who overheard—and released the bars before he crushed them. Excitement shot through him when she sat up, startled, and looked his way.

She looked like a frightened animal. Wide-eyed. Heart racing. Fear.

He pressed closer to the bars, as close as he could get. For a moment, he was convinced to give up on the ship—his ship—break into her cell, and take her in front of everyone, especially Kallan, and leave.

Would she follow? They stared at each other and he willed her to turn around and face him. She remained still.

“Would you follow?” he asked, uncaring who heard.

Her face clouded over in confusion. Her brows furrowed and her lips twisted. He had an urge to lick them—to lick the sweat and strain off her features and keep licking until his saliva coated her skin in a wet sheen, until his tongue found her cunt and there were no more barriers between them.

“What?” Ely shuffled to sit upright.

“I could take you,” he said, lowering his voice. She edged closer, head tilted, still confused.

“I could take you...but would you follow?”

The thought made his cock twitch.

A look of comprehension flushed her features, and a toothy grin spread across his face. His nostrils flared as the heady smell of blossoming fear filled the air between them. Her blossoming fear. Ely stopped moving his way and gave him her most vulnerable, horrible expression. The idea of taking her here and now, sweat, dirt, and grime included made him even harder. His cockhead rubbed at his pants, fighting for release.

“Come closer,” he lured.

“No.”

“We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t. Talking to you was a mistake.” She shifted to turn away and he moved to break whatever he needed too to stop her, but the zipping whoosh of the brig door opening stopped both of them.

Two men entered: the new head guard from yesterday morning and another. His attention landed on the new man. He had hawkish features, a hooked nose, a pallor worse than a corpse, but had intelligent eyes—eyes that were downcast and looking at a hologram held in his hand. A hush fell over the brig.

Gunner stood, erection jutting out, and faced the fuckers that constantly interrupted his privacy with Ely.

The guard’s nose twitched but unlike previous days, neither of them backed down from the smell; the androids had done their job well.

They approached Royce’s cell and the man with the hologram raised his eyes to the door panel.

“This is where he died. Never seen such a messed-up suicide, clawed his wrist and bled out all over the locking mechanism,” the guard told the new man.

“Hmm...” The hologram was lifted until it expanded to encapsulate the lock.

Gunner leaned his back against the wall. He heard more than saw Ely move back to his side and he reached down to curl his finger around the bar next to her head.

The airy blue holosphere vibrated and billowed, and he could taste the energy it put in the air. Gunner seeped out of his body and poked the connection, testing it, and capturing what information he could. It zapped him and he was thrust back out.

The hologram flashed red.

What the hell?

“What was that?” the guard asked for him.

“Interesting...” his techie friend mumbled but didn’t answer.

A different type of sparking flooded his mainframe, one that felt like thorns piercing his skin from the inside-out.

It fought me. It fucking fought back. Gunner, reconfiguring, approached the tech with more caution. He scoped it from a different wavelength, stalking around it like he would prey, and moved in slowly. The closer he got, the more the thorns embedded themselves, and the more his own systems went on the defense.

The hologram went red again and stayed that way while he fought through the growing pain. The battle was internal, invisible to any onlookers.

The tech eluded him, a barbed-wire of a firewall protecting its secrets. The more it fought, the more he wanted to know what it was hiding.

Passwords. Intel. Where my goddamned ship was taken. He jaw locked. A network virus danced around like will-o’-wisps in his mind.

A soft caress and a sudden shock of warmth hit the back of his finger, drawing him away. Suddenly Ballsy wasn’t in his head but Ely. The heat spread. He looked at her. Where her temple was resting on his own skin.

She filled his thoughts and drowned out everything else. That touch, her touch. The sensation mesmerizing and giving, and so out of place with what was happening it took him aback. It was a small connection—that of her brow against the back of his finger—but it shifted something inside him he wasn’t prepared for.

He didn’t have the chance to take it in, being touched, willingly, by a woman, by Ely, before he was interrupted... AGAIN.

“Who’s he?”

Gunner’s eyes shot back to guard and his companion, now both looking his way. He wanted them gone.

“He’s the dumbass that owned the battlecruiser we picked up. The one that’s got us locked out.”

“How’d a man with a ship like that even get caught in the first place? You saw the cannons on that rig.  Dumbass must have been taking the biggest shit of his life.” The hologram vanished in the man’s hand as he moved away from the panel to stand in front of Gunner’s cell.

There wasn’t outward strength reeking from him, but calculating, shrewd intelligence. The man smelled clean, except for the artificial fruit released into the air every time he breathed. Vitamins? No, Gunner sifted it out. Energy supplements. This guy’s chosen drug was caffeine, and a lot of it.

Gunner could also sense the second-hand cybernetic tech inside this new man and he wondered if the hologram he tried to penetrate was actually part of a larger, hidden piece, the source beneath layers of blood and meat.

If he so much as looks at Ely...

His shields were already up but he double checked them to be sure.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“Gunner. Yours?”

The man squinted and sniffled. “Ballsy. Yours rings a bell.”

“Does it now?” Gunner smirked.

“A mystery to be solved another time, but I’ve seen your ship. Walked through it, got comfortable, spent some time there. I’m curious.” The man lifted his gaze to look at the wall, his eyes glazing over. “Very curious.”

Gunner slowly dropped his finger from the bar and pushed off the wall to stand in front of Ballsy. The man didn’t move at his approach. “It is very curious. Have you broken in?”

Ballsy smiled faintly, his gaze still averted. “Yes and no. Are you worried?” His eyes moved back to his. “Hiding something good? Besides the sexdolls, that is.”

“You wouldn’t be asking me that if you knew. You wouldn’t be standing here if you got in.”

Ballsy’s smile faltered before returning. “We all have our secrets.” He quirked his head. “Did you get a new set of eyes installed? Or are you blind, Gunner?”

“I see you clearly,” he said menacingly, his voice lower now. He didn’t like the idea of any of these lowlife fuckers touching his things. “Clear as day.”

“I’m sure you do see me. You won’t be the first to threaten though, and you won’t be the last. But tell me, from one man with an implant to another, was it worth it?”

Ballsy’s question threw him and Gunner could feel the eyes of everyone watching their exchange in the brig. He felt her eyes on his back. The raw, slow boil of his restraint was beginning to crack.

“No,” he lied.

“Interesting... I don’t expect you to give me the passcodes to your ship but I have to ask... is it worth your life?”

“Is it worth yours?”

Ballsy’s laugh was soft and wispy and as deranged as a butterfly with its wings pulled off. “No. No, it’s not.” He turned toward the guard. “The lock was tampered with. Not sure how but I’ll find out. Always do.”

The guard grunted acknowledgment, looking back at Royce’s cell.

Gunner cracked his neck as Ballsy readdressed him. “We’ll talk again soon... I hope.”

Hope is a bad choice of word. Gunner watched him move away, out of range for a direct attack, and leave the brig with his head bowed and his hologram holding his attention.

He listened to Ballsy’s steps recede down the long grated passageways, and he followed the trail of the man’s tech until it faded into the distance. It was enough for Gunner to track him when he was ready.

“Listen up!” the remaining guard yelled, palming his cattle prod. “We all know what this is so don’t give me any fucking trouble. Do that and I won’t beat the shit out of you!”

Gunner retreated back to his spot next to Ely and wrapped his fingers around the bar again. A momentary surge of disappointment hit him when she didn’t touch him back.

“What’s happening?” he asked her, whispering.

“Recruitment.”

Gunner could hear the tremor in her voice. He watched the guard pacing the pathway. He wanted to stalk after him, creep on him until he went in for the kill.

“Don’t say anything,” Ely whispered beside him again.

He nodded and settled down his beast. “Why?”

“It’s a game. It’s always a game...”

***

ELODIE GROUND HER PALM against the cold floor, poised halfway into kneeling and ready to shoot to her feet in a moment’s notice. It didn’t feel good. Nothing had been the same since her dad left and Gunner took his place.

And she had touched him. She had broken her own terms. Did it count? Would Gunner touch her now and use that small amount of contact against her? Why wasn’t she afraid?

She shook her head slightly, still feeling his skin on her temple, his finger, and how she’d rested her head lightly on it. For a blistering moment she wanted to feel his breath on her forehead again and the comfort she remembered them bringing. And now she noticed his hand was there again, beckoning her to come to it, to him, and be sated.

Human contact.

The guard walked down the row and briefly out of sight and she slowly slinked Gunner’s jacket off her shoulders and pushed it behind her. She didn’t want the guard to see her in it. She didn’t want to be noticed at all.

Unlike the previous times, her heart wasn’t racing. She knew she was safer with Gunner by her side. Despite not having real proof that he killed Royce, Gunner had somehow left his cell. A fleeting sense of safety took over. The extra rations he’d given her remained hidden in the inner pockets of his jacket.

Elodie’s eyes drifted over the other prisoners. I’m safe, feeling safe, with him, for now. But for how much longer? Each day could be that fateful day that they’d end up at their destination.

When she thought about it, Gunner was never chained up at her side. Whether that was an omen, she wasn’t sure. But it did give her a strand of hope that maybe the connection she made with him now could save her and her dad later.

“Twenty-fucking-five of you left,” the guard harrumphed. “How many were here when we brought you in?” he asked a prisoner far down the row.

Elodie couldn’t hear the poor man’s answer but knew it herself. Forty-two. Forty-two plus Kallan. Since then the others joined the crew, were killed, or had dropped dead. Add possible suicide to the list.

“Do you guys want to know how much longer you’ll be in here for?” he yelled again.

No one spoke.

“That’s too bad. I guess the answer wouldn’t be comforting anyway. We have four spots that need to be filled. Four damn spots. Our bad-fucking luck is your bad-fucking luck.”

Recruitment had happened only twice before her dad had left. And both those previous times they had only sought one or two spots to fill after their initial capture.

She glanced at the guard, bellowing cells away, obscured through the bars. Four was a leap. It would significantly lessen the number of men around her, making the brig that much quieter, and yet she didn’t feel assured. Elodie would rather have those around her walled off than for them to be set free on the floors and hallways throughout. The cell wasn’t so much as a cage to her, but an added source of protection.

It also increased the odds of her getting volunteered.

Two men on the other end stood up together.

“I’ll take a spot,” one of them said.

The guard turned on his heel.

“I’ll take one too,” said the other.

She strained to hear the exchange.

“You two buddies? Friends? Lovers? Hell if I care.” He lifted his prod out of its clasp. “What’s your vocations?”

“I’m a mechanical engineer.”

“Same,” the other grunted. Elodie recognized them only in that she’d seen their faces before her capture, but knew nothing else.

“We work well together...” one of them said.

“Is that so?”

Neither of them answered.

Gunner lowered himself to the floor next to her, partially pulling her attention away from the exchange. “Know them?” he breathed.

She shook her head. The clang of one of the cell doors being opened rang through the space.

“What are you thinking?”

She shook her head again, briefly looking his way.

“They can’t hear us.” Gunner tapped the bar between them. “Come closer.”

Elodie licked her lips and slowly, painstakingly, shuffled a half foot his way. “How do you know?” she whispered back.

“Know what?”

“That they can’t hear us?”

He grunted and her spine stiffened. She kept her eyes trained on the men down the row. “Audio sensory systems, sonar tech, and precisely calculated voice projection software. The codes never stop moving, the numbers are always updating. It’s fucking annoying as shit.”

What? Elodie frowned. She didn’t put much effort in trying to understand.

“Have you seen a man killed, Ely?”

The question threw her off guard and she looked fully his way, meeting his ghoulish grey eyes. “Yes.”

His finger continued to tap the bar. “I mean, really killed, up close and personal, whites of their sclera exposed and black pupils staring straight at you as the life slips out of them. Have you ever killed a man?”

Had she? No. She thought back. No. There had been times where self-defense had been needed, tasers used, pipes cracking men’s heads but no, she had never directly killed someone, but then she never stuck around to make sure. I never struck for a killing blow. I don’t feel guilt.

“No. Have you?” she knew the answer but asked anyway.

“I’m the reason this is happening right now...” Gunner nodded in the direction of the guard.

The guard held the prod behind his neck with both arms as he taunted the men. She’d missed some of the conversation and leaned forward slightly to hear better.

“All you damned engineers. Everyone is an engineer out in abyss space. Your skill set brings little to the table. Can you fight?” the guard asked.

“As well as any man in my field.” One of them moved inside his open cell and even from where she sat, Elodie could cut the tension with a knife. “I can fight,” he said.

“You?” the guard looked at the other.

“Yes...”

“Well,” the guard took a step back to allow the prisoner to walk out. “Show me.” When the prisoner didn’t move, he laughed. “Oh come on, you two must’ve expected this!”

The men looked at each other and for the first time, her chest squeezed. They’re friends. They’re haunted. And so, so tired. They had to have known.

“Gunner...” Elodie whispered, worried. He shifted closer to her.

Minutes slipped by and nothing happened. The guard waited like the rest of them. Eventually, the shoulders of the freed prisoner sagged, and the pointed, hungry features of his face hardened. He stepped out slowly and moved toward his friend’s cell. The guard poised his weapon at him as he waved a key over the panel and the door clicked open.

He shoved the man in and locked the door.

It hurt her heart to see them embrace.

“Fucking fags,” the guard sneered and tossed his prod through the bars. “You really think I’m going to let you both out to try and jump me?” The weapon clanged against the floor. “The last one standing leaves. There’s no loyalty but to the captain. Don’t keep me waiting, it’ll only be worse if you do.” The guard didn’t stay to watch, seemingly bored and looked back at the rest of the prisoners. Elodie dropped her eyes until his gaze passed. “Who else wants a spot? No one eats until I’ve got meat in the bunks.” he yelled.

“I’ll...take one,” another person spoke up, pulling the guard in a new direction.

“Watch them,” Gunner murmured. “The two in the cell.”

The men spoke to each but it was too low for her to hear. Neither of them made a move toward the weapon.

“What are they saying?” she asked.

“They knew it might come to this, but chose the odds that favored them. The guy with his back to the wall needs medical attention.” He paused. “For what, I don’t know. They’re deciding who is going to take the beating.”

“They care for each other?”

“Seems so.”

It surprised her.

“They could’ve waited, could’ve hoped to make it through to the end. Whatever that may be.”

Elodie saw Gunner shrug out the corner of her eye. “The evil you know—”

“—over the evil you don’t,” she finished.

“Ever seen a flesh ring? Slave market? Body trials?”

“No.” And she didn’t want too. She thought about it a lot at the beginning, thinking her time imprisoned wouldn’t be long, but when it proved so, she forced her thoughts away. It was inevitable, whatever came at the end, and she was determined to survive as long as possible.

“They’re not pretty. At least the ones that don’t sell women. Those that go on the market are thrust naked in front of a crowd, muzzled if their tongues aren’t cut out prior. If you think a live crowd is bad, think of the thousands of eyes watching from encrypted feeds. Slavers shoot you up with stimulants, overcharging your systems, a cocktail of drugs that’ll give you an erection to last a day or more, and enough energy to flush your skin, make you sweat, and drive you stir-crazy.

“Some markets are designed for specific things: sex, labor, meat. But most are a free-for-all. You don’t know what the buyer has in store for you. Sex and labor at least means life, albeit an unpleasant and painful one, but it’s better than the third option. If you have a medical condition, you’re already as good as dead. If you even make it that far.”

Gunner stopped speaking as the newest volunteer was escorted to the exit toward a waiting android that took his arm. This one made it through without pain, one of the lucky ones. She hated him and his luck. Hated the thought of a slave market ringing through her head. Hated that she didn’t know if her dad was safe.

She wondered how Gunner knew so much.

“Men have it just as bad as women in those places,” he said. “The outcomes are never pretty. The lucky ones get bought to run ships like this, and the choice is easy if you think about it. At least for some.”

“What happens to the women?”

“Everything.”

She dropped her gaze and stared at the grey floor before her. Her options were minimal and the time she had been given became that much more precious to her. Suddenly, the idea of taking a spot on the crew didn’t seem so bad. Dad warned me. He just didn’t know as much.

“Don’t,” Gunner hissed, dragging her back from the grey. “Don’t think about it.”

She didn’t respond, couldn’t because now she was weighing all her options again.

The guard yelled, making her flinch. “One more spot!”

One more spot. Elodie twitched, her eyes darting over all the players.

“Don’t fucking open your mouth, Ely.” She barely heard him.

Should I go for it? The two men in the cell still hadn’t moved to fight each other.

I could be with my dad. I could bide my time and hope. Her secret was already on the fast track of being exposed and would be once they reached the slave market. Here, she at least had the chance to continue hiding.

She parted her lips.

“I’ll take it!”

But it wasn’t her voice that said it.

Kallan stumbled to his feet and the guard approached. The questions were asked. She watched it all play out mutely, and not without a little fear.

Kallan already suspects that I’m a woman.

She caught Kallan’s pervy gaze looking her way, glancing at both her and Gunner huddled a little too close together as he was given over to the android. The twisted smile on his wrinkled, dry lips was the final nail in her coffin. Gunner was silent but she could feel his overwhelming pressure trying to suffocate whatever options she had into dust.

The guard grunted and walked back to the two men still at a hushed standoff and silently watched them, as did everyone else. The guard, still silent, turned away and left the brig with Kallan and the man. The cattle prod remained.

Elodie closed her eyes. “Gunner...” she breathed, hopeless.

“What?”

“You won’t tell anyone about me will you?”

“I’ll take it to my grave.”

Something warm and strong squeezed her finger, comforting human contact, and she looked down to see it entwined with Gunner’s. She stared at it, perplexed, but didn’t pull away.

***

SEVERAL OPPRESSIVE hours dragged by and her finger remained hooked with his. Neither of them spoke and she was okay with that, glad for the time she needed to come to terms with her temporary alliance with him.

His finger was warm, searing, the connection fragile. It wasn’t real, she kept telling herself. Their connection was borne of the events around them. If she had encountered Gunner in any other circumstance, it would never have progressed more than an encounter, one she would be lucky enough to live through. He was that frightening, that intimidating, and in the back of her mind, a man who, even now, she should be staying clear of.

But he held her finger and she held his. The contact grounded her and she wanted more. Elodie twitched her other fingers, searching, but didn’t make a further move in interlocking them. When she glanced his way, his head was resting back on the wall, his eyes shut, his body loose and unmoving, giving off the appearance of sleep.

The brig had grown quieter since Kallan left, and it was almost to the point of relaxing, if it weren’t for the two men down the row still conversing under their breath.

She saw them as herself and her dad, fighting, in a stalemate, neither one knowing how to proceed. I could never beat my dad. Never. He would never have beaten her either. It wasn’t his way. Elodie would swear on both their lives that he would never lift a hand to hurt her.

She sighed, praying that he was okay. That he was alive, and somewhere safe in his element elsewhere on this ship.

One of the two men stood abruptly and grunted. He began to pace angrily across the space.

“Gunner?” she whispered.

“Hmm...”

“Could they use the electric prod to their advantage?”

They had a weapon between them after all.

“They could try.”

“Do you think they might?”

He lifted his head off the wall and opened his eyes, lasering them straight at the men. Several minutes went by in silence before he answered. “It’s a possibility but a stupid one. Those prods only have so much charge and only work with direct contact. They’d be sitting ducks against gunfire. Let’s say only the one guard returns and they take him out, take his gun, and gets his key. Let’s say they figure it out and release everyone in the brig. We would be two dozen half-starved men against at least triple our number with weapons. You see that.” He pointed to a pipe that ran down the length of the brig. “There’s a hole every two yards and a camera that feeds to security—”

“How do you know?”

“I can feed myself into it and see through them. If,” he continued before she could ask more, “they managed to do all that, whoever is watching and maintaining security, AI or human, would know immediately and a siren would go off, locking us in. Now, let’s say we manage to get outside this hold before that triggers, we now have a large unknown ship to deal with that not only has armed men but also androids protecting it. There’s no happy ending to that plan, none whatsoever, and the guard who left his weapon knew that.”

“What if we do manage to get out of here and into the ship? Some of us are skilled gunmen and fighters even if we’re weak, the adrenaline would take over. We could manage to kill a few more guards, get a few more weapons and work our way through. We could set traps?”

“Are you thinking about escaping, Ely?” Gunner taunted her with a smirk.

“I’m thinking about all our options,” she mumbled and brought her knees to her chest. “It’s better than being miserable.”

He chuckled. “Okay. So, let’s say we make it that far. How will we get past the security blockades? Because there will be blockades.”

Elodie groaned and ran her fingers through her limp hair. “I don’t know? How did you do it?” She still believed Gunner knew more about what happened to Royce then he was letting on.

“I went at night and I was alone. Regardless, I would have to be willing to help you out first. And, Ely, if all this hypothetical suicidal bullshit went down, I’d be inclined to hang back and take a power nap in my cell. I’d have to have a damn good reason to foster a bunch of desperate prisoners on a last-ditch effort escape attempt. A damn good reason.”

She tore her gaze from the two men and looked at Gunner. His eyes bore into hers, flickering red and white, making her flush. A damn good reason. Fuck you. But the guns on his cheek wrinkled with the devilish twitch of his lips and her gaze was drawn from his eyes to his mouth.

Elodie sucked in her lower lip as her heart thumped under the insinuation. His finger caught hers more heavily in the hook. The small amount of flesh to flesh they shared threatened to be so much more.

She knew how to be a man, but to be with a man, her experience was limited and sporadic. She was no virgin, having educated herself during the brief stints where she wasn’t on a job, but her knowledge was vastly lacking. Her eyes trailed from his face to skim over his body. Powerful. Muscled. Intense. Gunner would chew her up and spit her out. Elodie wasn’t sure she’d survive the experience.

But the idea had taken root and her belly clenched.

I’m way out of my depth. He’s way out of my depth.

The men she accepted in the past all had one thing in common: they could all be easily handled. They were either cowed by her insistence that she would spread terrible rumors if they started crowing about their conquest or never knew her name in the first place. Gunner couldn’t be handled, let alone easily.

“I’m dirty,” she argued, unsure why. “Disgusting.”

Gunner tugged on her hand, the heat of his skin burning. “I’m dirtier. Ely...my skin is stained with so much shit, it’ll never be clean again.”

She shook her head. “This is all hypothetical.” Please, please still be hypothetical.

“Is it? Because I’m a hell of a lot more interested now.”

She tore her finger away from his clasp and fisted her hands together, bringing them to her face. “We’d have to survive first. No, no, you’re right. The whole idea is suicide.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You can’t guarantee that!”

“Sure I fucking can.”

The breath wooshed out of her. Possibilities rose like waves in her head. Hope. Fear. Even damned arousal was playing a terrible dance in her mind. Hunger. Fear. Hope. Arousal. Gunner. Elodie wanted to trust him but knew she couldn’t, she would be stupid to try. But here she was, one of the desperate prisoners playing a part of a conversation that had started with two men and a weapon at the other end of the brig.

“I can’t trust you,” she squeaked out. “I should’ve never spoken to you. I don’t even know you.”

He turned to fully face her and she peered at him from behind her hands and through her hair. “I’ve never lied to you.”

“Yes you have!” she hissed, dropping her fists. “Several times. What really happened with Royce? Everything screams that you killed him but that doesn’t make sense. The blood on the panel. I remember. It’s impossible. But I know it’s true. How? I want to know. How do you know there are security feeds in the pipe above us? How can you see through them? How is it you’re not afraid, that you never look hungry? I’ve never seen you eat, and you don’t respond to the cold, to anything. You don’t react normally, at all!” Her voice rose as she spoke and so did his roiling intensity.

She’d gained the curious stares of the other prisoners, and it lessened her rising temper, but she continued anyway in a raging whisper. “Your eyes, I’ve never seen anything like them, and it’s obvious you’ve had enhancements done but you don’t seem fully human. Gunner, who the hell pisses all over the place where they sleep?”

She was cowed and Gunner was laughing—laughing at her.

“I mark my territory otherwise I can’t rest,” he said. “It’s instinctual.”

Elodie narrowed her eyes. “Humans don’t have instincts like that.”

“No, but animals do.”

“You’re not an animal.”

His eyes flashed. “I’m not? I could prove it but it’s not fucking pretty.”

She shook her head. Stop lying to me. “Did you kill Royce?”

“Yes.”

Her heart dropped into her hungry belly. “Truth?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I already told you,” he answered.

“No. I mean...” She rubbed her hands, curling them against her chest. “How is that possible?”

Gunner gripped the bars and rested his head on them, closing the remaining distance between them. His heat seeped into her space to enclose around her. Every joint in her body went stiff, her body on edge. They locked eyes and that harrowing connection that had begun to build strengthened. She could still feel his touch and his breath on her brow from nights past. And she waited for all the pieces to fall into place.

“Look at me.” His whisper came out hoarse, low, and dark, and only for her to hear.

“I am,” she breathed.

“No. Really look at me.”

And she did.

Elodie drew back slightly and looked at his eyes, the curvature of his face, and the lack of facial hair. His ears came to an odd point on the top, and his mid-length tousled brown hair fell to his neck where his pulse would be. She wanted to touch it but was too afraid to. Her eyes went to his hands, tense and straining on the metal bars on either side of his cheeks, and how they were large enough to round the entire rod of metal.

She had looked at him closely before but not in a way to find out his secrets. Gunner had never positioned himself in a way for him to be read. Maybe there’s more to him like there is to me... The idea had never occurred to her before.

Her eyes trailed over his shoulders and the undershirt that outlined his biceps and chest, to his bent knees, kneeling behind the barricade between them, and down to the scuffed boots on his feet.

When she got her fill, she lifted her gaze back to his face, back to arched brows that framed hard eyes, until his smirk died and his mouth parted slightly.

Something fell out from between his lips and dropped to the steel floor at his knees. She found it immediately, squinting at the small white shape, confused.

A tooth.

Elodie stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. She slowly raised her gaze back to his mouth where a single, sharpened canine stuck out. Gleaming and grey like new steel. Metal.

A shiver wracked her body and she realized what she had been missing. What she had been looking for. Why she felt differently about him as opposed to everyone else. Why he was different from everyone else.

Gunner wasn’t just a man with a couple cybernetic enhancements.

He’s a Cyborg.

“No...”

“Yes,” he retorted back, closing his lips. When he opened them again, the canine was no longer there.

“No. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does.” She heard him but it went through one ear and out the other. “Now we both know each other’s secrets.”

Elodie shook her head. “No.” She fixed her eyes on the lone tooth. Gunner’s a Cyborg. He’s a Cyborg. He’s a Cyborg and I’m a woman and we’re not supposed to be where we are.

“Yes.”

But her mind kept saying no. No. No way. Cyborgs were a creation of the past, for a war that had ended before she was born. She knew about them, not as a reality, but as a legend. They went down in history like gladiators, cowboys, medieval knights. Existed once but no longer.

“Look at me, Ely.”

She couldn’t, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the tooth.

But he continued his harsh whisper, filling her ears. “I’m a Cyborg. Two nights ago, I turned off the lights and left my cell. I found the warden and killed him. I also killed the fucker who wouldn’t stop laughing. I killed another and I killed Royce. And I plan to kill again tonight.”

Elodie licked her chapped lips and reached for his tooth, skidding it across the ground until she held it between her fingers. It was utterly normal, even down to the elongated stem that would hold it into his gums. It was cold to the touch and the more she studied it, the more everything made sense. There’s no blood.

She felt his eyes on her, knew he was waiting. “Open your mouth,” she demanded.

Gunner did and there, where the tooth would have been, where a canine had been a minute before, was now a brand new pearly white piece. The one she held was heavy and real and not imagined.

“No one knows?” she asked.

He dropped his hands and settled his back against the wall. The tension from before dissipating. “No. Not yet at least, and I would like it to stay that way.”

“Then why reveal yourself to me?” She still couldn’t believe it.

He shrugged. “Hypotheticals.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the men in turmoil. “Hypotheticals,” she repeated and as she said it, one of them, the one thrust into the cell, picked up the rod and brought it down on the other’s head.

Elodie startled and yelped, sitting up, wide-eyed as the brig filled with strangled groans and grunts. She heard Gunner move at her back as the men fought, although clearly one-sided. The injured man without the rod curled up on the ground and cried out like a wounded animal.

The thumps from beating—the electrical pulses—went on until the noises died, until there was a clear winner. Her hands came up to cover her mouth, suddenly happy there had been no rations given to them that morning.

Nausea kicked her in the gut and the wet dew of her own tears slid down her cheeks. They caught on her knuckles and tickled down the backs of her hands.

When it was over, the man dropped the rod at his feet and sank to his knees, crumpling up and crying next to his friend. No one in the brig spoke, no one dared, and she knew it was just another horror to catalog in a file already filled with nightmares.

Elodie grieved for the strangers, heartbroken for the two men and the choices they made, for the outcome that could’ve been so vastly different if no less brutal.

Her body shook, and she was immensely tired. Instantly hateful.

With the man’s cries in her ears, she turned back around to face Gunner, her own eyes wet.

“Prove it to me,” she said. “Kill that guard tonight.”