“Stop calling me that! It happened and it’s over. I keep going through it in my head and the sad part is, I understand why you did it, I understand all of it.” Her voice lowered and she deflated warily. It wasn’t like her to be overtaken by emotion. “And I’m glad you left... Because then maybe... One of us would have had a chance to survive. I’ll never forget it, even though I understand.”
“I’m sorry...”
“I thought I was going to have to watch you die, Dad. Or get beaten. When it all happened and the other two men volunteered, it broke my heart, it broke something inside of me and I was convinced that when that gun went off it was going to be your body on the floor.” She closed her eyes and shuddered at the memory. “I don’t know how to describe it. Horror. Agony. Despair. So don’t tellmeI’m breakingyourheart.”
“Ely,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. It may have been because she’d never raised her voice to him before. Elodie searched his face, hoping to find regret but there was none. At least none for his actions.He’s only acting guilty because he has to.
He patted her shoulder awkwardly and she wished he would hug her, that she had read him wrong, but it didn’t happen. There were strangers surrounding them and they had appearances to keep up.
“It worked out,” she whispered numbly. Her eyes latched back onto Gunner. He was looking at her from across the room.
“It did,” her dad agreed after a heavy moment.
“Gunner was thrown into your cell within hours after you left.” Her dad’s eyes went from imploring to angry in a flash. “Because you left, he got put in the cell next to mine. Because you joined the crew, he was thrown, quite literally, into my life.” Her voice came out shaky but careless. She no longer cared if she hurt his feelings. “He saved my life.” Elodie pulled away, needing a moment to collect her thoughts.
“I should’ve never left you.”
“No. You shouldn’t have, but you did.”
“So you’re putting all the blame on me then, are you?”
Shrug.
“I’ll take it,boy, because I know I’m at fault but don’t be stupid just because I was.” He gestured toward Gunner. “Because at the end of the day, you close your own eyes. No one closes them for you.”
She listened to her dad walk away, and it was suddenly easier to breathe when he was gone. Elodie looked back up to find Gunner still watching her. He had never stopped watching her and had probably overheard the entire exchange.
She licked her lips and held the connection an infinitesimal moment longer before her heart dropped and she glanced away.Stay smart, Ely.
A short time later weapons were distributed and checked. Gunner had gone through each firearm as if it was his devil-given duty to make sure every single gun worked properly. When he’d handed her an automatic rifle and she had handed it back with the tips of her fingers, Elodie had never seen a more perfect look of mortification on any living man in her life. It would’ve made her laugh if the tension between them wasn’t heavy enough to be cut with a knife.
Elodie wiped her hands on the overlarge sleeves of Gunner’s jacket. The beacon was tucked in a pocket within and she could feel the heat of it pressed against her chest. As the men collected, she moved to the back of the group and further away from them. It was out of habit. No one noticed those hidden in the back.
“I’m going up first to clear the way.” Gunner’s voice boomed low through the hallway. He raised his arm and pulled back his sleeve to reveal part of his skin shifting away from his wrist. A projection of the ship’s schematics appeared in the air. “There are three main levels on this legionnaire and we’re at the bottom.” His finger moved through the map. “Our goal is the top.”
The ship looked like nothing she had imagined.
The top deck was barely attached to the rest the ship and it came off like a bird that had its neck broken. A bird with its wings closed tightly against its sides. And where the eyes and the beak were supposed to be was where the bridge apparently resided.
“Where are the emergency escape pods?” Someone called out, asking.
Gunner gestured vaguely toward the second level. “We’re not headed for them, it’s too dangerous. We don’t know where we are in space so we’ll be taking our chances here with the crew and take over the ship from within.”
“But the odds—”
“The odds...” Gunner chuckled hauntingly. “The odds against a Cyborg? Do you want to bet on the odds against me? Just so you can float around in a small capsule, hoping that you’re close enough to a habitable planet, or port? Risking the podsisan option but if you’re out there and you find there’s no place nearby to land, you’re fucked. Fucked in a small space, alone. You may have enough rations to get you through a week, maybe two, and that’s only if the current crew kept the pods stocked. I promise you, a clean death is preferable to dehydration. We head for the bridge.”
Some of the men grumbled but Ely couldn’t see who.
Someone else spoke up. “We have to be within days of habitable planets. The slave rings are on Elyria.”
Gunner’s eyes flickered red. “They are.”
“We warped recently...”
“It’s too dangerous to stay onboard,” someone else said.
“We’re outnumbered. We’ll never make it.” Elodie recognized the last voice as her dad’s.
