“I-I didn’t.”
“Who then?” Gunner let the jackal partially transform his body. His canines ripped from his jaw to fill his mouth with blood.
“It was to protect us from the androids,” he stuttered, his face going red. “Juke controls them remotely and we needed a way to keep them from coming up to kill us.” Gunner dropped the pirate and left him gasping on the floor. He didn’t have time to kill the entire crew as the lights flickered overhead.
He needed to get into the bridge. Because it didn’t matter who owned the ship if the ship was a loose collection of debris floating in space.
Gunner ran through the chaos until he entered a large room with heavy barricaded doors at the other end. Men were scattered about, trying to break through the final barrier that stopped them from taking control of the ship.
They moved away when he approached as he entered the thick hollow realm of attempted mutiny.
He slammed both his palms onto the door, leaving indents in the metal. His nails grew long and sharp. Gunner dropped into a crouch and let his skin recede into his body and the plates of his frame burst outward.
When his shift—energy reached its zenith, he ravaged the door with all of his might.
Steel and iron shredded to pieces beneath his claws.
Chapter Twenty One
***
SHE WATCHED UNTIL GUNNERdisappeared high up in the elevator shaft, her hand gripping the side paneling as he went out of reach. Out of sight.
Elodie turned away and slammed her back against the wall as another explosion rocked through the ship. It was followed by a hollow, whining sound. A shiver sliced up her back as the noise only continued to escalate by the minute. It seemed like the ship itself was crying out. It wasn’t a comforting sound.
She’d brought dead and dying machines back to life, but this was different.
She’d neverhearda machine die.
Elodie shook herself and peeled away from the elevator chasm that reverberated the sound she didn’t want to hear—the wrenching sounds of the ship falling apart, but not Gunner’s return.
She made her way back to the others. Her body ached and her eyes burned from the smoke but she pressed forward, knowing she was lucky that she hadn’t sustained any serious burns or broken bones like some of the others. Gunner was to thank for that.
He had saved her life.Again.The image of his gnarled back returned unbidden to her thoughts. She didn’t understand. She could chalk it up to their deal but after everything that had happened between them, she wanted to believe it was more.
Her focus turned to a man who was leaning up against the wall and slightly away from the others. His skin was covered in welts and his leg was bent at an odd angle.
