She rose slowly, quietly, feeling her body’s need to expel the tiny bit of waste it’d created since her last meal. It was her most hated part of the day, and as she perused the nearby cells and the prisoners within, her luck bolstered her nerve.
They’re all sleeping...
It was the biggest pro on her internal pro and con chart about hunger. It made everyone else around her just as weak as she was. The weak slept.
Every joint in her body ached as she made her way over to the drainage vent in the middle of her cell, where, twitching and shivering with unease, she lowered her pants, shifted her boxers, and squatted. Her business was done in seconds and she made her way back to the wall.
Another pro of hunger... fewer bathroom breaks.Dressing like a man had its perks too. Several weeks ago she’d ripped a larger hole in her boxers so she never had to drop them. Kallan had questioned her antics once when he watched her without her knowledge, and she hadn’t realized until it was too late.
“You got a problem with your cock?”
Elodie jerked and tugged up her pants. “No.”
“What the fuck kind of man squats to pee? You got pussy under there?” he taunted and leered. “You do, don’t you? A dirty little cunt.”
She stopped herself from scrambling to the wall and giving herself away. Instead, she fought to calm her nerves so she could move slowly back into position. Elodie reached down to adjust herself. “You think I’d still be in here if I did? If I had a cunt, I'd've bargained my way out of this hell before they had a chance to close my cell door,” she ground out a laugh.
“Then prove it, boy,” Kallan pressed up against the bars and grinned. “Let’s see what’s between your legs.”
Several prisoners around her grunted, snickered, and taunted. Her dad remained silent, and she was thankful for that. Things only got worse when he got involved.
“You that desperate, old man? I show for cunts, not for cocks. You show me yours first and then we’ll talk,” Elodie sneered and let her head rest on the wall, closing her eyes. She heard Kallan spit in her direction, heard it land, but didn’t look. She focused on remaining calm...looking unaffected. The issue dropped.
That was weeks ago, and now her body had been trained to hold everything in until the last possible moment.
She knew Kallan had his suspicions. There wasn’t much else to do but watch the other prisoners, but she did her best to keep his curiosity tempered. Elodie glanced in his direction, thankful that his eyes were closed.
Her back hit the wall right when the lights brightened to signify day. The groans of others followed shortly after, and soon Jacob’s sniffling sobs rose to greet the morning.
She tuned him out and focused on the shut double door of the brig, hopeful and fearful for it to open. She was starving and her mind went back to that moment with Kallan about trading her pussy for freedom.
Don’t!Elodie yelled at herself, even when her nose caught the first scent of decay from the corpse.Don’t!
She pushed her fingers through her hair and wished she had scissors to cut off its length. She rubbed the back of her hands over her cheeks and jaw knowing she was one of the only men who didn’t have hair growth there. At least the only one in her immediate vicinity. Her disguise had its limits but it wasn’t all about how she looked, it was mostly about how she acted, and growing up around men, and only men, had helped her immensely.
Keeping her hair short was easy, and though lowering her voice had been difficult at first, over the years, it had become second nature. Elodie had been lucky enough to inherit her dad’s height—she was nearly six feet tall—and her metabolism and with the constant strain of labor had kept her frame from filling out. She even trimmed her eyelashes, having been born with unusually thick ones, and she wore oversized clothes to hide what little of her frame that curved.
But despite trying to come off as a ‘man,’ she could only pull off aboyishlook. Men bought that look, but it still brought her unwanted attention. The kind that screamed easily dominated, an easy swing for an interested man. There were always shadowed advances from men who had their own secrets to keep, or blatant overbearing harassment from those who didn’t care.
Lying about STDs was a great way to end shit before it even started.
The doors zipped open. Her hands stilled in her hair.
One guard came in, a different one from last night, followed by a boxy android. They passed her cell and went straight for Jacob and the corpse.
Within minutes, both were pulled out of the brig. She was able to catch the haunted look in Jacob’s eyes as he went by her cell.
You shouldn’t have spoken up.Elodie felt worse for the corpse.He died because of you.Then she hated them both and that hatred briefly extended to her dad.
The panels shut.No food or water...
The door reopened, and a new ember of hope alighted. Two guards came in with a new set of androids, but her anticipation for food wavered as something was dragged—lugged—in behind them.
The noises from the other prisoners sounded throughout as everyone came forward to watch the newentertainment.
She immediately recognized the thing being hauled was a body, a man, and a big one at that. Elodie gripped the bars she usually rested against, suddenly wary. The squad approached her dad’s cell and opened it. She jerked away, moving into Kallan’s territory.
It was the first prisoner to arrive since she and her dad and the remaining crew of their last job had been locked inside.
