Ely stopped investigating the lock and now looked straight ahead. Gunner followed his gaze through the bars to the grey wall across the room.
“Tell me, Royce, and it’s yours.”
Ely shivered and turned toward him.I always fucking win.
Gunner stopped his gaze from flashing red and capturing the moment. Ely’s focus shifted to search his face, his mouth. He stilled as Ely took him in, his eyes moving across his body. Gunner stood with his feet slightly spread, his back straightening, knowing he was being checked out.
Whether it was a woman checking him out, or taking him in like he was just another dangerous obstacle, didn’t matter to him. Mostly because hewasa dangerous obstacle.
He liked having Ely’s focus. Why?
Gunner combed his fingers through his bangs and brushed them back. He couldn’t quite make out his neighbor’s features beneath the thick smudges of dirt over them. Ely had the dirtiest face of everyone in the brig.
Strike for being a female.Dirt as camouflage. Clever.
“Recruitment is when they need to fill a replacement in the crew,” Royce said, interrupting Gunner’s thoughts, and Kallan roared. “They come here first and offer the spot or spots and we get a chance out of here.”
“Why haven’t you all joined then?” he asked indifferently, his attention remaining on his neighbor. Ely moved back to his usual spot against the wall, sliding down to rest in the center of his cell.
“Sometimes it’s a game,” Royce answered.
Gunner pulled his arm slowly out of one sleeve and let it fall to his back. “What kind of game?”
“The kind where it’s all a lie and you’re signing up to be beaten or killed.”
“The odds are not in favor then?” He tugged his jacket the rest of the way off and let it slide down to his fingers. Every move he made was being tracked but he only made a show of it forhim.
Gunner shook his jacket in Ely’s direction. He opened his eyes and frowned. Gunner sniffed the air again and gritted his teeth.Nothing.
“Even if theytakeyou, doesn’t mean they won’t take you after a whole lot of pain.”
“Ely,” Gunner said, ignoring Royce, “you never answered my question.” The grip on his jacket tightened.Answer it and I’ll give you the jacket instead.He wanted to give it to him, he realized, not Royce. Nor anyone else. Ely shivered again under his perusal.I could make you warm. It’s up to you.
Silence was all he got from his victim. Stoic, annoying silence. Ely’s irises weren’t just a mere mud brown. There was a spark of amber in them, gold, like his swirling beer. Gunner smiled softly.
“About the blood?” he whispered. “What do you think?”
Still, no answer came forth.
Gunner turned away and approached Royce, dropping his jacket against the bars for the other man to work it through. Seconds passed by as it was tugged to the other side, followed by minutes of questionable silence that weighed between him and Ely. Gunner waited for him to speak. But he didn’t.
Royce slipped on the jacket. Ely’s shivers deepened.
Strike for male.
Gunner clenched his hands.Eighteen hours and forty-five minutes.
He re-took his place with his back against the wall and stared across his cell at the endless grey metal that held Ely’s unwavering attention.
I’m going to get him to speak.
Royce now had his jacket for the time being, which sat like a stone in Gunner’s gut. Just the thought of the grimy stranger tainting his territory with his scent irked him. He would get it back. Soon. Kallan hissed his displeasure on the other side.
He never thought he’d feel a kinship with a man like Kallan, but woefully he now did. They both wanted Ely to speak.
Gunner raised his internal temperature to offset the encroaching chill in the air and dove back into his work, moving his shoulder against the bars. His bar mate stared straight ahead. Gunner lowered his voice.
“Did you think I was going to kill him?” he asked.
