Don’t trust anyone, anything, and don’t trust yourself. Especially not yourself. The direr the circumstances were, the more likely your humanity was going to be buried by the beast.
Kallan appeared to notice the difference as well, and as she looked around at the other prisoners, many were also gazing warily at Gunner who had solidified into a terrifying, murderous-looking statue. The abrupt quiet filled the air with tension.
“Look, I’m only telling you the truth,” Kallan added, hesitantly.
Please be quiet.
“He’s not who you should be interested in anyway,” he continued, attempting to change the subject.
“Who should I be interested in?” Gunner hummed low.
The tension popped like a bubble the moment he spoke and Elodie was grateful for it.
“The men that obviously want something from you,” Kallan said. “My boy wants nothing from you.”
Royce added, “You’re the only one who’s been taken from here and returned. What’s so special about you?”
Gunner turned halfway to face him. “My ship.”
“They stole yours too?” Kallan asked, humphing. “Looks like we all have something in common here!”
“They did, but that’s where the similarities end.” Lethal, angry, low. Did no one see his clenching hands? She couldn’t take her eyes off them.
“Yeah, some of us don’t need to sport tattoos of guns to show how threatening we are,” Royce mocked, causing a slew of snickers throughout.
Elodie remained silent as the men around her jeered, listening, hoping to find out something. She itched to ask her own questions but didn’t want to risk her momentary invisibility.
No one’s paying attention to me.It felt like the first time in days. Her uneasy gaze remained on Gunner but even he no longer paid attention to her.
She leaned her head back and knocked it on the wall with a sigh.I should be thinking about dad and how to get the both of us out of here alive.The only idea that came to mind was to expose herself to the guards and hope for something... And she wasn’t ready for that.
“Here.” Gunner’s voice broke her thoughts.
Elodie turned to find him holding her gel through the bars with his fingers. The moment her eyes landed on it, he rolled it across the floor in her direction until it stopped a foot from her side, hidden to everyone else but them.
Was he just giving it to her?Why?
Her suspicion grew the longer she focused on the gel, so clearly hers once again, and waited to see if it was a trap.
She slid her fingers slowly across the cold floor and picked it up, keeping Gunner in her line of sight, and when he made no move, she lifted it to her lips and plopped it into her mouth, squeezing the rubbery elasticene until it dissolved and exploded in her mouth. Elodie clamped down her lips to keep any of it from escaping but the excitement of having it—when she had written it off—was too much. The water pooled down her throat and settled into her belly far too quickly for her liking. Regardless of her best effort, droplets escaped, and what her tongue couldn’t catch trailed down her chin.
She caught it on the back of her hand and rubbed the moisture back over her lips. No water, not even a drop, could be wasted. Elodie felt his piercing eyes on her the entire time. A heavy breath tickled the hair over her ear, growing heavier and more forceful by the second.
She forced herself to look.
Her lips dropped. Bloody-red irises filled her vision, brighter and deeper than before. They made the metal bars gleam crimson and beyond that, his mouth was parted. His breath came out in pants, and between his lips, she could see the sharpened points of teeth.
Teeth that weren’t human. Teeth that hadn’t been there before. She leaned closer to get a better view but his mouth snapped shut and his eyes returned to normal, startling her back.
He broke eye contact with her first and turned away, settling against the wall.
She continued to watch him for some time afterward, unsure if what she had seen was real or not. The longer she dwelled on it, the more she convinced herself that his incisors had been an illusion, a trick of her mind caused by exhaustion. That she was hallucinating.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered loud enough for only her to hear.
Elodie rubbed her palms across her pants and leaned back again, closing her eyes, drifting in and out of awareness.
Rule number two: don’t expect something for nothing.
