I love you.She mouthed the phrase, pouring her heart into it.
He frowned and looked away. Elodie couldn’t. She kept her eyes on him and tried her best to memorize every little detail about him.
But all she saw was her dad in the rest-cycle dimmed lights, wearing dirt-stained clothes that hung limp around his frame, with deepening wrinkles around his mouth, and a slight hunch that bent his once upright figure.
When did he become so frail?
Her heart dropped into her stomach and she pulled her legs more firmly into her chest. The booming sound of the cattle prod slamming against metal bars was the musical accompaniment to her misery. Soon, the sounds of grunts and hollers joined the chorus as a man was beaten to a pulp.
“I’ll join the crew,” an unfamiliar voice spoke out, but Rod-man was already dragging another prisoner behind him.
Three takers...Elodie stuck her neck out to get a better view, moving her feet under her.
The guard thrust the other prisoner at her dad before sourcing out the third voice, but Chesnik didn’t catch the man, instead letting him stumble and drop to his knees.
The opening of a third cell door sounded.
“You want in on the crew, do you?” the guard asked.
“Yeah. I do. Had to think on it but then I remembered how fucking hungry I am.”
“We have two spots and three takers. How hungry are you, dumbass? Because we all want to know. What would you do for what youwantright now?”
Elodie crawled forward, unable to help herself. The third man stood level with the guard.Idiot. He’s got a damned electrical weapon.
“Pretty fucking hungry. Enough to tell you I’m worth more than both those two combined. Enough to be done sitting in a cell all day rotting.”
She snuck a glance to her dad and wished she hadn’t, seeing creases of worry appear on his brow. Her head snapped back as a sizzling screeching noise filled the space, followed by howls and seizing. She knew that sound but it always startled her: when a cattle prod was used on a human.
“That didn’t answer my fucking question! What would you do for it?” Rod-man bellowed. The prisoner dropped to his knees as the guard thrust the weapon into his thigh. He fell the rest of the way to the floor with a groaning thud, writhing like a fish.
The smell of burnt flesh and roasted meat, ashen cloth, and fried hair assaulted her nose. She pressed her palms into her stomach to stop the gag from coming forth, knowing the bile wouldn’t be able to wash the taste of it out of her mouth. She buried her nose into her shoulder, sickened.
“Get up!” he screamed. “You still fucking hungry!? Then get the fuck up!”
Elodie cringed and scurried back to the wall as the prisoner was hauled from his cell and past her own. She clutched her nose as the limp, partially cooked thigh dragged across the floor, attached to a screeching man.
“Please, stooop! Pleasse. I’ll do anything, anything. I’ll prove my loyalty, just please ssstoooop!”
The second taker had risen to his feet, holding his limp arm. What had been an initiation bludgeon now only looked like a bad bruise compared to taker number three and his burning skin.
“Well, Trainet, we got ourselves space fodder, a security nerd, and a gimp with a cooked leg.” Rod-man lifted the crying man up and looked him in the eye. “What makes you better than the two who don’t need immediate medical care?”
“C-c-cryp—”
“You’re a what, a c-c-c-crybaby?”
“Nooo, a c-cryptocurrency investor,” his voice hitched.
Rod-man dropped the crying man and turned to the one named Trainet. “Kill him.”
“No! WAIT! I have money,” the man begged, sobbing, “A lot of m-money!” Trainet stepped around the others and pointed his gun to the prisoner’s temple. He scooted back, Trainet followed. Taunting.
Elodie pushed herself as far up into the corner of her cell as she could go as the men neared her cage.
No one made a sound. Not one of the dozen or so prisoners dared. Someone was going to die, and no one wanted it to be them.
“Waait, I have an idea.” Rod-man sidled up to the guard holding the gun, leaned down, and grabbed the sputtering prisoner again by his scruff, dragging him back to where her dad and the other man stood. “What’s your name?”
