This time she could almost feel the heat of his breath rush across her cheek. Elodie glanced his way and she wished she hadn’t, finding his bleeding red eyes in place of his dead ones.Why are they red again?A shiver ran through her with the energy of a half-starved woman.
“I have one more term for our deal,” she said instead of answering him.
Gunner gave her the grim-reaper of all smiles. “What?”
She cocked her head and looked at Royce. She whispered, “I want your jacket.” How much is her voice worth?
Gunner looked over at Royce. He stayed in that position for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Elodie was happy she couldn’t see his face.
Silence fell between them and things slowly returned to normal.
And to her surprise—after she had given up on food that morning—she heard the brig door opening. As usual, a guard walked through, followed by an android. They stopped one by one at every cell and distributed the rations. And like every day, the guard would peer in and stare at each prisoner, acting a king.
She hated it, hated their eyes on her, hated always being afraid that somehow, someday, they’d look at her and reallyseeher.
It made her heart race time and time again as the outcome of that nightmare played out. If she gave up her secret, it would be because it was her choice, not because someone took it from her.
Elodie dropped her head and let her hair fall forward. She raised one knee to her chest, hunching her back, all while trying to make her body look smaller; small enough to disappear, small enough to hide behind the thin rails of the bars.
The guard stepped up to Gunner’s cell and grunted.
“Thought the boss’d do more to you than that,” he said. “Never seen a man leave him without eyes swollen shut and blood vessels popped.”
“He and I came to an arrangement,” Gunner replied.
Elodie tilted her head to watch the exchange. The guard had realized something she hadn’t...
His bruises are gone.
She pulled her knee closer to her chest.How?
“What kind of arrangement would that be?”
“You might want to ask him. Not sure if he’d appreciate me telling the delivery boy.”
The guard shot his arm out before the android could drop the rations into his cell, stopping it. “Ah, too bad for you then.” He smirked. “I heard going hungry is a real pain, not the kind of pain a man chooses if otherwise possible, but that’s okay, maybe you’ll choose better next time.”
He moved toward her cell.
“You might want to rethink that.” Gunner’s voice rose louder than before, making her heart skip a beat, remembering what he sounded like moments prior, just above a whisper.
“What’d you say?” the guard asked, facing Gunner again.
He stood.
Elodie was going to vomit bile as he approached the guard.
“The new guy’s got a death wish,” Kallan breathed on the other side of her.
“I said you might want to rethink that,” Gunner said, his voice filled with eerie warning.
“Rethink what?”
He motioned toward the rations. “That.”
“The food, you little fuck?”
