But he wanted his fucking ship. And killing everyone aboard the vessel that was his only lead would be idiotic, even for him.
So, he bided his time, and waited, and eroded. Watched. Waited some more and did what he could to distract himself enough to not set everyone around him on fire and tear out their throats.
He needed to find patience, find her and keep her locked away in his head, but she was a virtue that eluded captivity and hated his guts.
There were three men working in the underbelly and in the passageways outside the brig. Three were easy to evade. On the floor above, where the pirate’s quarters were and the main crew was stationed, there were at least two dozen more men wandering in various locations. The top deck, which included the bridge, the bridge-crew lodgings, the medical bay, and the armory, had the most activity.
He traced Ballsy’s location to a fairly remote area on the second floor and he knew instinctively if he made it that far, there was no way he would go unseen. Pirates were usually paranoid and distrustful, never mind with a murderer onboard. There was no way he could enter an area he hadn’t scouted without setting off some alarm he didn’t have a hold on.
Below him, and in the mechanical rooms under the brig and storage, there were several other men. Gunner saw them all like a digital blueprint behind his eyes and in his head. The maze of corridors and passageways he had internalized the night before danced behind his eyes. He had two targets tonight.
Ballsy and Ely’s guard.
He opened his eyes and looked over at her, curled up and sleeping, hungry in the cell next to him. He wanted to watch her until the end of time, just how she was now—at peace. Life was so much simpler when you weren’t facing reality. He wanted her to enjoy that simple escape for as long as possible.
Gunner’s eyes went half-mast as he observed her, his nostrils flaring as he sought out her scent. He was able to find it without effort now, even through his own. Her smell was a beacon that drew him to her. It was that first alluring perfume he discerned that first day he was brought in.
He inched closer until his shoulder rested on the bars that kept them apart.
She still sleeps next to me. She trusts me.
She really fucking shouldn’t.
He expected her to move toward the other side, or at least to the middle of her cell now that Kallan was gone and no longer plaguing her, but she didn’t. Not even after he divested his secret—the one thing that would ruin his ability of getting his ship back if he was found out too soon. He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but willingly giving up an advantage had rarely been one of them.
Ely had something on him now and he had something on her. And he didn’t know why it seemed to matter so much—the power exchange—but it did. It thrilled him. It wasn’t fake. Everything he had was fake.
Until now. Until this moment in time. There was a connection, a damning one, a trap he had set up but fallen into himself. Gunner dropped his brow on the metal and continued to watch her.
Don’t hate me.
Her eyelids twitched.
Don’t hate me, please.
He wanted to move the fallen hair from her brow.
Please, don’t hate me.
He wasn’t a good man, not even a good Cyborg. What control he had over himself had worn thin and his emotions ran wild more often than not. He couldn’t be trusted. Gunner slipped his fingers through and caressed the sleeve of his jacket that she wore, wishing she wore him.
He savored this moment and recorded it, throwing it in his most precious memory banks. The way her short hair fell, the crease of her brow, the intermittent sniffle and heavy breath. It all went into a place inside him where he could keep it safe, bottle it up, and know, for a short span of time, that something he had...
Was real.
The door to the brig zipped open, breaking the moment, and drawing his attention away from her to the guard on his kill-list.
Ely moaned, shifted, and weakly rose up. A simmering, heavy feeling clotted his systems. Anger grew in mere moments from a seed to encapsulate his entire universe, and continued to grow as the guard walked past them and toward the men down the row.
He woke her up.
She threaded her fingers through her hair.
He took my moment.
“Gunner...” her soft voice whispered through his ear, heavy with worry.
It was time for round two.
