“Ely,” her dad roared. The brig door zipped open, and she paused to see if the lights would flicker once more, begging that they would, so she could see her spot one last time.
But it was lost in the dark.
The door closed.
“What’s the matter with you!?” Her dad shook her and she snapped back to reality.
“Everything,” she breathed.
“We don’t have fucking time for a meltdown, Ely. I heard gunshots from the shaft and the crew’s in an uproar! They could be here anytime!”
“What about the others?”
“We can’t save everyone.” He led her down a series of passages.
“But we can’t leave them!”
“We can and we are! They can take care of themselves. I need to get you out of here before the security systems reboot. Oh my...”
Her dad stopped and she peered past him. She broke out in a cold sweat. Two bodies, mangled, broken, and spitting blood lay on the floor. The acrid scent of death was fresh and it wasn’t bullets that claimed their lives.
Elodie stepped around him and took in the scene. Blood was everywhere; on the walls, pooling among the floor grates, and splattered on the ceiling. A man’s leg was half torn off, his clothes soaked in blood, and his face frozen in pain for all to see.
“Elodie, we need to get out of here,” Chesnik urged.
She stepped between the bodies and looked at them, the iron smell of them stifling. She recognized both as men who had come into the brig before, men who had taunted and beaten them, recalled their enjoyment and their grins as they pressured the prisoners with all the power they had—and with pain.
Her stomach dropped, and she retched. She felt nothing for their deaths and couldn’t even bring herself to care for the pain of their passing, but the gore still caused an involuntary heave to pass through her.
Chesnik wrapped his arm around her shoulder and moved her past them, stopping briefly to loot their bodies of their weapons and shiptech. They were met with another corpse at the elevator with claw marks down its back.
“Fuuck.” Her dad inspected it and visibly trembled. “It ain’t a man who killed these men,” he said. “He was racing toward the shaft.”
Not a man...
Elodie glanced around them and tried not to think about it, but it didn’t stop the unease making its way into her. “What did this then?”
“An animal, a beast, a monster, who knows. But it took down three armed guards.” He turned toward her. “We don’t stand a chance if we come upon it.”
She stared at the claw marks that were still oozing. “The murders?”
“You heard about them?”
“Yeah. The guards mentioned it in passing during a routine visit.”
“They started after me and those two others were recruited.” He placed his hand on top of her head. She was tall for a girl but her dad was taller. “They suspect us.”
She lifted her eyes. “They do?”
“Yeah. We can’t go up. I was going to hide you in my quarters until I got you some new crew clothes from the replicator but we can’t anymore.” He looked around.
Elodie was in a daze, looking around her, turning in full circle. “Why not?”
“Whatever did this...came from down here. These men weren’t down here when I snuck to this level. I’m lucky to be alive, but the shaft is above us now and the blood trail leads into it. Whatever did this, is up, and if it’s locked in the elevator, I sure as hell ain’t calling it down to us.”
“Take me back to my cell,” she suggested, turning, but was stopped.
“Ely, I can’t.”
