“Why not?”
“Kallan told the crew you were my son. If they suspect me already, they’ll use you. If they get close enough, they’ll find out about you. I was going to wait to get you out, wait until the ship landed, but there’s no time for that anymore.”
She shivered and banded her arms around her middle, pulling the lapels of Gunner’s jacket further over her body, wanting to drown in it. His eyes caught her movements and narrowed.
“Where did you get that jacket?”
Her hands dropped. “I got it from one of the prisoners.”
“I don’t remember any prisoner wearing a jacket like that near us.” Her dad reached out and gripped the sleeve. Elodie pulled away, not wanting him to touch it.
“Someone new showed up. He offered his jacket for information.”
“And you gave it to him? I heard there was a new prisoner, don’t remember seeing him when I got you.” The suspicion in his voice was evident. It made her wary. Why did she feel guarded? Bringing up the existence of Gunner, and everything that had transpired between them, was something secretive and hers. She and her dad had never been forthright with each other but they had also never withheld pertinent information. Regardless, her throat closed up.
“For the jacket, yes. It was either mine, Royce’s, or Kallan’s.”
He narrowed his eyes further but knocked his chin and let it drop.
I can’t go back.She looked at the ceiling and where the holes in the pipes were—where she now knew the security feed was.
“Do you think they can see us?” she asked.
“I don’t know. The system’s been on the fritz, everything is haywire.”
Elodie didn’t know if they were watching her, didn’t know ifhewas seeing her, but she hoped he was. Chesnik turned the body over at her feet and it was another man she recognized. Another cretin.
“Is there a place we can hide?”
“Follow me,” he said after a moment’s thought.
They made their way down another corridor, in the direction they came from, until the hallways went from smooth walls to pipes and metal rods, thicker grates, and puffs of steam. A latched door was at the end that clicked open with her dad’s keycard. She knew it for what it was: the engine room. A place she had made her home in countless ships, on countless jobs.
With her belly roiling, and her heart hurting, she followed her dad down into the machines, hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake.
Her gaze stayed on her dad’s back.
She knew it was Gunner who had killed those guards.
She knew she’d made a deal with the devil.
And he would find her.
