The orb grew in her mind and she watched it unblinking, willing for it to stop, and hating she wasn’t waiting in the brig for Gunner. She hadn’t even been able to leave a note or anything.But my dad’s safe. I’m safe.The others were not. She wondered if her dad knew about Gunner and his ship. Elodie locked the door from the inside.
Will he come for me? It hasn’t seemed like anything on this ship has been able to stop him yet.
Her pulse raced.
I want to go to him.The sentiment damned her and she buried her nose into her shoulder, breathing in the smell of Gunner as if she’d never get a chance to again. She felt safe with Gunner, even behind the bars of her cell, she felt safe, safer than she did now. His forthright nature had her trusting in him, believing in him.
Elodie checked the faucet at the sink, refusing to look at the mirror, and shook with joy when the water spurted out in bursts over her hands. The shower stall reacted the same until ice-cold water flowed freely into the receptacle.
She dropped Gunner’s jacket to sag on the floor at her feet. She didn’t want to risk washing it and have it no longer smelling like him. Elodie stepped under the frigid water, clothes and all, and pressed her hands into the walls to hold herself up. It sluiced and clung and claimed every inch of her body, drenching her in seconds. Her skin froze, and her hair plastered to her head. A shuddering moan escaped her lips. She was surprised when there weren’t rivulets of dirt washing down the drain.
Her shirt came off first, followed by her jeans and underwear. She kicked them into the stall’s corner. Her fingers drifting up to tug at the double band around her chest.
For the first time since her entrapment, she looked at her naked body.
Unmarked, unclaimed, unused by everything but the water.But for how long?
He’s coming.
Chapter Fourteen
***
INEED TO GET TO ELY.
Gunner dug a bullet out of his arm, his fingers prying skin open. Bullets stopped dead on impact the moment they hit his metal frame but that didn’t stop them from burying into tissue and muscle.
Pulling the projectile free, he dropped it and went to work on the fifth one, feeling like a grade-A piece of target practice.
So much for staying under the radar.
“Give up!” A man roared at the other end of the hallway. Gunner humphed and tore another round out of his shoulder.
The pain should have been debilitating but he barely felt it. Pure organic adrenaline coursed through him, keeping it at bay.
“We need to rush him now,” one of them whispered, thinking he couldn’t hear. “I saw him take more shots than a goliath from Elyria! There’s no way he’s still alive.”
