“It wasn’t safe anymore,” she said, trying to exude calm in the frenzy of activity. Gunner’s face was half-sculpted in metal, and half-demonic with pointed, beastly features. His teeth were long and sharp, and his mouth was twisted somewhere between that of a snout and a man’s. But it was his eyes that set her skin ablaze. They were the only part of him that she would always recognize. Those eyes had become her anchor. Those scarlet orbs had burned away all need for her grey wall of detachment.
Her dad grabbed hold of her and wrenched her close. Snarling, Gunner darted forward and grabbed him by the neck.
Gunner held him there, blocking her view, and Elodie choked back her horror when the outline of his face went from merely bestial to truly wolfish. Every edge of his features severed, revealing gleaming planes of polished steel. She knew instinctively they were sharp enough to cut.
“He’s my dad!” she cried. “My dad!” Her fingers tore across Gunner’s wounded, naked back. “Don’t kill him! Gunner!”
Chesnik gurgled and grappled against Gunner’s grip. Elodie gave up pulling on Gunner, instead freeing a gun from the strap across his chest. She aimed it at him and thumbed the safety off. She hoped the gun wasn’t DNA locked to some recently-dead crew member.
“Let him go,” she screamed.
“He took you away!”
“I left with him!”
“Why?” The hold on her dad slackened a little, and the sounds squeezing from Chesnik’s throat gained breath.
“Because it wasn’t safe anymore. Because he has a plan. Because he’s mydad!”
Gunner abruptly dropped Chesnik. Legs buckling, her dad slumped to the ground, holding his throat. Elodie lowered the gun and crouched next to her father to shield and help him rise. Ragged, sucking breaths filled her ears, and tremors racked both their bodies. She heard Gunner take a heavy step back.
When she mustered enough courage to turn around and face him head-on, the Gunner she knew had returned, as if he’d been there the whole time.
He turned away from her and smashed his fist into a wall, puncturing a hole. Elodie startled back when he fell to his knees and his entire frame convulsed. Her dad took the gun from her hand.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Gunner growled as his frame seized and stiffened. “Another shot won’t do anything to me.”
“Who are you?” her dad choked out.
Gunner’s eyes met hers. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I didn’t have time.”
Something unreadable flashed over his face. Elodie positioned herself between the two men.
Her dad turned on her. “You know him? Who is he?”
“A Cyborg. I made a deal with him. He’s going to get us off this ship alive.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t have time!”
They both glared at her. Gunner rose, shakily, from his knees, using a hand on the broken wall for leverage. She wanted to go to him but she wanted to flee at the same time. There was no pain in his eyes. Only ferocity.
Her dad moved away and sat wearily back at the table. “So, there’s a Cyborg on this ship,” he groaned, lifting a hand up to rub his neck. “Explains the chaos. And you made a deal with him?” He shot her an incredulous look.
“Yes.”
“With what?”
Elodie glanced from him to Gunner and back to him. “With what I have.”
“Which is?” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me... For fuck’s sake, Ely, does heknow?”
Gunner answered before she could. “I know.”
Her dad lifted the stolen gun again and aimed it at him. “The deal’s off. Now. We want nothing from you. We’ll find our own way out.”
