Ashes and Metal

Cyborg Shifters Book Five

By Naomi Lucas
 Copyright © 2018 by Naomi Lucas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the
author.
Any references to names, places, locales, and events are either a
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely
coincidental.
Cover Art by Cameron Kamenicky
Editor: Lindsay York at LY Publishing Services
Editor: Tiffany Freund
Stranded in the Stars
Last Call
Collector of Souls
Star Navigator
Cyborg Shifters
Wild Blood
Storm Surge
Shark Bite
Mutt
Ashes and Metal
Valos of Sonhadra
Radiant
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Epilogue Chapter One
Epilogue: Chapter Two
Author’s note
Chaos Croc
 No one messed with Gunner. No one.
He was the Jackal, living chaos, the infamous Cyborg banned from
civilized society. He was also the only Monster Hunter for the EPED who
took the hard jobs, the under-the-table work. Jobs that often left a trail of
blood and bones in their wake. When a pirate commandeers his ship,
Gunner takes it upon himself to exact a revenge that will ignite a wildfire of
rage, death, and torment upon those who made the mistake of taking what
was rightfully his.
Elodie has spent most of her life pretending to be a boy to remain
alongside her father in space. He’s the only family she has left. When the
ship they worked on is attacked, she’s taken prisoner. Every day, she feared
that her secret would be discovered—that she’s a woman alone amongst
men. When a strange man is dragged into the cell next to hers, she realizes
she was living on borrowed time.
He stared at her as if he knew her secret...
 Chapter One

ELODIE LIFTED HER HEAD off her knees when the doors split open
across the way. Bright light from the hallway flooded her vision and she
flinched as it pushed back the gloom of the brig.
“Ely, wake up.”
“I’m awake,” she whispered, throat tight. Trying to blink away the
forced dilation of her eyes, she glanced from her dad to the men now
entering.
Their eyes roved across all the cells, hers included. Her captors’ dark
gazes looking for something—something she refused to give—and she
shriveled into herself.
“They may be recruiting again,” he muttered, hopeful.
“Shhh...” someone shushed from down the line.
Ely scooted closer to her father. He was being held in the cell next to
hers, closer to the entryway door.
“Dad. Don’t,” she pleaded for the hundredth time. “Please...”
His face hardened and his lips flattened into a straight line. It was the
only reaction she got from him now when it came to the pirates that held
them.
Several weeks before, their mining ship had been attacked suddenly and
without cause by a fleet they couldn’t withstand. In a matter of hours her
life had gone from monotony to hell.
“They killed your friends,” Elodie reminded him. “They nearly killed
us.”
But he wasn’t having any of it. Her words entered one ear and flew out
the other, and even with her cheek pressed up against her knee, she could
see how ineffective her pleas were.
I’m not ready to say goodbye.
She never would be. Even when she thought she was, when the time
came, she always chickened out and stayed. Because she knew once her
father, Chesnik, left her, or when she left him, that would be it. The
likelihood of ever seeing each other again was unlikely. Her dad had been a
worker-bee his entire life, moving them from one ship to the next, taking
her with him wherever he went, no matter how dangerous it was for her.
When she was old enough to cut ties and find her own way, she chose to
stay with him.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into entire jobs, and jobs turned into
years, and here she was. She had followed him straight into the slaving
units of a pirate ship.
And now he was leaving her.
“Please... Dad...”
“Don’t you fucking start! Man the fuck up, boy,” he spat.
“I have manned up,” Elodie hissed. “This has nothing to do with me—”
“It has everything to do with you.”
She stiffened and made sure the guards weren’t paying attention.
“Risking yourself to join them isn’t something we agreed on. Just,” she took
a heavy breath, hoping it would calm her nerves, “think about what you’re
doing. You have no idea what happens once you leave this room. No one
has returned from recruitment. No one has come back.”
“That’s because they’re not dumb enough to put recent prisoners in
charge of the flesh stock.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Kallan sneered on the other side of her. “You keep
talking and you’re gonna get us all killed.”
Her dad scooted away, distancing himself. From her. Elodie knew why
he was doing it. He was trying to protect her by sacrificing himself. He was
guarding her secret. She understood his reasoning, but that didn’t stop it
from hurting.
He was making a big mistake and she couldn’t convince him. She had
tried to since he first brought up joining the pirate’s crew. Helplessness
wasn’t something she often felt, but at the moment, the sensation drowned
her.
If she only had more time to convince him, they could come up with a
better plan. Elodie eyed the locking mechanisms on her cell.
The guards did a full walkthrough of the brig, eyeing her and everyone
else like choice pieces of meat.
They didn’t bring the evening meal, which meant they weren’t getting
one that night. She tried not to focus on the gnawing pit in her stomach as
she followed the pirates’ movements back and forth.
 Everyone had gone quiet, waiting, wondering what would happen,
knowing collectively that they wouldn’t be fed. Another twelve hours or
more would go by before they had a chance at another meal—if they didn’t
reach wherever the hell they were going to first.
One of the men turned away from the other and grinned, lifting an
electrical rod from his belt to slap in his hand.
Despite the calm facade Elodie was so desperately trying to broadcast,
she could feel herself sinking, her veneer cracking. She was on the verge of
tears, but even crying would do little to alleviate the ache weighing her
down.
Men don’t cry. Goodbyes are nothing.
“Well, pussies and gentlemen, we have two openings in our crew. Had
some men who went and got themselves killed. Any takers?”
The question was loaded.
This wasn’t the first time she and the others had gone through a
recruitment. Someone would die or get bludgeoned to an inch of their life.
It happened every time.
When no one initially spoke, she chanced a look at her dad, hopeful that
he would reconsider. But he stood when he caught her eye.
Hope was such a fleeting thing.
“I’ll take one of those slots. Anything has to be better than dying
without dinner,” he announced.
Elodie looked at the man in the cell directly across from her, past him,
and to the wall. She focused on it as if it would save her life. The guards
walked through her line of sight but they passed as shadows, obscured and
out of focus.
“We have a taker!” the man with the electrical rod bellowed. Her
periphery blurred, the edges growing fuzzy, until there was nothing left but
her—her and grey wall. “Ding ding ding ding!” The rod slammed into the
metal bars with each syllable.
She heard her dad’s grunt and the shuffle of his feet, undeterred and
unwary, followed by the hum of the lock on his cell as it opened.
The sounds filled her ears, her mind, prying with sharpened claws to lift
her head up and force her to watch the events taking place.
The word goodbye pounded through her skull over and over, monotone
and depressing.
How could you?
 Her throat constricted. The betrayal was hard for her to stomach.
“What’s your skills, old man?” one of the guards asked.
“Systems, mechanics, the upkeep of the bowels when called for, and
resource mining on occasion. I know a half dozen different rig setups and
have practice welding in an exosuit.”
You can also speak several languages, tell a good story, and give a
decent hug.
“Ah, space fodder, you’re space fucking fodder. That’s okay, it’s okay.
Too bad you ain’t a doctor,” Rod-man muttered.
“Or a woman,” said the other.
“I’ll go where you need me,” Chesnik finished, undisturbed.
“You hear that all! He’ll go where he’s needed! Who else wants to join
the crew today? Last chance, fuckers.”
The electric rod slammed into the bars again, louder and harder than
before. Elodie’s grey wall slipped out of her vision completely as she was
jerked back into reality. She lifted her eyes to see her dad shifting glances
her way.
His cell door closed with a bang, and for the first time in weeks, it was
empty.
“One more, fuckers, who’s it gonna be?” Rod-man ran his eyes over her
and moved onto the other prisoners in the cells beyond. His footsteps trailed
away and his voice faded as he continued down the line.
For a moment, it was only her, Chesnik, and the quiet guard that held a
gun to Chesnik’s side. She sized them up.
The tension between them was stifling, overpowering. A feral spark lit
within her that demanded she volunteer too, to derail whatever suicidal plan
her dad made and get the guards to open up her cell just so she could attack
them, knowing it would cost her her life.
I love you. She mouthed the phrase, pouring her heart into it.
He frowned and looked away. Elodie couldn’t. She kept her eyes on him
and tried her best to memorize every little detail about him.
But all she saw was her dad in the rest-cycle dimmed lights, wearing
dirt-stained clothes that hung limp around his frame, with deepening
wrinkles around his mouth, and a slight hunch that bent his once upright
figure.
When did he become so frail?
 Her heart dropped into her stomach and she pulled her legs more firmly
into her chest. The booming sound of the cattle prod slamming against
metal bars was the musical accompaniment to her misery. Soon, the sounds
of grunts and hollers joined the chorus as a man was beaten to a pulp.
“I’ll join the crew,” an unfamiliar voice spoke out, but Rod-man was
already dragging another prisoner behind him.
Three takers... Elodie stuck her neck out to get a better view, moving
her feet under her.
The guard thrust the other prisoner at her dad before sourcing out the
third voice, but Chesnik didn’t catch the man, instead letting him stumble
and drop to his knees.
The opening of a third cell door sounded.
“You want in on the crew, do you?” the guard asked.
“Yeah. I do. Had to think on it but then I remembered how fucking
hungry I am.”
“We have two spots and three takers. How hungry are you, dumbass?
Because we all want to know. What would you do for what you want right
now?”
Elodie crawled forward, unable to help herself. The third man stood
level with the guard. Idiot. He’s got a damned electrical weapon.
“Pretty fucking hungry. Enough to tell you I’m worth more than both
those two combined. Enough to be done sitting in a cell all day rotting.”
She snuck a glance to her dad and wished she hadn’t, seeing creases of
worry appear on his brow. Her head snapped back as a sizzling screeching
noise filled the space, followed by howls and seizing. She knew that sound
but it always startled her: when a cattle prod was used on a human.
“That didn’t answer my fucking question! What would you do for it?”
Rod-man bellowed. The prisoner dropped to his knees as the guard thrust
the weapon into his thigh. He fell the rest of the way to the floor with a
groaning thud, writhing like a fish.
The smell of burnt flesh and roasted meat, ashen cloth, and fried hair
assaulted her nose. She pressed her palms into her stomach to stop the gag
from coming forth, knowing the bile wouldn’t be able to wash the taste of it
out of her mouth. She buried her nose into her shoulder, sickened.
“Get up!” he screamed. “You still fucking hungry!? Then get the fuck
up!”
 Elodie cringed and scurried back to the wall as the prisoner was hauled
from his cell and past her own. She clutched her nose as the limp, partially
cooked thigh dragged across the floor, attached to a screeching man.
“Please, stooop! Pleasse. I’ll do anything, anything. I’ll prove my
loyalty, just please ssstoooop!”
The second taker had risen to his feet, holding his limp arm. What had
been an initiation bludgeon now only looked like a bad bruise compared to
taker number three and his burning skin.
“Well, Trainet, we got ourselves space fodder, a security nerd, and a
gimp with a cooked leg.” Rod-man lifted the crying man up and looked him
in the eye. “What makes you better than the two who don’t need immediate
medical care?”
“C-c-cryp—”
“You’re a what, a c-c-c-crybaby?”
“Nooo, a c-cryptocurrency investor,” his voice hitched.
Rod-man dropped the crying man and turned to the one named Trainet.
“Kill him.”
“No! WAIT! I have money,” the man begged, sobbing, “A lot of m-
money!” Trainet stepped around the others and pointed his gun to the
prisoner’s temple. He scooted back, Trainet followed. Taunting.
Elodie pushed herself as far up into the corner of her cell as she could
go as the men neared her cage.
No one made a sound. Not one of the dozen or so prisoners dared.
Someone was going to die, and no one wanted it to be them.
“Waait, I have an idea.” Rod-man sidled up to the guard holding the
gun, leaned down, and grabbed the sputtering prisoner again by his scruff,
dragging him back to where her dad and the other man stood. “What’s your
name?”
“J-Jacob.”
“Well, Jacob, it’s your lucky day. You’ve got a spot.”
Elodie crawled back toward the front, gripping the bars in her hands as
her eyes widened in horror. No.
“Thank you...”
“But you have to kill one of these two.” Rod-man nodded. Trainet
handed Jacob the gun.
She watched everything in slow motion and vaguely out of focus, as
Jacob lifted the firearm, limbs shaking, and pointed it at her dad, toward the
other man, and back at her dad. Her mouth opened in a silent scream but the
only noise to be heard was the click of the gun and the burst of a bullet.
NO!
A body hit the floor, smoking.
Elodie caught Chesnik’s eyes over the twitching corpse between them
as it sank in that her father still lived. They stared at each other for what
seemed like a gut-wrenching eternity until time resumed its normal flow.
“Throw Jacob back in his cell with the body. If he’s still sane in the
morning after a night next to the dead, we won’t have to recruit again.”
Goodbye. Chesnik mouthed the final word.
Elodie couldn’t form the word back.
Twenty minutes was all it took for them to separate.
Elodie rested her brow against the cold bars and listened to Jacob sob in
the distance.

AT SOME POINT SHE HAD crawled to the back of her cell. The lights
overhead remained low, timed to the ship’s preconfigured cycle, as an
indication of night. It was the only way to tell time, but her suspicions grew
as the quiet around her deepened.
The longest night of my life.
Elodie didn’t even try to sleep, knowing from her racing heart that she’d
never be able to anyway. Staring into the empty cell next to hers, she hoped
that her dad would magically reappear, that he hadn’t left her to rot in the
brig alone.
Chesnik was the only family she had and the only one who knew who
she really was. Deep space and long voyages—some privately funded and
some government-sanctioned expeditions—were no place for a woman. But
deep space was exactly where she was and where she had been her whole
life. Having played the part since she was eight, being a man was second-
nature to her. At the time that decision was made, she’d been too young to
understand how selfish of her dad it was. Not until after he’d sheared off
her long blond hair.
It was either stay on Earth and make a life amongst the dirt-chrome
cities and the wastes or retain some sense of freedom out in space for him.
As a boy, and then a man.
 She rested her head back against the wall, peering at the long strip of
light overhead.
“He ain’t coming back.”
The voice startled her and she looked to her left at Kallan. He’d been
here long before she was thrown in next to him, and he was still here now.
Elodie rubbed her face, hoping to smudge grime further over her
features, and pushed her head inward slightly to round out the excess skin
on her jaw and cheeks. There wasn’t much left to work with; weeks of
sparse rations had taken a toll on her. The thought sent her stomach into a
rumble.
“They never come back,” Kallan continued. “I should know. I’ve been
here longer than you.”
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore him.
“Boy-o, you gotta grow a thicker skin.”
“Shut the fuck up!” another nearby prisoner yelled. Jacob’s distant cry
started back up.
Kallan drew up to the bars between them, pressing up as close as he
could to her. Elodie moved away, against the bars she’d shared with her
dad. Kallan had reached for her frequently but she never let herself get near
enough for him to grab her. At least not close enough where she couldn’t
easily twist away. But she watched as he settled in and lowered his voice.
“Chesnik your real pa?”
She gifted him with a blank stare.
“You two look alike. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Must be
nice to know someone in this hellhole. Too bad he gone up and abandoned
you. I guess that means I can be your new daddy.” The smile he flashed
made her sick. “Always been wondering how a frail, twig-armed boy like
you chose work in a field that could lead to this.” Kallan cupped the bars.
“You know they ain’t taking us straight to the slave rings.”
“What do you mean?” Elodie asked.
He grinned. “I’ve been on the other side. No. If we were just slaves,
we’d have been sold off by now. No. We’re for something else.”
“Else?” she asked. Do I really want to know?
Kallan reached through the bars and tried to grasp at her but his fingers
didn’t even make it halfway. “Maybe your pa has the right of it. But is the
risk worth it?” He drew his hand back and shifted away.
 She lifted the collar of her work shirt and breathed in the scent of her
sweat. It grounded her; although unpleasant, it was better than the reek the
rest of the brig often had. Everything, every square inch of flesh and cloth
on her body was filthy. Her skin itched, her short hair fell in clumped
strands around her face, her nail beds were broken and lined with dirt, sweat
stains sported her undershirt, but the worst part about her current state was
the extra-tight, double-banded sports bra underneath it all. She’d been
wearing it for weeks and Elodie was certain the skin underneath was as
desperate as her lungs for fresh air.
She didn’t have large breasts, or really any breasts at all. Elodie couldn’t
be sure, not having spent much time in the presence of women, but not
being well endowed had saved her a lot of hardship.
The tips of her fingers skated over her pulse. Feeling life under her skin,
literally touching it, reminded her how lucky she really was.
“You and your pa plan it?” Kallan’s voice stopped her fingers from
trailing under her shirt to itch.
I’m the epitome of stupidity. She streaked her fingers across the scrapes
on her knuckles instead, feeling a slight twinge of pain. It helped distract
her from her thoughts.
“Plan what?” she asked.
“Him gettin’ recruited and you staying here? You two got a plan?”
Elodie dropped her hand, suddenly tired.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You two got a plan!”
She turned away and lowered to her side.
“You better cue me in before it goes down. Or your being related won’t
stay a secret. You listening to me boy-o? They’d find a way to use you two
against each other.”
She closed her eyes. It didn’t shut the pain away but it kept her from
staring off into her dad’s empty cell. It allowed her to pretend, in short,
desperate bursts, that he was still there. That, in some miraculous way, she
wasn’t locked up at all and that she had no secrets to hide.
I don’t care if they know he’s my dad.
I care if they find out I’m a girl.
I need a plan.
Slumber teetered out of reach even though Kallan went silent. Elodie
curled one arm over her empty stomach and prayed to whoever—whatever
—out there that might listen and help get her out of this cell before she
could hide no longer. She allowed one single tear to make its way down her
cheek. Just one.
 Chapter Two

A SINGLE AMBER TRICKLE of beer caught his eye.

Gunner pumped the wort through the calandria that marked the end of
the boil. He sat back as it flushed into his jacked-up whirlpool tank to
separate out. Some of it dripped onto the floor from where a minor leak had
formed. The beer dribbled until it fell from the tank to splash onto the
ground, where it was quickly caught up in his ship’s ventilation.
He couldn’t see behind the copper piping—which was foraged from
other parts of his ship—while the centripetal force pushed the debris into
the bottom middle of the tank. And as such, the fragrant aroma of hops
filled his bathroom.
He grabbed a nearby cloth and wiped his hands but didn’t try too hard
for cleanliness. His eyes drifted from the machinery to his nails, cracked
and tainted. His hands would never be clean again. Not even a chemical
cloth, designed for sanitization, could scrub the grease, sweat, and blood
that had long ago fouled his cybernetic skin. Not even if he released the
beast inside him, letting the metal shift and having his cybernetic cells
rebuild him from the inside out.
He was dirty.
And doomed to remain so.
“Take it.” Gunner thrust the cloth at Browning, his partner in beer
brewing, and number three in his life. She came after his AI, his second due
to unwavering loyalty based on cracked-up codes.
“Yes, sir.”
His steps echoed through the small lavatory-turned-brewery as he
checked the process over. The silence that followed was a low hum to his
ears. Even Browning was a quiet little lamb beside him, holding his garbage
as if she was created for it.
Which, in a manner of speaking, she was.
He couldn’t remember the last time he was in the direct presence of a
living, breathing human. The toys he surrounded himself with were all he
knew now, and as he calculated how long it would take for his beer to finish
brewing, he also knew the inevitable quickly approached.
 The next drop-off point with Stryker.
Gunner turned full-circle, grounding himself in his enclosed territory,
and taking it all in.
The heat in the room was rising, albeit slowly, which would spoil the
fermentation.
He swiveled on his heel and headed for the control panel, pressing his
hand up against the greased-streaked glass.
Two of a kind. We’re both covered in grease.
He programmed the temperature to lower once the whirlpool was done,
setting himself a countdown to remind him to return. The time ran down by
seconds. It felt like an internal pull, the kind of pull that kept your eyes
checking the clock on the other side of the room while you’re trying to fall
asleep.
Gunner ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back, and pulling it
tightly before letting it go.
Just then, the ghost of something warm, teasing, with soft skin, edged
with a porcelain nail ran from the middle of his neck to slide in subtle
waves down his spine, ending with a light tap on his lower back at the
waistband of his jeans. When it left him, he rolled his shoulders and
accepted the calculated touch for what it was.
Fake.
Browning stepped away from him like a shadow at dawn, there one
moment, soft and shaded, and gone the next, bleached out by the sun’s ever-
watching spotlight.
But the countdown and the swirl of the whirlpool continued on in
reality.
Browning was fake—a specifically designed android—and he hated and
loved it every time her programming pretended not to be. Gunner grabbed
hold of her long brown hair and tugged lightly, eliciting another response
out of her: a coy smile just for him. He dropped his hand and shook the feel
of her off.
“Need something more from me?” she asked ever-so-sweetly. He didn’t
answer.
Maybe it’s time. His lips fell into a frown. Time for fucking what?
Gunner glanced away from her, uneasy in the way his contraptions always
made him feel. He moved to the whirlpool to watch the deep amber liquid
swirl.
 Time for what? The swell of rushing waves filled his ears. It was the
same question that plagued him day in and day out, ever since he accepted
his exile. What’s there to do?
‘There’s an abnormal structure in our path.’
His ship’s AI, APOLLO, interrupted his thoughts. With his head still
deep within his ship’s systems, he seeded through the data from the sensors,
moving to re-press his hand to the control panel.
‘What kind of structure?’ he asked.
‘According to the most recent scans, another ship.’
Gunner downloaded the scans and checked them over. A ship. Or a large
chunk of debris left behind by another larger ship, or both.
‘Keep scanning. Move closer. Use the active sensors if you have to, we
aren’t sneaking around,’ he ordered.
He felt the change before the command was uploaded and they went
off-course altogether, heading toward an abrupt anomaly instead of the
drop-off point and Stryker. Browning moved to stand behind him,
anticipating his needs, half-controlled by APOLLO herself, but made no
move to close the distance or to take over the brewing.
‘Approaching obstruction in five...’
Four.’
Three.’
Two. Scanning again.’
He flexed his bicep and tapped his finger on the panel, waiting. There
was no one in the universe who hated waiting more than he did. ‘Check for
power,’ Gunner added.
Several moments went by before the AI responded. ‘Ship confirmed.
Power detected inside, including minor electrical signals. No distress call
or any correspondence outward. One human on board.’
He lifted his hand away from the wall and snagged the cloth from
Browning, wiping it clean again, and dropped it on the floor this time when
he was done. He pulled a joint out of his pocket and lit up, taking a deep
drag, waiting.
His timer ticked along in the back of his mind, evaporating against the
heat of his concentration. His eyes roved over the haphazard machines
strewn about once again and he filled his nose with the scents they created.
Burning, musky, earthy scents.
 Gunner knew everything about this room, everything about his ship.
There wasn’t a line of code out of place, a smell he couldn’t detect, or an
android or sexbot he hadn’t reconfigured to his exact specifications.
Dommik had his standard model androids, the Bins, and Stryker had
alcoholic Matt. He, on the other hand, had his beautiful robotic crew. What
better than to spend countless days looking at something beautiful?
“Follow me,” he ordered over his shoulder to Browning as he left the
room, leaving for the bridge.
The dark grey tones and the streak of low LED lights that lined the floor
glinted as he moved past a dozen shut doors and portholes that looked out
into space. He flicked his gaze to the left where he could see the hulk that
APOLLO was currently scanning.
Fucking salvagers.
The doors to the bridge slid open silently as he neared. Colt and
Flashbang, two more bots just like Browning, were already in attendance,
manning the controls in his absence. They moved to the edges of the
cockpit when he neared, Browning joined them at the sides.
“Send them a communication, try and reach whatever lifeform is in it,”
Gunner barked out. APOLLO responded to the order instantly.
They waited for a response that didn’t come.
Gunner sourced out stashed clothes and tossed on a simple undershirt,
foregoing his EPED uniform to don his camo cargo fatigues and jacket. The
pockets were lined with more supplies than on his person.
When he sat down on his self-styled throne—a used-up, beaten
captain’s seat—there was still no answer from the smaller, broken vessel.
He ordered APOLLO to send another message. Updated scans alerted
him to movement and activity and again confirmed that there was only one
lifeform on the downed salvage ship. Whoever was on the broken-down
heap was well enough to move. Hopefully, they were well enough to talk as
well.
Gunner knew his curiosity was far from helpful. He was just bored. But
here he was regardless, waiting, anticipating something to happen, and
feeling a twinge of annoyance that he gave any of his precious time to
anyone based on curiosity alone.
His eyes flicked to the several unanswered missives he’d sent to
Stryker. They had begun to pile up and although he loved a good pile, he
wondered why his co-worker wasn’t responding.
 One more cycle... One more wormhole... Several more jumps... Then he
would have been at the meet-up point on the outer edges of Earth’s solar
system—as close as he was allowed to go.
He was banned from commercial spaceways and all known paths of
travel between humanity and the Trentian aliens.
Which brought him back to the broken hulk outside his ship and the
mystery of its presence.
Boredom. Grade-A fucking boredom.
He trailed his finger over his lower lip as an odd surge of anticipation
hit him.
“Call the team,” he announced.
Colt and Flashbang stepped forward. Gunner’s eyes trailed after their
lithe bodies through the reflected glass as they did what they were told. He
wasn’t a complete perv—his sexbots-turned-crew were clothed in uniforms,
and they even carried weapons he had trained them with. If something were
to happen, they could fight by his side and defend themselves.
No one touched what was his. No one.
Each of his girls had a learned personality, albeit coded, and the
conversations he sometimes stumbled upon them having broke up his
monotony.
Just then, a response came back and he sat forward. Who would he be
dealing with?
The bridge doors zipped open, ushering in the sounds of a dozen
reconfigured androids taking up position.
Colt, Flashbang, Winchester, Remington, Glock, Super Soaker, Gatling,
Turret, Smith, Wesson, Weatherby, Ammo, and his personal favorite,
Browning, all lined up, flanking his sides. His beautiful, perfect, plastic
sexbots. His fake kingdom all in one room. A beacon of the technology that
made up his quiet empire.
His gunner girls.
They would as easily kill you as fuck you. His lips crept up into a smile,
remembering the chaos that he created when he reprogrammed them to kill
him. Thirteen monsters of his own making going after their own master’s
blood. At the time he wanted to give them a chance, to see if they could
actually harm him, allowing them to learn and calibrate throughout the
exhilarating process.
But in the end, they couldn’t even touch him.
 APOLLO powered up a visual and fed it straight to his mind before
projecting it onto the hologram screen across the bridge.
A young man appeared, standing but hunched over a control panel of
his own. Gunner leaned forward and the man leaned back. Human. Not
half-breed, not alien... human.
“Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” the man called out.
“I can hear you.” Gunner rested his elbows on his knees. The boy
couldn’t be older than his early twenties. The visual was clear but not
without some grain, and he didn’t need to seed into the currents to know
that power fluctuations on the boy’s end were causing the disturbance
between them.
“Some good news at last,” the boy laughed and shifted his eyes across
his visual. Gunner knew what he was seeing, knew what the sight of his
favorites behind him looked like, but kept his amusement to himself. “Been
out here for months now, and nobody has come by.”
“What’s your name?” Gunner asked.
APOLLO responded before the boy did, ‘Encrypted documents on the
ship suggest we’re speaking to a Nickel Smith, one in a crew of twelve on a
ship named Blessed.’
‘Blessed?’
‘Blessed’s history suggests its origins come from the Gliese new wave
star carriers, made from the parts of war battlecruisers that were beyond
repair. It is one in a three ship series for the missionaries of the moon,
followed by Touched, and preceded by Reborn.’
“Name’s Nickel, yours?” the boy said.
Gunner groaned. Religion.
Even in deep space, he couldn’t get away from it. Browning snickered
at his side and it was enough to bring a smile to his lips. She’s my favorite.
“Gunner. So, Nickel,” he sat back, “what happened?”
Nickel noticeably looked away from the uniformed beauty of his gunner
girls. Entertainment could still be had, while Gunner waited for that snake-
faced Stryker to get back to him and answer his latest message.
“Will you help me if I tell you?”
“Depends on my mood,” he said, shrugging.
“I can help him,” Flashbang suggested, cutting in. The other bots
tittered and agreed until he held up his hand, silencing them. Nickel’s eyes
widened, and Gunner zoomed his screen in on them, making his girls laugh
anew.
“I’m the one with all the cards, Nickel. Why ask inane questions?” Get
back to business.
“Because if I’m going to waste my time telling you when you’re
planning on killing me anyway, I would just like to speed it up. I’ve come
to terms already,” the boy admonished.
“Terms with what?”
“That my death is inevitable. That my life, currently, is an unending
punishment.”
Gunner cackled. “With an attitude like that, it sure fucking is.”
“The goddesses of the holy moons have turned their back on me and the
crew,” the boy’s voice quivered then hardened. “And I have given up hope
that they would help.”
“Maybe I’m the help they’re giving.” Gunner hardly tempered his
sarcasm.
He didn’t believe in fate or karma, or any other mystical, spiritually-
washed up element out there. Religions spread like disease and from the
most idiotic sources possible: a tree growing to adulthood overnight; a
million falling stars landing over a field of crop; the sudden, inexplicable
death of a tyrant; an abrupt end to a war that raged terror for a hundred
years.
Fucking Lysander.
He knew a fair bit about the various spiritual sects that had found
footing throughout the new wave of colonies on Gliese, Kepler, and Elyria.
The universe was a big place after all, and unusual, unexplainable wonders
happened every day.
Unless you were a Cyborg. Nothing held wonder to a Cyborg. His god
was science, and his belief ran through his veins like the nanocells that
coursed through him. There was always an explanation. Even if the
explanation was pure bad fucking luck.
It was his damn job, after all, getting the materials needed to the EPED
to figure out those explanations.
Gunner smirked. The mood killer of all mood killers... Let me fuck with
your mind.
APOLLO’s final scans flooded his head and all the information that he
needed to know about Nickel’s dying ship.
 “Nickel, even if you are a degenerate, bloodsucking, brainwashed
religious zombie,” the glare of his eyes going red spilled across the glass
screen, “it appears that your reactor is dying, and what power you do have
left stored isn’t enough to get you anywhere. I’d give it, ehh, eight maybe
nine cycles before life-support shuts down. You’ll die from depressurization
over a span of several excruciating hours. But that all depends on how
much food you have left, and considering the way you look, your supply is
low.”
“Considering.” Nickel shifted on his feet. “Unfortunately, this
brainwashed zombie has nothing to offer you in return for your help.”
“Unfortunately not,” he agreed. Over his dead body would he employ a
human like Nickel. “Make me an offer with what you do have.”
“My soul?”
“Nah, ain’t a soul collector. What else?”
“The chance to corrupt me?”
“Are you so desperate to live that you’d give up your beliefs so easily?”
“A chance. Not a conversion,” Nickel bleated back. “Men like you—I
can see it in your mechanical human eyes—need a distraction.”
Gunner pondered. “Cute. But you’re way below my pay-grade and
corrupting young boys isn’t my thing, not that you would ever be able to
distract me long enough to care.”
His eyes drifted to the unanswered missives to Stryker. Maybe the boy’s
onto something. His jaw ticked.
“Ah.” Nickel canted his head. “Too bad I don’t have a pussy to trade
with? Is that it? Or is it money you want?”
“Money is a means to an end and even pussy isn’t worth the amount of
siphon your ship will need to get out of here. And I have enough of both
already.” He indicated his girls and his gleaming silver-streaked bridge
walls. “My guns don’t get a chance to say no. It’s the beauty of pulling the
trigger.”
“What about a good conversation?”
“Deal.” Gunner snorted, having already decided to help the kid out a
little. Not many looked into his eyes and didn’t turn away.
“Really?” Nickel guffawed before recovering to spear him with a
suspicious glare.
‘Dock our ships,’ he ordered APOLLO. ‘Scan the perimeter.’
 ‘Docking now. The perimeter is clear aside from Blessed and us. Two
moons are in range—’
‘That’s all.’
Gunner waved at his bots and they all returned to their positions.
Colt, Flashbang, and Browning remained with him on the bridge. He
fingered the AutoMag under his jacket lapel, his back to the screen and the
boy. When his ship trembled, he knew the docking was complete and that
he and Nickel were now connected.
“Nickel, step away from the Blessed’s control panels,” he barked with
his eyes still on his girls.
“What? Why?”
‘Take Blessed over.’ He gave APOLLO the order without waiting.
His AI flushed from his own ship and flooded into the dying one,
bringing life with it. Gunner dipped into the channels after, wincing, hating
the weak connections and flickering currents. He fell out and back into his
body quickly.
But not before he locked Nickel out, rewriting the current programs and
security access. Gunner couldn’t hold back an unpleasant groan, his digital-
self shuddering from penetrating half-dead tech.
“What are you doing? It’s not responding to me anymore?” Nickel’s
frustration poked at the edge of his consciousness.
“Are you okay, sir?” Browning’s voice gripped him and pulled him the
rest of the way out of his uneasy disgust. Gunner returned to the screen
without answering her, his eyes again falling on the unanswered messages
to Stryker.
Piece of cybernetic snake shit.
“I locked you out,” he said. “Get ready for boarding. I’m on my way.”
A fucking conversation for an energy sap.
Gunner shut the communication down without waiting for a response.
The reflected glare of his eyes receded as the hologram screen shot back
into the bridge paneling. He moved to Browning and drifted his fingers
across her cold, fabricated cheek. The contact did nothing for him.
“I need to you take care of the beer, dolly.”
“Need me to take care of anything else?” A smile graced her lips as her
eyelids dropped. He drew a soft lock of her long brown hair away from her
neck and shoulder and pushed it back, leaning into the crook of her neck to
breathe in her fabricated scent of arousal and the very real smell of hops.
 “Always. Everything,” Gunner whispered quietly against her skin. A
series of goosebumps raised in response but he didn’t touch her further. He
drew back and gave Browning a once over. “I’ll be back soon but be a good
girl and make sure the crew behaves. I don’t want to come back to what you
did last time.”
“You liked what I did last time.”
“Sure.” Gunner turned away and checked his jacket pockets. “But I like
my orders being followed more.” He grabbed Browning’s wrist and pushed
her skin back, revealing control overrides and suppressed the fake free-will
he usually allowed her, before he dropped her arm. Her head snapped
upright and her eyelids raised. The gooseflesh that had flushed her skin
settled back down into her.
He lifted her other hand, kissed the back of it, and left.

“NICKEL.”
“Gunner?” the boy greeted back, glancing beyond him to see if he
brought any of his girls.
Joke’s on him. I need all thirteen.
“Goddesses, your eyes! Are you... are you actually blind?”
“Am I?” His eyes were an oddity, a malfunction from times past. There
was no color to his irises, just a milky grey like that of a fully blind human.
The real color never showed unless he focused on something or was feeling
particularly hyped.
Gunner stepped around the kid and made his way to the ship’s
mainframe, the blueprints in his head and his AI leading the way. The
disarray and interior abuse was on par with some of the ancient vessels. He
took in the dented metal—rust coated the edges—and dirt and skid marks
across the floors. His nose twitched, filling with must, body odor, and what
he could swear was bodily decay. Old bodily decay.
“You get rid of the corpses?” he asked as he continued through the ship.
“What? Uh, what? Yes. How did you know? I sent them out to space.”
“I can still smell them.”
“How? The last one...died over two weeks ago.” There was a muffled
hint of remorse in Nickel’s voice that spoke volumes. It surprised Gunner
that of everyone who must’ve been on Nickel’s crew, that he was the one to
survive.
 “I have a great sense of smell,” he muttered before the entryway to the
reactor.
Nickel sidled up to him. “That really sucks. I can’t stand the smell right
now, and I can’t even smell the decay anymore. You enhanced with
cybernetics? Your eyes had a red glow earlier.”
Gunner forced through the reactor’s separate security, and APOLLO
suppressed the breach alarm without question. “You could say that.”
“I’d like to get some work done myself...”
They walked into the machine room together, his liner gun tapping his
chest with each step. The kid doesn’t see a Cyborg. Not many did when it
came to him, because his frame wasn’t as bulked up as some of his
brethren; instead, he had a tall, wiry internal structure. The beast didn’t
need extra mass to shift into shape. The jackal preferred speed over
strength.
And my jacket hides the rest. Gunner pulled out what he needed from
his lining and started on the reactor. There was coding to be done before his
ship would be able to connect directly to it, coding that was easier done in
person than it was in cyberspace. He peeled back the barricaded, triple-
layered mainframe until it exposed the computer housed within.
“What kind of work?” Gunner asked.
“A big dick, for one,” Nickel laughed. “The kind that never quits unless
forced and does all the work for you. But no, I kid, if I could get anything
done, it’d be a metabolism regulator. After these past few months, forcing
my body to shut down would’ve been great. You were right about the food.
I’m down to quarter rations now.” As he said it, his stomach growled low
and hollow. Gunner pulled out a protein bar from one of his many pockets
and handed it to him.
“Thanks man...” Nickel took it without question.
“Hmm.”
Gunner turned away and cracked the reactor open like an egg, almost
surprised with how easy it was. Any hacker with half a brain could’ve done
what he did. The Blessed was a disgrace to all Earthian cybersecurity.
The security on his own ship had started out the best that money could
buy and was then enhanced by a team of his more paranoid Cyborg
brethren. He learned from them and now maintained it with APOLLO.
Unlike the other Cyborgs in the EPED, he needed the best security. He was
given jobs that dealt with monsters on an entirely different level. Human
monsters.
It was a game of Russian roulette with his employers. It was easy for the
EPED to put him on missions that were more likely to cause his death than
not. He was expendable and always would be. But he was also an asset
because he never. Fucking. Died.
And he never questioned.
Browning once told him that his death would as likely cause a
celebration as it would a wake. That whether he lived or died, the universe
would be interrupted for a heartbeat, but it would then go on without him.
His death would never be more than a nuisance. But then he stuck his cock
in her mouth, she got him off, and he watched in resentment as she traipsed
to the sink in his brew room, spit out his seed, and clean out her mouth so
thoroughly that it had pissed him off. A sex-bot had angered him. Browning
had been demoted to maintenance for a year after that stunt and he had to
make do with the others.
In the end, she won, and his favor returned with his mirth.
The connection to their ships fused and he left his AI to take care of the
siphoning process. Gunner lifted away.
“You’ll have enough power to get to the nearest port in several hours,”
he said.
Nickel pocketed the protein wrapper and eyed the reactor’s computer. “I
appreciate it. So about that conversation? You get lonely out here in space
all alone?”
Gunner slammed one the barricades back in place. “What makes you
think I’m alone?”
“Based on what I saw, you are. Androids are nothing but a shield. The
goddesses give them no favor.”
He turned to the boy. “It’s true, a good guess, I don’t like to share.
Humans need others in their lives, robots don’t.” It wasn’t the real reason
there were no humans on his ship, but the boy didn’t need to know that.
Nickel laughed and sat on a nearby pipe. “A shame that. I’d corrupt
myself all over them if you know what I mean.”
Gunner narrowed his eyes. Nickel’s laughter wilted.
“If you even breathed on my ship, you’d be as good as dead. When I
said I don’t like to share, I meant it. I won’t tolerate the idea either.”
 ‘Approaching vessel entering perimeter.’ Gunner snapped out of his
anger and pulled out his gun.
“Shit! I’m sorry, I was making a joke!” Nickel jerked back.
‘Power up the guns, hail them, send me diagnostics,’ he flooded his AI
with commands.
‘Guns stalled while boarded. Hail ignored. Uploading current scans
now.’
Gunner dropped the connection between their ships without turning
back, and stormed out and into the hallways of the Blessed. Nickel was on
his heels with a barrage of questions.
The upload couldn’t come fast enough.
‘Four ships, heavily armed and targeted on us. More are entering our
airspace, sir. They have yet to accept our hail. Should we undock?’
‘Yes!’ he yelled in his head, his feet picking up, his body pushing
forward into a sprint. The dock was already disengaging when he turned the
corner, the doors shutting.
“Gunner! What’s wrong!?” Nickel screamed somewhere far behind him.
Gunner was several yards from the exit.
I’m going to make it. He was bored, but not that bored.
But he felt the missile before it hit his ship. He felt the power and the
impact as it struck the side of the docking bay, blasting his chances of ever
making it back aboard his ship alive into oblivion. The metal crushed and
groaned, caving inward then outward, knocking him off his feet and
slamming him into the rusted, ancient, used-up side paneling of the Blessed.
A roaring filled his ears, his head, and consumed his mainframe with a
surge. It was enough to make him stand, if only for a moment, before he
short-circuited on the spot. His face hit the ground and his eyes flashed
once more before that faded too. He reached out, fingers twitching,
grasping for something just out of reach.
‘Browning,’ his whispered as rage built inside him.
‘What can I do for you?’ her message flitted behind his eyes.
‘Break. Break all the guns...’
Their dying programming was the last thing he sensed before he
rebooted, and the smell of gasoline replaced the hops.
 Chapter Three

ELODIE’S EYES DRIFTED open to find the cell she faced empty and
yawning and the rest cycle lights still down in a dreary dim. She remained
unmoving as her senses came back one by one, starting with the worst;
hunger, pain, her emotional state.
He’s gone.
At least he’s not dead. At least I didn’t see him die. Her heart thumped.
Her eyes stared through the empty space and double row of bars to land
on the man on the other side of her dad’s cell. He was facing away from her,
his back to the bars. He was a gristly sort of fellow, and neither she nor her
dad ever liked conversing with him. Elodie couldn’t recall his name. She
pretended that he was her dad, just for a few minutes, as she mustered the
courage to rise.
She rose slowly, quietly, feeling her body’s need to expel the tiny bit of
waste it’d created since her last meal. It was her most hated part of the day,
and as she perused the nearby cells and the prisoners within, her luck
bolstered her nerve.
They’re all sleeping...
It was the biggest pro on her internal pro and con chart about hunger. It
made everyone else around her just as weak as she was. The weak slept.
Every joint in her body ached as she made her way over to the drainage
vent in the middle of her cell, where, twitching and shivering with unease,
she lowered her pants, shifted her boxers, and squatted. Her business was
done in seconds and she made her way back to the wall.
Another pro of hunger... fewer bathroom breaks. Dressing like a man
had its perks too. Several weeks ago she’d ripped a larger hole in her boxers
so she never had to drop them. Kallan had questioned her antics once when
he watched her without her knowledge, and she hadn’t realized until it was
too late.
“You got a problem with your cock?”
Elodie jerked and tugged up her pants. “No.”
“What the fuck kind of man squats to pee? You got pussy under there?”
he taunted and leered. “You do, don’t you? A dirty little cunt.”
 She stopped herself from scrambling to the wall and giving herself
away. Instead, she fought to calm her nerves so she could move slowly back
into position. Elodie reached down to adjust herself. “You think I’d still be
in here if I did? If I had a cunt, I'd've bargained my way out of this hell
before they had a chance to close my cell door,” she ground out a laugh.
“Then prove it, boy,” Kallan pressed up against the bars and grinned.
“Let’s see what’s between your legs.”
Several prisoners around her grunted, snickered, and taunted. Her dad
remained silent, and she was thankful for that. Things only got worse when
he got involved.
“You that desperate, old man? I show for cunts, not for cocks. You show
me yours first and then we’ll talk,” Elodie sneered and let her head rest on
the wall, closing her eyes. She heard Kallan spit in her direction, heard it
land, but didn’t look. She focused on remaining calm...looking unaffected.
The issue dropped.
That was weeks ago, and now her body had been trained to hold
everything in until the last possible moment.
She knew Kallan had his suspicions. There wasn’t much else to do but
watch the other prisoners, but she did her best to keep his curiosity
tempered. Elodie glanced in his direction, thankful that his eyes were
closed.
Her back hit the wall right when the lights brightened to signify day.
The groans of others followed shortly after, and soon Jacob’s sniffling sobs
rose to greet the morning.
She tuned him out and focused on the shut double door of the brig,
hopeful and fearful for it to open. She was starving and her mind went back
to that moment with Kallan about trading her pussy for freedom.
Don’t! Elodie yelled at herself, even when her nose caught the first scent
of decay from the corpse. Don’t!
She pushed her fingers through her hair and wished she had scissors to
cut off its length. She rubbed the back of her hands over her cheeks and jaw
knowing she was one of the only men who didn’t have hair growth there. At
least the only one in her immediate vicinity. Her disguise had its limits but
it wasn’t all about how she looked, it was mostly about how she acted, and
growing up around men, and only men, had helped her immensely.
Keeping her hair short was easy, and though lowering her voice had
been difficult at first, over the years, it had become second nature. Elodie
had been lucky enough to inherit her dad’s height—she was nearly six feet
tall—and her metabolism and with the constant strain of labor had kept her
frame from filling out. She even trimmed her eyelashes, having been born
with unusually thick ones, and she wore oversized clothes to hide what little
of her frame that curved.
But despite trying to come off as a ‘man,’ she could only pull off a
boyish look. Men bought that look, but it still brought her unwanted
attention. The kind that screamed easily dominated, an easy swing for an
interested man. There were always shadowed advances from men who had
their own secrets to keep, or blatant overbearing harassment from those
who didn’t care.
Lying about STDs was a great way to end shit before it even started.
The doors zipped open. Her hands stilled in her hair.
One guard came in, a different one from last night, followed by a boxy
android. They passed her cell and went straight for Jacob and the corpse.
Within minutes, both were pulled out of the brig. She was able to catch
the haunted look in Jacob’s eyes as he went by her cell.
You shouldn’t have spoken up. Elodie felt worse for the corpse. He died
because of you. Then she hated them both and that hatred briefly extended
to her dad.
The panels shut. No food or water...
The door reopened, and a new ember of hope alighted. Two guards
came in with a new set of androids, but her anticipation for food wavered as
something was dragged—lugged—in behind them.
The noises from the other prisoners sounded throughout as everyone
came forward to watch the new entertainment.
She immediately recognized the thing being hauled was a body, a man,
and a big one at that. Elodie gripped the bars she usually rested against,
suddenly wary. The squad approached her dad’s cell and opened it. She
jerked away, moving into Kallan’s territory.
It was the first prisoner to arrive since she and her dad and the
remaining crew of their last job had been locked inside.
The androids, obviously strained, heaved the man into the cell beside
her, dropping him with a thunk.
“Heavy motherfucker,” one of the guards commented.
“Fucking shit has metal in his head. Cybernetic enhancements the
scanner told us... Doesn’t account for his fucking weight.”
 The androids left the cell and the mechanism locked behind them. The
electrical panel pinged like a final fatal gong. Her palms dampened and she
rubbed them on her pants, gaze trained on the new addition, her thoughts
going a mile a minute.
“Rich fucker though, heard his ship was a treasure trove. Must be one of
those blacklisted dealers, hiding out in deep space. We’ll find out when he
wakes.”
“If he ever does. Not even the jumpers and rods got his eyes to open!
Does it even matter?”
The other guard shrugged. “Boss wants to know his ship’s codes.
Ballsy’s having trouble hacking into some parts. If I were him,” he
motioned to the unmoving body, “I wouldn’t wake up. He ain’t going to like
it when he does.” They both laughed and Elodie looked away. She couldn’t
even muster a shiver of unease anymore. But her eyes, unwillingly, found
the man’s unconscious face again and spied the black-lined tattoo of a gun
on his cheek.
Don’t wake up.
She knew he couldn’t hear her thoughts but it didn’t matter.
One of the guards crouched and peered at him. “What kind of man has a
class-A ship and leaves it unprotected for a salvage? And tattoos of guns on
his cheeks?”
“Not a smart one,” the other snarked.
“Hmm...”
Eventually, the guard straightened and looked around at her and the
other prisoners before turning to the androids. “Feed ‘em.”
He walked out with the other guard, and just as quickly, her mind went
from the entertainment to the prospect of food. A palpable wave of
anticipation coursed through the brig.
Unsealed protein rations were dropped into each cell, along with three
water gels. Elodie moaned around her food and savored every bite, but her
attention stayed on the newcomer, and remained on him long after the
androids left.
“You think he’s dead?” Kallan said behind her.
Elodie didn’t answer him. The gristly man on the other side was
reaching into the cell and tugging at the new prisoner’s jacket. But her eyes
kept going to the stranger’s face, and to the gun that pointed straight toward
his mouth. The type of men who got tattoos like that were the type she
avoided like the plague.
“This piece of shit is heavy,” the gristly man spat, pulling his arm back,
giving up after his fifth try of moving the stranger.
The general curiosity from the others waned after that.
Hers didn’t.
No matter how this turn of events played out in her head, it wouldn’t
end well. Her safe spot against the bars was no longer safe, and now, as her
eyes roved over the large frame of the newcomer, she had to choose
between the known evil and the unknown evil. Either way, she was fucked.
Don’t wake up.
This time, she thought it for an entirely selfish reason.

GUNNER ACKNOWLEDGED his piss-poor judgment.

I should’ve never stopped to help the Blessed.
He knew he was in a brig and that he wasn’t alone. He also knew that he
had lost a fair amount of valuable time.
They have my fucking ship.
Nickel hadn’t been brought onboard with him, and he wasn’t sure if the
kid was dead or alive. Gunner tried to sniff him out but was unable to find a
trail, not even a faint one.
Over and over again he tried to seed into his ship’s systems and connect
with APOLLO but was unable to do so. It was out of range.
His fingers twitched against the floor, digging into the metal under his
jacket. When his nails punctured the surface, it only fueled his anger. But
since he feigned unconsciousness, no one would know. He could feign
death but he didn’t want his body shot out into space, not when he had no
leads.
The pirates neutralized his ship and invaded the Blessed while he’d been
rebooting. He vaguely recalled several men trying to lift him,
unsuccessfully, and later the zap of energy when multiple androids gripped
his skin.
He’d been kicked, beaten, and shocked, all of it having no effect on him
except to wake him up further. Men had torn through his pockets, taken
what they could find off his body, stolen his guns, and tried to wake him
again. By that point he was fully aware—and fully aware that his ship was
no longer in reach.
Gunner dug his nails a little harder into the floor, breathing in the smells
of the unwashed masses.
Pirates had him. A chance attack from a passing fleet had knocked him
out cold. They had taken his ship, his property, and had made the fucking
mistake of taking him as well.
His nostrils flared, pressed hard into the metal, and he was aware of
others eating low-grade space rations. He took another deep breath as
something else hit him, something intriguing, buried under weeks of brig
filth.
His lips twitched into a brief smirk when he realized that what he
smelled were his joints. The pirates missed his fucking joints. Gunner could
almost forgive the transgressions against him based on their stupidity alone.
Almost.
There was another smell, also alluring, but he couldn’t place it and let it
fall back into the prevailing stench that surrounded him. His attention
returned to the ship he was on.
The prisoner he faced shuffled and sighed, the noises soft, and Gunner
had the urge to open his eyes to get a visual.
Someone tugged on his jacket.
“You think he’s dead?”
“This piece of shit is heavy.”
The death count rose in his head. Everyone who touched him earned a
place on his list.
His nose twitched again and that same interesting smell coaxed him to
investigate it. But the hand on his jacket let go and so did his curiosity as he
pressed back into cyberspace.
The security barriers he came across were high-end but not
unbreachable and he began the process of breaking down their encryptions.
The ship he was on was privatized, the systems it held were not
governmental. To him, it felt militarized and upgraded, probably built and
bought in the lurid trade markets on Elyria. The tech was Earthian-based
and although he couldn’t discern any Trentians onboard, that didn’t mean
there weren’t any.
His cyberself codes slithered across the parts of it he couldn’t easily
access, gnawing away at it like flesh-eating bacteria. He could break in, but
that would set off alarms, and he didn’t want his puppets to know he was
there. Not yet.
Gunner scanned the immediate perimeter, counting twenty-six other
humans in the brig with him, with at least eight guards in the nearby
hallways. He expanded his search until he had a figurative blueprint,
bolstered by what he had learned being dragged through the ship on his way
in.
Eighty-three occupants, including the prisoners, myself, and forty
androids, currently powered on. No other life force aboard, no animals or
creatures. The pirates took him but not the EPED acquisitions he’d
collected.
His thoughts shifted to Stryker and how he couldn’t wait to beat the
Cyborg’s fucked-up face into a bloody pulp. If he lost his acquisitions,
someone else was going to pay the price.
“Ely! Boy-o,” said a voice, breaking his concentration and grounding
him back into his body. “Check the fucker already. Staring at a corpse isn’t
gonna make it move.”
Gunner knew they were talking about him.
Yes, Ely, check my corpse.
But whoever Ely was didn’t make a move to do so.
“Fucking hell, just feel his pulse. He’s closer to you than him,” the same
man hollered.
Gunner assumed the him was the shit who tried stealing his jacket. He
waited to feel hands on him, but nothing happened. Stay smart, Ely.
“I’ll make you a goddamned bargain,” the man persisted. “You check
his pulse, and if he’s dead, get his jacket for me, and I’ll give you half my
water rations for the next week.”
Don’t do it, Ely. He heard movement before the man spoke, the subtle
sway in position that the proposed bargain had on this middle-man.
“Like I’d ever trust you.”
Gunner stiffened.
The sound of Ely’s voice clashed in his head. It was deliberately
adjusted, deepened with a rasp brought on by saliva caught in the back of
the throat. It wasn’t straight from the vocal cords or damaged from
breathing in too much smoke. It was altered on purpose.
His fingers twitched. Feminine undertones...
Ely’s a girl?
 Suddenly, a new puzzle presented itself and he took the bait readily.
The likelihood of encountering a woman in the middle of nowhere
space-wise was so minuscule, even the calculations running through his
head still calculated...
It doesn’t make sense.
Even given the odds of being on a ship, in a pirate fleet, where there
was sure to be at least one ship whore aboard, it was improbable. Sex-bots
like his Browning typically filled that role—if one could afford something
like Browning.
It’d been years since he was last in the presence of a woman, years since
the possibility of subduing one occurred to him. He was banned by the
government from entering any main Earthian spaceways, commercial or
otherwise, and although he still entered them, he never stayed long enough
to get caught.
“It ain’t like you got much left to lose! Chesnik ain’t coming back.” The
man broke into gleeful, misplaced laughter. “I’ll sweeten the deal. You
check the fucker’s pulse and I’ll leave you alone. For three cycles.”
Who’s Chesnik?
Gunner waited, forgetting the codes, and focused on the events taking
place. He remained still, curious, intrigued. All of his attention was on the
prisoner between him and the heckler.
There’s no fucking way a girl’s locked in the brig.
The absurdity of it, among so many men, was hard for him to grasp. No
fucking way. He ran the odds again, and the odds were against it.
Ely moved closer to him.
He sensed every sound and vibration, each heartbeat and couldn’t tell
who or what Ely was. No way in hell.
“That’s it. Just gotta check his pulse. Do that and I won’t try and hurt ya
for three cycles. This daddy’ll keep his hands off his son.”
It took everything in him to keep still because if Ely really was a
woman, he was going to find out.
Do it, Ely. Check my pulse.

ELODIE INCHED CLOSER to the unmoving man but she couldn’t bring
herself to reach through the bars and touch him. Kallan’s voice filled the
weak space in her mind, egging her on, and it was difficult to shut him out.
Even though her hunger had waned, her mental capacity still teetered on the
brink. The brink of what, she didn’t know.
One part of her wanted to close her eyes and zone out, find her hazy
space and settle in for a nice reprieve into oblivion. But the other part of
her, the one that dissected every horrible scenario that could possibly
happen, the part that had a tighter grip on her survival instincts, pushed her
to check the man’s pulse.
Right now, Kallan was inciting that part of her brain, and it came with
incentives.
Her attention remained on the man’s closed eyes. Please wake up. Don’t
wake up. And the more she stared at them, the more she convinced herself
he was dead.
“He’s dead,” she said, loud enough for Kallan to hear. Maybe if she said
it aloud, it’d be true.
“You ain’t checked, boy-o. I want his jacket!”
That was what this was all about, not about the man himself, but what
he wore and how frigid the brig really was. It wasn’t even about her.
Gristly-guy spoke up. “I want it too but I don’t have the strength to pull
him closer, and if I don’t have it, you really think he’s going to be able to?”
The grunts and murmurs of other prisoners responded in agreement and
Elodie caught his eye over the unconscious prisoner, feeling grim.
I also want his jacket. She eyed it for the umpteenth time. It was big,
big enough to cover her—most of her—and keep her warm for however
long she had it. It was also clean. Clean.
All of it is clean. Though it was stained, it still had a clean look to it. A
month ago, she would’ve considered it dirty, but now she knew what dirty
really was. She was contemplating stealing it now, like the others, and it
made her feel a little uneasy.
She couldn’t remember what it felt like to be warm. A sad laugh died in
her throat.
“We all want his fucking clothes! Find out if he’s dead already!”
someone else joined in and more murmurs ensued, growing louder.
Now I’m the entertainment.
Her heart thundered. Kallan hollered at her back. She jerked closer to
the bars she faced. Elodie gripped them and studied the possibly-dead man
closer. He’s not breathing. His eyelids aren’t twitching. She had nothing on
her person to reflect light over his face. The sweat on her hands had them
slipping down the metal.
“For fuck’s sake!”
“Check him already!”
She dipped her hand through the bars and pressed two fingers over his
pulse.
He’s alive! His skin is...hot. Elodie licked her chapped lips and pressed
further, finding it, also knowing that being really hot didn’t mean being
ripe. One could die hot.
“Well?” A hush settled throughout.
“He’s alive,” she whispered, glancing up from his neck to look at the
gun tattoo on his cheek, his tousled hair, and taking it all in. His eyelids
opened.
I’m dead.
Everything came to a stop. They stared at each other and her life
literally flashed before her, neon red and angry. Thick, arched eyebrows
creased to frame wild hooded eyes that were directed at her.
Dread kept her in place. Even when the prisoner didn’t twist to grab
hold of her arm, she couldn’t move. It was a standoff. Elodie had a feeling
that if she tried to jerk back, it would be the end of her. Her throat closed
up, unable to swallow.
The noise of the prisoners drowned out, her heart beating in her ears,
and she was vaguely aware that no one could see that he was awake except
for her. Neither one of them blinked, and even when her eyes stung, fear
kept her mesmerized and still.
Slowly, she lifted her fingers off his hot skin, leaving a dirty print
behind, and closed them into a fist beside his neck. Elodie pulled away just
as slowly, and he rose as if she pulled the strings that moved his body. It
was only the two of them for the entire daunting process, and when she had
her hand safely back within the confines of her cell, she knew she’d
miraculously escaped dismemberment. Death.
She felt...grateful... He hadn’t killed her on the spot, or broken her arm.
Her back hit the wall and she slipped to the center, shaking and high on
adrenaline, and when she finally managed to unlock her gaze from his, she
closed them tight and leaned her chin into her chest. The spacious haze
remained out of reach, though, and it wasn’t Kallan’s amused taunts in her
ear that kept her from finding some peace... it was the newcomer’s gaze.
 They had burned with a diabolical glow before receding into a milky,
ghoulish stare, and she had watched the entire process in an instinctual
slow-motion high.
His eyes changed color.
She’d never seen anything like it before. The bright, bloody red of them
had shocked her with color, but when the red faded, he appeared blind.
Curiosity and confusion, possibly a little bit of intrigue, made her want to
study them. Made her question whether or not he could see. The guards had
mentioned he was ‘heavy’ with cybernetic implants and she wondered
which ones he had. If her new cell neighbor had a problem with his eyes,
maybe she hadn’t entirely lost her safe spot.
And yet, she could feel his eyes on her like a creeping burn all over her
skin, raising goosebumps on her arms and legs, stripping her clothes away,
and baring her to the world.
“What’s going through your head? Your pulse is strumming,” his voice,
new among the familiar, ended in a deep whisper that seemed projected
right next to her ear. Elodie suppressed a shiver as the hair on her neck rose.
She pretended she hadn’t heard him. She needed to pretend because his
voice did something to her, deep inside, it purred and vibrated and made her
want to hear more of it.
Her skin prickled further and she was thankful no one could see what
she felt. Nervous.
“Ain’t gonna work,” Kallan said to her other side. “He’s not a talker.”
Someone told Kallan to shut up.
“Fuck off,” he screeched, coughed, then laughed, eliciting the usual
amount of death threats. “You want to make a deal?” Elodie should’ve been
used to this, Kallan talking over her, but the thought of him making a deal
with the newcomer frightened her.
I’m already stuck in the middle.
“Deal, you say?” The new prisoner’s voice vibrated low, slicing straight
through her and somehow, she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to
Kallan.
“Hrmm, yeah, the guards want you awake, and you’re awake thanks to
Ely here, but that also means you’re the walking dead. And you got some
nice, warm-looking clothes, particularly that jacket of yours. It’s caused
quite a stir among us, ‘cause creature comforts are few and far between, and
seeing as you’ll be dead by rest cycle—”
 Will he? Elodie wasn’t so sure about that. He was bigger than Kallan
and looked immensely stronger, even harder than him. She’d caught a
glimpse of sinewy muscle at the edges of his clothes, the popping of a
tendon at his neck.
Kallan, on the other hand, was her dad’s age, maybe a bit younger. He
sported scars, old facial wounds of a laced booster user, and his pallor was
sickly and wet. His hair was long and stringy, a dark brown that easily
showed off his dandruff. She shivered again at the thought, thankful, always
thankful, that there were thick metal bars between her and everyone else.
“—so there’s no reason for a dead man to keep all the goods. But I’ve
been here the longest and I may be able to keep you alive long enough to
make the fuckers outside stop giving a damn.” Kallan preened.
“For my jacket?”
“Bright! You’re bright,” Kallan tittered mockingly and she felt his
spittle land on her. Elodie wiped it off with disgust. “Hey guys, we got a
genius in our midst!”
“I’ll think about it,” the new prisoner said, unamused.
“Don’t think long. Those guards could be back at any time, and from
what I’ve gathered, they’re out for your blood.”
“Hmm...” The sound slithered right into her ear again.
Elodie’s heart skipped a much-needed beat and her eyes snapped open.
Maybe he is an idiot. She looked at the tops of her knees but really focused
on him in her periphery. He needs to pretend he’s still out cold. That’s what
I would do.
The stranger was feet away, pressed up against the bars they shared. Her
bars. My safe place. No one cared about getting within her reach and a
sudden anger sparked within her, hot and fast.
The men around her argued and Kallan’s laughter grew louder. Her
periphery blurred. The stranger hovered at her side, large like a wave poised
to crash at any moment, casting her in his shadow even though the light
came from directly overhead.
“What’re we going to do about...him?” he said. Ely closed her eyes
again.
They’re talking about me.
“Ely here?” Kallan asked. “Nothing. Boy-o knows what’s best for him.”
She heard the rustle of clothes and the shift of the stranger’s body
moving beside her.
 “Ely? Do you know what’s best for you?” he asked, low enough for
only her to hear. She sucked on her tongue and kept quiet.
“Don’t you want my jacket, Ely?” His voice lowered still, sounding
deeper, softer, and the noisy sounds of the other inmates faded into the
background.
I do.
“You do, don’t you?”
She leaned her head back against the wall and rolled it to the side,
feigning irritation as she looked at him. As soon as she did, she wished
she’d hadn’t.
Elodie searched his face, tracing each harsh contour, but she kept
coming back to those glazed eyes that seemed to look straight through her.
Her understanding of anatomy screamed at her that the man was blind,
except she knew he wasn’t.
He just appeared blind.
His head mirrored her own against the wall and she knew exactly what
the man was doing. He’s trying to gain my trust.
Her eyes narrowed as his mouth twitching into a sideways smirk. One
of the guns ballooned at his cheek while the other straightened. His smile
widened. Elodie drew back before she could stop herself.
“Hello, Ely,” he said.
Elodie wanted to turn back time. I’ve made too many mistakes today.
“My name’s Gunner. I think we’re going to be fast friends.”
 Chapter Four

A CYCLE HAD GONE BY since he arrived but he had made progress.

Gunner bolstered his signal, letting his body slump into a restful stage,
and checked the digital cracks throughout the ship’s security. He found gaps
big enough for him to tear apart the code and patch it back up with
corrupted ones in his wake. He didn’t want to leave a trail.
What he needed was APOLLO.
His fingers jerked on his thigh. Every minute that passed, his control
over the ship’s systems strengthened, but keeping his progress on track was
proving difficult. Pretending to be human, especially one that had
everyone’s attention, was a nuisance. His other, temporary brig-mates had
conversations and intrigues that enticed him back every time he left his
body.
But Ely proved to be the worst. If Ely sighed too deeply, Gunner left the
ship’s systems and came back to investigate. If Ely shifted positions,
Gunner tracked his progress.
The verdict was still out on whether Ely was a man or not.
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a full breath but it hinted at no signs
that proved whether Ely was male or female. All it proved was that
everyone, on all sides, was dirty. He had a strong sense of smell, one of the
strongest for a Cyborg, and even that sense was less reliable amongst the
grime.
It smelled like shit and he was equally disgusted and at home in it.
I’ve been in here for eighteen hours and eighteen minutes.
Eighteen hours and eighteen minutes was enough for his ship to be on
the other side of the galaxy. It was enough time to make it halfway to the
nearest wormhole. Gunner couldn’t account for the time he’d spent
rebooting but based on previous reboots, he had been down for less than an
hour.
Someone coughed and he jerked fully back into himself.
Gunner looked around with a sneer and found the guy on the opposite
side of him staring. He sniffed again out of habit and was flooded with the
detritus that only reminded him he wasn’t where he was supposed to be:
with his girls and APOLLO and on his ship with his acquisitions. Even his
clothes were beginning to betray his smell.
Gunner stood.
Everyone stopped to watch.
He searched his cell and made a show of testing out the bars, careful not
to bend and break them as he did so.
“No way out, man,” the man on his right said. The one who’d tugged
his jacket.
Gunner shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to try. What’s your name?”
“Royce, you?”
“Gunner,” he murmured and settled his eyes on Ely. Who refuses to
acknowledge my existence. He appeared to be asleep but Gunner knew
better. He knew he was listening. Listening to everything. Like me.
Gunner’s eyes moved to Kallan, one cell beyond, who murderously
glared at him. The man had given up on dealing for his jacket several hours
ago.
“Is your name for the tattoos on your cheeks or the other way around?”
Royce asked.
“The other way around.” Gunner circled his cell. Three walls of bars
surrounded him with a full wall at his back. The tip of his boot toed the vent
that dipped and ran directly across the center and into the units on either
side of him. There was a grated hole in the middle of it and one in each cell
as well. He looked up to the paneling above, which he was sure opened up
into restraints.
Without giving himself away, he couldn’t reach up high enough to touch
or take it apart.
“They use those sometimes,” Royce said, interrupting his perusal. “The
guards trigger them from the panel on the other side of your unit door,
opens up to restraints.”
“Figured out that much,” Gunner muttered.
“Never a good sign when that happens. The last guy they chained up
didn’t make it and it took a while for him to die too. When they were done,
they left his corpse for days before androids came and cleaned up.”
“What’d he do?”
“Refused recruitment. They made an example of him.”
It’s what I’d do. String someone up and make an example out of them.
 Gunner moved to his cell door and studied the metal paneling outside
the bars. He couldn’t fit his hand through to reach it but he could feel the
electricity and connection regardless. He eyed the mechanism on the empty
unit opposite of him and memorized the interface, the order of the numbers,
and then mirrored it in his head. He threaded his fingers through the one-
inch opening and felt around.
“We’ve tried everything. Those panels are unreachable and
indestructible. Even wasted good water gels trying to short-circuit them,”
Royce said.
Idiots. Of course they’re indestructible. You should see my brig.
His could hold a Cyborg, at least for a time, depending on who. He once
locked Dommik in it and it took the spider almost a full day to get free.
Mainly because he refused to shift. Gunner mused at the memory and the
hundreds of images he had of his brethren in his ‘other’ form now. It took
Dommik that long to transform and slip his winding, metal arms out from
the laser barricades to reach the other side of the room and release himself.
There was nothing quite like making a man live with his most hated self
and capturing it on a hard drive for future use. Sometimes he even sent the
images marked ‘high priority’ to Dommik for fun.
It’d been worth it. Until then, Gunner had never seen the spider as an
actual metal beast.
Dommik’s new assistant is going to have quite a fun time when she finds
out.
He wondered how the redheaded girl managed to get on an EPED
Cyborg ship in the first place. His eyes trailed back to Ely.
Kat looked like a woman. Even from across the universe and on a fuzzy
feed, he knew instantly that Dommik’s assistant was a female. But within
feet of Ely, he was unsure. His jackal said female, his machine said male,
and the man couldn’t quite rationalize either.
Ely was tall and slender from what he could tell despite his oversized
clothes. He acted like a man, tried to at least, but there was a certain type
of...vulnerability about him. The kind of vulnerability that made him want
to poke and see what would happen, and possibly protect it. Maybe it was
because Ely appeared to be too young to be in such a shitty situation, or
maybe it was because he was really a she. And this place was no place for a
woman. Especially one without a gun.
 Gunner drew in a breath. His nose filled with the worst smells of
humanity again as he turned back to Royce. “Have you tried blood?”
Royce canted his head and looked at his cell door. “Blood? Blood can’t
do anything that water can’t and no one’s giving up that amount of blood to
pour over it.”
“Water doesn’t conduct electricity, Royce,” he said. “Blood has shit tons
of salts and metals in it and is a, let’s just say, a very good conductor.”
Suddenly, Ely stood and moved to his cell’s locking mechanism. The
action drew Gunner’s attention. He watched as Ely threaded a slender hand
through the bars to feel around. Just like he had moments before.
Royce huffed. “No one’ll risk dying to get their door open.”
“No, I suppose not. Ely, what do you think?” Gunner cocked his head,
taking in the scene. Ely’s fingers stretched out and felt around the interface.
Thin hands, long fingers, steady despite the situation. His visual honed in.
Not weak, but searching specifically. This wasn’t the first time Ely had
played with the locks.
A twitch was Ely’s only response. Ignored.
Smiling, Gunner walked to the grated hole in the center of his cell with
his eyes still on him. “Royce,” he called out without looking at the man,
“what’s recruitment?”
“Keep your mouth shut!” Kallan fired out. “Don’t tell him shit.”
Gunner’s smile grew. Royce hesitated.
“Tell me, Royce, and you can have my jacket.”
“What the fuck!” Kallan shot to his feet.
Ely stopped investigating the lock and now looked straight ahead.
Gunner followed his gaze through the bars to the grey wall across the room.
“Tell me, Royce, and it’s yours.”
Ely shivered and turned toward him. I always fucking win.
Gunner stopped his gaze from flashing red and capturing the moment.
Ely’s focus shifted to search his face, his mouth. He stilled as Ely took him
in, his eyes moving across his body. Gunner stood with his feet slightly
spread, his back straightening, knowing he was being checked out.
Whether it was a woman checking him out, or taking him in like he was
just another dangerous obstacle, didn’t matter to him. Mostly because he
was a dangerous obstacle.
He liked having Ely’s focus. Why?
 Gunner combed his fingers through his bangs and brushed them back.
He couldn’t quite make out his neighbor’s features beneath the thick
smudges of dirt over them. Ely had the dirtiest face of everyone in the brig.
Strike for being a female. Dirt as camouflage. Clever.
“Recruitment is when they need to fill a replacement in the crew,”
Royce said, interrupting Gunner’s thoughts, and Kallan roared. “They come
here first and offer the spot or spots and we get a chance out of here.”
“Why haven’t you all joined then?” he asked indifferently, his attention
remaining on his neighbor. Ely moved back to his usual spot against the
wall, sliding down to rest in the center of his cell.
“Sometimes it’s a game,” Royce answered.
Gunner pulled his arm slowly out of one sleeve and let it fall to his
back. “What kind of game?”
“The kind where it’s all a lie and you’re signing up to be beaten or
killed.”
“The odds are not in favor then?” He tugged his jacket the rest of the
way off and let it slide down to his fingers. Every move he made was being
tracked but he only made a show of it for him.
Gunner shook his jacket in Ely’s direction. He opened his eyes and
frowned. Gunner sniffed the air again and gritted his teeth. Nothing.
“Even if they take you, doesn’t mean they won’t take you after a whole
lot of pain.”
“Ely,” Gunner said, ignoring Royce, “you never answered my
question.” The grip on his jacket tightened. Answer it and I’ll give you the
jacket instead. He wanted to give it to him, he realized, not Royce. Nor
anyone else. Ely shivered again under his perusal. I could make you warm.
It’s up to you.
Silence was all he got from his victim. Stoic, annoying silence. Ely’s
irises weren’t just a mere mud brown. There was a spark of amber in them,
gold, like his swirling beer. Gunner smiled softly.
“About the blood?” he whispered. “What do you think?”
Still, no answer came forth.
Gunner turned away and approached Royce, dropping his jacket against
the bars for the other man to work it through. Seconds passed by as it was
tugged to the other side, followed by minutes of questionable silence that
weighed between him and Ely. Gunner waited for him to speak. But he
didn’t.
 Royce slipped on the jacket. Ely’s shivers deepened.
Strike for male.
Gunner clenched his hands. Eighteen hours and forty-five minutes.
He re-took his place with his back against the wall and stared across his
cell at the endless grey metal that held Ely’s unwavering attention.
I’m going to get him to speak.
Royce now had his jacket for the time being, which sat like a stone in
Gunner’s gut. Just the thought of the grimy stranger tainting his territory
with his scent irked him. He would get it back. Soon. Kallan hissed his
displeasure on the other side.
He never thought he’d feel a kinship with a man like Kallan, but
woefully he now did. They both wanted Ely to speak.
Gunner raised his internal temperature to offset the encroaching chill in
the air and dove back into his work, moving his shoulder against the bars.
His bar mate stared straight ahead. Gunner lowered his voice.
“Did you think I was going to kill him?” he asked.
Ely sighed.
“I think you did.” Gunner settled in. “I thought about it but I didn’t want
to give myself away...”
He waited for a response but once again, got nothing. He gritted his
teeth.
“If you move closer, my body heat will warm you.” Truth.
Nothing.
“I know what you are,” Gunner bluffed.
Still nothing. Ely didn’t give him a single damned cue that he was
listening. Gunner wanted to ram his fist through the metal between them
and take hold of him but he knew the second he did, dozens of men and
androids with guns would be triggered. They’d set upon him and he would
be one step farther from finding out where his ship was.
Gunner rested his shoulders back and gave up. His control over the
ship’s security continued to strengthen and with it, his need for revenge.
Time eventually slipped by as the cycle progressed and nothing else
occurred. The quiet conversations had died at some point when he hadn’t
been aware, but now that he was, he realized a new tension filled the air.
It was different from before, heavier, broodingly so, and filled with
anticipation. He found himself staring at the door with everyone else.
And he knew, long before the rest, when the guards approached.
 Two men walked into the brig with an android following behind. They
headed straight for him.

THE DOOR OPENED FAR too soon and Elodie’s eyes snapped to the men
walking through. The first thing she felt was disappointment that her dad
wasn’t one of them. Fear replaced her disappointment when they closed in
on her dad’s old cell. Déjà vu struck, and for a split second, she saw the
events from that evening played out again in her head once again.
This time instead of her dad, it was the new man playing the lead role.
Elodie had counted every minute that had gone by, knowing that it was
a countdown to something bad, and the man who invaded her safe place
only made the count that much harder. She knew Gunner hadn’t actually
discovered her secret. It was impossible without evidence, and she wasn’t
going to give him any if she had a say about it.
If that meant silence, so be it.
She stole glances his way when she knew he wasn’t looking at her. But
every time he caught her, she felt trapped, caged, ensnared. No other man
had made her feel that way before, not even when there weren’t bars
between them.
So she counted down the time in her head, waiting for the guards to
come in for their evening visit and find Gunner awake. Everyone knew he
was going to be tonight’s entertainment.
It made her feel sick. It made her feel sicker when she felt relief
knowing that she’d make it through one more cycle alive.
He hadn’t done anything to her, nothing that any of the other men in the
brig hadn’t, and yet she was secretly wishing for him to be taken away.
“Look who’s awake,” one of the guards said.
“Boss’ll be pleased.”
Gunner stood and moved toward them. “You stole my ship.” His voice
was deeper than before and low enough for her to strain for the words.
“We did. And it was easy,” one of them taunted. “We’ve ransacked it
too.”
“Have you now?” Gunner tilted his head.
“Stop fucking talking to him and let’s bring him up for the boss. Get the
door.” The other guard lifted his weapon and centered it against Gunner’s
head as they opened his cell. Together, keeping their guns trained on him,
the guards backed up a step, letting the android behind move forward and
restrain him. She’d never seen the guards act the way they did with him.
She wasn’t the only one who felt differently about the newcomer.
Elodie glanced between the three men. She knew based on his eyes
alone, that Gunner was unusual, but standing next to the other male guards,
his strangeness was even more obvious.
The electric shackles clicked into place around his wrists. Somehow, the
noise made her want to giggle.
He was taller than the guards, leaner too, and the outline of muscle
under his clothes was more apparent now that he no longer wore his jacket.
In any other circumstance, she wouldn’t have cared what the men looked
like, but this time, something compelled her to take notice. To size them up
against each other.
Sizing them up in comparison to him.
Gunner was scarier than the guards. Enough so that she believed—
hoped— that he would break loose, kill them both, destroy the android, and
kill everyone on the ship besides her and her dad. That he’d set her free.
Wouldn’t that be a fantasy to last the ages?
He casually strolled from his cell.
He’s not afraid?
She moved closer.
One of the guards lifted a rod from his belt and slammed it into the back
of Gunner’s knees. He fell forward with a thud. The moment he landed, the
rod came down on him again.
And her wistful, impossible dream was struck from her mind as the
blows continued to rain down upon him.
Elodie watched in horror as they beat the crap out of him, aiming their
hits over his joints and non-vitals. Each agonizing thump beat to the racing
of her heart, and she found herself clutching the bars closest to them with
ghost-white knuckles.
She wanted to call out and beg them to stop but she didn’t. As the
beating continued and Gunner made no move to defend himself—or any
sound indicating his pain—Elodie regretted wishing he would be taken
away. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to die.
Eventually, he slumped forward, unresponsive.
It was over as soon as it began and the guards both tried to lift him back
up to his knees. They quickly gave up and let the android haul his body out
of the brig. She didn’t know how long she stood clutching the bars, but
eventually, it sank in that he was gone and the door had closed behind him
long ago. The lights overhead dimmed further as she peeled her fingers
back and returned to her safe place. Safe once again.
“That cell is cursed,” someone muttered, sending her eyes back to the
empty space next to her.
He won’t be back.
Once again, she was alone. Over a whole cycle had gone by without her
dad and she hadn’t realized until that moment. And as her stomach sucked
at the empty air inside her belly, she couldn’t decide whether she missed
Gunner as the temporary distraction he had been, or if she was relieved he
was gone and her safe space had been returned to her.
Elodie rubbed the goosebumps from her arms, choosing to forget him
and focus on surviving.
I can’t survive with the dead. Her eyes roamed over the other prisoners,
settling briefly on Royce and his new jacket. I can’t survive if I’m an idiot.
She quietly moved to the vent and did her business before curling up on her
side.
It was hard to sleep, dangerous to sleep, but she couldn’t resist it any
longer. Every muscle in her body ached, every fiber of her being hurt, and
her nerves were so beyond frayed, there were times she thought she’d never
be able to sleep again.
Until she forced herself to remain awake for days on end. She hadn’t
slept since before her dad was taken.
Elodie pushed her hand under her head and bent her knees, leaving her
other arm to drape heavily against her middle over her hollow stomach. The
pressure gave the illusion of helping although it really didn’t. It let the
pressure on her heart grow.
Elodie tried to picture her dad beside her but couldn’t. Instead, she only
saw the man with gun tattoos in the space beyond.
When had they switched places?
Maybe she was finally going crazy.
I can’t survive without sleep.
It was the last thing she told herself before she let her body give in and
give up.
AN ANDROID HAULED HIM from the brig, clutching his arm, shuffling
him in an awkward way over the floor grates to keep its hold away from the
electric shackles.
If he were human, it would’ve dislocated his shoulder, and so he
dislocated it. He had to maintain appearances, after all. If they learned he
was a weaponized Cyborg, he’d be shot, ejected out of the airlock, and shot
again with the ship’s cannons. That’s if the pirates lived long enough to do
so.
Gunner let the pain seep through his systems like a drug.
It wasn’t long before he was propped up into a chair and bound to it.
The guards left him alone in the room with the android who’d moved to
stand next to the open door, and Gunner’s ears filled with the sounds of
receding footsteps. He was closer to the ships main systems in this room,
and because of that, it was easier for him to connect. His infectious codes
were working hard to break through.
But he looked forward to finding his information another way.
He leaned forward and drooped, forcing his systems to shut down and
go into stasis. His skin immediately cooled off and his brow broke into a
sweat, and his shoulder sagged to the side. He looked at the android through
his bangs.
A man walked through the opening and kneeled before him. Unlike the
guards, he was dressed a little nicer, and by nicer, Gunner eyed the pistol at
his side.
“They say your name is Gunner. I’m in charge of the patrols, and in
charge of your fate. I’m your god.”
Really? Gunner mumbled. The man grabbed Gunner’s hair and yanked
his head up until their eyes locked.
“We can make this quick.”
Can we? “That so?” Gunner said. “God?” Really?
His tormentor smiled and jerked his head further back. “Give us your
ship.”
“Thought you already had it.”
The man’s smile only grew. It made him want to smile back. “Ah, so we
do, why else do you think I’m asking?”
“To set me up.”
His hair was let go and Gunner leaned back into the chair, watching the
guy. He couldn’t tell if he was just another guard or if he was the captain.
He’d settle with a member of the bridge crew if he had a clue. Pirates didn’t
wear name tags...only governmental workers did, and although he worked
for the EPED, he never wore one either.
“Why would we set you up?”
“Because you don’t know who I am,” Gunner countered. “That’s a
problem isn’t it, God?” he mocked.
The man’s grin fell and he knew he guessed correctly. Because I have
the same fucking problem. He had no idea who attacked him and his
patience for that information quickly waned.
A metal rod came down on him again, and he was prepared for it, even
without the numbing effects his nanocells provided and the accelerated
healing, he endured.
It slammed into his gut and the tops of his thighs in an effort to break
something inside his body. Nothing would break. At least not for long. His
only problem was if the man truly wanted to kill him, he wasn’t good at
playing dead. His jackal had its limitations on tricks.
“Please,” he sputtered, groaning, and laughing a little through it, but his
laughs sounded like painful moans. “Please stop.”
He was hit several more times for good measure before the man leaned
in and got in his face. “Do you want to die?”
Gunner licked his teeth. “No.”
“Do you know how a man like me comes to beating a fuck like you?”
Hrrmm... “No?”
“Because men like me don’t tolerate shits like you.”
The man rammed his fist into his dislocated shoulder. Fuucck. Gunner
fell into a brief void of pain before he could react, and stopping his systems
from kicking back on in retaliation. The man raised his fist again and the
lights flickered, stopping him, and stopping Gunner right before he killed
him.
The android in the corner moved forward on his behalf, sensing a threat
to the guard it was programmed to protect. The android could read his
violence better than any human, the signals were hard to fake even for a
Cyborg, harder still for one who was tempering his strength.
“Why does a guy like you have a ship like that?”
“Luck, I imagine.”
The smile returned. “Oh come now, luck has nothing to do with it. You
have cybernetics in your body and not the second-hand shit. Only a rich
man without a background can get that done to himself. And you’re not a
Cyborg, no Cyborg would be dumb enough to get his ship stolen from right
underneath him.”
Gunner kept his mouth shut and his anger under control.
“No, but you’re something or somebody special, and I’m going to find
out one way or another. I don’t have to torture it out of you, yeah know. We
could work together.” The man walked around him in circles as he spoke
but stopped at his back. “Or we don’t and I can have a little fun...”
“Work together?” Gunner made a show of looking around the bare
room, the outdated design, and the metal piping along the ceiling and sides.
“I’m doing better on my own.”
“Are you?”
“I’m not the one who can’t crack the codes.” Gunner braced as a fist
struck straight down on his shoulder again, harder than before, but he
continued through the pain, “I’m doing much better on my own.” He heard
the rod slice the air.
“Even being hit by a man like you, I’m doing better,” Gunner taunted.
“You really don’t know when to shut up?” And again and again.
No. I really don’t.
All he knew was that he had more men on his list to kill, and some men
had their names double listed. And that his tattoos didn’t look nearly as
good with bruises.
 Chapter Five

ELODIE WOKE UP TO THE lights of a new ship cycle glowing overhead.

She looked toward Gunner’s cell.
She wanted to excuse her slow reflexes as hunger and exhaustion, but it
wasn’t that hunger and exhaustion that stopped her from jerking away and
scurrying to the opposite corner of her cell.
It was the prisoner in the cell next to her—Gunner—who was staring
intensely at her and pressed up to the bars they shared. He pinned her to the
spot.
He’s back.
He’d been brought back while she’d been asleep. Worry careened
through her that his return hadn’t woken her. I’ve always been awake when
the guards came.
His hand slowly reached up between them to place a single finger over
his lips.
Every fiber in her body solidified into a monument erected by silent
fear.
He wanted her to remain quiet. Why?
Elodie parted her lips and brought the hand resting under her cheek up
to slip over her mouth, hiding the sound of her breath and to partially hide
her face from him. If they both reached out, their fingers could interlock
through the bars.
“Good morning,” he whispered, his voice low and harsh. She broke out
into a sweat. “I see you didn’t wait up,” he said.
I did. At least until...I fell asleep.
His eye was swollen and bruises spotted his flesh. But he returned. Just
that alone meant something, that he wasn’t lumped in the same category
with her and the rest of the prisoners.
She’d wished for her dad to return, but instead, Gunner had.
He lowered his finger and tapped the metal, making her eyes dart back
and forth between his mouth and bar. Their faces were a handspan apart,
their fingers barely an inch. She slunk back slightly.
“Don’t.”
 She shuddered and stopped, pressing her free arm into her chest. She
balled her fingers against her thundering heart. Like her stomach, she
couldn’t apply enough pressure to make it stop aching.
“Keep being smart, Ely.”
Elodie stiffened at his words and hated herself a little more for it,
knowing he was voicing out loud the same thing that ran through her head a
thousand times a day.
She pressed her hand harder against her mouth and took a deep breath
through her nose, bringing with it the stench of fresh coppery blood. It
pulled her attention from Gunner’s messed up face to what she could see of
his body.
He was lounging on his side, not hunched like a man would be if he was
in a lot of pain. The old fatigues and undershirt from before were still in
place but they were no longer clean, but blood splattered. Nothing stays
clean here for long.
“They beat the shit out of me, not literally though. Unless you count
blood and sweat as shit,” he told her as she stared at the numerous stains on
his clothes. Some spots were still wet and they clung to his body but most
of them seemed crusted and dry.
How much time had passed? Losing time was not a good thing.
Gunner’s finger stopped its tapping, bringing her perusal to an end.
He’s baiting me.
“You still won’t talk to me?” he asked.
You told me to stay quiet! She wanted to yell and ask why he cared so
much. Baited. Elodie closed her eyes and decided to make him disappear.
“Don’t shut me out...”
She let her hand drop and move back to cushion her head, shifting away
from him to lie on her back.
“I won’t tell anyone you’re a girl,” Gunner whispered low enough for
only her to hear.
Elodie grumbled and evened her breathing. Bluffer. There was no way
for him to know for certain, and no way for him to find out without
breaking through steel. The last she checked, men, even those with
cybernetic enhancements, couldn’t do that.
The raspy laugh he released fell upon her ears, eliciting a shiver. She
shouldn’t be so curious about him, and it troubled her deeply that rather
than wane, her curiosity only grew.
 She heard him move away and she squeezed her eyelids tighter.
If I talk to him...it would be a distraction. I could learn new information.
He’s been outside the brig and came back. He may have seen my dad.
Although she knew the chance of that was slim.
If I talk to him and get on his good side, maybe I’ll get to keep my safe
place, maybe he won’t touch me like Kallan...
Based on the last two cycles alone, the newcomer hadn’t touched her at
all, not even when he had the chance to.
But she knew she could never trust him, right? Elodie curled her fingers
under her cheek. She could never expect him to keep his word.
Could she?
Elodie could reach through again and touch him. She could attack
Kallan too, but the negative outcomes were more than she cared to contend
with. Was it the same for Gunner?
And I’m far from the only prisoner who keeps to himself.
She hadn’t been able to trust anyone since her dad volunteered like a
fool.
The wayward thought filled her with bitterness for a brief second before
vanishing. He left me. And there was nothing she could do about it, not
anymore. Any plans of escape eluded her, still, and the added variable of
getting to her dad, as well, made what plans she could muster up that much
more impossible in her head.
The tapping returned on the bars but she refused to acknowledge it.
Eventually, he’ll grow bored.
Kallan forgot her existence for days sometimes. She’d had a three cycle
streak without his attention at one point.
The taps got a little louder.
If I talk to him and get on his good side, we could ally, even for a short
time.
Ally for what? She almost laughed at the idea. Gunner wasn’t a plan. He
was just another unlucky man.
There was no real escape from this brig, and even if there was, she
didn’t know how big the ship was, how many men crewed it. She had no
idea how to pilot or where to find the emergency pods. She only knew they
were being delivered somewhere, for something, and that delivery could
happen at any time.
 If she survived until then, the possible dubious connections she could
make here in the brig would mean nothing. If blood couldn’t hold two
people together, simple words said in desperation held no more weight than
a forgotten dream.
Elodie sighed. The tapping next to her head stopped. Then it picked
back up. She held in a second sigh.
She couldn’t think of very many pros to getting to know Gunner besides
those with immediate gains.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as if he knew the argument
going on in her head.
Food! she yelled internally. You. You and food.
She didn’t have the strength to look and see if there were rations by her
cell door. She especially didn’t have the courage to open her eyes and move
away from Gunner knowing that he was poised so close that he could hurt
her badly if he wanted to.
She also didn’t want to know if breakfast had once again been denied
them. Not looking meant she could pretend for a little longer.
I’m thinking of you holding food. You with so much food to offer me that
I can remember what it was like to feel full. A picture of his face and his tats
came to mind and the way they might move over his cheeks as he chewed.
From there, to a feast of everything she loved to eat...
Elodie imagined him with a treasure trove of fresh produce, the kind
that was so rare out in deep space, genetically enhanced space fruit and
vegetables. Coffee beans that had come straight from the ground instead of
the fake powdery stuff that was more common. Gunner didn’t have tattoos
of guns on his cheeks but of slices of cake. She’d lick the blood and dirt off
his face if there was a promise of chocolate cake beneath.
Her stomach cried at her to stop but she couldn’t.
“You’re thinking about food, aren’t you?”
Her little fantasy died so fast she couldn’t even remember when it
began. Her eyes snapped open and she lifted her head up to find an empty
space where her rations were normally placed by the androids. Minutes
went by as she stared, hoping that they’d magically appear. The tapping
beside her continued through her disappointment and her pain, forcing her
to look back his way.
“Looking for this?” Gunner held something up.
 Between his fingers was a ration, knocking back and forth like his
finger had. He was no longer lying on his side, but mirrored her new
position and continued to do so as she slid up and leaned her back to the
wall.
It wasn’t quite the fantasy she pictured but it was close enough that it
frightened her.
“You can have it back if you talk to me. And if you haven’t figured it
out by now, I reached through and stole it while you were out. Out like a
light, like a bulb, practically already dead. Didn’t want it to go to waste if
that was the case.” He leaned in closer. “And your friend over there was
reaching for it too.”
The pain in her stomach wailed its sad song, and for the first time, she
lashed out and went for it, snatching her ration from his hand. She couldn’t
believe she’d gotten it, or her audacity, but the next instant she scurried
away with her prize.
Raucous laughter followed her and fuck if she cared. She sank her teeth
into the tasteless, chewy gunk and savored every quick bite for the mere
moments they lasted.
Kallan grumbled beside her and she knew she’d made herself
entertainment again, but was beyond caring as a high of satiation settled in.
When it was over, she found herself sitting and facing Gunner. Her
curiosity returned.
He watched her like a predator. She suppressed her sudden unease and
nausea that threatened to upend her food.
Elodie made her way back to the wall, knowing his eyes trailed after her
the whole way.
“Not going to reward me?” Gunner asked, chuckling. “I think I deserve
a reward.”
Reward systems between low-life prisoners... Hah!
Kallan answered for her. “No use trying with our boy here. I offered
him the sun and the moon when he first got thrown in and found the more
you try, the stiffer his lips get. My boy likes listening though... When he’s in
the mood.” He laughed hoarsely. Everything Kallan said sounded
disgusting.
Gunner’s eyes flickered with red light, just for an instant, before they
went milky again. She was about to lean in to get a closer look when he
turned from her and looked at Kallan, his face harder than before.
 “Your...boy?” he asked, low and deep. Frighteningly.
“The best boy a man like me could have! Isn’t that right, Ely? Daddy
left but a new one took his place. A boy always needs a dad.”
Fuck you, Kallan.
“Is that so? Ely doesn’t look like a boy to me, he looks like—”
“A woman?” Kallan interjected.
“I was going to say man,” Gunner finished, deadpan.
Kallan broke out into another laugh. “Shame that. Still, he only talks to
his daddy and we decided who that was now before you arrived. If you
want to talk, better pick someone else.” He spat. “Like your jacket buddy.”
“What if I want to talk to you, Kallan?”
“You should’ve thought about that before you gave away your fucking
leverage!”
The next moment Gunner moved from her side and crouched at the
other end of his cell, startling her. Something shiny and round rolled across
the floor, through her space, with enough speed that it wasn’t until it
perfectly slipped through the other bars and into Kallan’s unit that she
realized it was a water gel. Her stolen water gel.
Kallan caught it, ready for it, taking it before she had a chance to move.
He drank it as she watched in despair, smiling cruelly at her through yellow
teeth when he was done.
“I have new leverage now,” Gunner said, lifting up the second gel. “I
have extra water.”
My water.
“If you’re certain you can get it past Ely here again, I guess I can
answer some questions,” Kallan grumbled.
Elodie was gazing longingly at the water in his hand and hadn’t realized
that Gunner was speaking to her now. “You can have this back if you say
one word to me.”
Her lips parted.
His face was back at the bars in a flash, in line with her head. She jerked
back.
Gunner pinned her with his gaze.
She could almost taste the refreshing liquid in her mouth, feel it move
across her lips and over her tongue, down her throat, hydrating her from the
outside in.
Her lips moved to give him one word...
 “Waste of time! I told you!” Kallan’s shrill voice was edged with
laughter.
Elodie shut her mouth.
Gunner stood up and gripped the bars they shared, his countenance
shifting so precisely, so carefully, that it was almost indiscernible. He
sucked up the space and had been sucking it up since he arrived. Elodie
watched him uneasily, wondering if he was angry, knowing Kallan held his
attention, and really saw him for the first time. Not in comparison to other
men, not as a prisoner, or a man with bad luck deteriorating on a cell floor,
but as a singular being. One with a lot more power than he should have.
She had been scared before, but now she was haunted.
He’s restraining himself. Elodie didn’t know how she knew, she just did,
half expecting the metal in his hands to shatter like glass. Once again, the
intimidation his presence created had her imagining him actually destroying
the bars. Freeing himself.
If I say something, he’ll give me my water gel back. She knew she was
trying to convince herself to talk to him but her instincts still warred.
There was something about Gunner that shook her to her bones,
something about the way he moved and surveyed and...lurked that didn’t
seem human. Even so, she could never trust his word alone. If she had a
tablet she could write a bad rulebook about surviving in a prison, and the
first rule she’d put down, the one that would be at the top of the page would
be: never trust.
Don’t trust anyone, anything, and don’t trust yourself. Especially not
yourself. The direr the circumstances were, the more likely your humanity
was going to be buried by the beast.
Kallan appeared to notice the difference as well, and as she looked
around at the other prisoners, many were also gazing warily at Gunner who
had solidified into a terrifying, murderous-looking statue. The abrupt quiet
filled the air with tension.
“Look, I’m only telling you the truth,” Kallan added, hesitantly.
Please be quiet.
“He’s not who you should be interested in anyway,” he continued,
attempting to change the subject.
“Who should I be interested in?” Gunner hummed low.
The tension popped like a bubble the moment he spoke and Elodie was
grateful for it.
 “The men that obviously want something from you,” Kallan said. “My
boy wants nothing from you.”
Royce added, “You’re the only one who’s been taken from here and
returned. What’s so special about you?”
Gunner turned halfway to face him. “My ship.”
“They stole yours too?” Kallan asked, humphing. “Looks like we all
have something in common here!”
“They did, but that’s where the similarities end.” Lethal, angry, low. Did
no one see his clenching hands? She couldn’t take her eyes off them.
“Yeah, some of us don’t need to sport tattoos of guns to show how
threatening we are,” Royce mocked, causing a slew of snickers throughout.
Elodie remained silent as the men around her jeered, listening, hoping to
find out something. She itched to ask her own questions but didn’t want to
risk her momentary invisibility.
No one’s paying attention to me. It felt like the first time in days. Her
uneasy gaze remained on Gunner but even he no longer paid attention to
her.
She leaned her head back and knocked it on the wall with a sigh. I
should be thinking about dad and how to get the both of us out of here alive.
The only idea that came to mind was to expose herself to the guards and
hope for something... And she wasn’t ready for that.
“Here.” Gunner’s voice broke her thoughts.
Elodie turned to find him holding her gel through the bars with his
fingers. The moment her eyes landed on it, he rolled it across the floor in
her direction until it stopped a foot from her side, hidden to everyone else
but them.
Was he just giving it to her? Why?
Her suspicion grew the longer she focused on the gel, so clearly hers
once again, and waited to see if it was a trap.
She slid her fingers slowly across the cold floor and picked it up,
keeping Gunner in her line of sight, and when he made no move, she lifted
it to her lips and plopped it into her mouth, squeezing the rubbery elasticene
until it dissolved and exploded in her mouth. Elodie clamped down her lips
to keep any of it from escaping but the excitement of having it—when she
had written it off—was too much. The water pooled down her throat and
settled into her belly far too quickly for her liking. Regardless of her best
effort, droplets escaped, and what her tongue couldn’t catch trailed down
her chin.
She caught it on the back of her hand and rubbed the moisture back over
her lips. No water, not even a drop, could be wasted. Elodie felt his piercing
eyes on her the entire time. A heavy breath tickled the hair over her ear,
growing heavier and more forceful by the second.
She forced herself to look.
Her lips dropped. Bloody-red irises filled her vision, brighter and deeper
than before. They made the metal bars gleam crimson and beyond that, his
mouth was parted. His breath came out in pants, and between his lips, she
could see the sharpened points of teeth.
Teeth that weren’t human. Teeth that hadn’t been there before. She
leaned closer to get a better view but his mouth snapped shut and his eyes
returned to normal, startling her back.
He broke eye contact with her first and turned away, settling against the
wall.
She continued to watch him for some time afterward, unsure if what she
had seen was real or not. The longer she dwelled on it, the more she
convinced herself that his incisors had been an illusion, a trick of her mind
caused by exhaustion. That she was hallucinating.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered loud enough for only her to hear.
Elodie rubbed her palms across her pants and leaned back again, closing
her eyes, drifting in and out of awareness.
Rule number two: don’t expect something for nothing.
If I give him what he wants and talk to him, he wins. If he wins, what
does he win? My voice and his game. Elodie knew very well that the only
reason why he wanted to hear her again was to satisfy his suspicions that
she wasn’t a man. He gave me the water and the ration back for free and he
doesn’t know, couldn’t know.
He doesn’t ever have to know.
Her eyes snapped open and she looked back his way. His were shut
tight, his hair plastered in waves obscuring them, and his body relaxed.
Elodie gripped the cloth of her shirt and swallowed what she was going
to say. It would have to wait.
Even men with crazy eyes, flashy tattoos, and possible fangs needed
sleep too.
 Chapter Six

WITHIN DAYS OF BEING caught, Gunner had enough power restored in

his systems to spy through the cameras, leaving an indiscernible trail behind
him. It wasn’t his forte, being in digital space, but he had enough
knowledge to overpower outdated, non-governmental systems.
Gunner spent a fair amount of time watching the guards throughout the
ship, although he quickly grew bored and his focus returned to the bridge
where the main security feeds ended and a new security feed began.
The bridge was going to give him trouble.
He thrummed the currents with his own and learned what he could with
what he had.
Patience was something he struggled with, and now he had a means to
get what he wanted. He wanted his ship back and he wanted it now.
He scanned the area, his eyes landing on each of the prisoners within his
immediate surroundings. The world was quiet to his ears, and the heavy
huffs of sleep, uncomfortable but distinct, filled them. The men were all in a
state of rest, triggered from years of being programmed to relax when the
lights were dim overhead.
He’d been out for three days and his body shook from being caged for
that long. He had to wait—patiently—for the lead he needed.
There was a dozen camera feeds embedded in the lights of the brig,
above and behind barriers he couldn’t reach physically, all placed in areas
outside of the rows of cells.
His gaze settled on Ely and his attention zeroed in on his person.
Gunner still couldn’t decide if Ely was a man or a woman.
Any time, Gunner could grab him, rip off his clothing and find out, but
even he knew that was a terrible idea.
If he really was a she and he exposed her while in such a vulnerable
space, she’d be fucked because he wouldn’t be sticking around long enough
to do anything about it. My ship comes first, my gunner girls, my guns, and
my AI. That’s what’s important to me. A few other thoughts came to mind,
like his EPED acquisitions and the plants, animals, and monsters housed in
his laboratory, but he wasn’t entirely worried about them. Not yet.
 He was confident in his security systems, electronic and cybernetic.
Ely shivered under his perusal and hacked out a dry cough but his eyes
remained closed tight.
He’d returned to the middle of his cell to rest and Gunner couldn’t
blame him. It was the safest course of action even if he proved to truly have
a cock between his legs. The guy is small. Easy to overpower. Smaller than
most, and tall, Gunner gathered from the short instances he’d seen Ely
standing up, but wiry, willowy if he actually was a she.
There was a hint of muscle definition outlined by Ely’s fraying, dirty
clothes. At least, there had been muscle before being locked up in a cell for
weeks without regular food and water.
There was also scarring on his hands and arms where flesh was
exposed. Those scars signified hard, possibly dangerous work; maybe a
welder, a builder, possibly even a cook. Whatever he did, there was a
chance of damage.
Strike male?
Ely was on his side, curled in on himself to shield away the cold and
encapsulate as much heat as possible. It was the same position Gunner had
seen him in when he was brought back from interrogation, Many of the
men around him rested the same way.
When there was no hope, no one really gave a damn what they looked
like.
Gunner quietly clasped his hands together. He appreciated the internal
heat from his mainframe that always kept him comfortable. He pressed his
hands over his nose and breathed in his own scent, sighing from the
familiarity and comfort it brought.
With his hands still poised over his face, he returned to the task at hand
and moved to the center of his cell.
Where oh where can my little dog be? He weeded out long tendrils of
electricity, powered from deep inside his hardware, looking for the closest
connection—one that was within reach—to his cell. The electrical panel
drew him but he ignored it, knowing he needed something closer...
Something inside his space that he could touch at will and without
pretending to break his arm to get at the lock.
The stream of lights overhead came next, and the mechanism that
released the restraints soon after. His eyes shifted upward to the ceiling that
was still several feet outside his reach. The old chrome sheen met his gaze.
 Still too far.
Gunner crouched on the vents that ran across and under his feet, but felt
nothing close at hand. The hole in the middle was no bigger than several
inches in diameter, and under that, there was a grate system he spied with
suction vents along the walls of it.
So it catches the crap and then sucks it into the walls.
With the continuous sounds of bad sleep filling his ears, Gunner stepped
away and meticulously ran his hands over the walls, floors, and bars of his
enclosure, finding little zaps of energy beneath the metal. When all was said
and done, his attention returned to the crap chute.
Why the fuck was I made to be a goddamned jackal?
He crouched before the vent again and regarded it with disgust. Flexing
his fingers, his claws elongated into razor sharp points. He ran the pad of
his thumb over one of them until the skin sliced open and pulled away,
dripping partial synthetic blood.
Gunner cut deeper, exposing the tip of his thumb bone and the sheen of
uncorroded metal that made up his frame.
A movement to his left stopped him. He retracted his nails and closed
his fingers over the cut that had already begun to heal. Ely appeared at his
side and stared at his hand.
Gunner opened his fist and showed it healed anew. “Nothing to see
here,” he whispered, but his focus was undeterred and once again zeroed in
on Ely’s eyes, the way his hair fell, and the shape of his lips. Although the
lights were low and hazy, he could see Ely’s face more clearly than he had
any time before.
He had a straight nose, almond eyes, strong, high cheekbones, and a
tapered jaw. All covered in layers of dirt, but there were also slithers of
ghostly pale skin beneath the grime. The kind of pale that meant years of
taking Vitamin D pills because it never saw sunlight.
His hair is blonde, or light brown. He couldn’t tell. It fell in thick
strands over his ears and the sides of his face, pushed to the side, obscuring
some of his features.
A pretty boy...or a beautiful girl.
“How long have you been in here?” Gunner asked, low enough for only
the two of them to hear. He didn’t want to wake anyone up. Especially
Kallan.
If Kallan wakes up, I’m going to kill him.
 Ely had been just about to say something to him earlier before Kallan
interrupted. Gunner had seen his lips part.
If it happened again, there was going to be even more death then he’d
planned. Quietly, Ely moved back to his place at the wall and dropped his
head on his knee, facing his direction.
Gunner turned back to the vent, sliced down the center of his thumb and
snipped off the metal, wires, and tech that made it work, dropping it in to
land on the grate within. A moment passed before it was sucked into the
deeper systems of the ship.
He sensed it move through the ship’s systems.
Gunner shielded his impromptu surgery but still felt eyes on his back.
He gritted his teeth against the pain of his hand starting the long, arduous
process of rebuilding his thumb, and the uncomfortable sensation of excess
energy being used to repair the damage.
Unfortunately, it fixed the rest of him at the same time: his dislocated
shoulder, the bruises on his face, and the rest of his fake human-self under
his clothes.
He knew the moment his detached thumb was separated from the ship
waste and recycled, broken down and created into something new for the
man-made ecosystem to use. Thrown into a machine where the ship’s
power was abundant.
His lips perked up into a satisfied grin. Directly connected. He siphoned
and fed.
Gunner willed the lights to flicker softly overhead and they did.
He willed the panel on his cell door to silently unlock and it did.
He left his body and connected with the ship’s security, turning off the
hallway visual feeds. Gunner suppressed the sirens. They powered back on
a second later.
Power. Power was better than patience.
He leaned his head back and groaned. Although in pain, his body had
become a beacon, a lodestone, and he could give or take as much as he
wanted.
If it came down to a race of who got what they wanted first, him or the
pricks who took his ship, he was damn sure he was going to win. Even if
how he won was unconventional.
He rose to his feet, feeling good, and unzipped his pants. His ears
pricked to the snore and grunts of those around him, his focus on full alert
as he released his cock and pissed.
Your ship’s mine now.
Gunner watched the stream vanish to wherever it would go, knowing
that his scent was marking the vessel from the inside out. He flicked his
flaccid thumb, finding enjoyment in the discomfort of his swollen and weak
skin while his scent overpowered all others.
He looked over his shoulder at Ely who had clenched his eyes shut.
Strike for female.
Gunner moved around his cell and marked every corner, spraying what
was now his—the hallway beyond and the cell door, putting special
attention into the handle. He continued until his smell bled into Royce’s unit
and the spaces outside but stopped at the bars he shared with Ely. When his
water stores were depleted, and the nanocells he had distributed throughout
dried, cleaned up, and claimed, he zipped up his fly and sat up against the
bars nearest his own little entertainment.
“You can open your eyes now,” he said.
Sagging forward, Ely sighed and frowned, but ultimately opened his
eyes and looked back at him. His lips pursed and moved though no words
came out. Gunner couldn’t stop his grin from growing, and the larger it got,
the more Ely responded. Nostrils flared and back upright, Ely searched his
cell and grimaced.
“Do you want to know why I pissed all over everything?” he goaded
under his breath.
Ely looked his way, brow furrowed. He’s angry.
Why is he angry? His entertainment got a little more entertaining.
His mouth opened, closed, and opened again, and a long whistle of air
blew out between his lips. Speak Ely, speak. Gunner felt like a canine
giving a kitten commands, and unlike his Canis mesomelas DNA, he knew
a cat couldn’t be commanded. A human could.
“Why?” Ely breathed out.
The word flooded his ears like a triumphant cleansing and he gripped
the bars between them. He pressed forward, his nose pushing into Ely’s
space, making him startle back. Why? A single syllable, gruff and low,
hidden underneath practice and intrigue. Gunner was intrigued. That word
went right to his head and embedded into his systems. It replayed, again and
again, the tone, hue, and context and it all...
Screamed feminine.
 You’ve outed yourself, woman.
Gunner sucked in the newly scented air of the brig, trying to smell only
her, but found his own scent overpowering it. His hold on the bars
wrenched, annoyed, thwarted again in his effort for answers. His healing
thumb ached and burned under the pressure and the metal beneath his
fingers bent.
‘Why?’ Ely’s voice had been feminine and angry. Ely went from
possibly being a man in his head to unquestionably being a woman.
Prove me wrong, he thought to himself, demanding his own technology
to do so and silently demanding her.
Gunner regained control and released the bars. I need her to get closer,
need to smell what’s really her. Suddenly, the power he had attained melted
into the past and impatience reclaimed its spot on the throne of his central
mainframe.
His focus returned in a blink of the eye and he answered her, “I was
marking my territory.”
Her wide-eyed exhausted fear dimmed ever-so-slightly.
Please...
Ely parted her cracked and dirty lips.
Please speak again.
“It’s not yours,” she said.
His mouth curved into a lopsided smile as he added her words to the
rest he now owned.
“Are you so sure about that?”
She briefly glanced around his space again, the anger from before
flaring back up. “Yes.”
“Everything I touch is mine. For as long as I want it to be,” he stated.
“No, it’s not. That cell isn’t yours. You’re a dead man and just don’t
realize it yet. We all know that you’re different and they want something
from you that they don’t want from us. That cell,” she pointed, “belongs to
someone else.”
“Who?”
She clamped her lips.
“Who?” he asked again, feeling oddly threatened.
Gunner didn’t want her to stop talking; he hadn’t collected enough of
her words. It was hard enough prying information out of her, but if she
stopped speaking now, there was a chance she might not speak to him
again.
He pointedly looked behind her at Kallan’s sleeping lump.
Ely got his drift when she interceded. “Don’t.”
“I won’t.” Neither of them wanted Kallan to awaken. “I’ll make a deal
with you.”
Ely didn’t answer and Gunner wondered what she was thinking. Hell,
he wondered how she even got herself stuck in a brig filled with scum.
Even he was considered scum. Scum of the Earth. Scum of the universe.
Scum of a thousand Cyborgs because he forcibly destroyed the control that
often sustained their decisions to be lost deep within himself. He had no
time for restraint and because of that, he was a malfunctioning,
untrustworthy piece of technology as far as the Earthian government was
concerned.
When she continued to stare at him, her eyes lost, her thoughts
somewhere else, Gunner kept going.
“Talk to me,” he said, unsure why, but he knew he wanted more from
her. “Just talk to me and pass the time. If I’m going to be dragged out and
killed at any hour, how can a little conversation hurt?”
The glazed look in her eyes vanished and she focused on him again.
“I’m not a woman,” she said unexpectedly. “I have a dick, I like women, I
don’t like men. If you’re trying to play some idiotic game with me, let me
give you the truth straight up. There’s no game here.” Ely gripped her shirt
and let it go. “I’ll talk to you if you answer my questions and... I’ll answer
yours. With the truth. But If we’re going to start off then we should get that
out between us now because I’ve had enough of Kallan’s shit and,” she
narrowed her eyes. “I’d like to make a deal.”
Strike... Damn it. Gunner pressed his tongue against the roof of his
mouth to stop from bursting out with laughter.
A question for a question. A lie for a lie. His eyes roamed from Ely’s
face to slither over her body. She adjusted her crotch in an effort to throw
him off. But you adjusted it wrong. It’s to the left or right. There’s no space
to go center.
“I never thought you were a woman,” he pseudo lied and looked back at
her face. “And you’re not my type. Even pretty boys don’t do it for me.”
Gunner shrugged. “I personally like a nice, clean pussy, preferably wet and
clenching because it can’t wait to be fed my cock. The kind accompanied
by a pretty face and a nice body. Yeah. You know what I mean.” He closed
his eyes as if he were picturing it. “Submissive little thing that’ll writhe at
my touch and’ll take it any way I give it to her.” He moved so that his back
was to the wall and settled in. “Damn. I could go for cunt right now.”
“I know what you mean...” she said, voice strained.
Gunner sniffed the air and came up with nothing but his own scent,
damning himself for adding more obstacles to smell through. “When’s the
last time you had a woman? A real woman. Not one of those overused
sexbots?”
He peered her way but couldn’t spy a blush under the dirt on her cheeks.
“Is this what you really want to talk about? I have terms to my deal.”
“Sure. What’re your terms? Mine’s conversation.”
Gunner stiffened when she did something he hadn’t expected. Ely
shifted closer to him and sat on the other side of the bars. He sniffed again.
He could just discern light, faded tendrils of her smell and he realized it was
that strange, alluring scent he had encountered when he first arrived.
He shifted a little closer to her and when she didn’t move back, he
wanted to howl in satisfaction because if he were right...
This was the first time a woman, a real female, willingly chose to get
closer to him. That not only was he in the presence of real one—brought by
a bad twist of fate—but one who wanted to be in his presence.
“This is my territory. This right here. You won’t touch me, won’t reach
through my bars, won’t try to hurt me in any way while I’m right here. If
you want to try and claim your space then I want to claim mine. And this
spot is my safe spot.”
“Fine,” he said. “Deal.”
“I’m not done. Just because you say deal doesn’t mean I’ll ever trust
you. The moment you break the terms is the moment this conversation
ends.”
Gunner suppressed a grin.

SHE WAS BEING BOLDER than she ever had been before and it felt
good. Elodie knew not all the men imprisoned with her were bad. The
verdict was still out with Gunner, but she could pretend to let her guard
down—at least until he let down his own. Get what she wanted from him
and then let him rot if the time ever came.
 She leaned her shoulder into the bars erected between them and rested
her forehead against them like she had so many times in the past with her
dad. It felt good to do so. When he made no move to touch her, hurt her, do
anything to her, an itch of unease bloomed in her stomach.
“I want to know what you saw when they took you outside the brig,”
she whispered. “Who you saw.”
He rolled his head in her direction. “You planning on trying to escape?”
It crossed her mind constantly but telling him may not be such a good
idea. Elodie mulled over what to say when the lights brightened above her
signaling the end to yet another rest cycle.
She blinked back the light from her eyes until she could see clearly
again. Some of the men around her groaned and sat up. Tension filled the
brig as it did with each new morning-cycle as everyone’s thoughts briefly
aligned—would they receive a morning ration?
She lifted her head from the bars and moved slightly away, not wanting
anyone in the cells around her to know she’d gotten closer to Gunner.
Close enough to lean on the bars at least.
Her stomach tightened as she joined the masses watching the door. In
the fake day-cycle light, her situational weariness returned, and with it, her
choice to bridge the gap between her and her new cell neighbor.
“Are. You. Trying. To escape?” The harsh words rasped in her ear.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Then why do you want to know what’s happening outside those
doors?”
Elodie stuck out her chin.
“Well?”
She willed the door to open and reveal her dad—her dad and the
morning meal—but the stranger next to her kept interrupting her fantasies.
“If you’re trying to escape, you’re going to fail. Trust me, you’d fail.”
No, I won’t. No, I wouldn’t. Her heart beat a little faster at the prospect.
The door remained shut and her stomach caved in a little more. Of course, I
would, she sighed. Wait for the opportunity...
“I already know how to escape,” she said, suddenly filled with anger
and sadness, but most of all hunger. She noticed him lean closer from the
corner of her eye.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
 “What’s stopping you?”
“Someone,” she gritted out.
“Who?”
This time she could almost feel the heat of his breath rush across her
cheek. Elodie glanced his way and she wished she hadn’t, finding his
bleeding red eyes in place of his dead ones. Why are they red again? A
shiver ran through her with the energy of a half-starved woman.
“I have one more term for our deal,” she said instead of answering him.
Gunner gave her the grim-reaper of all smiles. “What?”
She cocked her head and looked at Royce. She whispered, “I want your
jacket.” How much is her voice worth?
Gunner looked over at Royce. He stayed in that position for an
uncomfortable amount of time.
Elodie was happy she couldn’t see his face.
Silence fell between them and things slowly returned to normal.
And to her surprise—after she had given up on food that morning—she
heard the brig door opening. As usual, a guard walked through, followed by
an android. They stopped one by one at every cell and distributed the
rations. And like every day, the guard would peer in and stare at each
prisoner, acting a king.
She hated it, hated their eyes on her, hated always being afraid that
somehow, someday, they’d look at her and really see her.
It made her heart race time and time again as the outcome of that
nightmare played out. If she gave up her secret, it would be because it was
her choice, not because someone took it from her.
Elodie dropped her head and let her hair fall forward. She raised one
knee to her chest, hunching her back, all while trying to make her body look
smaller; small enough to disappear, small enough to hide behind the thin
rails of the bars.
The guard stepped up to Gunner’s cell and grunted.
“Thought the boss’d do more to you than that,” he said. “Never seen a
man leave him without eyes swollen shut and blood vessels popped.”
“He and I came to an arrangement,” Gunner replied.
Elodie tilted her head to watch the exchange. The guard had realized
something she hadn’t...
His bruises are gone.
She pulled her knee closer to her chest. How?
 “What kind of arrangement would that be?”
“You might want to ask him. Not sure if he’d appreciate me telling the
delivery boy.”
The guard shot his arm out before the android could drop the rations
into his cell, stopping it. “Ah, too bad for you then.” He smirked. “I heard
going hungry is a real pain, not the kind of pain a man chooses if otherwise
possible, but that’s okay, maybe you’ll choose better next time.”
He moved toward her cell.
“You might want to rethink that.” Gunner’s voice rose louder than
before, making her heart skip a beat, remembering what he sounded like
moments prior, just above a whisper.
“What’d you say?” the guard asked, facing Gunner again.
He stood.
Elodie was going to vomit bile as he approached the guard.
“The new guy’s got a death wish,” Kallan breathed on the other side of
her.
“I said you might want to rethink that,” Gunner said, his voice filled
with eerie warning.
“Rethink what?”
He motioned toward the rations. “That.”
“The food, you little fuck?”
“You got it. I knew someone on this ship had to be intelligent,” Gunner
taunted. The guard tensed, his hand falling on the rod hanging from his
side. “That’s right. Beat the crap out of me, don’t give me my rations, and
when I speak to your captain again and come back without a wound, I’ll tell
him all about this. Tell him all about his peon overstepping himself.”
He was lying. She’d seen how greatly wounded he’d been the day
before. She glanced around at the other prisoners but they all looked on
with morbid curiosity. Did no one else notice his bruises yesterday?
Her attention returned to Gunner. She didn’t want to see him beaten,
didn’t want any violence to take place. And she realized something else that
infuriated her...
She cared.
The guard backed up a step but his smile stayed in place until he began
to laugh. He gripped the handle of his prod and bellowed. The hoarse glee
was forced and strained and sinister and it went on and on. The more he
laughed, the more it pained to her eardrums. Each hiccup and grunt became
a punch to the gut and it felt like an eternity had passed before it finally
stopped and the insanity he created died back into silence.
Elodie lifted her palms from her ears without realizing she’d placed
them there to begin with.
“You’re funny. You’re real fucking funny,” the guard wheezed through
chuckles. His horrible laughter picked up again and she truly thought she’d
dropped down into wonderland.
“Please make it stop,” she whispered.
And suddenly, it did. Gunner’s voice boomed through the sound, “You
never know.” He shrugged, his lips twisted into a smile. “But you really
should think about your own skin a little more. You might not be wearing it
tomorrow.”
Without tossing Gunner his ration, the guard humphed and moved on to
her cell with a smirk on his face. Her food was dropped, and then Kallan’s,
and then everyone else’s down her row until he had finished his circuit and
returned to Gunner’s cell. He leisurely ate the rest of the rations in front of
him—in front of all of them—and made a show of it.
With one last horrible laugh, he left.
Elodie looked down at her portion not feeling hungry for the first time
in weeks.
 Chapter Seven

THE REST OF THE DAY went by without incident and when he

eventually told Ely to eat her food, she sighed and did so. It was the only
reaction he’d gotten out of her since that morning.
He was getting used to the day-to-day life of a prisoner, finding it
somewhat charming.
Simplistic and terrorizing.
When the door reopened later that day he was ready for it, watching
through the feeds outside his body as a different guard and android with
provisions headed their way. As the food was handed out, he kept his mouth
shut and his head down, knowing that it was almost time.
He counted down the seconds until the overhead lights dimmed, and he
kept them going until they went out altogether. Until there were no more
lights. Until an impenetrable darkness filled the space and covered his
tracks from all prying eyes. He stifled all power to the brig.
He’d waited for the rest cycle to ensure as many of the roaming guards
and crew were out of circulation to execute his plan. His eyes switched to
night vision.
Silently, he rose and walked to his cell door, unlocked it, and stepped
out. The murmuring, slightly panicked sounds of those around him only
covered his tracks further.
Gunner tuned them out and kept moving, using their confusion before
their senses shifted priority.
He lingered at the door exiting the brig, his hand outstretched...
Something stopped him from passing through.
He whiffed the cloistered stench and sought out the one smell that had
come to comfort him in some small way.
Gunner turned on his heel and approached Ely’s cell. He stood outside
her unit, watching her in the dark, wide-eyed and blinking, facing the
direction of his own cage. His hand hovered over the lock, knowing he
could open it, step in, do anything he wanted, and finally get the last
damning evidence he needed, but once again his hand stilled.
 Instead, the voices of the others rose around him, trying to penetrate his
dark little world, their dark little world, and was reminded of the ever-
ticking clock.
His eyes remained on Ely as she shifted warily about, eventually
slinking over to the bars that joined their units. Gunner had no idea why she
felt safer on his side over the middle, but the reason she stayed away from
Kallan was obvious.
She didn’t need to move to him now, not while in the dark. It cloaked
her like it did him. His hands clenched at his sides as her lips opened to
speak. He smelled a tendril of fear. She exuded it. For some reason that
bothered him.
Fuck!
He ducked back into his cell and crouched beside her.
“Shhh,” he whispered next to her ear, making her jump. “Power surge,
it’ll be over soon,” he consoled. Ely regained her composure and settled
back. He, on the other hand, had to forcibly stretch his fingers to release the
strain in his tendons, knowing he could accidentally touch her. Their deal
wouldn’t be disrupted by an accident. Right?
When did I become a saint? Gunner got back to his feet and scowled,
refusing to spare his entertainment another glance. He resumed his mission
and returned to the door, powering off the lights beyond before stepping
through, unnoticed, and only questionable to those who thought they were
hearing things.
He tried to alleviate some of the tension that had built in his frame, but
the further he made his way into the ship, the worse it became.
Even keeping one part of himself shelled over the ship’s security,
keeping the alarms from going off and replaying loops of previous feeds,
helped little. His rationale demanded that he go back; his beast demanded
he go back.
He extended the claws of his right hand and dug them into his palm.
Clarity through pain.
Gunner pressed up against the wall as voices filled the hallway. They
came from within an open door he needed to pass. Sniffing the air, although
vented and sterilized, the sour tang of sweat, unease, and unwashed bodies
filled his nose.
They weren’t the men he was looking for.
He was after a different target tonight.
 “Captain says we’re headed for Elyria.”
“Bout’ time. I need something besides old steel and you guys to look
at.”
He took in the information and crouched down, leaving his body to
check the room’s feed. They weren’t facing his way. He zipped past. Their
voices faded as he left them behind.
The hallway came to an end, to a small opening of disjointed parts,
crates, and grease stains. On one side there was another corridor that he
knew would lead him to the machine rooms and to the underbelly, the other
way led to storage, but it was the elevator before him that would lead to the
floor above where the crew’s quarters were housed.
He lowered and quietly took off his boots, slipping them behind one of
the crates.
Gunner placed his hand on the elevator panel and forced its doors to
open. Once he was shut away in the cramped space and moving up, the
stink of the brig vanished. He gritted his teeth against the urge to go back to
it, clawing new wounds into his palm.
The elevator opened a moment later to reveal the crew deck. The
tension that howled at him before morphed into hungry, delicious, sweet
anticipation.
He stepped into the slightly more lavish landing and cracked his neck.
Everyone I’m looking for is here.
Gunner lifted his nose and took in another deep breath, sorting out what
he needed and what he wanted. The captain is on the bridge. But Gunner
wasn’t after him just yet and the bridge was on another floor entirely.
It took some time ducking in and out of rooms, longer than if he had
waited until the rest cycle was at its deepest, but he kept his footsteps silent
and his movements quiet. Although he could static up the feeds or replay
the same previous minute on loop, he couldn’t hide the noise without it
becoming suspicious.
Even an idiot could discern a sound pattern on replay.
The passageways crossed at several points and as he moved through the
ship—which he was certain was some hybrid between a freighter and a
badly re-fabricated weapons unit—he was surprised at how easy it was to
navigate through the interior.
The tangy stench of badly crafted food and rehydrated vegetables—
probably grown years prior—led him to a secluded room. The grated floors
had smoothed out into pounded metal panels. Gunner closed his eyes and
listened.
The static of a tele-feed and those of a man breathing quietly in a state
of relaxation filled his ears. The electricity that flowed from within was
strong and he soaked it up, letting it fill the currents throughout his body.
He puffed out his chest, feeling his undershirt strain against his muscles.
There was a groan and a grunt. The power was no longer as thick and
vibrant as before now that he’d fed off its stores. The voices on the tele-feed
crackled, righted, and crackled again.
“Shit, stupid tech!”
Gunner heard the man get up and his eyes found the grey, almost
gleaming metal wall across from him. The red of his eyes was smudged in
the reflection looking back at him. He didn’t know what Ely saw in the
murky sheen of the walls.
All I see is red.
He let his eyes fade back to white.
A thud and several curses brought him back to the present, and with his
knuckles settling against the door, he old-school knocked.
“This better be about the fucking power surge!” Footsteps drew closer.
“Fucking cunts can’t even keep a signal.” It was spoken under breath but
Gunner heard it loud and clear.
The door opened and he had the man by the throat and back within the
room before it latched. It shut behind him, trapping the gurgled yell inside.
“I told you I’m doing much better on my own.”
He walked his target into the adjoining lavatory, enjoying the dead fish
dangling from his hand, and dropped him in the upright shower receptacle.
“How? How...” The pirate’s hands rounded his throat, bowing into
himself. Gunner took a step back.
“How,” he taunted. “How.”
The man wheezed and grappled to his feet. “How’d you get out?” he
said, coughing. “Who?”
Gunner shoved him back into the unit when he tried to step out. “You
need to stay in there,” he warned, watching him gulp and sputter, cheeks
turning beet red.
“Who the fuck do you think you are? Telling someone like me—”
“Someone like you? A god?” His target grabbed the spout and tore it
out by the cord and when he tried to leave, Gunner pushed him back in. “I
really need you to stay.” He looked down at the dangling cord and
shrugged. “Thought you said we could work together,” he added for
measure, stepping back again. He looked around and found a dirty dog tag
lying over the sink. Brent. “God’s name is Brent,” Gunner chuckled, “How
disappointing.”
Brent digested his words in a way only those pumping with adrenaline
could: without much thought.
“I beat you to a rotten piece of pulp! You should be singing your last
rites at the gate to hell right now. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Gunner sighed and pulled his shirt off. The man slammed the
showerhead into the side of Gunner’s head, but he was braced for it. He let
him get in another hit or two before he wrenched Brent off him and pushed
him back into the stall.
“You don’t like listening, do you?”
They shared a look and Gunner could see the crimson of his eyes in the
man’s gaze. There’s only so much adrenaline in each of us. Neither broke
the contact for what seemed like a dawning eternity.
“What’re you doing?” Brent asked.
Gunner smiled. He tossed his shirt into the room.
“We can work together...” the pirate swallowed, beginning to figure out
the predicament he was in.
Gunner unclasped the hook of his pants and let them sag on his hips.
“We can work together.”
Brent nodded slightly and straightened his back against the shower wall.
He didn’t release his useless weapon but Gunner didn’t expect him to. He
wiggled his toes and stretched out his fingers, rolling his head and cracking
his neck. This feels good. The man’s fear smells good.
“We can. We can. I can ensure your freedom, hell, a top place in the
crew, or money. Tell me what you want and we can work together.”
A few stifling seconds went by before Gunner answered. “I want my
ship.”
Brent squeezed his showerhead tighter. “I can’t give you that. I don’t
have it.”
Gunner pushed his thumbs into his jeans and let them slide the rest of
the way down his legs.
“No. I didn’t think you did. But working requires work, right?” he
asked, cocking his head as the pirate stiffened, shaking as he took in his
nudity. Gunner stepped out of his pants and kicked them into the bedroom,
commanding the lavatory door closed.
“Yes. That’s true. So you want information, and for it... I get to live? We
both get to live. I can pretend this never happened and I can transport you
out of the brig and into better quarters.” Brent tentatively took a step out of
the shower.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Gunner warned.
He stepped back in.
“What’s going to happen is I’m going to ask you several questions and
you’re going to answer them truthfully. If you do that, I’ll let you walk out
of here alive.” Gunner didn’t give the guy time to think about it. “What’s
your rank?”
“We don’t have ranks on this ship, only jobs, and my job is Lower
Warden.”
“You’re in charge of the guards?”
“And the shoe-ins and new recruits. The wares and goods and the
runnings of the lower dregs.”
“You have access to the bridge?”
“Only when summoned. I don’t have the codes if you’re looking to take
the ship.”
Gunner sat on the closed toilet seat and rested his elbows on his knees.
No, he wasn’t going to take the ship. Not yet at least. “Who’s above you?”
“Top deck there’s only the captain of this ship, he goes by Juke. There’s
also the co-pilot, the weapons runners, and the nav team but we’re equal in
power here. Ballsy is our head of tech and security, if you want the inner
workings of the vessel, you’ll want him first. He’s our data anchor.”
“Who’s above them?”
Brent wiped the sweat from his brow. “The fleet. We’re only one in a
black market group that work outside the main channels and the off
channels. I don’t know how many ships are in employment—that
information isn’t open—but we’re one of the higher-ups in the armada, that
I do know.”
“Name?”
“None. No one names shit since Larik’s empire went down. Once a
name’s been given, it vanishes.”
“And yet names still exist,” Gunner twiddled his thumbs. “What would
you call the organization you work for?”
 He hesitated, “Black Fleet. All our ships are black and if they’re not,
they’re changed.”
“And what does this Black Fleet specialize in?”
“Salvaging. Rebranding what we take and selling it to those looking for
what we provide. Boarding lone ships we come across in no man’s space,
and those we don’t kill, we traffic and sell to the highest bidder. Like you
and yours...”
“Like mine...”
The pirate took a deep breath and Gunner could smell the sour bile
released into the air between them.
“Yes,” he agreed.
Gunner sighed and stood, making his captive jerk back. “Where’s my
ship?”
“Salvage. Salvage yard. On a salvage station most likely.”
He took a step closer, breathing in the delicious impending moments
before a kill. “Where’s that?”
“I don’t know. It’s the truth! I don’t know. I don’t have numbers in my
head. Ask me anything about this ship’s underbelly and I can tell you but
that, that I don’t know!” Brent pressed his back into the stall wall and his
feet slid farther apart.
He’s bracing now... Gunner could hear the flow of blood pumping
through Brent’s system. It sounded like wheezing streams squeezed through
spaces at a speed that it couldn’t accommodate.
“Calm down. I told you I’d let you walk out of here alive.” Gunner
smiled, cruelly. The man didn’t calm.
“Alive has nothing to do with pain.”
“True, but you’re spilling without the pain, aren’t you? So, tell me, out
of rabid curiosity where are those in the brig being transported? Where
would I be transported if I happened to live through all those torture
sessions you had planned for me?”
“The Elyrian auction houses.”
“Hmm...” Gunner looked around at the small space they occupied. It
was barely big enough for two people to comfortably fit in and the
trappings were all worn down by countless years of use and reuse.
There was rust in the corners and on the walls, markings on the metal,
and stains over peeling plastic throughout. It wasn’t big, nor was it clean,
but he knew a group of people who would kill to use it just as it was.
Showerhead missing and all.
“Are we done?” Brent asked with a quiver in his voice, pulling him
back to the conversation at hand.
Gunner turned his back to Brent and flipped on the sink, taking the
towel next to him and soaking it. “Not quite,” he muttered, wiping off the
days of dried blood and sweat from his face and hands. “I should tell you
that no one let me out of the brig and no one helped me get to you.” He
flicked his thumb where the new metal was still growing beneath his skin,
enjoying the numbing effect his nanocells had. “How, you asked?” He
dropped the dirty towel and fluttered his fingers under the spouting water.
“I’m just that good.”
“Ballsy will have seen you!” Brent hissed, “There are cameras all over
the ship.”
“I know.”
“Then you know that you’re fucked even if you kill me right now, even
if you kill the first men that come after you. There’s no place to go on a ship
and the escape pods are nowhere near here. And if you make it to them,
they’re not fast enough to escape the range of our guns, that much I know.”
“Like I said before, I do well on my own.”
Always have, always will.
Gunner turned and the lavatory door slid open. Brent eyed him wearily,
not believing he was going to make it through this alive. He watched as the
pirate took a slow step out of the stall and when he didn’t get pushed back
in, he stepped fully into the bathroom. Another slow, laborious step, timed
and well-placed to skirt around him. The metal cord of the shower head
dragged and thunked in his wake.
When Brent was at the door, Gunner stopped him.
“I have one more question, about the dregs, since you’re so
knowledgeable about your job.”
The man grabbed the side panel with his free hand and shuddered.
“What about it?”
“The prisoner in the cell next to mine...” Gunner whistled out a breath
between his lips when Ely’s brown eyes came to mind.
“What about ‘em?”
“Is it a woman?” he asked.
 The man stopped and looked back at him, head cocked to the side,
brows furrowing. He didn’t immediately answer.
“You don’t know now do you?”
Brent shook his head and stepped into the quarters. “It’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it?”
“He’s a frail, half-dead boy...”
“That’s the truth as I keep hearing it,” Gunner muttered, grabbing Brent
by the scruff and pulling him back into the lavatory. He threw him into the
shower, taking the cord from his hand.
“Wait, I told you the truth and you gave me your word! Said I would
live if I told you what I know!”
“And I kept it. I let you walk out of here,” Gunner waved a hand at the
bathroom, “alive.”
The metal in his spine expanded and the skin along his thighs sucked in.
His claws elongated, thrusting the bones of his fingers out while his hands
tightened into paws. He pressed them into Brent’s windpipe before his next
bellow, silencing him forever.
His canines emerged, popping out his teeth as they clattered on the
ground at his feet. His nostrils flared with the smell of fresh copper blood—
potent and thick enough for him to taste it in the air. Gunner reared his head
back as his snout shot out from his skull, pulling and tugging, tucking and
twisting his elasticized skin until it stiffened into place. His lower legs
haunched and his tail thwacked against his back legs. Metal on metal.
It felt so good.
Brent squirmed, choking under his grip, bloodshot eyes wide with
terror. But the squirming, the fishy movements of an agonized struggle was
what really got him.
Really made him crave fish.
A low rumble formed in the back of his throat. A growl filled the tiny
space. Gunner pulled back his lips and the guns on his cheeks cut in half as
his mandible dropped to reveal the sharp teeth behind them. He puffed one
hot breath over Brent’s face before he tore it off.
The body he held took time to die. It seized and flapped and fought him
until the very end, and once it finally stopped, he’d already shifted back into
the man he pretended to be. One who watched blood pool at his feet with
blood-red eyes.
 Gunner released the corpse and reached for the shower cord, feeding it
back into the wall and screwing the top head back in. When he was done,
water spewed over him and gurgling spurts. The time still ticked in his
head.
He washed the blood from his body, from beneath his nails, and his hair,
then lifted his foot and washed that off too before stepping out and away
from the husk crumbled at the bottom. He searched around the floor and
found all of his teeth, disposing of them in a nearby trash receptacle.
When Gunner was done, he used his visuals to scan for any lingering
evidence of his person, finding nothing but wayward nanocells already
crumbling in on themselves and dying.
He left the water running and the corpse beneath it, closing the door
behind him to pick up his clothes, dressing in record time.
He stilled. His fingers straightened and clenched at his sides as a slow
smile lifted his lips. Gunner moved to the nightstand next to the bed and
opened the side door. In it lay one of his guns. He could always sense when
one was nearby.
His gun. An AMT AutoMag Starnaught III. Not one of his favorites but
one of his personal stock all the same. Oh, sweet baby, gunner girl. He
traced his fingers along its side before he grasped it and checked its
chamber. His bullets remained within, unfired and perfect. He lifted the
weapon to his nose and breathed. Disgusted and excited by the smells that
flooded his nose.
It smelled like the man he’d just killed.
Gunner returned to the bathroom and cleaned the metal, ignoring the
body in the shower and rubbed his own smell back all over it. He found a
leather gun strap and banded it around his inner thigh, covered by his pants,
and secured his firearm in place.
An extension of himself. His first taste of conquest with the job at hand.
He made his way back through the crew deck, eager to get to his cell.
An airy chuckle escaped his lips. His cock was stiff from the action.
The security feeds surged and fizzled once to account for the time lost.
The elevator doors opened and the sour smells of the brig returned to
him full force and with it, Ely’s weak sweet smell hidden like a needle in a
haystack within. Gunner reached for his boots when a familiar laughter
stopped him.
 A familiar smell accompanied it. He straightened and followed the noise
and ended up at the same room he passed earlier.
“Juke’s got a spot to fill.”
“Of course he does. Fucker can’t keep a ship this big running with what
he’s got,” the man snickered.
That laugh. Gunner dropped his boots letting the noise echo heavy and
hard down the hallway.
“What was that?”
“Hell if I know?”
“Shit must’ve fallen over,” one of them sighed audibly. “I’ll go check it
out.”
“You do you,” the man with the laugh grunted.
Gunner waited, listening to the footfalls steadily coming closer to his
location. His hand stretched out, fingers spread, as he loosened his joints.
The lights dimmed above him and he closed his eyes. The woosh of air
being expelled sounded, the last noise of a man who hadn’t kept his guard
up while stepping into the hallway.
The lights went out. Gunner opened his eyes, grabbed the man by the
back of his head, and pulled him against his chest. He felt the guard’s racing
pulse before he snapped the man’s neck.
“What the—?” A series of noises—a steel chair skidding, an intake of
breath, items hitting the ground—filled Gunner’s ears from the room
beyond. “What’d you do to the fucking lights!?”
The corpse sagged and Gunner lowered it softly to the floor.
“Lenny, you there? This better not be some trick!”
He stepped over the body and began to laugh.
“Shit, man, what’s wrong with you? Turn the lights back on. Ballsy’s
going to kill us for this!”
No, I’m going to kill you for this. Gunner continued laughing, cackling
as he moved closer to his prey. The bones in his face vibrating, hoping for
another shift again. The darkness couldn’t stop him. He knew where his
victim was without night vision, without lights.
“Stop laughing, Lenny...”
It only made Gunner screech and chuckle louder, moving in a steady
circle around the guard, disregarding the chairs and toppled supplies in his
way. This is fun. His laughter became genuine. Freshly expelled sweat thick
in the air, and the stench of fear replaced everything else in his head.
 “I’m going to kill you for—”
Gunner roared with laughter. He closed the distance and grabbed the
man before he could slither farther away and bellowed the noise into his
terrified face.
It drowned out the struggle as Gunner pulled the man upright and let his
own eyes bleed red with light. An angry moment of recognition.
The guard punched him in the gut before reaching for the gun hanging
off his side. Gunner expelled air and covered the guard’s hand with his own.
The man’s finger pressed over the trigger, and Gunner pushed his own over
it, crushing it and wrenching the man’s wrist to face away.
They twisted to the ground, filling the room with bellowing threats and
grunts, and, of course, laughter. Gunner straddled him on the floor, gaining
leverage. He kept the gun pointed away, pressing into the man’s broken
finger bones to subdue him, with only the red of his eyes to illuminate the
scene.
With his other hand, he slammed the guard’s head into the floor and
fought the gun upward. His prey kicked out his legs and rammed his fist
into Gunner’s nose.
“You don’t give up, do you?” he chuckled through the momentary sting.
But time was ticking and he’d already spent far too long outside his cell.
The ship’s sirens blared off as if fate itself watched the events unfolding
and knew his thoughts.
“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to fucking kill you!” the guard
screeched.
Gunner tsked, “I told you that you to watch your skin.” And with one
final sickening giggle, he crushed the bones in his grip and pushed the
barrel of the gun into the pirate’s mouth, silencing what he no longer
wanted to hear. The gunshot was muffled but echoed enough to alert any
others who may be nearby.
Before Gunner could watch the guard’s last twitch of life, he was up and
leaving the room, picking up his boots in the hallway.
But stopped when he noticed the extra rations lying about. Gunner
scooped them up and pocketed them.
He blinked the red glow away from his eyes and whistled his way back
to the brig, hearing the sounds of running feet somewhere far off in the
ship’s hallways. The darkness stayed with him until he passed through the
brig’s doors. The lights remained off, shrouding the units in its perpetual
pitch.
The blaring sirens hid the sounds of his passage as he slipped into
Royce’s unit and killed him swiftly and silently. He pulled his jacket off the
body and hung it over his shoulder.
Four dead tonight.
Gunner dragged Royce’s body to the cell door, clawed the man’s wrist
and hooked his arm around the bars, letting his blood drain over the lock.
He pushed the cell door closed, checked Ely’s lock, and re-entered his own
cage.
With one final laugh escaping him, he rested his back against the chilly
wall, right next to where Ely crouched on the other side, and leaned his
head back.
Fuck patience. His palm ran over the firearm hidden under his pants. He
seeded back outside his body and triple-checked the security feeds, sending
another surge through the system, and adding more confusion to the already
growing chaos. He wasn’t on any of them, and regardless of any crumbs he
may have left behind, he couldn’t really bring himself to care.
He rested his arms on his knees and flicked his half-grown thumb with
his middle finger, letting the satisfaction flow over him, and the feel of his
gun on his thigh was like a lover’s caress. Exhaustion settled in and his
body pulled him down into the throes of sleep, reminding him that energy
was neither created nor destroyed but it sure as hell had left his systems.
Seventy-nine occupants left.
 Chapter Eight

ELODIE HAD GONE INTO a trance, twice, in the last who-knew-

however-many hours.
The deep jet-black darkness of the brig, and the overwhelming sensation
of losing one of her much-needed senses had thrown her into a fitful mess,
setting her on edge as she strained to listen to any and every sound around
her.
When she had just begun to acclimate to the lack of sight, the ship’s
siren screeched, scaring sanity right back out of her.
Now she couldn’t see nor hear.
She’d been locked up for two and a half weeks but this was the first
night she had truly felt alive again. Pressing her hand over her thrumming
heart, she took pleasure in the feel of it under her palm. She slid it up to
clasp her neck to feel her racing pulse. It was wild and wonderful and it was
hers alone.
Elodie squinted, but the darkness remained impenetrable. No one could
see her.
Maybe he can. She briefly thought of her new neighbor but shrugged it
off, enjoying the freedom darkness gave her far too much to care.
At first, she’d been wary, thinking it was a trick, but after so much time,
with no change, she relished the sudden privacy.
Elodie ran her hands over her body, massaging the aches and knots
away, reaching up under her clothing and readjusting the band around her
chest for the first time since she was imprisoned. Everything itched and she
had the time and leisure to alleviate it, rubbing the raw parts of her body
that had begged for so long to be released. It was bliss.
I could forego a half-cycles food for this.
She wanted more, and even though she was certain she’d be partially
deaf from the sirens by the end, it was worth it. Every small comfort
couldn’t be taken for granted.
Giddiness assailed her when she should’ve been tired, and excitement
where she should’ve been afraid. She stood and stretched, feeling the
pressure on her muscles melt away as she moved around without restraint,
keeping her arms out in front of her to feel her way.
She raised her arms over her head and leaned back. Clenching her eyes
shut, she, let the sounds flow over her. A cool breeze fell across her
stomach. The feel of blood pumping freshly throughout her limbs had her
lowering back to the ground and reclaiming her spot. Next, she slid off her
shoes and let her feet breathe, wiggling her toes and bending the arches of
her feet.
Now, if only the sprinklers would go off. She was willing to risk a cold
shower even if the chill made her sick afterward.
Small comforts. I’ll pay some prices for small comforts.
A draft hit her and she put her shoes back on, allowing one knee to fall
to the side as she hugged the other to her chest.
Her eyes went in the direction of the brig’s door. Had it opened? It
niggled but she chalked it up to paranoia, squinting toward Gunner’s cell.
She leaned against the bars they shared and rested her head on them. Her
mind wandered, and she welcomed the escape.
The cold air suddenly vanished and a thick, heavy, encapsulating bubble
of heat surrounded her.
Her nose twitched and the smell of rust and sweat filled it. Her focus
zeroed in. She stiffened.
It’s him. It’s all Gunner. The heat and the salt, and now when she
inhaled more, there was that same faint smell of hops from that first day.
The smell of Gunner’s jacket.
Sweat beaded her brow and she leaned in to rub it across her knee. The
more she took in the smells surrounding, the more she was consumed by it.
The more she liked it. It was thick and overpowering, dark and gloomy. For
a single moment, the smell made her feel at home.
She scooted a little closer to his side and basked in his scent, closing her
eyes and letting her mind craft a fantasy to take her away. One where she
didn’t have to be on edge every second of every day. One where she could
appreciate his smell for what it was to her—desirable—and not feel bad
about it. She let the walls fall away until she could imagine herself for who
she really.
A woman. One who wasn’t alone among men. Only one man.
She let go of her knee and curled her hand around the bar below her
head, the backs of her fingers coming in contact with his clothes on the
other side. A sizzling twitch took her by surprise, but she didn’t shy away
from the contact.
Elodie felt him move and press closer to her even though she wasn’t
sure if he really knew she was there. She wiggled her fingers, seeking more
contact, actually wanting him to know she was there, but Gunner didn’t
move again.
Stop wanting dangerous things. Not with this heat he gives off. His body
was warm, far warmer than what could be normal for any man.
She’d been in this position before, leaning into the bars, her thoughts
lost in her head when her dad was still with her. This was different. With
her father, it’d been security; with Gunner, it was comfort.
Gunner was attractive. Elodie had noticed it early on. It was in the way
he moved and the air he had about him. There was something so vastly
different about him compared to the other men that surrounded her that
she’d taken notice. Not only did he frighten her, he lured her in. There was
a rawness in the way he moved, the way he spoke, and it was so exacting
that it demanded her to believe in it.
Everything about me is fake. She wiggled her fingers again feeling his
clothes abrade her knuckles. I know fake. He’s not fake. He smells so good.
Her throat closed up when a warm breath fell across her temple.
Elodie didn’t jerk back even though her instincts warned her too.
Instead, she remained still in hopes of prolonging the moment, knowing his
lips were a hair's breadth away.
If things were different...
The thought was almost too dangerous to complete. She clenched her
eyelids tighter.
If things were different, I wouldn’t even be in this situation.
His breath caressed her forehead and she sighed with contentment.
She didn’t know how long they remained that way but when the sirens
finally stopped, she wasn’t prepared for it to be over.
Elodie sat upright and pressed both of her hands to her ears, trying
futilely to get the throbbing to go away, kneading the flesh at the crux of her
lobe. Real sound slowly returned, and with it, the voices of the others
around her. The lights came on with a warning flicker.
The door groaned before her vision fully returned and another, very
different bout of chaos ensued.
“Holy shit!” Kallan’s voice eclipsed the rest. “Royce?”
 His exclamation was followed by others and she tore her attention away
from the guards storming into the brig to look at the man on the other side
of Gunner’s cell. Elodie’s eyes widened.
“Everybody stand up!” One of the guards screamed.
She followed the order without thought, staring at Royce. He hung up
against his cell door, his arm hooked and crushed through the bars over the
door’s locking panel. Blood flowed over it, dripped beneath it, and ran in
rivulets of rusty burgundy to pool on the floor.
That smell...
“Get in the center of your cells and put your arms above your heads,”
the same guard roared.
Gunner stepped forward, blocking her line of sight to Royce’s body. She
glanced at Gunner, but he was looking at the guards.
Shit. Elodie scrambled to the center of her cell and raised her arms.
Everyone else was already in position and she was thankful no one was
paying attention to her. They were all staring at Royce’s hanging, blood-
drained body.
“What do you think happened here?” one of the guards said, covering
his nose. “Man, the smell in here is foul.”
“I don’t know,” another replied, “but maybe it caused the alarms to go
off? Doesn’t explain the others though.”
Others? She didn’t like the sound of that and only prayed that her dad
wasn’t among these others.
“Ballsy’s going to get his dick shot off for this and we’re the ones he’s
gonna take it out on. Damn, did he claw through his wrist? It’s all torn up.”
Elodie chanced a look back at the guards who inspected the cell beyond.
She hadn’t known it then, not in the darkness, and not next to Gunner, but
that the brig smelled once again like blood. She’d been too focused on her
sudden freedom and Gunner’s proximity to realize. She gagged.
“Maybe he couldn’t take it any longer,” one of them mused.
“Fuck! And we’re going to have to report this to Juke. Shit, we may be
dead too after this news. Lost flesh... He hates losing a profit.” The guard
stepped back from the body, holding his nose with one hand, while the other
rested on the gun at his hip. Her gaze zeroed in on it as he unbuttoned the
clasp and lifted it out of its sheath. He rested his hand on it, a finger
hovering over the safety. “Let’s get him down and take him to the other
corpses. Doc’ll want to inspect him too.”
 Her arms went numb above her head.
Other corpses...
“I’m not touching him.”
“Get the androids then!” The one with the gun turned his attention to the
rest of the brig and she snapped her gaze straight ahead, hoping not to catch
his eye. She recognized him, and recognized the others too. They all had
shifts before, but she didn’t see the ones she hated most among those who
were there. Out the corner of her eye, several androids moved forward and
began to work on Royce’s body.
“Check every lock in here, make sure none of them have been tampered
with. Double check it. The lights were only off in this section of the ship...
What the fuck you think you’re looking at?” the lead guard yelled at a
nearby prisoner.
“There’s no way they could’ve gotten out. Why the extra effort?”
another said. They moved through and started, simultaneously, going
through each cell’s panel.
“Look how scrawny this one is,” one of them said, motioning toward
her. Elodie stiffened but held her stance. “Weeks with minimal food, they
couldn’t get out, let alone go on a killing spree.” He moved past her cell and
she sagged a little.
One by one, the guards went through each unit. Twice over, two at each
lock, verifying that nothing had been tampered with. She glanced back at
where Royce had hung and wondered why it even mattered.
He’s right. None of us could’ve done that. Her gaze moved to Gunner
and a shiver traveled like death’s fingers down her spine.
He was looking at the floor in front of him, head bowed down, his hair
falling forward and obscuring his face, and his arms raised but only halfway
above him. He appeared tired, and his pose suggested as much.
But it was just that, a pose. He could do that.
He could’ve done it.
The second guard checked his lock and stepped away. Gunner tilted his
head and caught her eyes. The milkiness of them gave nothing away.
Shhhh. His lips moved for only her to see.
“All’s clear,” one of the guards called out. “Let’s leave the cleanup for
the androids.”
The one with the gun passed by her cell, stopped, and turned her way.
Elodie swallowed but he kept turning to face the rest of the hold.
 “You can all lower your arms,” he said and waited as they complied.
Her arms dropped to her sides, prickling with renewed blood flow. She
shifted slightly toward Gunner to keep him and the guard in her sight.
“Don’t get comfortable. We’ll be back soon,” he bellowed. He holstered
his gun and strode out the door, leaving them as suddenly as he’d come in.
The other guards followed in his wake, looking as haunted as any brig
prisoner and she wondered briefly if this Juke guy would really kill them.
Elodie remained where she stood for some time, eyeing the robots that
had begun to clean Royce’s cell. They released a cloudy chemical smelling
gas over everything and then beamed lasers over it next.
It wasn’t until her legs started to give out that she moved back to the
wall, sliding down the center of it.
She felt eyes on her.
She felt the blazing heat of them melt the skin on her body and pierce
through her layers.
She knew Gunner was willing her to look his way, and she fought with a
willpower far stronger than her own. His. He sat in his usual spot, right
where she imagined him, in the dark, leaned up on the bars.
She wouldn’t look but she knew.
If she looked, she’d see his jacket, see it piled up by his hip and she
couldn’t muster enough courage to do it. And her lack of courage at that
moment was stronger than his willpower. Even if she wanted to ask him
about it, she couldn’t do it in front of the androids.
Only an idiot would talk among another’s tech. So she watched the
androids instead, burning, spraying, lighting up the dirt until the space
practically sparkled. The blood vanished in a haze.
I asked for the jacket.
Elodie couldn’t help but feel Royce’s death was her fault, but even as
she mulled it over, she kept second-guessing herself. None of the other
prisoners said anything when she glanced briefly around.
Everyone appeared lost in their own thoughts or passed out because
there was no better way to spend their time. No one paid her or Gunner any
attention, and no one met her eyes. She was almost convinced that she had
missed something and was positive that more happened in the dark than she
had realized.
So how did he get his jacket back?
 The androids stepped out of Royce’s cell and began to clean the area
beyond. They split into two groups, each going down the pathway in
opposite directions, and as they continued her excitement grew. The aerosol
that shot out from their hands filled the spaces in and around the bars, the
floor, the walls, and settled on the layers of dirt that clouded their surfaces.
The brig was being cleaned for the first time since she arrived. Elodie didn’t
even mind when one of the robots stood before her own cage and misted the
chemicals all over her, making her cough, and didn’t mind when their
scanners beamed in afterward and disintegrated the grime. The lasers made
her eyes hurt.
The robots moved on to Kallan’s cell and those beyond.
She was still filthy after they were done but cleaner than she’d been in
weeks. Her eyes followed the bony curves of her fingers as she rubbed the
palms of her hands. They were no longer sweaty and sticky, but smooth to
the touch and pale. She touched her hair next where it still hung in strands
around her ears, still thickened with grease but now lighter and softer.
Elodie took in a deep breath, loving that for a moment, she smelled nothing.
“So your hair is blonde,” Gunner murmured.
Elodie let her short hair fall over her face and pressed her cheeks into
her bent knees, hoping to smudge up her face some more.
“And here I thought you had light brown locks. Goes to show first
impressions are rarely accurate.”
She didn’t answer him, still uncertain whether it was in her best interest
or not, but he kept slithering his voice into her ear.
“So we’re back to silence?” His voice was lower than before. Her eyes
darted to the working androids, unsure if they were far enough away to hear
him.
“You’re a smart one, Ely, but they can’t hear us, won’t record us.”
She frowned. I’m being too easy to read. How does he know? Her frown
deepened. How does he seem to know everything? Why isn’t anyone else
noticing him? Something was just out of grasp and the more she reached for
it, the more unsure she really wanted to understand.
Elodie focused on her grey space as the image of milky eyes, bleeding
over in red, fought to consume her thoughts. She pressed her palm into her
forehead where Gunner had breathed on her hours prior.
I still feel it. Him. The spot burned.
 The androids walked past her cell and headed for the doors, meeting up
with the others who had finished at the same time in perfect
synchronization. They left in unison, stepping out the door before it fully
opened, and when it closed behind them, quiet conversations picked back
up throughout the brig. The ventilation system turned on, sucking the
remaining haze away.
“Well that was fun,” Kallan chuckled. “Can’t say I’ve seen that happen
yet.”
“How long you’ve been in here anyway?” Gunner called out to him.
“Hard to say, a month maybe? Longer than the rest.”
“What about you, Ely?” Gunner asked her next.
Kallan answered for her. “Ely got here, what now? Two, three weeks
ago? It’s hard to keep track of time when most cycles blend into the next.
Came in here with the rest of these fuckers who didn’t fight back.”
Two and a half weeks ago.
“They’re part of a mining crew coming back from Andromeda with a
full load of ore to Gliese,” he continued. “They were attacked and boarded
right outside commercial space.”
“We couldn’t warp without a wormhole with our capacity at overload,”
another chimed in. “We couldn’t flee for the same reason and were
outnumbered.”
“Did you send out a distress call?” Gunner asked.
“Fuck yeah, we did, and you’d think being right on the outskirts we’d
have gotten the attention of one of the patrol ships, but no one answered.
None of the other mining ships were nearby either. They barraged us with
fire, taking out our thrusters. Our drives came next. It shot our life support
systems into effect and we shelled up, trying to wait them out, to wait for
help. But we weren’t prepared and our stores were already on the low end at
that point. Our shit-brained captain bargained our lives if we gave up, little
good that did him. He and the bridge crew were all killed on site. Glad they
were.”
She remembered when it all went down; she was with her dad repairing
the giant excavators and haulers. They had been so deep in the machines at
that point—she and a few others who sat in cells of their own in the brig—
that they had no idea what was happening in the upper decks. When going
on repair for machines massive enough to harvest continents, they
sometimes didn’t emerge for days at a time.
 They would pack enough food and supplies to go on a prospector
investigation, bringing with them the bare minimum of necessities, because
whatever was brought had to be maneuvered through a labyrinth of gears
and metal. The behemoths she often worked on were their own little
graveyards on a mining ship. She and her dad had come upon more than
one corpse lost within the metal.
Their small team had emerged to strangers pointing guns at them, and
guns that continued to be held on them until they were walked off their ship
and into where she sat now.
We didn’t fight them. There was blood on the walls. It was easy to know
what course of action was likely to keep you alive when you’re confronted
with bloody walls.
“What about you, Kallan? How’d you get here?” Gunner asked, pulling
her out of her memories.
“Same as them but less climactic. Was caught out in the open and taken.
They took me and my ship, even seeing through my cloaking device, and
apprehended all I had. But my hide will bounce back, I know what’s ahead
for us,” he grumbled. “Royce though, didn’t expect something as desperate
as suicide to get out of here.”
Her ears perked up. Someone else would’ve noticed. She didn’t need to
look to know Gunner wasn’t hiding it.
“If I’d’ve known I would’ve stopped him,” Gunner’s voice tickled her
ear. Elodie felt her pulse jump. “He gave me back the jacket last night in the
dark, was surprised myself when he pushed it through the bars. Didn’t get a
chance to ask him what he was doing before the sirens went off.”
Liar.
“Odd,” Kallan mused.
“Agreed. Looks like we’re not the only ones dealing with death today
though.”
He’s changing to subject...
Elodie chanced a look at Gunner through her hair but quickly glanced
away when their eyes met.
“Sounds like someone went on a killing spree above,” one of the other
prisoners interjected. “Better them than us.”
“Hmph. Until they’re back here for recruitment,” Kallan said.
“They fucking warned us this time. I wonder how many spots are
needing to be filled this time. Because at this rate, there’s not many of us
left to fill ‘em, not if they’re planning on turning a profit off our flesh as it
seems.”
“Better chances of surviving if they’re not allowed to kill us...”
Elodie tuned them out as the conversation wore on. Gunner had gone
quiet as well and as time passed without further incident, the silence
reclaimed the space around her. Her ever-begging stomach gnawed her
from the inside out and the grey space grew easier enter. Missing the
morning meal took its toll and she closed her eyes, slipping into sleep
without realizing it.
When she woke up sometime later, the lights were dimming, and the
brig door was opening. An android walked through, alone, and without a
guard to distribute food. There were a lot of firsts happening for her in the
last half week, and the energy to be surprised had all but left her. The robot
left them to their barely sated hunger.
After she was done scarfing her ration and popping one of the water
gels in her mouth, she moved toward the bars closest to Gunner. The dark,
though not like the night before, gave her back enough courage to talk to
him.
He lifted his dead eyes to follow her movements, and she became lost in
their frosted appearance. His lips twitched at one side for a second before
vanishing.
They stayed like that for some time, watching each other in the low
light as the cycle lengthened. Coughs and rattling snores of those around
them grew. It was as if they waited until the witching hour to be alone and
Elodie almost missed the roaring privacy they had been granted the
previous night. She missed the temporary closeness she had to another
person. She missed the freedom.
She’d come to expect his attention and that disturbed her to the core.
Shadows obscured most of his features and she dropped her gaze to
follow the grey and black shades of his gun tattoos, and along his broad
jaw.
Elodie noticed when his breath changed to expand his chest, bringing
her attention to the outline of his shirt and the muscles beneath. It clung and
bunched in all the right spots, and as she focused on the cloth’s subtle
movements, his muscles bulged a little farther out. Her brow furrowed and
her cheeks heated.
 A jerkish smile lifted the sides of his lips cooling off her sudden ardor.
She shivered and quickly glanced away, screaming in her head the danger
she was putting herself in.
The sound of him moving brought her attention back to him. He picked
up the jacket on his other side and placed it on the ground between them,
and without a word, threaded and squeezed the material through. Elodie
gripped the other end and tugged, and before long had the material in her
hands.
She shrugged it on and the smell of him consumed her. It was delicious
and spicy, minty and strong. She tugged the collar closer to her nose and
caught just a hint of menthol and hops, and lingering cannabis.
The material sat heavy and thick over her shoulders but she didn’t mind
as the chill she’d grown used to left her skin. The jacket covered her
completely and left excess to hide behind. It was a shield, a cocoon, an
added layer of protection. Safety. Gunner had given her safety... She wanted
to cry out from bliss at the feel of worn flannel surrounding her hands.
She zipped up the front and checked the pockets, knowing she’d find
nothing. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, his voice a barely-there
whisper.
“Do what?” she asked, hunching into the jacket and all its layered glory.
Its heavy warmth.
“Zip it up. It makes you look like a woman with how large it is on you.
Keep it unzipped and the sleeves rolled past your wrists and don’t wear it
during the day.”
She mulled over the suggestion, having already decided to take it off
during the day anyway. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
A few minutes went by as she struggled with the sleeves and redressed
her new shield. Her eyes flared suddenly and her fumbling ceased.
Shit! I just gave myself away!
Elodie turned to stone, her mouth opening and closing like a suffocating
fish. His eyes burned into her.
“I’m not a woman,” she mustered out in defense, trying to calmly
convince him and wishing her heart would stop its pounding. “But I don’t
want to give the others more fuel to that fire. Eventually, they might stop
caring about what I really am and just focus on what I appear to be.”
Gunner rolled his head to face her directly. “Not a comforting thought.”
 “No,” she whispered.
“I’ve completed the end of my bargain. Now it’s your turn.”
Elodie nodded. “Did you kill Royce?” She watched his face but it gave
nothing away, only leaving her with more questions than before.
“Does it matter?”
“How did you do it?” she asked.
Gunner dropped his head on the bars and flicked his fingers at Royce’s
cell. “I powered down the lights to the brig, broke through the security on
my cell door, left, and when I returned, remembered our agreement and
entered his cell. The rest you already know.”
Elodie couldn’t tell if he was taunting her or not but her stomach went
queasy and she turned to look at the other prisoners around them, to see if
anyone was listening in on their conversation.
“They’re asleep.”
“I don’t believe you.” She turned back toward him.
“You don’t? You don’t even know me.”
“Then why did you come back? If you can escape so easily, move
through an unknown ship without getting lost, why would you come back?”
His lips lifted again. Elodie still couldn’t read him.
“Maybe I came back for you.”
His words left a mark and she shook off the shiver of fear that wanted to
crawl through her. “Tell me the truth.”
“I did. I’m truth incarnate.”
“Prove it,” she hissed and his smile widened into a smirk.
“Why should I?”
“You can’t.” He can’t because it’s illogical and not possible. “So how
did you really kill Royce?”
Suddenly several ration bars and a couple water gels appeared in his
hand. Gunner shoved them through the bars where no one else could see.
“I told you.”
Elodie stared at the food as if it answered all her questions. Proof. Or
was it? He could’ve been saving them up... Her fingers drifted over them
lightly to prove to herself that they were real.
“Where did you get these?” she asked.
Gunner smirked but didn’t answer her. Several minutes passed and her
belly groaned.
“That’s my proof,” he said, “Now eat something before you die.”
 Elodie wondered if it was a trap, waiting for him to reach through the
barrier and seize her hand or her throat and hurt her, but as the seconds
passed and Gunner did nothing more than watch her, she closed her hands
over one of the rations and tugged up the extra length of her jacket. She
twisted to face him dead on and ate the food out of the prying eyes of the
others. Satisfaction wasn’t the only thing messing with her head, but shock.
Why is he feeding me? She couldn’t meet his gaze.
When she was done, and after hiding rest of the rations in her pockets,
she asked, “What do you want from me?”
He leaned back, and she realized he had been hiding her from view as
well. Her chest squeezed and she suddenly wanted to move closer to him. It
snapped her back to reality.
That’s exactly what he wants me to do. She jerked back.
“I want you to help me pass the time,” he sighed. “Distract me.”
Elodie hummed and nodded. “I’ll try.” If he was willing to give her
food, then she could at least talk to him for a little while. “So what do you
want to talk about?”
“What did you do before this?” Gunner asked, waving his hand. The
question was innocuous and took her by surprise.
“I was a machiner, like most of the others here. I maintained mining
tech at all stages of the process, it’s what I was trained to do and what I’m
good at.”
“So you like machines...”
“They make sense, they don’t change, and you don’t need to be
anything but what you are around them. Once you learn what you’re doing,
what you need to look for, how to maintain it, there’s nothing more you
need to know. They’re easy.”
“Yeah they are,” he laughed under his breath and she was unsure why.
“So machines... It’s what you’ve done your whole life?”
“Yes.”
“And you like what you’re doing?”
Did she? “Sure.”
“I just don’t see it. How does someone like you get into a field like that?
And mining of all things... Can you do a more boring job? Although doing
machines doesn’t all have to be boring.”
Elodie narrowed her eyes. “Someone like me?”
 “Forgive me. I phrased that wrong. Someone so clearly ill-equipped like
you to go into a field like that? You seem more,” he paused but continued
before she could interject, “more like the type to go into—I don’t know—
something less physically demanding? Like medicine. Or food service...”
She sat back, her body settling against the wall as she debated on how to
answer. She slid her hands back into her pockets and curled her fingers. Her
dad came to mind, and the long hours of her youth at his side. He was the
reason why she did what she did, learning the trade that he worked in
because it was easy, and because there’d been nothing better to do. Once
her mom died, he signed on for an extended multi-year contract with the
government, knowing full well he wasn’t returning to civilization, or to her
if she chose to stay behind. Elodie let his choices become her own and not a
day had gone by where she wasn’t sure if she regretted it or not.
He dressed her up like a boy, sheared off her long hair, and bought her
new clothes. Even as a child she knew what he was doing and never argued
or fought against it. Chesnik never offered her another option and she never
really tried to pursue it. No one fought him on his choices, not since her
mom died, and she became his apprentice, a young boy learning his father’s
trade. The persona was easy and involved little effort on her part.
For years it worked, flawlessly, going from one job to the next, moving
unnoticed like all worker bees did. Until she got her first period and her
body started to change.
“I’ve offended you.” His voice jolted her back to the present.
“I was thinking... I joined because it was my dad’s trade and it was
easy.”
He leveled her a hard look that she couldn’t read. “That answers one
thing. I really didn’t want to call you an idiot for terrible vocational
choices.”
That made her bristle.
“But I’m still confused on why you stayed.”
Because I knew nothing else! Elodie wanted to shout at him. She hated
that he voiced her own brewing questions so easily. She gritted her teeth
and clenched her hands, feeling the tension rise before letting it go.
“I stayed for my dad,” she said.
“And where is he now? Dead?”
“He’s somewhere on this ship,” her voice wavered. “And now I don’t
know if he’s dead.”
 Gunner sat upright and clasped the bar between them. She stiffened and
leaned back. “He’s on this ship?”
Elodie swallowed and nodded. “They took him in the last recruitment.
The cycle before you arrived and took his cell.”
“What does he look like?” he asked, his voice harder, lower than before,
making her heart beat faster.
“Why does it matter?”
“Tell me.”
Elodie clenched her hands tighter. “Bald. He’s bald and tall, taller than
me with thin wrinkles. He’s missing two fingers on his left hand and both
hands and arms are covered in scars. Like mine.” She lifted her arms to
show him, tracing some of the burns she’d received over the years and
showing the pads of her fingers where her skin had healed over a dozen
times. “But a lot more and a lot worse.”
Gunner relaxed, visibly, as he eyed her hand. “Good,” he said confusing
her even more.
“Why good?”
“He wasn’t one of the men I killed last night.”
She couldn’t tell if he was taunting her or not and she leaned back
slightly to get a better look at him. It didn’t help. Nothing about Gunner was
easy to read.
“So that’s why you said this cell doesn’t belong to me. I get it now,” he
huffed. “Speaking of which,” he got to his feet and slowly spun in a full
circle before stopping and facing her again. “I need to mark.”
Elodie frowned. “You need to what?”
But he was already cupping the clasp of his pants and unzipping them.
It took her several damning moments of confusion until she realized what
he was doing, shifting his clothes and grasping his dick. She twisted away,
scrambling to the center of her own cell, but not before she saw it.
“You might want to turn away.” He chuckled low, making her ears burn
and an unpleasant blush heat her skin. I saw it. I saw his cock.
A faint stream of water toyed with her disgust as she grappled with what
the hell was happening. He continued to taunt her as he moved around and
she pressed her palms hard against her closed eyes.
“You know, Ely, it’s rude to look when a man is...doing his business.
Someone should have taught you that by now.” Low raspy laughs
punctuated his words.
 “I didn’t look,” she stammered, embarrassed. Not because she hadn’t
seen dick in her life but that it was his dick.
“Tsk, tsk.”
She counted down the seconds, waiting for it to stop, and hoping to god
that none of it reached her space so she wouldn’t have to smell the stench of
urine all night. Who the hell is this man?
Damnit, I’m giving myself away again...
Elodie lowered her hands and peered over her shoulder. Gunner’s back
was toward her. She sucked in a shaky breath and recomposed herself,
pleased with the courage she was able to muster to look at him dead on.
And then he turned to the side, holding his cock, and she regretted every
decision she had made in the last twenty-four years of her life. Because
Gunner was big.
He stopped and their eyes caught, his widened in shock, knowing hers
looked the same. She released a long strenuous, almost painful whistle of
air while waiting for the next move. His shock was short-lived, ending in a
knowing smile she wanted to tear right off. But she had already played her
cards and refused to back down.
“Curious?” Gunner cleared his throat and faced her, giving her full
frontal viewing access. Elodie dropped her gaze because she was curious,
and shrugged.
“I expected more.”
“What do you mean, more?”
Gunner’s cock hardened before her eyes. His hand stroked it once, slow
and deliberate. His long fingers wrapped around his own girth. Her legs
clamped together and she shrugged again. Suddenly she was even more
thankful for the jacket; it was one more layer to hide her newly found shock
and horror behind.
He just peed. On everything. And I’m focused on his size.
Elodie felt more messed up by the second.
“More,” she stammered. “Don’t act so offended. Not everyone can be
well endowed.”
That’s right. My dick is bigger than yours. It is now, at least. Now that
she had a mental image to go by.
He tucked his erection away with a grunt but a heavy protruding tent
remained. “You want to compare sizes?”
“No.”
 “Drop your pants and let’s see.”
“I don’t drop my pants for men, only women,” she said quickly, her
heart beating a little faster. “You’re clearly not a woman.”
“Clearly not.” He laughed again. “But now you have me curious if I
have a contender. I can’t have a contender.”
“Why is that?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Because the first woman I see is mine.”
She stiffened—heart racing—wanting to jump right out of her chest.
The words that came out of his mouth were words she didn’t want to hear.
“And I won’t have her running off with a man with a better package.
Women have a million men to choose from out in space, I need to make
sure they don’t look past me.”
Elodie shrunk under the pressure of his gaze, feeling his intensity like
she always did, straight to the very core. It left all her layers behind in
ashes, weak and useless on the floor. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth.
She watched warily as he reclaimed his spot next to the bars, draping
his arms over his knees, keenly aware that the tent of his pants appeared to
grow bigger the closer he got to her. It’s just my imagination.
The tension between them was stifling and it was too thick for her to
respond. She couldn’t think of a good retort. Her silence had always been a
shield for her but now it felt no better than yet another prison.
What if he finds out I’m a woman after all? The question made her
shiver and she wished again for the darkness to return.
As time crept by, all types of thoughts filled her head as she tried to
imagine what Gunner had really meant. It made her feel things she didn’t
need to be feeling, because the idea had an allure to it.
‘Because the first woman I see is mine.’
Mine. The word held weight. It drew her in. She pulled her knees to her
chest and hugged them, squeezing her legs together as much as she could. A
knot grew in her belly, a faded yet forming bloom of arousal.
Elodie choked back a self-deprecating giggle. Weeks in a cell, barely
fed, and covered in dirt, and now...fucking aroused. It was laughable. It
really was.
She tried to argue it out. Surely what she felt wasn’t actually arousal but
something else, something less feminine, possibly affection. But the idea
was shot down as soon as it arose. She didn’t want to hug Gunner, or crawl
into his lap and nuzzle him, to whisper sweet nothings in his ear. She didn’t
want to sneak a soft kiss through the gaps of the metal between them. It
wasn’t affection she felt.
Maybe she’d chalk it up to lust. Animal magnetism. Elodie plucked at
her lower lip. After everything that had happened—that was still going to
happen—a little relief from the stress seemed like a good idea. At least her
body felt that way.
Elodie got to her feet and started to pace. The smell followed her as did
his eyes; she didn’t need to spare him a glance to know. Her sixth sense had
come out strong since he was thrown into the cell next to hers.
“Ely.”
She stopped in her tracks.
“Come back to me,” Gunner beckoned.
She didn’t move.
“Please.” He said it so low she wasn’t sure if she’d actually heard it. She
turned to face him and slithered back down to her spot next to him.
“Thank you.” His head fell on the bars, and Elodie was taken aback by
how tired he looked.
“Are you okay?” she asked, suddenly concerned.
“Am I?”
Her eyes went to the food rations that he hadn’t touched, sitting on the
other side. “You need to eat. You haven’t eaten yet.”
“I’m not hungry for food...”
Elodie shook her head and crawled forward, and she heard him lift up to
watch her as she positioned her shoulder into gap closest to the food. She
dropped the jacket, snaked her fingers through, twisting her wrist, pushing
her limb between the small space. It was slow going and for once she found
her emaciated body helpful. The cold metal rubbed the skin of her arms
uncomfortably as she strained and reached, spreading her fingers out,
managing to roll both water gels in her direction.
She wiggled the ration closer until she was able to grip it between the
tips of her fingers. Pulling out was just as difficult.
With her conquest complete, and the food in her hands, she went back to
Gunner, who hadn’t moved during the entire demonstration. He hadn’t shot
up to grab a hold of her, but simply looked at her with a tired fascination.
Elodie pushed back her bangs and offered him the nourishment. “You need
to eat. The first days are the worst.”
 “Why don’t you keep it?” His eyes flashed red, startling her, but
returned to their milky dead sheen soon after.
“I’m not hungry.” She pushed the food back into his cell. A peace
offering. “And because I don’t want to know what happens to those that
steal from you.”
“They die.”
“There you go.” Elodie pushed the food a little farther in and jerked her
fingers back out. “Good enough reason not to eat your food.”
“I’m not hungry for food,” he whispered.
“What are you hungry for?”
His crimson irises staked her to the spot. It was all the answer she
needed, as damning as the moment she decided to speak to him in the first
place. His stare spoke more than any amount of words uttered ever could.
Her fate was sealed.
She turned away slowly and curled up on her side. Squeezing her
eyelids shut, she pressed her hand hard over her heart, and wished for the
sanctuary of her grey place. How she longed to go there and never return.
He knows.
 Chapter Nine

GUNNER CURSED.
And cursed.
A long stream of angry profanity went through his head without
stopping. Ely had shut him out.
He didn’t know why it bothered him so fucking much but it did, and the
longer he had to endure, the angrier he became. Time ran like a never-
ending loop in his systems, and the amount of time that had passed since
she shut down had been less than twelve cruel Earthian hours. Twelve. He
was already an impatient man but what patience he did have was sorely
being tested.
Gunner grabbed the bars between them and rested his forehead against
them. He hadn’t moved them from her since she had turned her back to him.
He knew he should be focusing on breaking down the ship’s systems from
within, should be poking at the encryptions that he had yet to break, but he
couldn’t take his eyes off her.
The secret was sucking the air out from between them, making it hard to
breathe, and making her scurry away like a frightened animal. The canines
buried in his gums poked at his current set of teeth, wanting to be released,
wanting to hunt down and bury deep into the animal that skirted him. The
metal was hot beneath his clenching fingers.
“Ely...” he said, hoping for a twitch, but she gave him nothing. And
Gunner had the eyes of half the prisoners leering at his back.
How could they not notice? The more he ignored them, the more
interested they became, and the more interested they became, the more he
wanted to kill them off so they’d no longer parade at the edge of his
thoughts.
Kallan’s intermittent chuckles no longer sounded human to him, nor did
the other voices that spoke. The coughs and grunts from the others held no
meaning anymore: they did nothing but make his jackal hunger for silence.
“Ely,” Gunner called out to her again. His eyes traced the curves of her
frame, taking in the way her short hair fell over her ears, her eyes when he
could see them, and the way her legs clamped together and shifted closer to
her body whenever he spoke...and the way his jacket fell over her as if in
protection... From him.
Fuck!
“Give up already,” Kallan grunted. “My boy here isn’t a talker.”
Gunner had never wanted to strangle the life out of another man so
much. The metal bent beneath his grip. Kallan could at least see her face
where Gunner could only see the back of her head. Kallan called Ely his
boy and Gunner had nothing to call her.
Even the thought that the squirrely, greasy man made a claim to Ely
enraged him. She was his. At least for now.
He made his threats, to her no less, and there was only one way for the
two of them to go from here. Even if she didn’t realize it, the moment she
put his jacket on, he had marked her. His smell, his property, surrounded her
and held her captive in a little bubble of his making. His cock jerked in his
pants.
“For fuck’s sake, talk to me!” Gunner roared—not caring who
overheard—and released the bars before he crushed them. Excitement shot
through him when she sat up, startled, and looked his way.
She looked like a frightened animal. Wide-eyed. Heart racing. Fear.
He pressed closer to the bars, as close as he could get. For a moment, he
was convinced to give up on the ship—his ship—break into her cell, and
take her in front of everyone, especially Kallan, and leave.
Would she follow? They stared at each other and he willed her to turn
around and face him. She remained still.
“Would you follow?” he asked, uncaring who heard.
Her face clouded over in confusion. Her brows furrowed and her lips
twisted. He had an urge to lick them—to lick the sweat and strain off her
features and keep licking until his saliva coated her skin in a wet sheen,
until his tongue found her cunt and there were no more barriers between
them.
“What?” Ely shuffled to sit upright.
“I could take you,” he said, lowering his voice. She edged closer, head
tilted, still confused.
“I could take you...but would you follow?”
The thought made his cock twitch.
A look of comprehension flushed her features, and a toothy grin spread
across his face. His nostrils flared as the heady smell of blossoming fear
filled the air between them. Her blossoming fear. Ely stopped moving his
way and gave him her most vulnerable, horrible expression. The idea of
taking her here and now, sweat, dirt, and grime included made him even
harder. His cockhead rubbed at his pants, fighting for release.
“Come closer,” he lured.
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. Talking to you was a mistake.” She shifted to turn away
and he moved to break whatever he needed too to stop her, but the zipping
whoosh of the brig door opening stopped both of them.
Two men entered: the new head guard from yesterday morning and
another. His attention landed on the new man. He had hawkish features, a
hooked nose, a pallor worse than a corpse, but had intelligent eyes—eyes
that were downcast and looking at a hologram held in his hand. A hush fell
over the brig.
Gunner stood, erection jutting out, and faced the fuckers that constantly
interrupted his privacy with Ely.
The guard’s nose twitched but unlike previous days, neither of them
backed down from the smell; the androids had done their job well.
They approached Royce’s cell and the man with the hologram raised his
eyes to the door panel.
“This is where he died. Never seen such a messed-up suicide, clawed
his wrist and bled out all over the locking mechanism,” the guard told the
new man.
“Hmm...” The hologram was lifted until it expanded to encapsulate the
lock.
Gunner leaned his back against the wall. He heard more than saw Ely
move back to his side and he reached down to curl his finger around the bar
next to her head.
The airy blue holosphere vibrated and billowed, and he could taste the
energy it put in the air. Gunner seeped out of his body and poked the
connection, testing it, and capturing what information he could. It zapped
him and he was thrust back out.
The hologram flashed red.
What the hell?
“What was that?” the guard asked for him.
“Interesting...” his techie friend mumbled but didn’t answer.
 A different type of sparking flooded his mainframe, one that felt like
thorns piercing his skin from the inside-out.
It fought me. It fucking fought back. Gunner, reconfiguring, approached
the tech with more caution. He scoped it from a different wavelength,
stalking around it like he would prey, and moved in slowly. The closer he
got, the more the thorns embedded themselves, and the more his own
systems went on the defense.
The hologram went red again and stayed that way while he fought
through the growing pain. The battle was internal, invisible to any
onlookers.
The tech eluded him, a barbed-wire of a firewall protecting its secrets.
The more it fought, the more he wanted to know what it was hiding.
Passwords. Intel. Where my goddamned ship was taken. He jaw locked.
A network virus danced around like will-o’-wisps in his mind.
A soft caress and a sudden shock of warmth hit the back of his finger,
drawing him away. Suddenly Ballsy wasn’t in his head but Ely. The heat
spread. He looked at her. Where her temple was resting on his own skin.
She filled his thoughts and drowned out everything else. That touch, her
touch. The sensation mesmerizing and giving, and so out of place with what
was happening it took him aback. It was a small connection—that of her
brow against the back of his finger—but it shifted something inside him he
wasn’t prepared for.
He didn’t have the chance to take it in, being touched, willingly, by a
woman, by Ely, before he was interrupted... AGAIN.
“Who’s he?”
Gunner’s eyes shot back to guard and his companion, now both looking
his way. He wanted them gone.
“He’s the dumbass that owned the battlecruiser we picked up. The one
that’s got us locked out.”
“How’d a man with a ship like that even get caught in the first place?
You saw the cannons on that rig. Dumbass must have been taking the
biggest shit of his life.” The hologram vanished in the man’s hand as he
moved away from the panel to stand in front of Gunner’s cell.
There wasn’t outward strength reeking from him, but calculating,
shrewd intelligence. The man smelled clean, except for the artificial fruit
released into the air every time he breathed. Vitamins? No, Gunner sifted it
out. Energy supplements. This guy’s chosen drug was caffeine, and a lot of
it.
Gunner could also sense the second-hand cybernetic tech inside this
new man and he wondered if the hologram he tried to penetrate was
actually part of a larger, hidden piece, the source beneath layers of blood
and meat.
If he so much as looks at Ely...
His shields were already up but he double checked them to be sure.
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
“Gunner. Yours?”
The man squinted and sniffled. “Ballsy. Yours rings a bell.”
“Does it now?” Gunner smirked.
“A mystery to be solved another time, but I’ve seen your ship. Walked
through it, got comfortable, spent some time there. I’m curious.” The man
lifted his gaze to look at the wall, his eyes glazing over. “Very curious.”
Gunner slowly dropped his finger from the bar and pushed off the wall
to stand in front of Ballsy. The man didn’t move at his approach. “It is very
curious. Have you broken in?”
Ballsy smiled faintly, his gaze still averted. “Yes and no. Are you
worried?” His eyes moved back to his. “Hiding something good? Besides
the sexdolls, that is.”
“You wouldn’t be asking me that if you knew. You wouldn’t be standing
here if you got in.”
Ballsy’s smile faltered before returning. “We all have our secrets.” He
quirked his head. “Did you get a new set of eyes installed? Or are you blind,
Gunner?”
“I see you clearly,” he said menacingly, his voice lower now. He didn’t
like the idea of any of these lowlife fuckers touching his things. “Clear as
day.”
“I’m sure you do see me. You won’t be the first to threaten though, and
you won’t be the last. But tell me, from one man with an implant to another,
was it worth it?”
Ballsy’s question threw him and Gunner could feel the eyes of everyone
watching their exchange in the brig. He felt her eyes on his back. The raw,
slow boil of his restraint was beginning to crack.
“No,” he lied.
 “Interesting... I don’t expect you to give me the passcodes to your ship
but I have to ask... is it worth your life?”
“Is it worth yours?”
Ballsy’s laugh was soft and wispy and as deranged as a butterfly with its
wings pulled off. “No. No, it’s not.” He turned toward the guard. “The lock
was tampered with. Not sure how but I’ll find out. Always do.”
The guard grunted acknowledgment, looking back at Royce’s cell.
Gunner cracked his neck as Ballsy readdressed him. “We’ll talk again
soon... I hope.”
Hope is a bad choice of word. Gunner watched him move away, out of
range for a direct attack, and leave the brig with his head bowed and his
hologram holding his attention.
He listened to Ballsy’s steps recede down the long grated passageways,
and he followed the trail of the man’s tech until it faded into the distance. It
was enough for Gunner to track him when he was ready.
“Listen up!” the remaining guard yelled, palming his cattle prod. “We
all know what this is so don’t give me any fucking trouble. Do that and I
won’t beat the shit out of you!”
Gunner retreated back to his spot next to Ely and wrapped his fingers
around the bar again. A momentary surge of disappointment hit him when
she didn’t touch him back.
“What’s happening?” he asked her, whispering.
“Recruitment.”
Gunner could hear the tremor in her voice. He watched the guard pacing
the pathway. He wanted to stalk after him, creep on him until he went in for
the kill.
“Don’t say anything,” Ely whispered beside him again.
He nodded and settled down his beast. “Why?”
“It’s a game. It’s always a game...”

ELODIE GROUND HER PALM against the cold floor, poised halfway into
kneeling and ready to shoot to her feet in a moment’s notice. It didn’t feel
good. Nothing had been the same since her dad left and Gunner took his
place.
And she had touched him. She had broken her own terms. Did it count?
Would Gunner touch her now and use that small amount of contact against
her? Why wasn’t she afraid?
She shook her head slightly, still feeling his skin on her temple, his
finger, and how she’d rested her head lightly on it. For a blistering moment
she wanted to feel his breath on her forehead again and the comfort she
remembered them bringing. And now she noticed his hand was there again,
beckoning her to come to it, to him, and be sated.
Human contact.
The guard walked down the row and briefly out of sight and she slowly
slinked Gunner’s jacket off her shoulders and pushed it behind her. She
didn’t want the guard to see her in it. She didn’t want to be noticed at all.
Unlike the previous times, her heart wasn’t racing. She knew she was
safer with Gunner by her side. Despite not having real proof that he killed
Royce, Gunner had somehow left his cell. A fleeting sense of safety took
over. The extra rations he’d given her remained hidden in the inner pockets
of his jacket.
Elodie’s eyes drifted over the other prisoners. I’m safe, feeling safe, with
him, for now. But for how much longer? Each day could be that fateful day
that they’d end up at their destination.
When she thought about it, Gunner was never chained up at her side.
Whether that was an omen, she wasn’t sure. But it did give her a strand of
hope that maybe the connection she made with him now could save her and
her dad later.
“Twenty-fucking-five of you left,” the guard harrumphed. “How many
were here when we brought you in?” he asked a prisoner far down the row.
Elodie couldn’t hear the poor man’s answer but knew it herself. Forty-
two. Forty-two plus Kallan. Since then the others joined the crew, were
killed, or had dropped dead. Add possible suicide to the list.
“Do you guys want to know how much longer you’ll be in here for?” he
yelled again.
No one spoke.
“That’s too bad. I guess the answer wouldn’t be comforting anyway. We
have four spots that need to be filled. Four damn spots. Our bad-fucking
luck is your bad-fucking luck.”
Recruitment had happened only twice before her dad had left. And both
those previous times they had only sought one or two spots to fill after their
initial capture.
 She glanced at the guard, bellowing cells away, obscured through the
bars. Four was a leap. It would significantly lessen the number of men
around her, making the brig that much quieter, and yet she didn’t feel
assured. Elodie would rather have those around her walled off than for them
to be set free on the floors and hallways throughout. The cell wasn’t so
much as a cage to her, but an added source of protection.
It also increased the odds of her getting volunteered.
Two men on the other end stood up together.
“I’ll take a spot,” one of them said.
The guard turned on his heel.
“I’ll take one too,” said the other.
She strained to hear the exchange.
“You two buddies? Friends? Lovers? Hell if I care.” He lifted his prod
out of its clasp. “What’s your vocations?”
“I’m a mechanical engineer.”
“Same,” the other grunted. Elodie recognized them only in that she’d
seen their faces before her capture, but knew nothing else.
“We work well together...” one of them said.
“Is that so?”
Neither of them answered.
Gunner lowered himself to the floor next to her, partially pulling her
attention away from the exchange. “Know them?” he breathed.
She shook her head. The clang of one of the cell doors being opened
rang through the space.
“What are you thinking?”
She shook her head again, briefly looking his way.
“They can’t hear us.” Gunner tapped the bar between them. “Come
closer.”
Elodie licked her lips and slowly, painstakingly, shuffled a half foot his
way. “How do you know?” she whispered back.
“Know what?”
“That they can’t hear us?”
He grunted and her spine stiffened. She kept her eyes trained on the men
down the row. “Audio sensory systems, sonar tech, and precisely calculated
voice projection software. The codes never stop moving, the numbers are
always updating. It’s fucking annoying as shit.”
 What? Elodie frowned. She didn’t put much effort in trying to
understand.
“Have you seen a man killed, Ely?”
The question threw her off guard and she looked fully his way, meeting
his ghoulish grey eyes. “Yes.”
His finger continued to tap the bar. “I mean, really killed, up close and
personal, whites of their sclera exposed and black pupils staring straight at
you as the life slips out of them. Have you ever killed a man?”
Had she? No. She thought back. No. There had been times where self-
defense had been needed, tasers used, pipes cracking men’s heads but no,
she had never directly killed someone, but then she never stuck around to
make sure. I never struck for a killing blow. I don’t feel guilt.
“No. Have you?” she knew the answer but asked anyway.
“I’m the reason this is happening right now...” Gunner nodded in the
direction of the guard.
The guard held the prod behind his neck with both arms as he taunted
the men. She’d missed some of the conversation and leaned forward
slightly to hear better.
“All you damned engineers. Everyone is an engineer out in abyss space.
Your skill set brings little to the table. Can you fight?” the guard asked.
“As well as any man in my field.” One of them moved inside his open
cell and even from where she sat, Elodie could cut the tension with a knife.
“I can fight,” he said.
“You?” the guard looked at the other.
“Yes...”
“Well,” the guard took a step back to allow the prisoner to walk out.
“Show me.” When the prisoner didn’t move, he laughed. “Oh come on, you
two must’ve expected this!”
The men looked at each other and for the first time, her chest squeezed.
They’re friends. They’re haunted. And so, so tired. They had to have known.
“Gunner...” Elodie whispered, worried. He shifted closer to her.
Minutes slipped by and nothing happened. The guard waited like the
rest of them. Eventually, the shoulders of the freed prisoner sagged, and the
pointed, hungry features of his face hardened. He stepped out slowly and
moved toward his friend’s cell. The guard poised his weapon at him as he
waved a key over the panel and the door clicked open.
He shoved the man in and locked the door.
 It hurt her heart to see them embrace.
“Fucking fags,” the guard sneered and tossed his prod through the bars.
“You really think I’m going to let you both out to try and jump me?” The
weapon clanged against the floor. “The last one standing leaves. There’s no
loyalty but to the captain. Don’t keep me waiting, it’ll only be worse if you
do.” The guard didn’t stay to watch, seemingly bored and looked back at
the rest of the prisoners. Elodie dropped her eyes until his gaze passed.
“Who else wants a spot? No one eats until I’ve got meat in the bunks.” he
yelled.
“I’ll...take one,” another person spoke up, pulling the guard in a new
direction.
“Watch them,” Gunner murmured. “The two in the cell.”
The men spoke to each but it was too low for her to hear. Neither of
them made a move toward the weapon.
“What are they saying?” she asked.
“They knew it might come to this, but chose the odds that favored them.
The guy with his back to the wall needs medical attention.” He paused. “For
what, I don’t know. They’re deciding who is going to take the beating.”
“They care for each other?”
“Seems so.”
It surprised her.
“They could’ve waited, could’ve hoped to make it through to the end.
Whatever that may be.”
Elodie saw Gunner shrug out the corner of her eye. “The evil you know
—”
“—over the evil you don’t,” she finished.
“Ever seen a flesh ring? Slave market? Body trials?”
“No.” And she didn’t want too. She thought about it a lot at the
beginning, thinking her time imprisoned wouldn’t be long, but when it
proved so, she forced her thoughts away. It was inevitable, whatever came
at the end, and she was determined to survive as long as possible.
“They’re not pretty. At least the ones that don’t sell women. Those that
go on the market are thrust naked in front of a crowd, muzzled if their
tongues aren’t cut out prior. If you think a live crowd is bad, think of the
thousands of eyes watching from encrypted feeds. Slavers shoot you up
with stimulants, overcharging your systems, a cocktail of drugs that’ll give
you an erection to last a day or more, and enough energy to flush your skin,
make you sweat, and drive you stir-crazy.
“Some markets are designed for specific things: sex, labor, meat. But
most are a free-for-all. You don’t know what the buyer has in store for you.
Sex and labor at least means life, albeit an unpleasant and painful one, but
it’s better than the third option. If you have a medical condition, you’re
already as good as dead. If you even make it that far.”
Gunner stopped speaking as the newest volunteer was escorted to the
exit toward a waiting android that took his arm. This one made it through
without pain, one of the lucky ones. She hated him and his luck. Hated the
thought of a slave market ringing through her head. Hated that she didn’t
know if her dad was safe.
She wondered how Gunner knew so much.
“Men have it just as bad as women in those places,” he said. “The
outcomes are never pretty. The lucky ones get bought to run ships like this,
and the choice is easy if you think about it. At least for some.”
“What happens to the women?”
“Everything.”
She dropped her gaze and stared at the grey floor before her. Her
options were minimal and the time she had been given became that much
more precious to her. Suddenly, the idea of taking a spot on the crew didn’t
seem so bad. Dad warned me. He just didn’t know as much.
“Don’t,” Gunner hissed, dragging her back from the grey. “Don’t think
about it.”
She didn’t respond, couldn’t because now she was weighing all her
options again.
The guard yelled, making her flinch. “One more spot!”
One more spot. Elodie twitched, her eyes darting over all the players.
“Don’t fucking open your mouth, Ely.” She barely heard him.
Should I go for it? The two men in the cell still hadn’t moved to fight
each other.
I could be with my dad. I could bide my time and hope. Her secret was
already on the fast track of being exposed and would be once they reached
the slave market. Here, she at least had the chance to continue hiding.
She parted her lips.
“I’ll take it!”
But it wasn’t her voice that said it.
 Kallan stumbled to his feet and the guard approached. The questions
were asked. She watched it all play out mutely, and not without a little fear.
Kallan already suspects that I’m a woman.
She caught Kallan’s pervy gaze looking her way, glancing at both her
and Gunner huddled a little too close together as he was given over to the
android. The twisted smile on his wrinkled, dry lips was the final nail in her
coffin. Gunner was silent but she could feel his overwhelming pressure
trying to suffocate whatever options she had into dust.
The guard grunted and walked back to the two men still at a hushed
standoff and silently watched them, as did everyone else. The guard, still
silent, turned away and left the brig with Kallan and the man. The cattle
prod remained.
Elodie closed her eyes. “Gunner...” she breathed, hopeless.
“What?”
“You won’t tell anyone about me will you?”
“I’ll take it to my grave.”
Something warm and strong squeezed her finger, comforting human
contact, and she looked down to see it entwined with Gunner’s. She stared
at it, perplexed, but didn’t pull away.

SEVERAL OPPRESSIVE hours dragged by and her finger remained

hooked with his. Neither of them spoke and she was okay with that, glad for
the time she needed to come to terms with her temporary alliance with him.
His finger was warm, searing, the connection fragile. It wasn’t real, she
kept telling herself. Their connection was borne of the events around them.
If she had encountered Gunner in any other circumstance, it would never
have progressed more than an encounter, one she would be lucky enough to
live through. He was that frightening, that intimidating, and in the back of
her mind, a man who, even now, she should be staying clear of.
But he held her finger and she held his. The contact grounded her and
she wanted more. Elodie twitched her other fingers, searching, but didn’t
make a further move in interlocking them. When she glanced his way, his
head was resting back on the wall, his eyes shut, his body loose and
unmoving, giving off the appearance of sleep.
The brig had grown quieter since Kallan left, and it was almost to the
point of relaxing, if it weren’t for the two men down the row still
conversing under their breath.
She saw them as herself and her dad, fighting, in a stalemate, neither
one knowing how to proceed. I could never beat my dad. Never. He would
never have beaten her either. It wasn’t his way. Elodie would swear on both
their lives that he would never lift a hand to hurt her.
She sighed, praying that he was okay. That he was alive, and
somewhere safe in his element elsewhere on this ship.
One of the two men stood abruptly and grunted. He began to pace
angrily across the space.
“Gunner?” she whispered.
“Hmm...”
“Could they use the electric prod to their advantage?”
They had a weapon between them after all.
“They could try.”
“Do you think they might?”
He lifted his head off the wall and opened his eyes, lasering them
straight at the men. Several minutes went by in silence before he answered.
“It’s a possibility but a stupid one. Those prods only have so much charge
and only work with direct contact. They’d be sitting ducks against gunfire.
Let’s say only the one guard returns and they take him out, take his gun, and
gets his key. Let’s say they figure it out and release everyone in the brig. We
would be two dozen half-starved men against at least triple our number with
weapons. You see that.” He pointed to a pipe that ran down the length of the
brig. “There’s a hole every two yards and a camera that feeds to security—”
“How do you know?”
“I can feed myself into it and see through them. If,” he continued before
she could ask more, “they managed to do all that, whoever is watching and
maintaining security, AI or human, would know immediately and a siren
would go off, locking us in. Now, let’s say we manage to get outside this
hold before that triggers, we now have a large unknown ship to deal with
that not only has armed men but also androids protecting it. There’s no
happy ending to that plan, none whatsoever, and the guard who left his
weapon knew that.”
“What if we do manage to get out of here and into the ship? Some of us
are skilled gunmen and fighters even if we’re weak, the adrenaline would
take over. We could manage to kill a few more guards, get a few more
weapons and work our way through. We could set traps?”
 “Are you thinking about escaping, Ely?” Gunner taunted her with a
smirk.
“I’m thinking about all our options,” she mumbled and brought her
knees to her chest. “It’s better than being miserable.”
He chuckled. “Okay. So, let’s say we make it that far. How will we get
past the security blockades? Because there will be blockades.”
Elodie groaned and ran her fingers through her limp hair. “I don’t
know? How did you do it?” She still believed Gunner knew more about
what happened to Royce then he was letting on.
“I went at night and I was alone. Regardless, I would have to be willing
to help you out first. And, Ely, if all this hypothetical suicidal bullshit went
down, I’d be inclined to hang back and take a power nap in my cell. I’d
have to have a damn good reason to foster a bunch of desperate prisoners
on a last-ditch effort escape attempt. A damn good reason.”
She tore her gaze from the two men and looked at Gunner. His eyes
bore into hers, flickering red and white, making her flush. A damn good
reason. Fuck you. But the guns on his cheek wrinkled with the devilish
twitch of his lips and her gaze was drawn from his eyes to his mouth.
Elodie sucked in her lower lip as her heart thumped under the
insinuation. His finger caught hers more heavily in the hook. The small
amount of flesh to flesh they shared threatened to be so much more.
She knew how to be a man, but to be with a man, her experience was
limited and sporadic. She was no virgin, having educated herself during the
brief stints where she wasn’t on a job, but her knowledge was vastly
lacking. Her eyes trailed from his face to skim over his body. Powerful.
Muscled. Intense. Gunner would chew her up and spit her out. Elodie
wasn’t sure she’d survive the experience.
But the idea had taken root and her belly clenched.
I’m way out of my depth. He’s way out of my depth.
The men she accepted in the past all had one thing in common: they
could all be easily handled. They were either cowed by her insistence that
she would spread terrible rumors if they started crowing about their
conquest or never knew her name in the first place. Gunner couldn’t be
handled, let alone easily.
“I’m dirty,” she argued, unsure why. “Disgusting.”
Gunner tugged on her hand, the heat of his skin burning. “I’m dirtier.
Ely...my skin is stained with so much shit, it’ll never be clean again.”
 She shook her head. “This is all hypothetical.” Please, please still be
hypothetical.
“Is it? Because I’m a hell of a lot more interested now.”
She tore her finger away from his clasp and fisted her hands together,
bringing them to her face. “We’d have to survive first. No, no, you’re right.
The whole idea is suicide.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“You can’t guarantee that!”
“Sure I fucking can.”
The breath wooshed out of her. Possibilities rose like waves in her head.
Hope. Fear. Even damned arousal was playing a terrible dance in her mind.
Hunger. Fear. Hope. Arousal. Gunner. Elodie wanted to trust him but knew
she couldn’t, she would be stupid to try. But here she was, one of the
desperate prisoners playing a part of a conversation that had started with
two men and a weapon at the other end of the brig.
“I can’t trust you,” she squeaked out. “I should’ve never spoken to you.
I don’t even know you.”
He turned to fully face her and she peered at him from behind her hands
and through her hair. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Yes you have!” she hissed, dropping her fists. “Several times. What
really happened with Royce? Everything screams that you killed him but
that doesn’t make sense. The blood on the panel. I remember. It’s
impossible. But I know it’s true. How? I want to know. How do you know
there are security feeds in the pipe above us? How can you see through
them? How is it you’re not afraid, that you never look hungry? I’ve never
seen you eat, and you don’t respond to the cold, to anything. You don’t
react normally, at all!” Her voice rose as she spoke and so did his roiling
intensity.
She’d gained the curious stares of the other prisoners, and it lessened
her rising temper, but she continued anyway in a raging whisper. “Your
eyes, I’ve never seen anything like them, and it’s obvious you’ve had
enhancements done but you don’t seem fully human. Gunner, who the hell
pisses all over the place where they sleep?”
She was cowed and Gunner was laughing—laughing at her.
“I mark my territory otherwise I can’t rest,” he said. “It’s instinctual.”
Elodie narrowed her eyes. “Humans don’t have instincts like that.”
“No, but animals do.”
 “You’re not an animal.”
His eyes flashed. “I’m not? I could prove it but it’s not fucking pretty.”
She shook her head. Stop lying to me. “Did you kill Royce?”
“Yes.”
Her heart dropped into her hungry belly. “Truth?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I already told you,” he answered.
“No. I mean...” She rubbed her hands, curling them against her chest.
“How is that possible?”
Gunner gripped the bars and rested his head on them, closing the
remaining distance between them. His heat seeped into her space to enclose
around her. Every joint in her body went stiff, her body on edge. They
locked eyes and that harrowing connection that had begun to build
strengthened. She could still feel his touch and his breath on her brow from
nights past. And she waited for all the pieces to fall into place.
“Look at me.” His whisper came out hoarse, low, and dark, and only for
her to hear.
“I am,” she breathed.
“No. Really look at me.”
And she did.
Elodie drew back slightly and looked at his eyes, the curvature of his
face, and the lack of facial hair. His ears came to an odd point on the top,
and his mid-length tousled brown hair fell to his neck where his pulse
would be. She wanted to touch it but was too afraid to. Her eyes went to his
hands, tense and straining on the metal bars on either side of his cheeks, and
how they were large enough to round the entire rod of metal.
She had looked at him closely before but not in a way to find out his
secrets. Gunner had never positioned himself in a way for him to be read.
Maybe there’s more to him like there is to me... The idea had never occurred
to her before.
Her eyes trailed over his shoulders and the undershirt that outlined his
biceps and chest, to his bent knees, kneeling behind the barricade between
them, and down to the scuffed boots on his feet.
When she got her fill, she lifted her gaze back to his face, back to
arched brows that framed hard eyes, until his smirk died and his mouth
parted slightly.
 Something fell out from between his lips and dropped to the steel floor
at his knees. She found it immediately, squinting at the small white shape,
confused.
A tooth.
Elodie stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. She slowly raised
her gaze back to his mouth where a single, sharpened canine stuck out.
Gleaming and grey like new steel. Metal.
A shiver wracked her body and she realized what she had been missing.
What she had been looking for. Why she felt differently about him as
opposed to everyone else. Why he was different from everyone else.
Gunner wasn’t just a man with a couple cybernetic enhancements.
He’s a Cyborg.
“No...”
“Yes,” he retorted back, closing his lips. When he opened them again,
the canine was no longer there.
“No. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does.” She heard him but it went through one ear and out the other.
“Now we both know each other’s secrets.”
Elodie shook her head. “No.” She fixed her eyes on the lone tooth.
Gunner’s a Cyborg. He’s a Cyborg. He’s a Cyborg and I’m a woman and
we’re not supposed to be where we are.
“Yes.”
But her mind kept saying no. No. No way. Cyborgs were a creation of
the past, for a war that had ended before she was born. She knew about
them, not as a reality, but as a legend. They went down in history like
gladiators, cowboys, medieval knights. Existed once but no longer.
“Look at me, Ely.”
She couldn’t, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the tooth.
But he continued his harsh whisper, filling her ears. “I’m a Cyborg. Two
nights ago, I turned off the lights and left my cell. I found the warden and
killed him. I also killed the fucker who wouldn’t stop laughing. I killed
another and I killed Royce. And I plan to kill again tonight.”
Elodie licked her chapped lips and reached for his tooth, skidding it
across the ground until she held it between her fingers. It was utterly
normal, even down to the elongated stem that would hold it into his gums.
It was cold to the touch and the more she studied it, the more everything
made sense. There’s no blood.
 She felt his eyes on her, knew he was waiting. “Open your mouth,” she
demanded.
Gunner did and there, where the tooth would have been, where a canine
had been a minute before, was now a brand new pearly white piece. The
one she held was heavy and real and not imagined.
“No one knows?” she asked.
He dropped his hands and settled his back against the wall. The tension
from before dissipating. “No. Not yet at least, and I would like it to stay that
way.”
“Then why reveal yourself to me?” She still couldn’t believe it.
He shrugged. “Hypotheticals.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the men in turmoil. “Hypotheticals,”
she repeated and as she said it, one of them, the one thrust into the cell,
picked up the rod and brought it down on the other’s head.
Elodie startled and yelped, sitting up, wide-eyed as the brig filled with
strangled groans and grunts. She heard Gunner move at her back as the men
fought, although clearly one-sided. The injured man without the rod curled
up on the ground and cried out like a wounded animal.
The thumps from beating—the electrical pulses—went on until the
noises died, until there was a clear winner. Her hands came up to cover her
mouth, suddenly happy there had been no rations given to them that
morning.
Nausea kicked her in the gut and the wet dew of her own tears slid
down her cheeks. They caught on her knuckles and tickled down the backs
of her hands.
When it was over, the man dropped the rod at his feet and sank to his
knees, crumpling up and crying next to his friend. No one in the brig spoke,
no one dared, and she knew it was just another horror to catalog in a file
already filled with nightmares.
Elodie grieved for the strangers, heartbroken for the two men and the
choices they made, for the outcome that could’ve been so vastly different if
no less brutal.
Her body shook, and she was immensely tired. Instantly hateful.
With the man’s cries in her ears, she turned back around to face Gunner,
her own eyes wet.
“Prove it to me,” she said. “Kill that guard tonight.”
 Chapter Ten

THE REST OF THE CYCLE went by in silence.

Gunner waited and prepared, knowing he needed to be extra careful this
time. He no longer had the element of surprise on his hands—the crew was
watching for a killer—and what had been a simple mission of finding out
where his ship had been taken had turned into something more.
He seeded into the ship’s systems and clocked the remaining men on
board, testing and jackknifing his way through the new stopgaps and fail-
safes that Ballsy had implemented. They were stronger, harder to break
down than the ones he penetrated before and they all came from a new
source.
The handheld hologram Ballsy used on the cell door’s panel.
Gunner skirted around it like he did before, acknowledging the pricking
sensation it gave off whenever he came too close.
He slipped through the currents, weightless and observant, checking
each feed that gave him an extra pair of eyes into the world, keeping half
his consciousness grounded in his body and in reality while the other
half...creeped. Lurked. Stalked. It was an unsettling experience, splitting his
consciousness to roam the digital realm, the electric currents and waves
connected like a finely thinned, interlocking web all around him. It was at
once chaotic and intuitive. It took a hell of a lot of time to get used to, and
he was more comfortable than most.
Gunner prowled the edges of Ballsy’s cybernetics, itching to blast
through them and break down the man’s digital walls. He barely restrained
himself from doing so because if he did, he’d leave a direct trail right back.
He wasn’t ready to give himself away yet. Not quite yet. He still had no
idea where the pirates had taken his ship and he still didn’t have override
access to the bridge.
Or captain Juke’s correspondence to those outside the metal walls of
this mobile prison.
His feelers chipped away at a rate that wouldn’t give him or them away
until it was too late.
He was a corruptor, albeit a slow one, but a corruptor nonetheless.
 Gunner stretched out his fingers before clenching them, doing so again
in an effort to find patience. He yearned to bare his teeth and sink them into
flesh—meat. He wanted this whole ordeal to be behind him and his enemies
dead.
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.
Gunner was on his feet with his hand on the cell panel before the pirate
made it to his destination. Ely’s voice rang softly in his ears.
His target had come back too soon and had woken what he wanted to
remain asleep. An ugly laugh bubbled up in the back of his throat. It was
time to sow chaos.
The door to the brig shut, willed closed, over-ridden. The guard glanced
back but it was too late.
Gunner felt the metal under his fingers heat up the instant his restraint
snapped. The panel of his cell unlocked just as he thrust it open, stepping
out and into the passageway.
“What the hell!?” The guard jerked back in surprise, a fleeting emotion
quickly replaced by disbelief.
He heard Ely scramble and rise, heard the mutters of the other prisoners
as he stormed toward his target, closing the distance in seconds.
Gunner reached the guard long before he even had a chance to draw his
weapon.
“What the—”
Gunner fisted the thick cloth of his vest in his hand and lifted him off
the ground, feeling his eyes burst red. The color reflected back at him in the
man’s final moments.
“Don’t! Please,” the guard strangled out.
The guard’s words went unregistered as Gunner held him, his kill
command overriding his rationality.
The lights went out, covering him and everybody else in impenetrable
darkness. The blanching noises of the other prisoners filled his ears, only to
be tuned out a moment later.
Gunner slammed his target straight into the metal floor, bearing all his
weight in one swift move.
He didn’t want her to see this. Didn’t want her to feel any guilt or
remorse for the life she requested. The lights weren’t to protect him or
anyone else from discovery, but to protect Ely from his savagery.
 The man’s spine snapped, back shattered from the weight, his skull
knocking and cracking, breaking open like an egg, the contents of it
remaining within and under a thin layer of skin that hadn’t torn open. The
force of the impact echoed off the metal walls.
Gunner leaned over him, his hold on the guard’s form stiff as the body
caught up with its inevitable death. In a matter of seconds, it was over, but
the body continued to shudder and jerk. The final death gasp, filling the
pitch black for everyone to remember for the rest of their lives.
When the body stopped moving, Gunner lifted up and dragged it behind
him and toward the exit, refusing to switch on his night vision so he
wouldn’t have to see Ely’s face.
There was nothing like the sound and feel of dragging a dead body,
even if it was muffled under the cacophony of distress from the prisoners.
He willed the brig door open and thrust the corpse outside of the hold.
And before it hit the ground, sirens blared overhead.
The footage was there, he erased it in a moment, but it was there, and he
only hoped that no one had been watching. Only time would tell.
He gritted his teeth, his anger still burning in his veins. The jackal
within him was not satisfied. Gunner placed his palm against the wall and
willed his control to return. His consciousness delved into the ship,
stripping away the entire security system, blasting it without caution.
Because he needed more. His beast needed more. And he was going to
take it. He had given the guard a quick death and it hadn’t been enough.
Gunner sensed the ship descend into chaos, and as he turned around to face
the dark, the screeching alarms covered the growls that rose from the pit of
his throat. His cock hardened in his jeans.
He wanted more, needed more, and in the next moment, he was
standing before Ely’s cell, his hand on the panel, opening it and entering her
space. Her smell was everywhere here, he was everywhere here with her,
and he sucked in a deep, delicious breath, letting their mixed scents fuel his
jackal.
It wanted to fight or it wanted to fuck, and he suppressed the metal
panels of his body from vibrating into a full shift. He swallowed another
breath, clenching his fists as he stared in her direction. His nose twitched,
feasting on the fresh beads of sweat that dampened her skin.
Gunner knew he could take her, catch her up in his arms and overpower
her, and in the dark, he could strip her naked and reveal her secret and graze
his teeth along her flesh.
His claws extended from his fingertips, pushing out his nails. He
pressed them into his palms. The searing heat of his blood caught
underneath them to pool outward. The iron smell hit his nose and his beast
howled in delight.
But Gunner didn’t close the gap, keeping his distance with mere feet
between them.
He switched his vision then, finally looking at her, preparing for the
worst. Why? It made no sense. None of this made sense. He’d just killed for
her.
As his visual shifted and the darkness receded from his eyes, her
features filled his view. It reminded him why he was an outcast. A
miscreation banned to the farthest edges of the galaxy.
That he was, at this moment, more animal than man, more animal than
Cyborg, and when his monster took over, it wanted to stay.
Gunner pulled the claws out of his skin, letting them recede, and feeling
his flesh weave itself back together. The panels that vibrated and poised to
shift settled back into his humanoid frame. He took a step toward Ely where
she was pressed up against the cold brig wall, lured by her despite how hard
he held back.
Her eyes were wide and her face was turned in his direction. He
watched as her arms came forward to clasp over her mouth. It was too dark
for her to see him, but she knew he was there.
“Gunner?” she breathed, hearing her perfectly through all the noise.
What do I want more? My ship?
He pressed his palms on the wall to either side of her head.
Or her?
He leaned in until his nose hovered over her nape, straining as her smell
crashed over him. Her body stiffened, aware of his nearness. Gunner’s eyes
squeezed shut as he claimed the air that had touched her.
“What’re you doing?” she stammered, and the warm breeze of her
words caressed his cheek. Real. It was real. His body shook with need.
“Everything,” he groaned directly in her ear, “This is my territory. This
right here. I’ll touch you, will reach through your bars, but will never hurt
you. If you want to try and claim your space back then say so right now
because I’m going to claim mine. And this spot, right here,” he kissed the
air right over her lobe, “is my safe spot.”
 Ely trembled beneath him as his words sank in. They’d been loud
enough for only her to hear. Gunner waited, on edge, and when her hands
dropped from her lips to softly fall on his chest, he became her safe place.
He caught her wrists and pressed them against the wall.
She startled and their bodies briefly came together before she jerked
back against the paneling. Gunner closed the distance, hungry, and captured
her mouth, consuming words she never had a chance to say.
“Everything,” he said again between his teeth, skating them over her
worried lips, trapping her against the wall. There was nothing to stop him
this time. Nothing but the quickly diminishing time.
The screeches of the sirens pounded through his ears, he half-sensed the
running of several dozen men searching the ship outside the walls he shared
with her.
My fucking god, I’m going to get myself killed because of her.
Adrenaline pumped through his body, his muscles tensed and bulged, and
he covered her from all possibility of danger with his body. A consuming
need to protect her, from everything, including himself, filled him.
But her mouth tasted so damned sweet, drowning out the chaos around
him. Gunner crushed his lips to hers with the need to be inside her any way
that he could. A hundred bullets in the back be damned.
Then, Ely responded to him; she responded to the pressure he released
onto her with a crazed need he fed on. Her supplication punched him in the
gut because despite the shallow innocence that clung to her, in the back of
his head he knew what he was doing was wrong.
He pushed her up the wall, telling himself it was right. He released her
locked hands and hauled her ass up to cup the backs of her thighs; he knew
it was dirty. When he ground his swollen cock into her pelvis, he knew he
was going to take everything from her.
She moaned.
He devoured it.
She dug her nails in.
He thrust.
Ely’s lips moved under his and he was fucking lost, her body opening
up for him to fill it.
Gunner slammed his tongue into her mouth and licked everything he
could reach, consuming and swallowing her taste, starved for it. He felt
Ely’s hands run up his arms, scraping the entire way, to clutch his shoulders
and hold onto him.
He pushed her farther up the wall until she was forced to lock her legs
around his hips and he had to tilt his head to keep their mouths locked.
She gasped.
He cupped her head.
Their teeth clashed.
He opened his eyes. He was the only one who could see.
They were surrounded by darkness and chaos, hidden from the eyes and
ears of everyone else in the brig.
Ely had hers clenched shut and it was an erotic sight to behold, seeing
her in the dark. Gunner pressed his chest into hers, ready to christen the
wall at her back when she opened her eyes and tried to peer down at him.
His fingers tugged at the edges of her pants.
She sees me. Even in the dark, she knows where I am.
I’m going to eat her alive.
He pulled back, unsettled. Her arms quickly came around his neck to
hold onto him. He lifted her away from the wall, not wanting to let her go.
“Gunner,” she gasped, tightening her body around his, and burrowing
her face against his throat. He didn’t want to let her go either but the
pounding echo of approaching boots was right beyond the closed door of
the brig. His eyes flashed in the dark as he tore his gaze from hers to look at
it, a low growl rumbling in his throat.
He could practically see the pirates coming upon the broken body of the
guard he had just killed. Killed and left out in the open for anyone to find.
Releasing Ely was the hardest fucking thing he had done in his life.
Feeling her legs and arms unwind from his body transformed his lust back
into fury—impatience.
The ringing in his ears was a backdrop to the screams he wanted to fill
the space. Fuck. He combed his fingers through his hair and turned back
toward his girl. She stood trembling before him in the inky blackness.
Gunner scooped her up and sat her in her safe place, leaning in to crowd
her ear, “We’re not finished.”
He knew it sounded more like a threat than a promise, but he didn’t
care. Quickly, he tightened his jacket back over her shoulders and zipped up
the threads. It didn’t matter how she appeared to anyone anymore; he just
didn’t want anyone to see her more than they had to.
 Gunner was back in his cell within seconds, loosening and cracking his
fury-fueled joints right as the brig door careened open.
 Chapter Eleven

A SHIP CYCLE WENT BY and she still couldn’t wrap her head around
what happened with Gunner. Her lips were raw and although he hadn’t
stripped her bare and taken her, she felt claimed.
After he left her cell—left her cell—the guards came in and flashed
their brights over all the prisoners, spotlighting them one by one in the dark.
It hadn’t frightened her like the previous times, because somewhere deep in
the darkest pits of her soul, she knew she was safe.
Not one of the prisoners outed Gunner. Not one. They looked at him
like how she knew she was looking at him—as a personified ember of hope.
His secret was safe. He could leave his cell at will, and now that that
knowledge was known, no one was willing to risk the consequences of
talking about it.
Then the overhead lights came on, blinding everyone anew.
The men from down the row were taken away, and even seeing the
beaten, sickly one still alive hadn’t diminished her mood.
Elodie knew Gunner was after his ship but it didn’t make sense to her
why he remained, now knowing the power he had, the absolute power that
could save them all.
Her body had never felt so alive.
He remained at her side through the daunting hours that followed,
standing up, and taunting, taking the questions the guards roared throughout
the entire process. Taking all the attention from the other prisoners as best
he could, she knew it wasn’t for them. He was doing it for her.
She cried out when they beat him. Couldn’t breathe when they shocked
him with their electrical prods. And he took it all with a pained smirk,
sneaking glances in her direction, with dark eyes demanding her to stop
reacting.
Elodie couldn’t help it. The sight tore her heart out, and it only got
worse as his shirt was torn, seared, and burned off his body. As his skin
welted over and bruised. As his face swelled up and his skin trickled
rivulets of bright blood. But he egged them on until the pirates were called
elsewhere, and his body was slumped in an unmoving pile.
 A half-dozen armed androids filtered into the space after that and took
up shop, standing sentinel and watching them through their metal and
plastic eyes. They were given food, but she couldn’t eat.
She glared at them but they didn’t glare back.
“Ely...” Gunner’s voice rasped out.
“Shhh,” she said, moving up against the bars they shared. “Don’t
speak.”
“They can’t hear us, not now, at least.” He shifted into a sitting position
and slumped over into her bubble.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re hurt.”
“I’m pretending. You know I am.” His eyes glinted for the first time in a
cycle.
Elodie frowned and caressed his cheek. His lips twitched and she pulled
her hand back.
“Your touch feels real...”
Real? She looked at him hard, confused, her finger twitching to touch
him again. After an internal battle, she did, sliding her hand through to
comb his tousled locks. “Because it is,” she whispered.
Time seemed to slow to a pause as she brushed his hair with her fingers,
pulling it softly away from his face. His ghoulishly dead-looking eyes
watched her, but she couldn’t read them. Neither one of them wanted the
moment to end.
Strangely, as she continued to pet him, comfort him, needing the contact
just as much if not more than he did, Gunner began to heal before her eyes.
It started with the bruises clearing his face and chest. The swelling went
next, until all that was left was the deep welts of his electrical burns until
they were gone altogether too.
When it was all over he caught her hand and brought it to his mouth.
The whole universe could be looking at them at that moment and she
wouldn’t care.
His lips touched her palm, kissing it, sucking on it, his hold tightening
as he moved her hand up to bury his nose at its center as his tongue licked
her wrist.
An electrifying jolt shot straight from her red-hot cheeks and down
between her legs. Her insides knotted and her core clenched as she stared at
him sucking on her wrist. His eyes never left hers. The ache grew with each
passing second, making her feel emptier and emptier. The only thing that
could fill her back up was him, his power, and the steady unrelenting
assurance he exuded. Whether it was with words or with his body, she
didn’t care.
Her fingers twitched as she pressed her legs together, his gaze holding
hers captive. It would be a lie if she didn’t imagine him staring at her as he
spread her legs, as she imagined his rippled arms caging her in. Despite
everything, the fantasy was something she no longer wanted to fight. The
flat of his tongue settled hotly over her wrist.
Slowly, Gunner sat up, pulled his mouth from her skin, released her, and
leaned his back on the wall. Elodie hugged her hand to her chest, her heart
strumming beneath it.
They continued to watch each other in measure. The rest came and
went.
Elodie could feel his power break open and crumble her many shells,
laying her out naked and vulnerable and there was nothing she could do to
stop it, because in turn, she was doing the same to him. He offered all his
secrets willing while hers had to be pried out.
It wasn’t until one of the androids flitted by, dropping a new set of
rations in their cells, that their enchantment broke.
She and Gunner shared their food in silence and as the light water gel
was rushing down her throat, she decided to make the first move.
“Will you...” she started. His eyes hardened and she swallowed,
beginning again. “Will you save us?”
Gunner turned his face from hers and looked slowly around the brig.
More time went by and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, waiting for
him to answer.
“My price is high,” he said at last.
Elodie nodded, knowing it would be. “I’ll pay it.”
He returned his attention to her, his entire body strained with tension.
Her pulse jumped.
“I don’t think you understand the price.” Gunner’s voice darkened her
ear.
“Me?” she whispered.
“And more.”
Her brow furrowed. I don’t have anything else to give... However, she
knew what she was asking for was worth more than just her body.
Elodie shifted under his gaze, uncertain. “More?”
 He moved like a predator stalking inside a cage, waiting to pounce.
Suddenly, Gunner gripped the bar, starling her.
He didn’t speak—didn’t elaborate—and she nodded in agreement. His
hand joined the other and she hugged her arms to her chest tighter. His
intensity was frightening.
She needed to do something before he broke the metal that twisted
under his grip and gave them away.
Elodie placed her hands atop his and squeezed. The touch immediately
eroded the power in his body and he visibly shuddered from the contact.
She pressed her thighs together tight as his abs rippled with the aftershock
and the huge tent over his groin became apparent.
More emptiness and anticipation filled her as she stared at it, imagining
the feel of it pushing against her quim all over again, and his hands feeling
up her body.
“Ely,” he ground out, jerking his hips in her direction, half on his knees
now, fully facing her.
“Elodie.”
“What?”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “My name’s Elodie.”
“Elodie,” he repeated. “I like it. It’s mine now.”
His? Her body convulsed and her core throbbed. Am I his? She’d never
been anybody’s before. Can I even survive belonging to a Cyborg? Survive
him? Her body cried out in a way that wanted to writhe and moan and wail
yes. Her mind and the emotions that went along with it thought differently.
An android moved by them and she dropped her hands, sliding away,
watching it as it continued on down the rows and the remaining prisoners.
“Tonight,” Gunner said when it was gone.
She nodded.
“Remember. You chose this.”
I know.

HE STOOD SLOWLY AND everyone’s eyes locked on him. His body

ached, his cock painfully erect, and with his energy levels half-depleted
from healing, Gunner prowled about his cell leisurely, quietly.
The six androids that hung around the entrance, only moving through
the brig once every hour, no longer belonged to the pirates. He spent the
day lying in his own blood, cuddling up under his swollen human flesh, just
so he had enough power to feed them with looping videos on repeat.
If he were smart, he’d lay low for another day, continue to recharge, but
no amount of pain could erase Elodie’s taste in his mouth. It was embedded
in his systems now. His body craved a return to the contact.
Even when the guards knocked out his teeth, even when his mouth filled
with his own blood, it couldn’t erase her taste.
The anticipation was tangible.
His eyes slid to her as he moved toward the panel. Her face contorted
with worry.
It’s been a lifetime... Gunner deleted the thought before it could finish.
His hand met the cold metal cell door and he seeped into the systems.
The first thing he knew was that there were more androids powered on
than before. The second was that the men were all now in groups of twos
and threes. Most of them were on the move, patrolling. The fire had been lit
under them but they had yet to ignite.
Tonight, though, his target was Ballsy. Not because the man had done
anything to him personally... Besides try and crack the codes on his ship—
Gunner hissed through his teeth—but because of the information he held.
Information that would leave the captain and the bridge crew intact until the
very last moment.
His hand palmed the AutoMag on the inside of his thigh.
He fell back into his body, momentarily weaker than he was before. His
eyes roamed over the prisoners that watched him.
“Gunner.” Elodie’s voice made him turn. “Don’t hurt my dad.”
She tastes so fucking sweet.
I’m going to take everything from her.
He corrupted the security feeds.
She has no idea.
The lock pinged open and he stepped out. No one spoke, the androids
didn’t move, and with only his teeth, his fists, and his gun, he slipped from
the brig in silence.
 Chapter Twelve

ELODIE PUSHED HER HAIR out of her face and looked around at the
other prisoners. There were fewer than ever before and it felt odd to have
the cells on either side of her and Gunner’s empty. His was empty now too.
She caught the eyes of the prisoner across the hallway from her. She
didn’t know him, only knew his face, and that he was a quiet type like
herself. He nodded at her before turning away.
The lights faded out.
Her breath softened. The sounds of the brig all at once quieted and the
hush of uncertainty spread like smoke.
No one knows about Gunner besides me and they place their hope in
him anyway. Elodie knew Gunner didn’t do it out of altruism, and even
knowing that, she had let her barriers down for him.
Her body responded to him. Her skin rose in gooseflesh from his
whispers alone. She dropped her hands to her groin and pressed hard
against it, eliciting a shiver. It wasn’t right. It isn’t right. The creeping want
and lurking lust spread through her nerves.
She pulled her hands off herself and sank against the wall, feeling
helpless, and once again, alone.
The dark pulled out her most wicked desires.
Elodie clenched her muscles.
Closed her eyes.
And wished he was still next to her.
He makes me feel safe. And that safety is lulling me into a dangerous
position. Gunner also made her feel like a woman—made her feel feminine
—and feeling that safety and acceptance was like a drug.
Elodie rubbed her face hard enough until it burned.
The lights flickered on overhead and she stiffened, her eyes lifting,
catching quick glances of the brig. It went dark again shortly after, but not
before the androids stationed throughout began to make their circuits. The
sounds of their clicking metal and forced out air filled her ears that she
didn’t notice when the brig door opened, the sounds muffled.
 Only the shock of a distant scream and three shots going off had her
upright in fear. The door closed. The sounds blocked out.
Gunner...
The lights flickered again and the other prisoners were poised, wide-
eyed, watching, and waiting.
The silhouette of a man made its way toward her.

GUNNER DUCKED THROUGH the hallway and into the first side room
he found, taking off his boots and setting them aside. He was on the move
toward his target a moment later, recalibrating his systems to project
nothing but silence, as though he were nothing but air.
He dashed through the halls like a wraith, one that couldn’t be picked up
by any of the five senses. His body was nothing more than a static blip
throughout the many security feeds he passed under.
There was only one man stationed nearby and Gunner swept past him
without notice. He eyed the man’s back, sensing something about him but
moved on when he realized the empty bottle dangling from his hand had
knocked him out.
The androids that were littered throughout the level, guns cocked, were
distant brethren. A simple connection, a brief code, and they allowed him
passage without objection.
He pressed his back into the wall when the elevators opened and a trio
of pirates came out. Their bodies reeked of stale tobacco and alcohol.
“Fucking waste of time,” one of them slurred. “It’s not like the prisoners
are causing the chaos... Fucking waste of all our time checking on them.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” another responded. “None of this shit
went down until they were brought on board.”
“There’s no fucking way they can get out of their cells, let alone make it
through the ship unseen.”
“That new guy with the tattoos is a twat with murder in his eyes. He
gives me the creeps.”
Gunner smirked. How cute. They’re complimenting me.
“So what? Still can’t get out. If anything it’s one of the new recruits
making his move. And if he creeps you out, I heard he’s pretty friendly with
his cell mate. We can have some fun tonight.”
 Gunner stiffened, his hands dropping from the wall to clench into fists
at his side. Elodie. He was going to make his way to Ballsy sight unseen but
now...his codes scattered. He felt his territory being threatened.
The men drew closer, each heavy booted step snapping a little bit more
of his control. The jackal screeched and howled at the thought of these men
getting any closer to Elodie.
They know we’re close.
He hadn’t hidden it—hadn’t cared enough over the days they huddled
together and talked. Suddenly, the idea of anyone—anything—with eyes on
them, even if it was the ship’s AI made, him furious. Others would’ve
caught on. Kallan came to mind. His moments with Elodie were his and his
alone. He needed to make sure they stayed that way.
Gunner jerked and twitched, his control commands dying in his head,
his mission wavering as the stench of the men thickened.
“Which is why we’re being forced to check on them,” one of the men
said.
“Ballsy’s dead after this shit show is under control. Can’t break the
codes of that twat’s ship, and can’t find the prick who’s painting the floors
with blood.”
“Maybe... But Juke doesn’t have another to take his place.”
“Hah! Any one of us could take his place. How fucking hard is it to
maintain the ship feeds? All you gotta do is watch the fucking holograms
for blips and send the androids to investigate.”
“I heard the ship has a virus.”
“Ships can’t get fucking viruses, Ghet. If anything, Ballsy’s the
murderer and a damn piss poor one at that!”
The men drew nearer and Gunner lowered himself into a crouch, eyes
glazed, his jeans shredding ever-so-slowly as his claws sprang forth.
The jackal panted, excited. Territorial.
“Don’t know. But the systems could corrupt, I’ve heard stories.
Whatever the fuck is happening, if Juke doesn’t gut Ballsy, I will. We were
supposed to be on Elyria but now we’re headed off to fuck-knows where
and I can’t stand the sight of you guys anymore. I need some fucking
women. Damnit, I need some fucking sunlight.”
The men cackled and they came into view. His spine bowed, his canines
pushed out, his long-pointed ears shot out.
His eyes bled neon red.
 The men weren’t getting any closer to what was his.
“The captain’s locked himself in the bridge and hasn’t come out since
the fourth body was found. Makes you wonder,” one of them said.
“Wonder what? He’s losing control. He keeps wanting to replace his
men with prisoner scum.”
“Wonder if he’s afraid.”
A burst of sadistic laughter. “Cunt should be! Any day now, he’s gonna
have a knife in his back.”
Gunner grew and his shape distorted, his fingers stretching apart and
sharpening. His legs and arms broke and straightened, and his malleable
skin pulled into his beast, now hidden behind his metal mainframe. His
nose and jaw lengthened into a snout, and a low, hungry growl brewed deep
in his throat. The pain was delicious, soothing, euphoric.
And then his nanocells made him numb.
At the corner, the men stopped, one of them holding out a hand for him
to see. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That!”
The snarl deepened, lengthened, vibrated and spread out from his vocals
in low, piercing waves. A monster in the dark. Gunner drew his lips back as
his tail dragged out of his spine to thump against the metal, ringing
throughout the passageway.
“What the fuck is that sound?”
Gunner scraped his claws across the floor, slinking out of the darkness
like Anubis from the bowels of the underworld. All three men drew their
guns.
His nostrils flared at the smell of piss and he pounced on the first click
of gunfire.
“Sound the alarms!” one of them screamed. The bullets ricocheted off
his outer metal frame. He dropped the closest man to the floor, tearing out
his throat and cleansing his beast’s mouth with blood.
The next second his teeth were ripping through the cloth, skin, and
tendons of the next guard, slamming him to the ground. The guard
screamed as Gunner tore off his leg. The third man—the smartest of the
group—turned away and ran toward the elevator.
Gunner dropped the half-severed leg with a hiss and crushed the
remaining wails out from the man under his paws, walking over him and
killing him with his weight.
The third died on a lunge, hitting the open shaft just as Gunner brought
him down.
A shudder. Gone. The jackal stretched, grinned, and receded.
He rose up as a man, taking the guns off his kill with him, and kicking
the corpse out of the elevator’s way. If Ballsy was a dead man, then he’s my
dead man.

ELODIE SUCKED IN A breath when the shadow stopped in front of her

cell door, and for a brief moment, as the lights flickered again, she hoped it
was Gunner, that he was already back. That she had lost track of time and
the gunshots she heard were only in her head.
“Boy,” the man grunted and she recognized his voice.
“Da—Chesnik?” She caught herself and scurried forward, clutching the
bars.
“Is that you, Chesnik?” Someone else asked.
Grumbles and questions filtered through the space. She couldn’t believe
it. Couldn’t believe it when the lights went back out and a flashlight
switched on. Her dad’s face came into view.
“We don’t have much time,” he muttered, looking down at the lock.
“Gotta get you out of here.”
Her hands shook as she reached through and tried to touch him. “You
came back,” she whispered.
He grunted, “It wasn’t easy. Isn’t safe still.”
“Look at me, please.”
He lifted his wrinkled, tired eyes, having aged even more since she last
saw him and she couldn’t hold back the tears that sprang forth.
“Don’t go doing something stupid like that, boy, we don’t have time!”
Elodie drew her hands back. “What do you mean?”
“I’m getting you out of here.”
“What? How?”
Her dad produced a keycard, one of the ones she had seen dozens of
times used on the cells, and pressed it into her door. A ping sounded and it
opened. The barrier was gone.
Elodie didn’t care and rushed into his arms.
 “Boy...” He tensed as she buried her head into his chest, wiping her
tears onto his vest, and heaved a sob. She didn’t care who saw or what the
others thought.
She held onto him tight and shivered in distress when his arms banded
around her in an embrace. “Dad,” she choked out and breathed in his smell,
creating more tears in the process. “I never thought I was going to see you
again.”
“There, there, boy. I wouldn’t leave you behind.”
“But you did! You did leave...”
His eyes drooped, sad, and she reached up to smear the dew on her
lashes away. “I didn’t want to give you hope when the odds were bad.”
Elodie sniffled and nodded, understanding, but hurting. Something
inside her splintered as he clutched her hand and turned away, pulling her.
She tugged back, heart pounding.
“We gotta go, boy! What’s the matter?” he asked, pulling her again.
She couldn’t move. Her feet planted on the threshold of her cell. Her
throat was tight and dry as her eyes drifted to the empty cell beside her. The
other prisoners spoke out but she didn’t hear them.
Gunner has a plan. I sent him out there. His empty cell loomed,
harrowing.
“Boy! For fuck’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”
Chesnik grabbed her arm and dragged her out of her cell, her feet
trailing behind him heavily, her pulse racing. She twisted to keep her gaze
on Gunner’s cell as he led her to the door, the flashlight a beacon in the
dark.
Her safe place vanished into the gloom.
The space she shared with him. Her throat constricted.
“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.”
“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 if he was
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.
 Chapter Thirteen

GUNNER KEPT THE SIRENS suppressed as he made his way through the
crew-deck. His control was coming back to him slowly, minute-by-minute.
He wanted to go back to Elodie but couldn’t. The information the
guards had given spurred him on. He didn’t like that the ship had changed
course, even though he had no idea where it had been going to begin with,
and he knew he couldn’t keep hacking the security feed before his prey
realized what he was doing.
They’re already trapped. If the captain had truly locked himself inside
the bridge, he knew he was in trouble. Gunner was surprised the man hadn’t
stationed the whole crew as a human shield outside his door.
He dodged into a side room as a pair of men went past, waiting until
their steps faded far down the hallway before he ducked back out. His
fingers twitched on the dead pirate’s pistol in his hand. It felt right holding a
gun again.
His mag remained untouched in his thigh strap, his one prize and the
single piece of property that had been stolen from him, returned. He wasn’t
going to use its bullets on just anyone. Like a welcome home gift. Karma
gave him a little something for not burning everything to the ground in an
uproar the first day he was brought aboard.
And for not doing so again when it came to Elodie’s safety.
The pull to Ballsy’s technology brought him right outside a closed,
double-barricaded door, with turrets lined a top it, and protruding cameras
following his movements.
Gunner’s lips twitched as he looked down at himself, naked as the day
he was created, and his own mainframe still on the verge of bursting out of
his skin to let his beast back out.
He tempered it and connected with the first door’s systems, forcing
them open and eroding the encryptions. When he was through, it closed
behind him with a thunk.
At the second door, he pulled his hand back and slammed it right
through its locking mechanism. It sparked, short-circuited and thundered,
echoing angrily in the small hold. He sensed his target on the other side.
 It was almost too easy.
He calculated the odds of a trap. But even if the odds were high, he was
entering into it regardless.
The door jerked open in broken spurts, revealing a server nerd’s dream:
giant bright towers littered with blinking lights stood throughout, and Ballsy
slouched over a holographic tablet across the room.
“I was waiting for you,” he said, unafraid.
Gunner approached, equally uncaring. “Miss me?” he asked.
Ballsy shrugged without looking up. “Sure.”
“Your eyes are dead.”
“So are yours.”
“Yes,” Gunner pulled out a stool and sat down. “I suppose they are.”
“Were you created with them like that?” Ballsy looked up and met his
gaze.
“No. War has that effect on people, in my experience.”
“I would’ve liked to have seen that,” he said, looking past him and at
his sparking inner door. “The war, that is.”
Gunner canted his head and took measure of his adversary. The man
was thin, gaunt, but sharp. Something about his features was serpentine but
only in fleeting glimpses. Mainly, Ballsy came across as bored, constantly
so, and always calculating. “No one should have to see what I’ve seen. How
did you end up here?”
“Same way anyone else would. I was a hacker, a good one, growing up.
Born and raised on Elyria to a mother who paid the bills on her back, and a
father who was a booster addict. They were great role models. The best,”
Ballsy said without sarcasm or amusement.
“I fell into computers to drown them out and I fell in deep, got myself
real good in reading and understanding intelligent systems and artificial
intelligence software. I don’t know why, maybe because they think
differently. I’ve always appreciated the efficiency of a machine. I
understood it in ways I didn’t understand people. Sold my services the same
as dear old mom, except I was the one doing the penetrating this time,
stealing data to sell to the highest bidder. Along the way, I was picked up.
Technically kidnapped, I suppose, but it got me off Elyria.”
The flat effect of Ballsy’s voice told him everything he needed to know.
“You’re a sociopath.”
“You’re a Cyborg.”
 “What gave me away?”
Ballsy looked back down at the tablet in his lap. Gunner seeded through
it but found more of the same offensive prickles from before.
“That right there. You’re trying to break into a space that’s protected
against your kind.”
“Nothing is protected against my kind.”
“It is if it’s made by your kind.”
Gunner frowned, eyeing the systems in the room with newfound
curiosity. “Who?”
Ballsy scratched his cheek. “Like I said, I understand intelligent systems
better than people.”
“I’m not people.”
“And you’re never getting your ship back.”
Gunner rolled his gun right as Ballsy slammed his hand down on his
screen.
A shockwave plumed out and struck Gunner before he pressed the
trigger, and his missed shot burned a hole straight through one of the server
towers behind his target.
The surge was hot and strong, knocking him off his seat. He barely
managed to roll back and find his footing before another pulse blasted
through the room.
Stunned. His tech fizzled and the machinery thundered. Ballsy winced
and walked over to him, above him.
Gunner strained to move, strained to make the killing blow but
everywhere he shifted, inside his digital self and his mainframe, he was
surrounded by the same needle-like prickles he had come to know that
protected Ballsy’s information.
The fucker blasted him with EMP-based malware—a virus that acted
like a shockwave of tiny targeted EMP charges. He sensed it snaking
through his body and rendering him useless. Gunner watched with rage as a
booted foot came down on his chest and knocked him over against the floor.
The gun remained tight in his hand.
“Don’t be mad,” Ballsy told him. “In my line of work, one can never be
too careful. I won’t kill you but I won’t help you either. What is that
saying?” His eyes glazed. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?”
Gunner glared death. “My head’s on a pike either way, so I’m out.” The
boot lifted and he turned around, grabbing a bag, throwing it over his
shoulder.
“What’ve you done to me?” Gunner gritted out, already feeling his
strength returning.
His hold on the ship was gone though, and the sirens blared to life. The
server room, once filled with electrical life, was now nothing more than
inert metal. The EMP malware had destroyed everything in the room.
“Electromagnetic nanobots,” Ballsy muttered halfway out the first door.
“You’ll recover. No sense in destroying a creation like you.” His voice
faded. “You’re inside a Faraday cage, Cyborg. You might want to move.
The cage protects the rest of the ship from me, and me from the rest of the
ship. They’ll be coming here first.”
“How,” he hissed through his teeth, his body seizing as if electrified,
“are you not affected?” Ballsy had implants inside him too.
“My room wasn’t the only thing I put a Faraday seal around.”
And then he was gone.
Gunner knocked his head on the ground, straining his body with
everything he had, willing it to move. His systems scrambled as the pulses
sparked off like firecrackers against his skin. They neutralized his tech, did
just about everything to it but destroy it like they had the rest of the room. A
swarm of microscopic bees.
In the distance, he could hear Ballsy walking away and he knew the
only place the man could go to get away from him was an escape pod. He
focused on trailing Ballsy’s power source, his answers escaping him as his
target made his way through the confusion.
His fingers twitched until he managed to curl them into fists. He heard
the crew coming long before they reached the door.
When the first tumultuous shocks faded, Gunner rose slowly to his
knees, his metal frame still too heavy for his body to handle just yet, but
each second his nanocells fought off the derangement, his strength returned.
And you’re never getting your ship back.
The words flashed behind his eyes when the first bullet hit him in the
back.

ELODIE GLANCED UP AS the muffled sounds of a very familiar ring—

distant sirens—went off somewhere far away, far above her. It didn’t extend
in full force amongst the giant metal contraptions, the propulsion and
thruster tech she and her dad skirted through, but it still stopped her in her
tracks.
“Something’s happening.” She looked behind her.
“A siren. Another damn siren, it sounds like. If we’re lucky they found
the creature that killed those men. Not that I mind that they’re dead, but it
would make me feel marginally safer knowing there isn’t a beast lurking
around.”
“But the sirens. They’re not supposed to go off.” Gunner. He’s supposed
to be sneaky...
Elodie chewed on the inside of her cheek, suddenly worried.
“What the hell does that mean? It could be from anything. If they found
those men, they’re soon going to find your cell empty. We need to keep
moving, Ely.”
“Dad, there’s no place for us to go on a ship in the middle of nowhere.
We can’t hide here forever. Our best bet is staying at the entrance, not going
deeper.” That was exactly where her father was leading her: deeper. “We
don’t even have food.”
“We can and we will! Geez, boy, when have I ever let you down? I
learned some things while I was outside the cells and I know hiding in the
bowels of this ship is a hell of a lot safer than what would happen
otherwise.”
Elodie looked back at him. “Otherwise?”
“Captain knows something’s wrong, he’s not leaving his bomb-proof
shelter of a hell-bent bridge and neither is his bridge-crew. They’re holing
up and there’s been talk. More than just what Kallan is saying about us
being related. Talk that they ain’t making their way to Elyria anymore, that
they’re headed back to the main fleet, and I ain’t thinking it’s because of a
reunion. I think it’s because of the chaos that is about to erupt on this ship.
If they make it back to the main fleet...”
“What?” Elodie was confused. Isn’t going back a good thing?
“Boy, this ship is big, costly, and manned better and by more people
than most pirate or blacklisted ships. There’s also cargo, beyond the humans
aboard, worth a pretty penny. If the captain can’t control his men, and those
men mutiny, with everyone on board, we’re going to be in the crossfires of
a lot of bad fucking shit.”
Her lips lifted into a small smile. Gunner must be beside himself.
 She still couldn’t shirk off the safety she felt just knowing he was
around. But then the men with the torn up body parts came to mind, the
gushing blood, and the looks of pain on their faces.
Would Gunner continue to protect her? They made a deal, she knew, but
how long and how exact was it? The farther she got away from the brig, the
more distressing her thoughts became. Those bodies looked like he had lost
control. Those men didn’t just die; they were eviscerated.
“We’re going to fucking hide until I say we’re done hiding, and then
we’re going to get ourselves to an escape pod.”
Elodie chewed on the inside of her cheek just as her belly grumbled for
food.
“Them men up there are looking for anything and everything to save
their own hides. Everyone’s on fucking edge.” He stopped and sighed. “If
they use you to get to me... Elodie.” She blinked. He never called her by her
name. “They’ll find out you’re a woman. We can’t let that happen.”
Sweat coated her palms. “It won’t happen.”
“It will! It’s a miracle you’re with me right now!” He cocked his head
and ushered her deeper among the machines. “Let me try and save you, us,
for as long as possible. If we’re lucky, this ship will land sooner than later,
and we can climb our way out of the thrusters or warp drive.”
Climbing deeper into the machines had never seemed so unappealing to
her, but she took a step forward, hugging Gunner’s jacket tight around her.
Every second was a battle for her not to turn around and find him; she
wanted to find him and make sure he was safe, then scream at him a little,
then kiss him for a little longer.
We had a deal. Have. Have a deal.
It frightened her how much she had come to depend on him in such a
short amount of time. Maybe because he never lied to me? Even when it
was something unbelievable, something seemingly impossible, he never
lied. He never hurt me. His sharp face appeared in her mind, red eyes, and
guns. It made her shiver and calm. It made her uneasy and content.
As they traveled deeper, the sounds became more muted. Soon, the
sirens were replaced altogether by the low hum of machines. The familiar
silence was all at once soothing and dangerous, and she perked up, trying
not to be lulled into a false sense of security by the nostalgia of it all. Even
the wafting heat pulled at her concentration. Sweat had been a constant for
her when on the job. Unlike some men, who went shirtless at times, she
always had to wear a jacket to hide her figure.
“There should be a break room somewhere further in,” her dad
grumbled, ducking beneath a pipe.
“You think this ship will have one?”
“It’s got the workings of a Legionnaire Titan with freighter
modifications, of course there’s an engineer’s room down here. They might
have just filled it with bullshit, but doesn’t mean the floor plan is any
different.”
Several short minutes later her dad jittered, “There. There’s a door up
ahead.”
He lifted his keycard but she stopped him. “Don’t. They may be able to
track access.”
It took several minutes toying with the lock, but with both of them and
the abandoned tools they had picked up on their journey into the innards,
they unlocked the mechanism the old-fashioned way.
A cold breeze hit her in the face, along with stale air and dust.
Elodie took in a deep breath as she stepped in, seeing the array of
lockers first, straight across, and the scuffed up shelving on the wall beside
it. It was all so normal. So like any other ship she’d ever been on. The ping
of a siren and a flashing red orb jutted out of the wall above her, and it was
the only connection to the rest of the ship.
The door closed behind with a thud and she moved deeper into the
space. Behind the lockers was a mostly empty storage room, and beyond
that was a lounge.
“Dad, come look at this,” Elodie called. Chesnik stood up from the lock
he was reinstalling on the door.
The lounge was small but luxurious compared to the brig, with one steel
table and four stools rooted to the ground, and a replicator. Elodie
scrambled toward it and powered it on. Her heart pumped at the prospect of
food. The panel lit up and the codes and choices were all there for the world
to see. She saw stars in her eyes and for a brief moment, everything was
right in the universe.
“Try it,” her dad urged. They were kids in a candy shop as she coded in
the machine for coffee.
It thumped and ticked, the smell of burnt dust filling her nostrils, but a
gel produced itself with clear, brown liquid within. She picked it up and
marveled. A food replicator.
“Well?”
She plopped it into her mouth and moaned as the fake, fabricated,
magnificent taste of black coffee spilled out and over every inch of her
mouth.
“Coffee,” she told him, eyes half closing in pleasure. Chesnik slapped
her on the back and she let out a laugh. It startled her.
“Good thing your old man is looking out for you.”
“Yeah.” Elodie took a step back. “Yeah,” she repeated.
She followed him into a side room that was lined wall-to-wall with
empty bunk beds, and back out to the door next to it that led to a small
washroom.
She sank to the floor, staring at the turned-off faucet. Water. Fresh,
running water. Moisture beaded her eyes and a warm arm went around her
shoulder, joining her on the floor. Her tears fell like how the water would
soon flow over her.
“It’s okay, Ely. It’s okay. For now, we’re safe. There’s no two better
people who know how to get lost in a ship than us. We’re safe.” Tears
continued to fall and she scrubbed her face. “I would’ve never left you. I
would’ve found a way to get you out, regardless of the opportunity that
presented itself. Luck is on our side. It always has been and it always will
be.”
He tried to comfort her but it only made the floodgates open further.
“That’s not it...” she began.
“You’ve never left me, not once in your entire life, not once. I’m not a
great man but I sure as hell got lucky enough to have a great child. Ever
since your mom died...”
“Please.” She didn’t want to hear it.
“I ran and I took you with me, forced you into a life that you should
never have experienced, and for all the stress of having you there, I loved
every moment. I couldn’t do what was right and leave you behind. I tried. I
made all the wrong decisions, knowing it was my way of trying to run
away. But when it came down to it, it wasn’t enough and I brought you
along on all my bad decisions.” His hold on her tightened. “And our luck
hasn’t run out. We’ll get through this too, make it off this ship, and before
you know it, this’ll all be a bad dream.”
 Elodie nodded, uncomfortable. The warning sounds pinged in the
background. She pressed a hand into her heart and hoped it’d stop hurting—
that the wariness would go away.
One drop of water emerged at the edge of the faucet and her gaze zeroed
in on it. Waiting for it to fall.
“We stick together, okay?” Chesnik said. “You’ll never leave me?”
Gunner’s face, welted with bruises, swollen, staring at her with
impassive, dark eyes shot to her mind.
“Never,” she whispered.
He gave her another squeeze and then stood up, bringing her with him.
“It’s settled then. I’m going to crack open the replicator and see what we
have in terms of reagents. You go ahead and get cleaned up, you smell like
a pig.”
“As if you know what a pig smells like.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Do
you really think it’ll be okay?”
“If I have any say in our fates, yeah, it’ll be okay.” He patted his
newfound gun and turned to leave. Her gaze followed him until she closed
the door and silence filled the space.
The only telling sign of an emergency was the flashing red light on the
ceiling. Elodie stared at it as it stared back down at her.
Red like his eyes.
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

I NEED 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.”
Oh, I’m alive. Alive and annoyed.
The second floor crew quarters had devolved into a battlefield. When
the men found him naked as the day is long, holding a gun in Ballsy’s
shrine, they hadn’t asked questions. Shoot first, ask later.
His eyes found the body closest to him—the last pirate who tried to
‘rush him.’
Let them think I’m dead. He jerked out another bullet, releasing a spray
of blood.
“He ain’t dead. He’s holed up like a fucking trap-door spider. If you
want to rush him, be my guest but I’m staying here. You saw what
happened to the last guy. Only an idiot would charge a blind corner like
that.”
“Where the fuck is Ballsy when you need him?”
“The asshole destroyed security—you didn’t see it—Ballsy’s corpse is
probably among the burnt-out tech.”
They prattled on.
Gunner opened his clip and checked his ammo, then closed it again. At
least one good fucking thing happened. He didn’t have to worry about being
found out any longer. The jackal’s out of the bag. It wasn’t the opportune
moment, his discovery, but it was one less thing to worry about.
If he had his way, he’d have the coordinates of his ship before the real
bloodbath began.
“Captain’s not responding.”
“Piece of shit is safe, why would he fucking come out?”
That piece of shit is the smartest man on this ship. Gunner mused.
Except for maybe Ballsy. That bastard was long gone.
“I’m going forward,” one of them hissed and Gunner heard the telltale
click of a chamber being loaded.
The pirate inched forward, his steps light but hardly silent. Gunner kept
his back to the wall at the corner of the hallway. On the other side where the
men converged was the elevator shaft he needed to get to. It shouldn’t have
been hard, but he was still weak.
He didn’t count the blood loss or the dozen or so additional bullet
wounds in his back as destabilizing him. He’d had limbs torn clean off,
been ejected out into the hard vacuum of space, had a gun fired off in his
mouth, and had survived it all. No, it was Ballsy's damn program
weakening him, unlike anything ever had before.
As if he summoned it, another cellular electromagnetic pulse fired off,
temporarily plunging him into blindness.
The man’s footfalls were mere yards away. A normal man wouldn’t hear
him under the sirens. Gunner was far from normal.
Gunner let his hand drop and closed his eyes, drooping his head,
feigning death.
The guard sucked in a sharp breath when he saw him.
“Well!?” one of the others demanded.
“He’s dead,” the man yelled over his shoulder. “I think he’s dead!”
“Check him!”
The moment he rounded the corner and was out of sight of his
crewmates, Gunner lurched up and dragged him to the floor, pressing a
hand to his mouth and crushing the bones of his wrist until the laser pistol
was released. The pirate’s body jerked in surprise, and he stared up at him
just as he succumbed to death.
“Hey! Is he dead?”
“Where’d he go?”
 “I told that dumbass he was making a mistake. I told you that twat was
waiting for us.”
Gunner pushed the body away from him after he peeled it out of its
pants and tugged the undamaged gun strap off it. He slung the strap over his
own shoulder and stuffed his legs into the ill-fitting trousers, dressing
himself.
“What’re we going to do? Half the crew isn’t accounted for. We can’t
get to the bridge from this side.”
Gunner smirked. And I can’t get to the goddamned brig. He jerked and
twitched as another pulse rolled over him. His nanocells were busy fighting
off this cybernetic disease, too busy to replenish his strength.
“We can retreat,” one of them mentioned. “Go down. Short circuit the
elevator, or lay a trap. We can overpower him at close range if there’s
nothing to shield him.”
Oh, fuck no.
“We’d be sitting ducks down there. Our best chance is going up, not
down.”
“Our best fucking chance? We have no other chance!”
They argued.
Ely was down there. He wasn’t letting another man get close to her if he
could help it. Gunner pushed himself from the wall, flinching as his flesh
shifted and tore. Several more pulses went off, causing cascading lapses in
his mainframe. The more he moved, the worse it got.
He dropped his gun but caught it before it hit the floor.
“We can get the prisoners on our side.” Elodie. “Tell them it’s a matter
of survival.”
“Like hell that’ll work! What do you think those half-starved lumps can
do? They know my face. I fried the balls off of one of them their first day.”
“We need one of the new recruits to convince them.”
Gunner edged closer to the corner, listening.
“If you haven’t looked around, they ain’t here, or they’re dead. I’d take
my chances with one enemy, not several dozen. And if Juke comes out—”
“Juke ain’t coming out! Look, a patrol went down before all this
happened, and that one fucker, the one that won’t stop talking—”
“Kallan?”
“Yeah, he’s down there. Maybe he can convince them.”
 Gunner gritted his teeth. How’d he fucking let Kallan get by? The lech
had a special place on his death list.
And I left Elodie down there with him.
“I don’t like the guy. He can’t be trusted.”
No fucking shit.
“What other choice we got? Even the fucking androids have been pulled
back. If I get my hands on Juke...”
“I like the idea of having a shit-ton of metal between us and him.”
The men quieted down as if contemplating. Gunner skirted his eyes
across the area around him. I can’t let them get to the elevator. He had
noticed the androids withdrawing before, back when he sensed Ballsy
leaving on an escape pod, but it hadn’t occurred to him why.
If he could get to them, he could control them, but they weren’t close
and he was weak.
He eyed the second elevator shaft, the one that went up. I could go up
and take the ship. Forget about the others. I’ve already been discovered.
Juke would possibly know where his ship was.
The codes that ate away at the freighter's systems were still doing their
job. Gunner knew that the captain had changed course—he just didn’t know
to where. But if they were headed straight into enemy territory his job was
going to get a hell of a lot harder.
I could go up and take over the ship... And hope that nothing happened
to those below. Elodie wouldn’t have protection. But he would steer their
course. If I did that, the rest of the pirate fleet would know.
Gunner spat out blood. No. It could take me hours, maybe days. It
depended on what he was up against. Even if Ely remained safe, there
would be no one to keep her and the other prisoners fed until he wrangled
the androids.
He rubbed his gun over his brow. When did everything get so fucking
complicated?
“Let’s go!” one of the pirates urged. He heard them move.
“Wait!” Gunner roared. It was the first time he’d spoken. “I don’t trust
Kallan either. No one in the brig does.”
They stopped. “You can fucking hear us?” one asked.
“Obviously, dumbass. I heard you piss yourself when I started talking
too. I’ll make a deal with you.” He inched out from behind the wall. The
men ducked and watched from the other end, weapons raised. Two shots
went off that missed him.
“Deal, my ass! You’ll just kill us.”
“Will I? I have a better idea.”
“And what’s that, you marked up twat? We’re not idiots.”
Sigh. “You’re alone. Three of you, I take it—don’t try and bluff me—I
fucking know. Now listen!” His systems flickered again. “Your captain’s
holed up, and the security systems are fried. I can’t be contained, anywhere,
at least not for long. I’ve had free reign of this ship the moment you brought
me aboard.”
“Then why haven’t you taken over?”
“I don’t want this piece of shit. I want mine. Your captain took it and I
will kill every single man, woman, and child who stands in my way to get it
back.” He wouldn’t, but they didn’t need to know that. “We have something
in common.”
The men quieted and glanced at each other, their faces half-shielded. He
calculated the aim and distance for three consecutive headshots, three split-
seconds of death, then another EMP went off and disrupted him.
“Juke,” one muttered. The strategic one.
“Juke,” Gunner concurred. “He left you out here to die, by my hand,
and you will. You will die if you don’t join me or at least get out of my
way.”
“If you’re so damn sure then why not turn around and finish the fucking
job? The way to the bridge is behind you.”
“That’s just it.” His jaw ticked. God, this was embarrassing. But all he
could think of was getting to Elodie. “I don’t want up, I want down. I need
information. I need leverage.”
He was taking a risk.
One of the men lowered his weapon. “The cargo.”
“Yes.”
“They’ll just gas you out.”
“Who? As far as we all know, no one’s leaving the top-deck.”
“How do we know you won’t kill us?”
You don’t. “I have nothing to gain from killing you. Why waste my
ammo? But if you take that lift down, you’re guaranteeing your own death.
If you stay and fight, you’re guaranteeing your own death. Trusting me
could go either way, but that’s still your best chance of survival.” Gunner
tossed all of the blood-covered bullets he had pulled out of himself toward
the pirates, enjoying their sickened faces as the slugs bounced off the metal
floor. “I’ll give you my word. I’ll let you live if you let me by. And...”
“And?”
“When the time comes, I’ll give you the captain to kill.” Gunner raised
his weapon sideways in a show of peace, then let it dangle from his finger,
and slowly lowered it to the ground. The men watched him warily as he
moved to the center of the aisle with nothing but their dead companion’s
pants and the random weapons he’d collected. He kept his hands up and
away from all of them.
Like hawks in the distance, they watched his every movement. He, in
turn, calculated every outcome.
“And when this is over?” one of the pirates asked. “What happens
then?”
“Fuck if I care, you can have this trash heap and all the cargo in the
hold. Just not the prisoners, they’re mine. I’m sworn to protect them. I’ll
swear to protect you too.”
They looked at each other. I almost have them.
Gunner was poised to take his chances and kill them when the smart one
walked out. Another minute went by before a second man followed.
The third muttered, “Not worth it,” before he emerged too.
They closed the distance, meeting in the middle where most of the dead
bodies were beginning to stiffen. It took everything in Gunner’s power to
hide the short-circuiting constantly stabbing through his systems.
The pirates eyed the bullet holes littering his body with disbelief. “Who
the hell are you?”
“A Cyborg employed by the EPED.”
“Damn. We never stood a chance.”
“No,” Gunner agreed.
“You swear you won’t kill us?” the last one asked.
Gunner’s face hardened as he pinned him with his eyes. “I will if you
betray me.”
“What do we do now?”
Gunner turned and stormed past them, making a beeline for the elevator.
“Whatever the fuck you want.”
They called after him. He heard the click of a gun. Shoot me in the back,
I dare you. But it never came.
 “That’s it?”
“Be ready,” he said.

HE RODE THE ELEVATOR down the shaft, leaning up against the wall.
The blood that had coated the floor earlier had dried into a rusty smear at
his feet. The ride couldn’t go fast enough. He hated large ships.
His was small, compact, and airtight. There wasn’t a place he couldn’t
get to in less than five minutes. His ship was a god amongst ships, and his
AI, APOLLO, was named for it. The Greek god of the sun. Speed. Light.
His jackal hated the confinement but his other half loved it. He couldn’t
please every part of himself all the time. That war, the war in his head,
never ended.
Gunner dug another bullet out of his thigh as he waited, pinching the
metal between his fingers until it flattened into a disc.
From the moment he opened his eyes, introduced to life for the first
time, the two halves of his soul had been at odds. Staring out from inside a
clear, crystalline vat, he warred. Sometimes he thought the only reason he
didn’t go mad were the codes that denied it.
I got close.
So fucking close.
It had been its own kind of madness, when his logical side faltered and
his animal took over completely. He had become the god Anubis
reincarnated, with slitted red eyes and long pointed ears only bested in
splendor by the points of his canines. He had set a Trentian planet ablaze,
single-handedly taking control of one of their main bastions.
Gliese hadn’t always been ruled by humans. Not before he came along.
And even now, after forty-eight years, portions of the planet remained
uninhabitable.
The elevator door zipped open and Gunner narrowed his eyes. The
bodies have been moved. He stepped out cautiously, scanning the area
around him, his nostrils flaring and filling with new and familiar scents.
Ely. He shuddered and stormed past the corpses without another glance,
pulling a gun from his strap. Her smell was thicker than it should’ve been.
It drew him like a dog on a leash. A tether. The wracking pulses from the
nanobots still coursed through him, but they were getting weaker and he
ignored them.
 There. The brig. The door was half-closed and the lights within the
room were off. Voices. They were muffled.
Gunner inhaled again. Elodie. The prisoners. The decaying scents of the
guards. Kallan. Even a lingering twinge of Royce. And others...
He rushed the door and slammed the panels the rest of the way open,
breaking the metal without care.
“Ely,” he roared, already sensing her gone. The darkness hit him just as
he switched to night vision. “Where is she?”
Gunner went to their cells but she wasn’t inside. Her door was open.
“Where!?” His voice thundered.
The remaining prisoners scurried and rose as the reek of fear took hold.
His own.
“She?” one man asked in puzzlement.
“She was taken out of here,” the man in the cell across from hers spoke
up. Gunner didn’t turn around, his eyes burning a hole in the spot where he
last saw her. Where he left her. Her safe place next to him at the bars.
“When?”
Metal crumpled in his fists. He willed her to materialize, already
seeding what was left of his energy back into the systems, though he knew
that it would do no good. Ballsy had fried all the relays connecting the
security cameras to the mainframe.
“A couple of hours ago, more maybe, not long after the gunfire started.”
Gunfire. Hours ago. Before he had left the underbelly. The feel of
tearing that pirate’s leg off came to mind, and he itched to feel it again.
Gunner turned slowly and approached the prisoner across the way. The
man backed up. “Details!”
“Chesnik came back and freed him. Her. Is Ely really a woman?”
Chesnik. Her dad. The knowledge did little to calm him. “Then why is
Kallan’s stench thick in the air?”
It was thicker than Elodie’s. They weren’t here at the same time. She left
before he slithered through here.
“He was also here. He got angry when he found Ely wasn’t here. What
the fuck? What’s happening?”
Gunner felt his teeth fall out, heard the tinging sound as they scattered
at his feet. He tore a metal bar clean off and dragged it behind him as he
approached the nearest android. But before his hand touched it, the jolt of
another string of shocks brought him to his knees.
 All he could see was red. First my ship. Now her. Slowly, bringing his
hand up to connect with the android, he replayed what happened through its
eyes.
She left with a strange man. Chesnik, he assumed. Good. Now I know
which pirate I’m not allowed to kill. He copied the image to his personal
storage. Ely and her father’s heights and builds were alike.
He was out the brig door and searching the next moment, forcing his
body to press onward.
He went back to the lounge room and found nothing. His snout shifted,
extending from his face, his beast taking a little more control. It liked the
hunt.
Kallan was everywhere. Fresh, fresher than Elodie.
Where are they? Where is she?
A terrible vibration, a growl rose from the pit of his belly as he sought
his target.
Gunner came back across the tampered bodies and this time he checked
them over. The guns were gone. There were no footsteps leading from their
pooled blood.
It had been avoided. The looting had been unhurried.
He rose up and pried the elevator doors back open with his hands,
finding the scents weaker within, polluted with his own. They couldn’t have
gone up. He would’ve known.
Then he caught it. A trail that led away and seemed to circle back.
The corridor he faced led to what most would consider a dead end; it led
to the bowels of the ship, the machines that kept the crew supplied with
breathable air, drinkable water, and all the other minutiae required for
human survival. The parts of a spaceship that was all but off-limits except
in case of emergency. It was too dangerous to be within when the machines
were running. As far as the machines were concerned, the only distinction
between recycled waste and a person was that one of the two had a name.
Behind him was the way to the storage containers. Kallan’s reek led that
way, interlaced with drugs. Smoke. Kallan had taken full advantage of his
new position as a crew member. Gunner lifted his head and his ear twitched.
A noise came behind him and he twisted toward the storage units.
It’s where I would go.
But he didn’t take a step toward it. Elodie first? Or Kallan? Another
viral blast flooded his core and his sense of smell reset. Kallan’s trail
reignited before Elodie’s and he made up his mind.
Gunner moved swiftly and through the passageways opposite Ely’s
scent, his soles digging into the dingy, grated floor. The sense of his target
grew stronger and with it, his bloodlust. It was an allure he no longer
cultivated but accepted. He could push his desires away, cloud his mind, but
where was the fun in that?
Kallan’s fascination with Elodie made him Gunner’s number one target.
If he was a better man, he’d convince himself that he was killing the
opportunistic fuck for Elodie but he knew that wasn’t true. He hunted for
his own pleasure.
He came upon a hatch, and like others he’d seen on the ship, it was
locked by a personal access code. He smashed his fist into the tech while
his mind flooded the systems. Within moments, the storage unit opened and
Gunner entered. Large square and rectangular crates lined the dim, open
space, each made with a variety of materials.
Stolen goods. His enemies’ acquisitions. A pirate’s treasure trove. He
passed them by without a glance. He could hear Kallan now, the fear and
stiffness overcoming the man’s body. He could sense the subtle shift in the
shadows, his target hoping to hide from whoever approached.
“Kallan,” he taunted darkly, his fingers elongating. The scent of fear
bloomed, filling his nose and caressing him like a lover. Gunner purposely
walked past the place where his prey hid, allowing Kallan’s unease and
restlessness to marinate. He circled back.
“I know you’re in here. I can hear you.” Another zip of Ballsy’s EMP
virus shot through him. Gunner faced the corner where he sensed the
prisoner-turned-pirate, hiding between two large crates where the dark was
thickest in the room. Gunner stood, patient, his breath deepening into
wolfish, wheezing pants. If there had been a light overhead, the silhouette
he’d cast would be gaunt and hunched, half-poised to attack. But there were
few lights strung about and so he remained a sentinel in the gloom.
He heard the click of a chamber being checked.
Minutes went by as Gunner waited for Kallan to peer around the crate’s
corner to see if he was finally alone. To raise his weapon and check if the
path was clear. To creep from the shadows and toward his own death.
The man had harassed Elodie, touched her against her will, and
interrupted one too many conversations. I would’ve killed you in passing if
you hadn’t come back.
 For her. To sate your sick curiosity. Kallan and he were alike in that. All
the more reason for him to die.
Movement, slow, deliberate, filled his ears; the brush of cloth and
polyester against metal. His prey moved along the tiny gap between two
crates one step at a time.
Kallan’s eyes met his the moment he appeared, freezing. Even in the
dark, his bloodshot sclera was visible.
“Gunner,” Kallan swallowed sickly and backpedaled. “I want no
trouble!” He tried to slink between the crates.
“No, you don’t!” Gunner shot forward and gripped Kallan by the neck,
dragging him out into the open and tossing the man’s firearm to the ground
contemptuously. He sank the protruding tips of his jackal claws into the
clammy flesh of Kallan’s neck, feeling the blood blossom underneath them,
enjoying its wet warmth. Soon to be cold.
Kallan sputtered and struggled. “I didn’t do anything!” he choked out.
“There’s no sense in killing me! I came to break my boy out.” Noises
bubbled up within Kallan’s tight throat, moving under Gunner’s palm.
“Is that so? Where’s your boy then? I was just in the brig.”
“Safe! In the back. I can show you!”
Gunner squeezed Kallan’s neck before releasing his hold. Kallan
dropped and scurried away until his back hit the wall of a crate, hands
clutching his throat.
“Lead me to him.” Gunner smirked. How far will the lies go? He knew
Elodie wasn’t here. She’d never been in this space. Not a trace of her was
present.
Kallan spat and rose to his feet, his eyes slitted and beady. “The pirates
took your ship from you, same as me.” The man tried to change his angle.
“Lead me to Ely.”
“They don’t even have it onboard. The ship, I mean. You want your ship
back, right?” He hissed, ignoring Gunner’s demand. “They have our ships
somewhere else. I can find out where.”
Gunner’s smile twisted into a feral grin. “Oh?” Ballsy’s conversation
replayed in his mind, and with it came another surge jolted through his
mainframe. His jackal ears popped out of his head.
“T-they’re on their way to Elyria, but the rest of the fleet.” Kallan
gulped, noticing his long, sharp ears. The outward metal mesh jittered,
generating even more noise. “The rest of the fleet is elsewhere.”
 “You’ve only told me what I already know. How does that help me get
my ship?”
“I can find out where it is! We both want the same thing. We can work
together. You need me!”
“Is that so?”
“Y-yes!”
Gunner cracked his neck. He had never wanted to work with someone
less than he did Kallan. The jackal in him laughed, flashing his teeth and
flaring the red glow of his eyes. “We can work together...if you show me to
Ely.”
Kallan stammered, “Boy-o means nothing to us. H-he’s safe in the back
but not needed.” He wiped his hand over his mouth. “We should move now
and get the information. I saw the mutilated bodies.” Kallan checked him
out. Gunner knew he was riddled with bullet wounds. Dried blood flaked
from his body every time he moved. “They’ll be flooding the area soon, if
we go now, we can ambush them... Together.”
“That’s not going to work for me.” Gunner took a step back. He was
bored now.
“I can make it work. You’re not listening to me! I can get you what you
want. What’re you doing?”
Another step back. It was time to end this. “Getting what I want.”
Kallan stiffened, head cocked to the side. His greasy hair fell over his
shoulder in stringy masses. “You’re leaving?”
Gunner didn’t answer, instead he melted back into the shadows, and
quieted his steps. He moved out of Kallan’s sight and stalked around to the
back of the crates, listening to the stream of hissed curses his prey released.
When the smell of fear began to dissipate and the thundering strums of the
man’s heart lessened—when Kallan’s adrenaline hushed and a stressful
sense of safety began to return—Gunner crept into the thin opening on the
other side of the crates and waited for the man to return to his hiding hole.
That’s where Kallan met his gaze again, for the last time. Gunner
savored the moment: the bright shock of Kallan’s terror, the predatory joy
of prey caught, right before he pulled out his precious AutoMag and shot
him in the head.
 Chapter Fifteen

ELODIE HUNCHED OVER the table across from her dad, toying with the
food he’d managed to create. Gummy pieces of popcorn sat in a cup of
gelatin that was slowly dissolving. Balls of water teetered to the sides as she
rolled them back and forth, her movements strained. She was captivated by
what felt like a king’s ransom in water compared to the tiny gels they were
given in the brig.
After weeks of no real food beyond the tasteless, chewy rations, she
should’ve been ravenous, but she couldn’t manage to eat. Elodie pulled
Gunner’s jacket further around her and shivered.
“What’s that?” she asked her dad. He had a contraption in his hands and
several found tools and gadgets lying about.
“Found it hooked onto the wall outside our door. It’s an alarm but some
of the older pieces are rusted out. The guts look serviceable though.”
“What’re you going to use it for?”
“Well,” he rubbed his lips, brow creasing, “if I can clean it up, I can
switch its channel to broadcast and turn it into a distress beacon. But I’m
aiming for a radio, something I can use to communicate instead of just
broadcasting a canned message. Spacers are a little wary of distress
beacons, we might just end up with more pirates. If we have
communication, we have everything.”
Leave it to Dad to always be off the beaten path. A hopeful smile
tugged her lips. “Good idea. Do you think you can get it to work?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On if I can find the parts,” he huffed. “But we’re surrounded by
machines and we’re both damn good at keeping these things running. If we
pull a transponder out of one of those ground vehicles I saw a little ways
back and wire it directly to one of the secondary power rails in the ship to
boost the signal, I can use it as a relay so the bridge won’t know where we
are. The mains would be too dangerous. After that, maybe I can pull the two
speakers out of this broken alarm and use one as a low-sensitivity
microphone...”
 “I can help,” she quickly added.
Her dad nodded. “You’ll need to. Your fingers are steadier than mine.”
An idea came to mind as she watched him cut a wire. “Dad, what
if...what if we get this to work? If we send out a beacon or get back onto the
network, we’ll have to have a location to broadcast. No one’s going to put
in the effort to triangulate us without a reward, and we don’t have much to
offer. But maybe we can get a government cruiser to come if we tell them
it’s a disabled pirate ship.” Elodie leaned forward. “We’ll need the ship to
stop long enough for that. We can make the ship stop.”
He lifted his eyes. “Break the machines?”
“Yes!”
Chesnik canted his head. “Near impossible with them running. But a
good back-up idea. Hand me those tweezers.”
The odds of single-handedly stopping the ship were slim, but it was
possible. With the hope of a functional beacon, she felt little more
comfortable. If we can get a signal out maybe someone will come. If we can
hide long enough...we can survive!
Her thoughts crashed back into the present. None of this took into
account her deal with Gunner and the plans that were already set in motion.
Gunner’s plans had nothing to do with staying put and waiting for an
opportune moment. It made her itch not knowing where he was or what he
was doing.
He was fierce—terrifying, even. He had shouldered responsibility for
their escape without a second thought. She was bound to him. The decision
to follow her dad out of the brig still haunted her. He’ll return without me
there. He’ll be angry.
Won’t he?
They had become close, sharing the same small space for countless
hours with nothing but each other’s company to keep the madness and
despair at bay. Even so, she had no real clue how he felt about her. He’s
willing to risk his life for mine, for strangers he doesn’t know, but he would
be risking it regardless for his ship.
Elodie threaded her fingers together and brought them to her lips,
wishing for clarity, wishing that... Gunner was sitting next to her right now
instead of her dad.
I like him. She strained her fingers. I...miss him.
How did I become so attached?
 “You got something on your mind?” her dad asked.
She glanced up to find him watching her. “I’m afraid,” she choked out. I
am. Her gaze kept drifting to the door. “I don’t like not knowing what’s
happening.”
Or where Gunner was. Had he found her gone? Was he in trouble? The
more questions that skirted through her mind, the heavier her guilt weighed.
“Don’t worry about that right now. As long as we stay holed up down
here it won’t affect us,” he said. “We got some guns, some tools, some food,
and some water. They won’t look for us down here, not yet at least, and if
they do, there’s not many of them on the ship. They’d have to climb
through the machines single file or in pairs of two. We’ll be ready if that
happens, we’ll take them out. If we stick together, we’ll be fine.”
“And that beast? The one that tore those men apart?” Gunner.
“Won’t be able to get past these metal doors without a keycard.”
“Dad...” she began but trailed off. Elodie didn’t know how to tell him
that she’d made a deal with a Cyborg. The words caught on the tip of her
tongue and every second that passed, they grew harder to say.
It left a sour taste in her mouth. Not only had she set current events in
motion, she actually wanted the creature responsible for it by her side.
Her choice in men was enough to get her committed. A Cyborg held her
heart in the palm of his hand. She glanced back at the door. What have I
done?
“Ely. Remember when we were stationed on the Far Seeing?”
“How could I forget?” she mumbled.
“You’d just grown into a woman then, it feels like yesterday, being on
that job. Maybe because what happened haunts me still. It was your
birthday.” Her dad laughed. “And I gave you a flask of whiskey to
celebrate. ‘Don’t leave the room,’ I said, ‘enjoy yourself,’ I also said.”
“I remember.” Her eyes remained on the locked door behind him. She
still had nightmares of that time.
“And you did. I got to share a drink with my daughter, and for a little
while, it was just the two of us. We could take on anything, you and me...
I’d never heard you laugh so much in my life before that night. It was like
all the years of stress melted away. I was so proud of you.”
Her eyes darted from the door and back to him. “You were?”
“Yeah. We made a great team. There wasn’t a rig in the universe we
couldn’t operate and fix.”
 “There still isn’t,” she smiled, “and you taught me everything I know.”
Tsk. “You taught me more.”
“But it didn’t last...” She shook her head.
“No. It didn’t.”
The Far Seeing did feel like yesterday. She could still taste the bitter
whiskey in her mouth. “You passed out.”
“And I regret that to this day.”
“I had to pee.”
“And you left the quarters, a drunken rat.” He chuckled again but there
was no mirth behind it.
“You do know I forgive you. Never held it against you in the first place.
I knew what alcohol did to a person and had been around it enough to know
what could happen. What happened afterward,” she looked back at the door,
“was always a possibility.”
The conversation stalled between them and the distant, shallow pinging
of the sirens was the only sound to fill the air.
She had left their room in the middle of the rest cycle, drunk and
uninhibited, to go to the lavatory. She’d been caught with her pants down
when another crew member came in. It had been quick, the shock of
discovery—terrifying and freeing at the same time. And although she was
out of her mind and still giddy from the booze, she remembered the man’s
face as his eyes zeroed in on her privates.
She’d flown back to her quarters, woken her dad and before the alcohol
had a chance to wear off either of them, they had deployed an escape pod
and vanished into space, leaving everything behind.
They’d purchased new identities to avoid arrest for stealing tech,
dropping the pod at the first opportunity, and remained landside on a border
planet for six months. That was how long it took for the money to run out,
and then choices had to be made. Her dad signed up for another mining job.
She had followed him once again.
Another six years of living in a man’s world, another six years of
pretending, passed by until they’d been caught and thrown into a brig.
“We’ll make it through this. Like we made it through that,” her dad said.
A thunderous roar from outside suddenly shook the room.
“Elodie!” Her name took shape in the sound, horrible and thick. The
door rattled and her dad shot to his feet.
 A gun was in his hand and he was struggling with the safety the next
second. “What the hell!?”
Elodie’s hands clenched and her heart pounded.
Gunner. He’s found me.
They stared at the door as Gunner pounded on the other side. Sweat
dampened her palms.
“Let me,” the roaring turned into growled words, “in, dammit!” The
pounding increased in intensity, jarring the entire room. He was furious.
“Ely, get back!”
Metal caved inward.
“I can’t,” she hissed, rising to her feet. Gunner came for me.
The door shot open and a man she barely knew stood in the doorway. A
face materialized over the shattered threshold, shaded and framed in pulsing
red. He was bare-chested, draped in ribbons of red, and the only thing she
recognized was the blistering red orbs of his eyes.
The outline of his body was partially hunched, crooked, and heaving,
his breath rocking his entire frame. Steam from the machines behind
masked his form in an obscure, terrifying halo-of-hell.
Elodie’s lips parted, her mouth dried up. Goosebumps pricked her flesh.
Shadows accentuated the monster’s features; the high-spiked ears, the
partially-formed snout, the deep-set eyes sockets. The red glow coming
from his pupils glinted off his metal teeth.
The parts of him that were metal were covered in condensation, the rest
blood.
“Who the fuck are you!?” Her dad yelled, shielding her with his body as
he raised his gun.
“Gunner,” she whispered.
“What. The. Hell!?” her dad stammered and yelled again when the
creature didn’t answer, driving the two of them slowly deeper into the
room.
She grabbed the back of her dad’s shirt and pulled, never taking her
eyes off of Gunner’s, which speared her on the spot. “Lower your weapon,”
she begged. “Please.” It was meant for the both of them.
“Like fuck, I will!”
Gunner didn’t even notice her dad.
“Please!” Elodie pleaded, stepping forward.
 “You weren’t in the brig.” His voice breathed fire. It burned the very
core of her soul.
“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
my dad!”
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 he know?”
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.”
A half-crazed smile drifted over Gunner’s lips, making her shiver. She’d
never seen him look the way he did now. “The deal and its terms have
nothing to do with you. And, Chesnik, is it? It’s time for your daughter to
pay up.”
GUNNER WAS HAVING A hard time keeping his systems running
smoothly. Every other minute, they stopped and restarted. They rebooted.
But each time they did, the process was shorter, his nanocells changing to
battle Ballsy’s disruption. He was slowly returning to a fully functioning
machine. But not fucking fast enough.
Elodie was safe, standing several feet away from him, though her father
had murder in his eyes. No more patience.
It was gone. His muscles bunched and released and most of the bullets
still embedded in his back popped out to hit the floor with ringing clangs.
“Get out,” he growled at Chesnik.
“Fuck you. We want nothing from you.”
“It’s not your decision.”
He shot a look at Elodie. She appeared lost. How could she not be? It
was the choice between him, a maniac, or her dad, a mere mortal who
risked his life to break her out of the brig. They both had risked their lives
for her. But the difference, he knew, was that he didn’t make her life easier
in the process. He made it harder.
Gunner wasn’t going to leave the choice up to her.
“If you don’t leave now,” he snarled, “I’ll have to force you. And if I
do, you’ll never see your daughter again.” He meant it to be a lie, but after
the words came out, he wasn’t so sure.
To his shock, Elodie spoke out. “Dad. Leave.”
Chesnik stared at her. “I’m not leaving you alone with him. He’ll have
to kill me first.”
“I made a deal. I did so willingly. I knew the risks and what I was
asking for. I’m not a goddamned child! Listen to Gunner and leave.”
“So you call...it by a name? What’s gotten into you, boy?”
She held her ground. Held her own. But Gunner knew if she couldn’t
persuade her dad to leave soon, he was going to force the issue and it
wouldn’t be pretty.
“Nothing. Nothing’s gotten into me.” Elodie suddenly turned on him
and Gunner leaned back into the damaged wall. “Is it safe for him if he
leaves?”
“Yes. If he makes it back out of the underbelly but seeing—” a pulse
rippled through him, stopping his words. Elodie had already turned back
toward her dad before he could continue.
 “Please leave us. He says it’s safe. If he says it’s safe, I believe him. It’s
part of our deal.”
Chesnik rose to his feet. “What’s this deal?”
“Our safety and the safety of those in the brig. He’s going to get all of
us off this ship alive. That’s his end of the bargain.”
“And you trust him?”
Gunner watched her face. He wanted to know the answer more than
anyone. Now that the question was out in the open, he couldn’t focus on
anything else.
“Yes.”
Yes. The word punched him in the gut. It was everything. Elodie trusted
him.
Trusted him. Had anyone ever trusted him before?
“You’ve lost your mind, girl,” Chesnik replied in a bitter, despondent
tone. “Your damn mind.”
“Get. Out.” Gunner wouldn’t tell him again. They shared a withering
stare but Chesnik slammed the gun onto the table and moved toward the
door. Gunner walked him to the exit.
“Dad,” Elodie pleaded and took a step forward. Gunner stopped her
with a dark glance over his shoulder.
I’m not going to let you go. Not so easily.
He had barely gained back the little bit of control he had. As Chesnik
moved to cross the threshold, Gunner reached out and gripped the other side
of the frame, blocking his way. He tightened his fingers, leaving an imprint
on the steel. Chesnik looked up at him with alarmed resentment. Gunner
made eye contact with the man.
“Release the others in the brig. Keep them safe until I get back. Tell
them you’re following my orders,” he said before he dropped his arm and
allowed the other man to leave.
Then he shunted the door back in place and broke the opening
mechanism.

GUNNER STORMED PAST Elodie and went into the lavatory. Her eyes
trailed after him. She heard the water run for a time, then stop.
A minute later he emerged in the doorway, dripping wet with a gun in
his hand. The next moment, he was upon her, towering, seething, a glorious
warrior possessed. Her own body tensed, half-naked under his long jacket,
ready for the attack.
The barrel of his gun nudged her brow, tilting her head back enough to
catch his eyes. Gunner’s face was the one she knew, or had come to know,
the pistol tattoos on his cheekbones aimed directly at his mouth.
Elodie’s gaze followed the lines of his face, landing on his mouth, a
flattened line that offered no sense of softness. She watched his lips as the
gun pressed an imprint into her skin.
“You’re safe.” His lips moved like pressed steel. The words rolled out
slowly, with no sense of urgency.
“I’m safe,” she agreed.
The gun slid from her temple to her cheek, leaving behind an invisible
trail that would always haunt her. She swallowed, fingers twitching
uselessly at her sides, hands tense with desire to reach out to him—her dark
god in rent, bullet-ridden skin. So much pain.
“What happened to you?” she managed. Fresh blood trickled from his
wounds. It caught in the water trails that trickled down his muscled body.
Everywhere.
“How can you still be standing?” she asked.
“A trap.” Gunner jerked again, eyes flashing—restarting. The pistol
against her cheek dug into her skin. “Ballsy released...a viral shockwave to
scramble my systems. Elodie, it’s still going off, chipping away at my
control.” The words came out pained. “You weren’t in the brig.”
Losing control. She shivered at the thought and tentatively reached up
and clasped the back of his hand. It was hard—unyielding—like the rest of
him. But the gun slipped from her face to her collarbone.
“Nothing happened to me.” Reassure him. The bodies she’d passed by
with her dad came to mind. She didn’t want to see anymore—not so soon.
“My dad broke me out.”
Gunner’s eyes remained blank, relentless. “Kallan was after you.”
Her belly sank. Her grip tightened. “Why?”
“He had his suspicions. Same as me. He suspected you were a woman
and was convinced enough to at least find out without a doubt. Those
doubts have been removed. Permanently and with force. He won’t bother
you again. And you weren’t in the fucking brig!” Twitch. Shudder. Reset.
Her fear increased by the moment. Elodie glanced around at the bleak,
enclosed space, convinced a mob of men clung to the corner shadows when
a hand slammed onto the wall next to her.
“Keep. Your. Eyes. On me,” Gunner ordered, looking down at her.
He brought the gun, which he handled with care, up to her lips and ran
the muzzle of it back and forth. Wetted, fresh, and heated—kissing death
and all its future harboring. Elodie parted her mouth and licked the edge of
it, watching for his reaction. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as life
slowly returned to his eyes. She kissed the gun again, empowered, and held
her ground.
He won’t hurt me.
“If they know I’m a woman,” Elodie breathed into the metal that
continued to sway across her mouth, “my time’s up.”
“Is it?” Gunner pressed her closer to the wall. Red hot heat and his soul-
capturing eyes ensnared her. His naked chest was a hair’s breadth away. The
sudden nearness was hard for her to comprehend. There was nothing
between them anymore, no darkness, no bars, no walls, and no cameras.
Her breath shortened. A delicious ache twisted between her legs.
He could take everything. Subdue me, own me, pluck my flower and tear
off its petals. The barrel pushed past her lips, forcing her mouth open. It
slipped in and over her tongue, its taste acrid and smoky. She raised her
eyes to his hooded ones. Captivated and starved. And so stressed.
I’ll trust you. She implored without speaking. I do trust you. Let me
trust you. Her eyes and nose burned. She was insane for feeling safe and
trusting a psychopath.
Gunner dropped his hand from the wall with eerie quietness and cupped
her nape, nudging his weapon infinitesimally in and out of her mouth.
Elodie tongued the hard edges, the gunpowder bloom, and the sweat,
taking it and pretending it was him, an extension of him. And at that
moment, it was him. The hand clutching her nape snaked down to the zipper
at the top of the jacket, his fingers playing with its metal piece.
A low, panting vibration filled her ears, coming from his parted lips.
He pulled the gun from her mouth with a low pop. It was wet with her
saliva as he ran it down her chin and the length of her strumming pulse,
while he continued to toy with her only article of clothing and the last
barrier between them. She licked the bitter taste of metal from her lips.
“Elodie,” Gunner rasped, leaning over her. “Take off my jacket.”
Something in the way he asked her made her clench her thighs together,
fueling the need to be penetrated by him. To have his power inside her.
 “I’m mostly bare underneath. My clothes are drying.” Elodie took the
zipper from his fingers, and they played a tender game as hers moved under
his to take over.
A groan hit the air. “I know.”
Slowly, escaping his gaze she lowered the zipper, the barrel of his
firearm followed closely behind, raking over her collarbone, to stop above
her shuddering heart—where it stayed for a few short beats—then down to
the center of her chest and between her breasts.
The jacket covered her until the last second, her shoulders hunched to
keep it in place. Elodie tugged the zipper ever-so-slowly, gorging herself on
the hunger in the Cyborg’s blazing red eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to
go faster, even as the blooming need for his touch ripped through her entire
body.
The muzzle of the gun was now placed at the crux of her pelvis, and
with her core cramping under the impending pressure of his gaze, she
clenched in anticipation. The red glow of his eyes cast her pale skin in
crimson, smoldering in the gloom-filled room. Pointed, direct, and vibrant.
Elodie toyed with the last link of the zipper, slowing down to a crawl
before she finally unzipped the end. A shallow breath escaped her throat.
She pushed her arms back, allowing Gunner a chance to see her as the
jacket parted.
Gunner’s hands came up in unison, one still clutching the gun, to push
the jacket off her shoulders, letting it pool to the floor. She was naked
except for a strip of underwear that he quickly tore off, shredding the tiny
strip with his fingers. Naked in front of an armed Cyborg who had just
finished gunning down half the crew. The danger of her situation was
intoxicating.
A very real, very feminine thrill surged through her. All she could think
at that moment was that she hoped Gunner liked what he saw. She ached
with need. Craved his touch. Her heart was pounding and each beat stoked
the flames of the inferno between her legs higher. She could feel the hot
blood coursing through her veins.
To her very core, Elodie wanted him. She wanted him to not only see
that she wasn’t lacking, but to find her desirable too. She wanted him to pull
her up against him. She wanted to feel his cock trapped between them, the
Cyborg’s unnatural heat amplifying the fire within her.
 But the longer Gunner stared at her, a feeling of uncertainty grew. She
stiffened her back and dug her nails into her palms. Touch me. Please just
touch me. Put your hands back on me. The time lengthened into an uneasy
stalemate clouded under unreadable expressions and heat.
The mystery was gone.
Everything she wanted was a touch away, a brief word, another kiss,
there was nothing stopping them. But it stopped. Her nerves frayed under
his heavy gaze.
She lowered her eyes.
“On your knees, Ely.”
“Gunner?”
“Now.” Suddenly, the muzzle was pressed up against her forehead
again.
The darkness in his voice was back. Her skin prickled with goosebumps
as she slowly slid down the wall and toward the chilly floor, taking in his
poised body with every inch she fell. Her knees met the ground just as her
face leveled with his cock. It jerked and bobbed. The movements of his
shaft were similar to the way his biceps and calves seized with tension.
Elodie scrunched into the space between Gunner and the wall and
leaned her head back so as not to accidentally touch it—touch him. She
wasn’t in control nor did she want to be in that moment.
The mushroom head of his cock was pierced on the underside, one
small metal bauble in the shape of a bullet that went straight through the
curvature of his tip. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before in the
brig when Gunner had all but flashed his dick to the world.
Maybe I didn’t want to notice.
She noticed now. He was large and frightening. She was completely out
of her element and drowning in the shadow of his imposing body. Elodie
wiped her hands over her thighs as she got the eyeful of her life. The distant
yet intermittent sirens still reached her ears, but they were nothing
compared to the pounding blood filling her head.
They rang for something different now, she knew. A whole ship fallen
into chaos because of the Cyborg who shadowed her.
She tempered her uncertainty and gradually reached up to grab hold of
him.
Her fingers hooked around his girth and squeezed the veiny, unrelenting
flesh. The pressure of his gun resting on her head was no longer the only
connection between them.
Gunner jerked and pressed closer with a groaning thrust. It startled her.
His lighted eyes dimmed before brightening anew. Elodie braced as another
wave of what plagued his systems threaded through him.
She held on as he shook and short-circuited, her hand—too small to
wrap around him fully—massaging and discovering his heavy shaft. When
she touched the piercing at the tip, it burned.
The scent of sea salt and butter flooded her nostrils, rich in comparison
to everything else as a trickle of creamy precum dripped from his tip. The
weapon poised at her head vanished as his hands slammed against the wall
above her, ringing out hollow echoes. He held on to the wall as she held
onto him.
Elodie balanced on her knees as she started to pump him, shallow and
exploring at first—finding a pace while building momentum—then strong
and persistent.
She wanted him to feel good. Wanted him to break under her hands, but
most of all, she wanted to make more of his seed appear because it made
her feel powerful. Feminine. Desired.
Heat sparked between her legs. Her core tied in knots. Essence leaked
from her pussy to slick over her folds and run down her inner thighs. She
wanted it to be his cum that made her wet. Wanted so badly for it to be his
saliva.
The sound of rough, almost painful panting filled her ears as more of his
seed beaded from his tip. Gunner’s hips rocked forward, driving her into the
wall and she had to scramble and maneuver to balance between each
rocking thrust, the space between them closing a little more each time.
His cock hit her nose, then it nudged her cheek, and a wet trail replaced
the heavy one left by the muzzle of the gun he still held. And when she
licked her lips this time, the taste of him, the real him, covered her tongue.
Elodie parted her mouth and took him in when his cock pistoned
forward again. His piercing clanked against her teeth before she jerked
forward and it went deeper to run over the roof of her mouth. Sputtering, he
pressed onward to take her throat.
She heard him snarl her name.
“Gunner,” she choked over his cock. It stretched her mouth to its limits.
His hand grasped the back of her neck and locked her onto him. His
thick tip at the edge of her throat, swallowing and half-gagging around it.
Elodie clutched at his exposed length and squeezed, lifting her eyes to find
him staring down at her.
He released her abruptly and jerked out from her mouth with one last
rough pump. Before she could close her lips Gunner dragged her out into
the middle of the room. With her mouth suddenly empty, she reached up to
knead the aching joints of her jaw.
Gunner towered above her like a crazed god, nostrils wide and flaring,
wearing an insane grin that was offset by eyes so intense it made her heart
race.
“Gunner,” she said, lowering her hand, concerned. Just as she was about
to rise, he dropped to his knees and shoved her down onto her back, his face
disappearing between her legs—thrust apart by his hands.
Elodie braced herself for his tongue, his lips, maybe his hands, but
nothing touched her but his heavy, hot breath. It cascaded over her aching
flesh. She already yearned for him, clenching in need, and his breath only
fanned the flames.
She rose up onto her elbows and found him with his eyes closed,
breathing her in. Her thighs shook—the position not entirely comfortable—
and her hips buckled as he re-positioned her legs, sending her sprawling
back onto the floor.
“What’re you doing?” she squeaked as another plume of hot air fell
over her pussy. “Stop smelling and breathing on me!” She squirmed in his
grip and sat back up.
“Can’t,” he groaned and another blast of breath hit her. His hands
dropped from her legs and an arm came up to band over her pelvis, holding
her down. Elodie relaxed her legs into him, her heels back on the floor.
“Look at me,” she urged, watching as his mouth contorted somewhere
between a man’s and a beast’s, the sharp points of several inhuman teeth
visible.
His eyes refused to meet hers. “You’re so aroused for me.”
The sentiment confused her. “Who else?”
“All mine,” he said as another heavy breath burned her. “This is all for
me. Your pretty pink pussy on display, for me. You have no idea how long I
have waited for this.”
She pursed her lips. He wasn’t making any sense.
But then he touched her. The ache of her core unraveled with a shriek.
She expected the warm touch of prying fingers but what touched her was
cold and blunt and hard, with no give whatsoever.
Elodie dropped her head back to the floor as every fiber of her body
tensed. It was the gun between her thighs, rubbing her essence over her
quim. Gunner was trying to scare her away, warn her off, make her fight
him, but instead she wrenched her eyes shut and willingly succumbed. She
wanted to feel him, take him inside her, and if she didn’t watch the weapon,
she could pretend, again, it was an extension of him.
It is him.
And she wanted it. Would beg for it. A horrible, tantalizing rush had her
bucking again, making his hold on her strengthen.
Gunner dipped the muzzle of his gun up and down the length of her
pussy, through her folds. The rounded, hard edges slipping with more ease
each time it stopped at her entrance, spreading her wetness over every inch.
Elodie wasn’t afraid. She was as high as a battle flyer on adrenaline-
laced stress. Her clawing hands grabbed hold of his wet hair, fingers
tangling within, and pulled.
“Christening my favorite toy.” His voice was gruff as he probed her
core with the barrel. “Your smell is intoxicating. Feast worthy.” It gained an
inch inside of her—quaking and rough. “Kissing my AutoMag and covering
it with luck.” Her nails dug into his skull as his words undid her and she
arched what little she could into him. “The safety is on, sweetheart, so show
me how much you like my gun.”
A heavy wave of heat and shadow loomed over her, darkening her
eyelids, and she opened them to see Gunner rising up to shield her body
with his twitching, massive form.
His elbow thumped down next to her ear. The gun pressed deeper. She
clenched around it when it was fully seated. Elodie untangled her fingers
and ran her nails down the back of his neck to grip his shoulders.
With his face hovering above hers and her legs now hooked around his
chest, the gun twisted and she winced. He pushed it deeper into her until the
edge of the trigger was rammed and rimming at her entrance.
She was trapped beneath him, but his eyes pinned her better than his
heavy body ever would, and she watched, mesmerized, as tiny lines of code
ran across his irises. She lifted up as he thrust the weapon in and out of her.
Elodie rose to catch his lips but he pulled back out of her reach.
“It’s inside you. Fucking you.” To emphasize his point, Gunner drew it
out and shoved it straight back into her, jerking her entire body forward and
up.
“I know.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She loosed a shocked
squeal as he thrust the gun inside her again. Ely wanted his lips but he kept
them out of reach as the momentum crested dangerously.
“You like this?” Snarl and shove. “My gun inside you?” Flickering eyes
and straining muscles. “It doesn’t get tired.” He leaned into her and nipped
her ear. “It only gets used.”
“I like you,” she gasped as he spun the gun, suddenly, right against the
sweet spot that ignited her need and caused her to jerk completely off the
floor to cling to him. Needing the heat of his skin over every inch of hers.
Gunner fucked her hard. They moved in frenzied, mismatched unison,
their skin slicking across the ground and plastering together. They were
covered in sweat and blood and the smell of their sex was thick in the air. It
suffocated her.
Gasping sounds arose from her throat in a fight against his dominion.
Because she knew that was what this was. A biting need for control over
another. Bodies thrusting with primitive intent, dark and freeing at the same
time. His hand continued to shove and press between her legs as his teeth
grazed along her neck and back over her ear.
“You fucking like this, don’t you?”
Her head thumped back into the floor until his hand reached under to
cushion it. Shove, stretch, and retreat.
“I like you,” she quickly agreed.
Stretch, spin, retreat.
The frenzy grew, the need for release sucking all the strain out of her
limbs as the tension bloomed, her climax teetering right on the precipice.
More. Elodie needed more—everything he was willing to give her.
“Even if I fuck you with every weapon in my arsenal?”
Thrust, probe, vibrate. So close.
“Yes!” she shouted, rising up to finally capture his open mouth to stop
him from talking. The moment their lips touched, the gun clattered to the
floor. Her moan was lost as he pushed her head back down into his open
hand with his mouth, pressing her to the floor. Her kiss became his.
Fingers replaced the quivering, empty space between her legs, softer but
no less forceful and frightening. They scissored her tight channel roughly as
if there was too much to take over and conquer. The pads of his fingertips
were brutal and soon two fingers became three to rub her G-spot in chaotic
unison. But whenever she was about to explode, he would stop, and bring
her back down, coaxing out a wild animal that had been locked inside of
her.
Elodie fought for it in his brutal blistering heat.
Gunner imprisoned her mouth, his tongue claiming and tasting,
ravaging every corner. Half crushed under him, drowning, and yet he kept
her release right out of reach. She battled for it. Writhed for it. But each
time she approached the brink, he pulled her back from the edge. It was
infuriating.
His long, demanding fingers devastated her cunt and milked it until she
bit his lip and attacked him back. Every moment sparked with pleasurable
pain.
Elodie sank her teeth into him. “Please!”
His thumb abruptly pressed down onto her throbbing clit. Her breath
hitched, and he brought her close again. She begged for more, hoping he
would give her more. She released his lip and he rose up to catch her eyes
as his fingers sped up.
They flared brilliantly red when a scream tore from her throat. Finally!
She climaxed hard and unhindered, shuddering and lifeless. Gunner
lifted over her.
Elodie lost her grip on him and she pressed her hands to her face. Her
nerves flared and died and flared again as her own pulsations cascaded from
her pussy and poured through her being. Her entire body squirmed from the
impact.
“So fucking good. Your good luck kiss... so fucking good.”
She barely heard him as her body continued to convulse intensely, then
release to tense again. Her hips rose up and then back down, chasing the
tendrils of her orgasm.
Gunner’s warm hand abruptly clutched her cunt and continued to
prolong her bliss until her movements receded into a twitch, draining out
the previous shock; every part of her was over sensitized.
A delicious breeze coasted over her heated skin where they had
previously been plastered together. He rocked his hand between her legs,
the pressure possessive, and she pried her eyes open to him peering
possessively down at her.
Elodie shoved at his hand. “No more,” she whimpered but he continued
on palming her clit, ignoring her, as his fingers toyed with her G-spot. And
when she thought she couldn’t take any more she came again.
The tension between her legs released and she sank back to the ground,
sprawling out over the floor, her limbs dropping bonelessly at her sides.
Gunner pulled his hand away and stood over her drained body, sporting a
wicked grin.
“Ready?”
“Ready for what?” she asked, uneasy, sated, and exhausted.
“For me?”
 Chapter Sixteen

ELODIE RESPONDS SO damn good.

She gazed up at him exhausted and wary. His cock jerked in response. It
knew it was going to do wicked things to her. He was going to do wicked
things to her. Fucking her with his gun was his way to send her running, but
she stayed. She accepted it, and with that, she accepted him. The moment he
knew he was going to fuck her with it and that she was going to take it, he
nearly blew like an untried Cyborg.
And his threat to penetrate her with all of his weapons became real. A
need.
Her eyes were hooded, her willowy, lithe body on full display, and he
clenched his hands an effort to stop himself from jumping her. Territory was
important to him.
Gunner’s eyes fell to his bulging cock. Claiming and scent marking was
part of his nature and it helped placate the creature inside.
Jackals mated for life.
Gunner wanted the smell of her arousal clinging to every inch of the
ship. To him. He wanted her so badly it bordered on agony.
But first she needs to claim me.
“For you?” Elodie paused and drifted her arms over her chest, hiding
herself. Her eyes widened. So prettily. Her beautiful short blonde hair fell in
silken waves to halo her head.
Slowly, mainly to assure himself, he dropped back down onto her,
resting his knees on either side of her legs than lower still to drag his heavy
dick along her supple thighs, moving into position, aiming for her pale pink
pussy.
“Yes, who else?”
She released a fresh wave of arousal and the excitement. Knowing that
it was all for him pushed him into overdrive. Gunner pressed his hand back
between her thighs, opening them. His fingers, re-wetting themselves with
her dew, moved over her slick slit. Elodie’s legs parted and he moved to
crouch between them. He reached up with his free hand and pulled her arms
away from her breasts so he could see every part of her. So fucking
beautiful. Nothing can stop me. Nothing will stop me. She’s mine.
It took more control than he thought he had to not fall upon her. To not
stretch her tight cunt—a cunt that cried so beautifully for him—with his
engorged cock. He could imagine it, almost feel her strangling him, as he
leaned a little more over her. He pictured her begging as he shoved, one-by-
one, every phallic item on his ship into her...except his cock.
Elodie leaned up on her elbows and wetted her lips and he knew she
wanted to kiss him again. The look in her eyes was startling and it kept him
somewhat grounded.
With his free hand he guided his tip to her core. By the gods. He
groaned. The feel of her heat kissing the head of his dick threatened to push
him over the edge. His heart thundered and the jackal cackled with more
demonic, dark musings when she spread her legs wide open in preparation.
“Protection?” she asked, gazing up at him. Her arms slithered down to
push lightly at his rocking hips. Keep the kisses coming. He could kiss her
all day with his tip.
“We need protection!” she said again, louder this time.
Gunner grunted. “Not with me.”
Elodie tilted her head. “I can’t get pregnant. I can’t.” There was an edge
to her voice.
Gunner pressed her back into the floor—dipping his tip in and out at her
core—his lips quirking.
“You can’t. Can’t,” he teased. How much to divulge? “Not with me. I
can pump you up with buckets of my seed and no child will ever take root.”
He decided to be vague. The idea did hold some sway though. “Let me fuck
you, Ely.” It was his turn to beg. He nudged his thick head a little further
into her. “If you’re worried about what comes after or about being hurt,
there’s no being in the goddamned universe that can touch you.” He moved
over her to brush his lips across her cheek and over her jaw. “No one but
me.”
The animal inside him howled in agreement but it prowled the edges of
his control. It wanted to claim its mate. He just wanted to claim the
moment. But the snarls were manic and frenzied in his head.
Elodie’s nails pierced the skin on his hips.
“So I won’t get knocked up from this—you?”
Is that really so bad? “No.”
 Worry scrunched her features. “I just—”
“Just what?” He nudged his nose with hers.
She shook her head as a blush spread across her cheeks. “Just always
have to be...cautious.”
He knew that. Regardless, he didn't like her words. Never with me.
Gunner pressed his forehead against hers. “Not with me.”
A pent-up eternity ticked by as they stared at each other. But he knew
the moment it was over when a soft moan escaped her lips and her hands
stopped pushing him away and instead pulled him toward her.
Gunner placed a quick kiss on her lips before he reared up and moved
his hands to hold the back of her knees, positioning himself so he could
watch the moment he claimed her.
Elodie raised her arms above her head as his eyes dropped to where his
cock was shallowly pistoning the entrance of her pussy. Mine.
He speared into her in one quick thrust, his shaft breaking the new
territory of his mate.
She writhed against his conquest as a startled cry filled his ears. Her
body fought his until it finally yielded. He had prepared her but knew the
sudden onslaught and stretch would be a shock and he waited until the
tension and strain left her muscles and her body gave way to his. Gunner
waited until her whimpers were laced with his name and her core relaxed
and adjusted to fit his cock: the biggest fucking gun of them all.
Me.
He began to move and she met him, the tempo rising as the heat of
battle began anew. He recorded every microsecond of Ely succumbing to
his beast.
He took and she gave. His hands shifted to clutch her waist as he
readied to conquer. With thrusts that would send her sliding across the floor
if he didn’t keep her securely under him.
“So fucking good,” Gunner hissed out again, grinding his hips flush
against her, bottoming out, and lifting his eyes to her contorted face.
“You’re so fucking exquisite and mine.” He reared over her again, taking
her body with his in a rocking motion, losing himself in the moment.
They came together on the floor in a frenetic dance until he lost count of
the time and her body clenching beneath his—until his own seed pooled on
the metal floor.
 Gunner nipped and kissed every inch of her, finding pleasure in stealing
her breath while he drowned in her need for him. She was a well-loved
husk, shivering under his frame where he could not only keep her trapped
but also keep her warm.
He came again over her belly, her thighs, her chest, and he rubbed the
musky scent of him into her flesh, half massaging, half-out-of-his-mind and
doing whatever he could to penetrate her with his scent, his essence, his
mark.
Sometime later, wrung out, he fell to the floor at her side with a wince
of his own. The battle wounds he still sported and the gunshot holes had
since healed over, demanding he remember that their time would be short.
That the time in his head had only temporarily banished in the craze.
Gunner sucked in air, exhausted, and filled his senses and systems with
nothing but the smell of sex. Our sex. He turned his head and gazed at Ely’s
limp body, moving to wrap his arm around her and bring her on top of him.
She mumbled sleepily over his chest as she shifted and got comfortable.
The jackal in him danced even though his body had been drained of his
last stores of energy. The EMP shocks had vanished a while ago and what
was left was nothing but the nuisance of his nanotech quickly restoring the
damage the foreign tech had caused.
He lifted his eyes to rest on the muted streaks of light that ran across the
ceiling. The distant sirens had ended some time ago.
Elodie’s heartbeat filled his ears.
The door that led to them was shut tight and locked. Gunner wrapped
his arms around Elodie’s back and synchronized his breathing with her
own.
Then, he closed his eyes...
And slept.

ELODIE WOKE UP WARM and in a strange state. The typical aches of her
body intensified and the metal floor of her cell, usually cold and
uncomfortable, was pliant and slightly moving under her cheek.
If this was a dream, she didn’t want it to end. It wasn’t the first time she
had dreamt about beds. Or lying on them. Those were good dreams. But
this one lifted her in waves, accompanied by the rise and fall of deep,
heated undulations. Usually, beds don’t breathe, she thought, although it felt
like so long since she had been in one that she could be wrong.
She pried her eyes open as realization hit, raising her head up as a wave
of tension returned to her body. She was lying on top Gunner.
Her head slowly dropped back down onto his chest.
A slight breeze caressed her back.
She was also naked. So was he.
Gingerly—feeling like someone had rearranged her organs—she took
stock of her situation. She felt both achy and limber. Her heartbeat was
steadily increasing. She lifted her head again to look at the Cyborg.
His eyes were shut tight and it took her back. Elodie expected him to be
staring at her—like he always did. With eyes glazed and dead, grey and
gone, or scarlet red with an intensity that sped her blood.
Her lips twitched up into a brief smile. Sleep didn’t look good on him.
She rested her head back down to the nook of Gunner’s shoulder.
I’ve never seen him sleep. It reminded her of the first day when he was
unceremoniously dropped in the cell next to hers. She’d thought he was
unconscious until she found out he was faking it. Something told her that he
wasn’t faking it now. Another full body wave, his chest rising and falling
steadily beneath her, lulled her back toward slumber.
Elodie fought it, wanting nothing more than to keep riding and enjoy the
unexpected reprieve. Everything was blessedly silent and it was a luxury
she wasn’t quite ready to give up.
Instead, she took stock of her injuries. Her back strained and pulled taut,
probably from being pounded into the floor. She tensed her legs—tangled
with Gunner’s—and her calves and buttocks sent shockwaves through her
limbs. Sex was a sport she wasn’t well-versed in, but even so, she knew
sleeping with the Cyborg was in a dangerously rough category all of its
own.
Gunner had exhausted every fiber of her being and exorcised her stress.
But despite the pain in her muscles, she was relaxed. She was safe—safer
than she had felt in a long time.
Elodie didn’t dare let her mind wander down to the sticky soreness
between her thighs. She was sticky everywhere. And when she stretched out
her fingers then clenched them—also finding her hands sticky—she
grimaced.
 This time when she lifted up it was with a cringe because her skin
battled her every second to remain attached to Gunner. She shimmied out
from his arms and rose to straddle his body, bringing her legs forward to
kneel on either side of his hips. Gritting her teeth the entire time. The feel of
his cock expanding and hardening under her ass made her clench, and she
slumped into position over him.
Then, she looked down at their bodies and recoiled.
After-sex looked delicious on the Cyborg. He still sported scars from
the previous day, but most were already fading. His impossible physique
captured her full attention. But for as good as he looked, the effects of their
vicious coupling looked horrible on her. Gunner had laid waste to her flesh.
There were bruises all over her arms, chest, and belly. Some spots
clearly showed the imprints of teeth while others the press of fingertips. Her
palms ran up her gooseflesh arms and cupped the back of her neck,
suppressing a shiver. Her breasts were pink and abraded and her torso was
covered from neck to clit in dried sperm.
Memory returned of him massaging it into her. The feel of his fingers
pressing into her tight muscles had been far too glorious to stop, and she’d
been too tired and too sated to care.
Elodie knew what he had been doing. He likes his smell on things.
She smiled. Gunner looks no better. In fact, maybe he looked worse
than her. Delicious but worse. His skin, still showing the wounds from the
fight before with white ridges where they had healed over, was now having
to contend with the scratches she had added.
How the hell he was still alive and breathing after showing up with
enough bodily damage to take down a small bear, she had no idea. How he
was able to have sex with her through it all was confounding, and her belly
fluttered with butterflies.
He’s unkillable and I’m safe with him. It made her giddy.
And even through the burning pain, she wanted him again.
Elodie bit down on her tongue and dragged her gaze away from their
bodies to land on the lavatory door.
Three yards. Three painstaking yards were between her and water. And
cleanliness.
She placed a hand on Gunner’s muscled chest to start the horrible
process of maneuvering her way over to the bathroom just as his eyes shot
open—glazed and white—to look right at her. Elodie tensed as they skidded
over her face to fall down to the rest of her marked body, and as he searched
her, his cock jerked, enlarging further, where she sat on it.
She licked her lips. “Trying to get to the lavatory.” Her voice weak and
raspy.
“Why?” His hands settled on her thighs.
“Because I look and feel like death.”
“Death looks pretty fucking spectacular then.” Gunner’s lips curled
smugly. Elodie scrunched her face and frowned, wanting to hide from him,
but instead rested her other hand on his chest for support. He continued,
“Death suits you.”
He eyed her with hunger and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Don’t,” he said.
She grumbled a response and he grabbed her arms, pinning them to her
sides.
“You look like you’re mine,” he told her, rising up. Elodie grimaced
anew. “You are mine.” Gunner rubbed his nose between her breasts. “You
smell like you’re mine.”
“That’s because your spunk is all over me,” she huffed dryly. But her
heart fluttered. “It’s disgusting and sticky and it makes me not want to
move with how it feels.”
“And... good.” His nose trailed over her skin in circles and toward her
nipple. His mouth brushed over it until it peaked. “I like sticky. Why ever
would you want to wash it off?”
Gunner lifted her before she could answer and carried her to the
bathroom. She clung to his chest as he hefted her up and wound one of his
arms under her butt to keep her from falling.
Even if I did, I wouldn’t make it far. So sticky, she thought to herself,
unamused. The air was colder here but the shower sounded soon behind her,
and as the water warmed, Gunner walked them both into the tight, single
person stall. They barely fit. He managed to make it happen.
Gunner washed her with the same attention he gave her the night before,
worshiping every inch of her skin. His hands held her upright as his fingers
drew the strain from her muscles. It didn’t matter that the water never rose
above warm, because he warmed her in ways temperature-controlling
technology never could.
Elodie slicked back the wet hair that fell over his brow. “We’ve got the
bare minimum. There’s not even a soap dispensary in here,” she told him,
having searched earlier.
“Wait here.” Suddenly, Gunner stepped out of the bathroom and
vanished through the door, leaving a trail of water behind him. She slid
down the wall like a puppet with its strings cut to curl up at the bottom,
groaning from the strain, and nestled up into herself. He returned a short
time later, holding a kit in one hand and a blanket and the other.
She didn’t argue when he lifted her off the floor and out of the stall and
pulled her on his lap as he sat on a stool he’d dragged in. Gunner wrapped
the blanket around her shoulders to soak up the excess water dripping from
her skin. Elodie leaned lethargically into his chest.
“Where did you find this stuff?” she asked as he opened the kit in front
of her, revealing emergency supplies and aid.
“There is storage container on the other side of the brig with supplies
and there’s a crew lounge outside the machine room and before the elevator.
I pilfered what was stored in the lounge, and unlike you humans, I don’t
need to watch my step while skirting through the maze of steam and heated
metal. Here, take this.” He handed her a booster and a water gel. She
swallowed them both without argument.
Elodie moaned the moment they hit her stomach. The pain immediately
began to fade. Boosters could ravage a system if used too often but when
they were used correctly they did wonders. Gunner held her as energy
surged through her body, and within minutes, her head cleared and the
lighter wounds she sustained had already begun to heal.
“Thank you,” she choked out. He opened up her blanket, baring her
naked flesh to his view again and took out an aerosol can next, spraying a
cool clear mist all over her exposed flesh. Her skin darkened into a blush
when he spread her legs open and misted her cunt thoroughly. It numbed
and tickled. He finished off the can.
She sighed happily. I’ll be brand-new by the end of the day.
“You’re welcome. But I’m selfish and my intentions are too.” Gunner
tossed the empty can across the room. “The sooner you’re healed, the
sooner I can be inside you again.”
Elodie clenched. “I’m not ready.”
He laughed. “You will be soon.” His voice teased, but he re-tucked the
blanket around her as he said it. “I haven’t given you everything yet.”
“We don’t have time. You told my dad to release the prisoners and I
don’t know how many of the crew you killed before you arrived. They
could be searching for us right now. The ship is still flying and if they’re
not looking for us, they will be soon.”
“True, but I’m an impatient animal who is already strung out to his
limit. The world will wait for us.”
Elodie sat back and fumbled. “No. It won’t.”
His face was back to being smug. Callous. “Anyone who approaches
that door with hostile intentions is going to die a very unpleasant death.
Same deal for anyone who plans on distracting me. We’re not in the brig
anymore, Ely, there’s no game to be played now. No more pretend. If
someone gets in my way, they’re going to die.”
“Do you kill indiscriminately?” She grasped the blanket to her. “Not
everyone who wrongs you has to die.”
His eyes flashed red. “Right now? Yes, they do. In the current situation
we’re in, fear of me will keep both of us safe. The crew is in the throes of a
revolt, some with the intention of doing a full-on takeover above. I don’t
give a fuck what happens—as long as I get what I want in the end, I don’t
give a shit about anyone else.”
“What if I wrong you?”
His eyes narrowed on hers. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“But you said indiscriminately. How else should I take this? What if I
wrong you and it’s by accident?”
Gunner wrapped his arm around her and pressed her hard into his chest.
Elodie canted her head.
“If it’s by accident... Then an explanation is in order. If you hurt me or
betray me willingly,” he paused, his eyes going distant, “I don’t think I
would be able to hurt you even if I wanted, to but it wouldn’t be easy, for
you and especially not for me. Trust is a fragile thing, you know that better
than anyone. I would seek it again from you even if you hurt me.” His hold
on her tightened. “I’ll always tell you the truth or show it to you, even if the
truth is fucking hard, and I would hope that you would do the same for me.
Do you plan on betraying me?”
He looked like he wanted to say more but Elodie didn’t pursue it
although it was the first time she had ever heard Gunner say something so
stunted. There was something he was keeping from her. She knew it.
Regardless, she was able to relax in knowing that he wouldn’t hurt her.
“No,” she answered. “I don’t want to wrong you and I don’t have any
plans to betray you. But our deal... It still stands? You wanted this,” she
waved her hand over her body, “and you got it. Will you still honor your
end?”
Gunner nudged her chin so she fully faced him head-on. The distant
look in his eyes was gone and he was focused completely back on her.
“It still stands.”
He stood abruptly, carrying her in his arms and walking them to the
main room. He sat her down at the table and stepped away to pace the
room. She missed the warmth of his body the moment he let go but watched
in silence as he picked up the stray items scattered across the floor that had
been displaced the cycle before.
Her gaze landed on the gun and a shiver shot up her spine. He picked it
up and placed on the table in front of her with a quiet thunk.
Elodie pressed her thighs together, suddenly feeling her core throb—
feeling as though the weapon were penetrating her all over again. The
memory affected her. She felt her inner walls tighten around the hard,
unforgiving metal that demanded entrance into the very soul of her.
She drew the blanket even closer around her while Gunner watched
quietly. And with an awkward thud, he lifted the weapon back up, checked
the ammo with a tsk and set it back down, all the while flicking the safety
on and off.
She shifted uncomfortably, blurting out, “We need to get off the ship.
Do you have a plan?”
He grunted.
It was strange talking to Gunner alone and without the possibility of an
audience. Now that she was forced to face the reality of their situation,
everything that she could think of saying to him just made her nervous.
They were still prisoners, of a sort, as they didn’t control the ship. They still
didn’t know where they were going or how long it would take to get there,
and they definitely didn’t know who would be waiting for them once they
got there. Without the barriers or the cells and the distraction of imminent
death, she had nothing to hide behind. Her tongue felt too big for her
mouth.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, uncomfortably.
“I agree.”
“Then why are we not leaving?" Elodie glanced at the door. “You’re
still recovering and we’re up against the wall, practically in a hole.” She
paused, suddenly alarmed. “Does the whole ship know I’m a woman?”
 “There’s no need for you to worry.” Gunner abruptly caught her hand
and pulled it to his mouth. She tore her eyes from the closed door to look at
him. He laid kisses across her knuckles. “There’s no one you need to be
afraid of. No one on the ship can harm you, let alone get to you. Relax with
me. Please. I need time...”
“You didn’t answer my question, and it’s not that easy to just...”
He turned her hand over and slipped his tongue across her palm. Her
gaze traveled from his mouth and down to the visibly erect cock between
his spread legs. He’d never put on clothes. He was still a little wet...and
naked.
Her desire for him returned and the thought of being repossessed
wedged itself among her worry. Those healing sprays were good, but she
might need to fill a bathtub with it if Gunner got his way.
Elodie shifted on her seat. “So do you have a plan?” She tried to stay
focused as his other hand moved up and over her outstretched arm, his
fingers tickling the sensitive flesh under her elbow.
“I have several potential plans but it depends on the information we
receive once we return to the living.”
She jerked in her seat. “Then let’s go get that information now.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe...” Maybe I’m uncertain about being in your presence.
Maybe I don’t trust myself with you? Maybe getting off this ship will be
easier if my legs still work. She couldn’t say it aloud. He continued to
intensely watch her as his lips and fingers trailed up and down the underside
of her arm, moving higher each time.
“Maybe? Are you in a hurry to get away from me? There’s this new
smell coming off you that says otherwise.” His nostrils flared and he sniffed
the air. Elodie took her arm out from his grip and shoved it back inside her
blanket. That sense of smell could be a problem down the road. But as soon
as she thought it, she knew it was a lie.
He smirked. “You want more. So do I.”
“We don’t have time.”
The smirk turned diabolical, almost gleeful and she found it slightly
monstrous and unnerving. “Sure we do,” he said. Gunner reached for her
and she moved away, slipping off the chair.
“We can’t stay here, the longer we stay here the more anxious I’m going
to get.” Another step back. “We should head to the escape pods, that’s a
straightforward plan!” Gunner stood, reaching for her, and she stepped
farther back.
“Am I making you mad?” he asked, grinning. “I’d like to see you mad.”
“Time doesn’t stop just because you want it to!”
He cocked his head to the side almost mockingly. “Are you so certain of
that?”
“Your inability to want to preserve our lives will make me upset, and
make this worse,” she hissed, skirting around him as he prowled after her.
“My nerves are your fault too. And another thing, you won’t see me mad.
You will never see me mad. I’ve had many years practicing and keeping my
emotions stifled. Anything that could break my façade was buried.”
“So you are in a hurry to get away from me. Ely, I’m pretty damn good
at reading you. You should know that by now. Your blood is pumping and
we both know it’s not entirely from nerves.”
Elodie dodged around the table in an effort to keep it between them but
before she could get to the other side he caught her up in his arms and
pressed her body against his. He moved too fast for her.
“Begging excites me,” he whispered into her ear. A deliciously dark
shiver coursed through her. “Leave,” he turned around and sat her on the
table, “the rest,” he took hold of her blanket—her protection—and tore it
from her grip, “to me.” Gunner nudged between her legs with his own.
“Will you let me try and help you relax?”
Relax? The idea seemed preposterous and so beyond her ability, even
the notion made her want to laugh.
Elodie squirmed and closed her eyes, reaching up to put her hands on
his shoulders and hold onto him. She took a deep breath and relinquished to
him. It wasn’t easy but she tried hard, and with his help—with his heat and
his power—won the battle in the end.
She sucked in another breath and focused on the warmth of his body,
and the chill at her back. Her heartbeat evened out slowly, and when she
opened her eyes, Gunner pressed his mouth over hers, soft and fierce, and
so unlike everything he emitted.
The kiss was gentle, then vicious, velvet liquid and quietly savage. He
deepened it and sucked her soul out, lashing her with his tongue. God, his
tongue. Relaxing was the last thing on her mind as she arched into him.
She found his wet hair and pulled his face harder into her.
 He pulled away and her mouth moved to re-catch his. Elodie opened her
eyes to find him looking down at her.
“Well?” he inquired.
She dug her nails into his shoulders and nodded. “Try.”
A twitch of his lips, a bloom of his gun tats, and the wolfish god under
her hands bulged with empowerment. The sudden shift left her breathless
and tongue-tied. She’d accidentally summoned a demon. Gunner drew
back, cupped her thighs and drew her forward, burying his face between her
legs. Frenzied probing fingers nudged and pushed up into her aching core.
Firecrackers exploded behind her eyes as they found her sweet spot and
played it until she seized.
Gunner licked her entire length with the flat of his tongue. Her hips
jumped up and undulated to imitate sex, her body telling him what she
wanted most as her pussy slid across his face, her clit bumping his nose.
Elodie felt the first climax tear through her not long after, and the stress
and frenzied release clouded her senses somewhere between an orgasm and
a panic attack, brought on by desperation and lust. Gunner kneaded and
pinched her, suckled and played her like an instrument, dragging out her
orgasm.
The energy crescendoed.
She peered down to see him watching her from between her legs and as
their gazes caught, his mouth left her clit to thread his thick tongue through
her folds, nipping along the way. The sight was dark and erotic, her pale
skin cast in crimson. He was mesmerizing in his intent, feasting. She was
entranced as Gunner moved her legs over his corded shoulders.
The guns tattooed on his cheeks pointed to the one part of her body that
needed him most. His tongue joined his fingers inside her pussy, stretching
her further. It was even more demanding than his hand.
Elodie rode it with renewed energy, chasing the continuous high right
over the cliff’s edge. Then, as if the cliff was real, she was dragged off the
table and pulled down atop him on the floor until she was maneuvered to
straddle his face—speared on his tongue.
His hands gripped her hard, harder than ever before, past the point of
pain just as the ship shook like it had been hit by a bomb. All the items
Gunner had picked up once again scattered across the floor, ringing more
than moans in her ears. The rumbles and tremors were mistaken for another
climax as Gunner continued to eat her out, pistoning his tongue—
completely undisturbed by the clapping, banging metal around them.
She fell forward and pressed her hands into the floor, struggling against
the violent quakes. “Gunner,” she screeched, feeling gravity shift as his
tongue picked up speed. “What’s happening!?”
“Warp,” he muttered, his breath fanning her quivering pussy. His red
eyes stared straight up at her, undisturbed, and wickedly taunting.
Then he hummed.
Oh, fuck! Elodie bowed over him and braced because there was no time
for anything else. No time to find something to strap herself to.
But Gunner had her covered.
 Chapter Seventeen

HALF A CYCLE PASSED as he kept Elodie safe with him in the

mechanics’ breakroom.
Chesnik had returned several times throughout but he was never
allowed to stay long, regardless, it hadn’t deterred the man from trying.
Eventually, Gunner let him see his daughter but only for a small reprieve.
Gunner left her sleeping within, now comfortable in an array of forged
supplies, as he made his way back to the main passageways, back toward
the brig where the others were now free. The familiar pungent scent of the
prisoners gradually replaced the acrid rust and the humidity of steam rising
from the machines.
But every step away from Ely was difficult, as if there was a noose tight
around his neck—or his heart—and she held onto the other end.
Gunner stepped through the latch and familiar men—now equipped
with guns—were stationed on the other side.
He closed the door and jammed the locking mechanism. No one was
going to be getting in and out without his knowledge.
“Any news?” He approached the first.
“Besides the abrupt warp jump that most of us miraculously survived,
not much in the news front. We’re locked down here in the underbelly. The
pirates have the second and presumably the third level elevator on
lockdown. Every live man we’ve sent up has come back down to us as a
bullet-ridden corpse.”
“How many casualties?”
“One man broke his neck during the warp. We think he was asleep when
it happened and didn’t have time to hang on to something. The rest,” the
prisoner shrugged with exhaustion, “killed. There’s fourteen of us left but
several refuse to fight and they remain in the brig like frightened cattle.
Fucking cowards. Those idiots think we’ll all die regardless and there’s no
point in trying to fight for freedom. I mean, they don’t even want to fight
for food! But how can you blame them? I guess fear sucks the soul out of
some people.”
 Gunner nodded. He knew what fear could do better than anyone.
Mixing fear with uncertainty, and adding a dash of anxiety, was a cocktail
for a crash-and-burn of the worst kind. The fact that Elodie was able to
sleep for more than an hour at a time made him a grateful beast.
“And what about you? Are you willing to fight when the stench gets
thick?” he asked, curious.
“Like it isn’t already? I’ll be fighting. Freedom tastes good, even if it’s a
lie. Either way, I won’t be dying on an empty stomach or cowering in the
dark if it comes down to that. I’ll die on my feet before I go back on my
knees.”
Gunner gripped the man’s shoulder. “Good.” He left him to find the
others.
It didn’t take him long before he found Chesnik. He was sitting behind
several makeshift barricades near the elevator. Gunner’s gaze moved up to
where the door was currently jammed open by a metal crate.
Below it and scattered on the floor were broken androids and
bloodstains that ended with no bodies attached. He rubbed the back of his
neck. No carrion for him to be distracted by.
His target was fiddling with a gun but stopped when he neared.
“News?”
“Ely?” Chesnik shot back.
Gunner moved closer and lowered his voice. “She’s fine. Sleeping if
you should know, and healing. She’s in better conditions now than she has
been in weeks. Probably years.” He would almost call what he created for
her a nest, but no man was privy to his inner thoughts.
“Go fuck yourself, Cyborg,” Chesnik sneered.
“Why?” he goaded unfairly.
Chesnik stared at him with hatred. “You know why.”
“I have some suspicions...”
“You're using her!”
Gunner made a loud noise to cover the outburst and he was at Chesnik’s
side in the next second, whispering, “Elodie is a woman. An adult I may
add. She can make her own choices and she chose me.”
Chesnik chuckled with self-deprecation. “Under duress. What do you
think this situation is? We could die at any time, or we could be overrun and
be made into slaves. Neither option is comforting. None of her choices, or
anyone's for that matter, are sound.”
 The plates in his jaw demanded to shift to reveal his jackal in its dark
profile. There was nobody in the universe that would talk to him like this
without fear of death—death he would gladly give. Except Chesnik,
apparently. The man knew he was untouchable, because of Elodie and the
deal they had between them.
Gunner narrowed his eyes and took in his mate’s father. Maybe he
knows what I really want. He’s afraid I’ll take her away from him. He
clicked his tongue and the blood that frenzied his veins forcibly cooled
down. He should be.
“You have little faith in your daughter,” his voice darkened the man’s
ear. “She’s followed you her whole life because of love? Maybe?
Misguided trust? If anyone is wrong in their fucking head, it’s you. Do you
really think I’m coercing her?” His laugh was strained and quiet. “I’m the
fucker bending to her will. For once, your daughter has a little control over
her life. Let her have it.” Gunner wiped the back of his hand over his mouth
and took a half step back.
“Then what’s her will? And don’t spew me yours in hopes I’ll buy it.
Your words might be pretty but I know her better than that.”
“Saving you,” Gunner spat and waved at him. “And saving the others.
Pretty much doing what I can to ensure you guys live, that you don’t make
it to the slave rings or the flesh stalls, and to get you off this ship.”
There was a moment of silence while Chesnik held his ground and
looked into his eyes. “Sounds like her,” he eventually said. “The one thing I
couldn’t get out of her head, even after all these years, was thinking about
others.” Chesnik sighed. “She’s a lot like her mother in that way.” His voice
was wistful before it hardened anew. “What was her trade, Cyborg? I know
you’re using her—”
“—I’m not using her.”
“Using her. But the price of a Cyborg is well beyond that. No one
person can afford you. No one like her, or me, or anyone else on this ship
except maybe the captain. Usually, only planetary governments can hire a
Cyborg, and even then it hurts. What are you taking from my daughter?”
Everything.
He was going to take everything that he could from her, everything that
she allowed him to have. It started with her voice and a bargain for her
companionship, he had taken her name and then he had stolen her touches
and her kisses. Elodie then gave him her body and he had given her a
window into his head, into which she had looked and hadn’t flinched away.
I would give her my soul. Gunner clenched his hands at his sides as the
thought brought on a numbing shock.
If she reached out and took it, he would let her have it. She would keep
it safe and in turn, he would protect her from the horrors of the universe and
the despairing thoughts of hell, because loneliness was hell. And they had
both been so alone for so long.
Her everything and my everything are different. The thought didn't
make him feel good, and for the first time since he could remember, bile
rose in his throat.
“Ask her yourself,” he gritted out.
Chesnik kept talking as if he didn't know Gunner was about to lose his
mind. “I would if you’d let me speak to her alone.”
“No. Fucking. Way.” No way was he going to let Chesnik get back into
her head. Not if he could help it. “If you’re so dead set on saving her from
me and the choices she made, I’m not with her now. I won’t stop you. Try
and get to her.” Gunner cocked his head in the direction where the jammed
door was located.
A vein looked like it was about to pop over Chesnik’s brow. The
wrinkles on around his eyes grew deeper by the second.
“You and I both know I wouldn’t get very far,” he accused.
Gunner took another step back, further unblocking the man’s way. His
jaw ticked. “Won’t you even try?”
“No.”
Once again anger simmered Gunner’s blood. “You don’t trust me. Or
her. And you won’t even try...”
“I know she’s safe.”
Gunner snorted with derision. “From everyone but me that is. When you
see her next, because there will be a next, tell her that. I dare you.”
The enmity between them was palpable but short-sighted. A banging
noise beside Gunner had him turning away. The elevator door shook the
crate as it tried to close. It then slid back into the panel before trying again
with another bang. It continued to rattle when Chesnik broke the silence at
his side.
“You’re not holding up your end of the bargain well. I’ll be telling her
that. Some of us died as you holed up and used her.”
 The man really does have a death wish. He wondered if it was to punish
his daughter for choosing him over her own father. It was more reason not
to hurt or kill the man. Gunner wasn't going to give Chesnik the
satisfaction.
“You mean the men in the brig, the ones you left to die earlier?” Gunner
snapped. “I can’t control people like I can machines. If they get themselves
killed because they think they know better than I do, then they’re idiots I
couldn’t save to begin with.”
“Why wait until now?”
“To give the crew upstairs some time to stew, and to come up with a
plan that wasn’t rushed from the heat of battle. To let the unrest congeal and
solidify and to give everyone down here a chance to regroup, to eat, and to
heal. I’m trying to give everyone the best chance possible to survive. We’re
no longer in Andromeda, which means they have a destination in mind and
one I’m very curious about. The captain didn’t need to warp us if we were
still headed to Elyria, but he did. So what does that mean?”
“I don’t understand? Why don’t you think we’re not headed to Elyria
anymore? He could warp and stay within the same galaxy, even the same
solar system.”
Gunner rubbed his lips and turned from the elevator to look back at
Chesnik.
“Because that was where we were headed from the get-go. The warp is
a power sap, to do so to make it to a nearby location slightly faster isn’t
done lightly. I know something about meetups and drop-offs and Elyria is
ripe with them. Timing is important. He’s either sped it up...or ditched it
entirely, either of which would destroy his reputation in the system. A man
who can’t deliver is a man not worth permitting to live. If we’re not headed
there, that means something has changed. Whether it’s with the crew or
with the captain, something changed. What that change is? I don’t know,
but I think it’s time for us to find out.”

ENERGY COURSED THROUGH Gunner as he made his way back to

Elodie. He’d only left her for an hour but it felt like an eternity to him.
His hand settled on his chest, over his heart, where it beat heavy under
his still healing thumb. He realized it was the first time he had ever paid
attention to it.
 The machines clanked on all sides, energy and power fueled them,
fueled him. Though his plans were now in motion, the organ under his palm
drummed steadily.
Gunner came upon his mate sleeping in the back room—in their nest—
right where he’d left her. Elodie was in the throes of slumber as he kneeled
at her side. Her cobbled-together distress beacon was laid out next to her.
Whether it could be repaired or not was still up in the air, but he had
been impressed with her single-minded fortitude. Her fingers still clutched
it to her side, as if she worked on it in her sleep, and when he touched the
metal of her gadget himself he could feel the pieces conduct under his
fingertips.
She’ll have it working soon. He could help her repair it, he knew, but he
wasn’t good with rebuilding machines because he lacked patience. His
lavatory-turned-brewery was a testament to its lack. It was a steampunk
nightmare in bathroom form.
Gunner brushed the hair from her face. He meant to wake her but now
he couldn’t. Elodie was all his when she was asleep. She was content. At
peace.
Elodie’s eyelids fluttered. Dreaming. Gunner quietly lay down next to
her and feathered his fingers over her temple.
Dirty. Now only one of us is dirty. His hand stilled.
‘Why wait until now?’ Chesnik’s question repeated itself. He had many
answers for it, depending who asked, but the real answer plagued him.
I want her to fall in love with me before she has a chance to leave.
I’m a selfish fucking bastard.
All he really wanted to do was use what time remained for his own
desires. He didn’t care about the others, the captain or the freighter ship,
and he could still leave at any time.
Right now, he could light the vessel ablaze and make his escape. He
could leave in an escape pod and contact the EPED and let the thumb-tip
that was still buried in this ship be a tracker for him to find later and meet
up with Stryker.
He could leave his only lead to his own ship’s whereabouts, but if he did
that, Elodie and Chesnik and the others would get hurt. Although he could
lead them to the escape pods himself, it would mean he would have to split
up with Elodie. It wasn’t like he could tether his escape pod to hers. And if
she got hurt...
 If her escape pod malfunctioned...
Gunner ran his pointer finger over the hook of her ear, across her
forehead, and down the bridge of her nose. He traced the outline of her face
in an effort to memorize every detail. He couldn’t take that chance. Jackals
mate for life.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered. She mumbled and swatted his hand.
Gunner slipped closer until her breath fanned his face.
Fall in love with me, Elodie.
Let me keep you.
 Chapter Eighteen

GUNNER’S GLAZED GREY eyes, wraith-like and zombified, appeared

before her. She jerked in surprise, not expecting him so close.
“Ugh.” Elodie rubbed her face. “How long have I been asleep?”
“A couple of hours.”
Her eyes widened. “That long?” She couldn’t remember the last time
she’d slept so long. Even so, she was tempted to go back to sleep again.
Knowing Gunner was watching over her made her feel safe enough to rest
peacefully, without fear. She licked her dry lips. “Why didn’t you wake
me?”
“You needed the rest.”
“I need—” Gunner grabbed her as she attempted to stand and pressed
her back against the floor. He pulled the blanket over them. Elodie
swallowed but didn’t fight back—she didn’t really want to. His comforting
heat enveloped her, and as quickly as she had woken, it was now as quickly
hard to breathe.
“You need?” He peered into her eyes.
She scrunched her features and pressed her hands against his chest.
“Not this,” she whispered.
“This,” his voice was a soft feather as he scanned her face, “is resting,
healing, rebounding and readying for the next move. This is exactly what
you need. It’s what I need.”
“The anticipation,” she swallowed again, “is killing me though.”
“Is it?” He smirked.
Elodie pushed. No give. Gunner was like an impenetrable wall. He was
an impenetrable wall. Even bullets came to a dead stop when they hit his
internal frame. She’d seen the smashed balls of metal on the floor. “Stop
asking questions that I hate answering. There’s no rhetoricals with you.”
His smile widened.
The heat was suffocating.
She didn’t want him to let her go. Her reflection was clear in his wild
eyes and as she gazed at herself through him. Elodie liked being the sole
thing he saw. And he really saw her, the true her, the self that she’d never
shown to anyone before. He had from the beginning. She wanted to believe
that she filled his space as much as he filled hers.
Gunner dropped down onto his elbows and moved closer, crowding. His
teasing smile melted into an unreadable, pinched line. She was trapped and
it thrilled her. Because he trapped her, captivated her, she was willing. I’m
still the only thing he sees. His chest pressed against her own. Elodie dug
her nails into his skin, acknowledging the standoff but not pushing him
away.
“I didn’t wake you because I liked watching you sleep.” His lips
brushed her own. His breathy words sent her stomach into a somersault.
“I shouldn’t like that, but I do... Did you sleep?”
His lips arched back into a smile. “No,” he told her. “I didn’t want to
waste a moment.”
Frown. “Waste a moment? Do Cyborgs live forever? Do they age?
Either way, you likely have an eternity of moments to waste.”
“Not with you.”
His words gave her pause.
They caught her off guard. She didn’t like the thought that they had
moments that could be wasted, meaning that someday they could run out of
moments entirely.
It made her want to hold onto this second as long as she could. Like he
was apparently trying so hard to do. Sad and wistful. The revelation wasn’t
a pleasant one.
She scanned his face, memorizing it.
His nose bumped hers, endearingly, and she wrenched her eyes shut.
Her hands loosened on his shoulders to bury into his tousled hair. A
thousand irrational thoughts came to mind but she couldn’t manage to open
her mouth or find the courage to voice them. Instead, she pulled him closer
and mashed her lips to his, choosing to remain shuttered behind the walls of
her eyelids.
Gunner shattered her heart as he caressed her mouth open and deepened
the kiss. A quiet, subtle, and strange desperation built between them. Elodie
hitched up and fought for a breath but it only drowned her further. Her
senses filled to the brink with him—the heady sweet sweat, adrenaline-
tinged musk, and the rumbling thunder.
His hand gripped the edge of her pants and pushed them down her legs.
She untangled herself from them in a rush to bridge the gap. To feel his skin
over hers. Her thighs abraded with friction when his were yanked down
next and with the blanket still hovering over them both, hiding them from
view, Gunner flipped her over onto her front and pressed his weight heavily
against her back.
Elodie moved her arms underneath her chest and rested on them as her
hands cupped her face. Gunner’s arms appeared on either side of her head.
It was quiet as the head of his cock pushed between her closed cheeks
and sought entrance. She lifted her butt as far as he let her to close the
distance.
The process was achingly slow, painfully heart-wrenching, and filled
her belly with chaotic butterflies.
Gunner found her entrance, dipping in his thick tip in, before rocking
back out. Elodie winced despite her essence slicking her skin but he took it
slow and she rested into submission.
The delicious smell of his pre-cum soon pooled to join her arousal to
lubricate his way. It was intoxicating—drugging as it rolled over her—
trapped by the man that shielded her. The scent of heady sex bubbled them
in.
His mouth caressed the back of her neck, over her nape, and along her
shoulders. She leaned her face harder into her hands and stifled her moans
as his cock drove deeper. Tears prickled her eyes from the sudden stretch.
Elodie broke the silence whispering his name.
Gunner’s hair fell across her cheek as he pressed his own mouth
alongside hers, whispering her name back. He pushed down until their
bodies plastered together. Locked together. Oh. She rubbed the dew on her
eyelashes away.
Then he began to move.
Each time before had been a claiming in its own way. This time was
different: a branding. He was burning himself into her thoughts as he took
her body, and when her legs parted enough for him to fully seat himself
deep inside her core, they began to move in unison.
The silence that had enclosed them vanished in the building frenzy of
their bodies. Elodie gasped as Gunner increased his tempo, thrusting harder
each time. Rasps filled her ears, their faces still pressed together and their
mouths side-by-side sharing the humid air. He rocked into her, spreading
her legs further apart and pushed her forward into the floor, his chest hitting
her back.
 Gunner slipped his palm under her forehead, cushioning it from his
ruthless pounding into her body.
A roaring grunt and a brutal thrust had her reaching up to grasp his
hand. Gunner snaked his other arm under her chest and climaxed violently,
holding her to his chest as he seized.
Hot seed filled her pussy and spilled out to ease the friction where their
legs tangled, rubbed, and slapped together. A crazy smile jerked at her lips
as his body heaved and careened, caught up by the sudden, unexpected
release. Gunner had lost control with her and she liked it, even more so
because he had complete power over her own body at the same time.
“Fuck!” His cheek left hers as he rested his brow against the back of her
head. “Fuck,” he grunted again with another thrust, grinding her ass harder
with his pelvis.
An airy laugh escaped her. Elodie didn’t even try to hide it. She
continued to giggle as he released her to collapse onto the bedding.
“How am I going to keep you if I can’t even control myself?” Gunner
rasped. “I owe you at least a good half hour for that one.”
Her pussy clenched. He gave her another quick, brutal thrust.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she chuckled and gasped. “But
you’re...” she almost lost her words as he continued spearing her,
“...adorable.”
He flipped her over onto her back and wicked red eyes filled her vision.
My reflection. Mirth replaced the desperation and she wrapped her legs
around his hips, slipping his thick shaft back into her.
“Elodie, I’m not adorable.”
“You are. Right now, you are.”
Gunner’s face twisted devilishly. “Do I need to prove it to you?”
Yes. No. Yes.
“I don’t think that’s possible, anymore,” she teased.
Gunner crushed his mouth to hers pulled out of her. His mouth bit and
tore down her body, grazing his teeth over the long subtle curves of her
frame. His face pressed between her shaky legs, and what she felt between
them wasn’t entirely human. He wasn’t playing fair, shifting his face back
into the frightening visage he wore when he had found her in this room.
Elodie refused to look down and give him the satisfaction. He tortured her
stubbornness with orgasms.
 When the third one gripped her body, Elodie began to think Gunner
liked being vicious with her cunt and enjoyed having his face between her
legs.
A thrill swept through her. She was marking him in her own way.

SHE WATCHED GUNNER check his weapons and belt them onto the
foraged straps that crisscrossed his chest and shoulders. Apparently, he
needed to recharge. It was hard for him to admit, and at first she was
confused, but as his body healed before her eyes, and his darkening aura
faded back into normalcy, she understood.
Even a Cyborg had its limits. Sex wasn’t one of them.
Their supplies had increased each day they had spent in the break room.
Gunner had left on several occasions but had refused to let her join him.
She would’ve cared if she hadn’t been working so hard on building the
radio beacon.
And she had fixed it, despite the odds, at least in a way. It held a charge
and lit up when she turned it on, but the connection she’d hoped would
happen instantly hadn’t occurred.
Elodie set it to cycle through the most commonly used frequencies and
figured it would alert her if it made a connection. She still needed to wire it
up. She’d ask Gunner for his input when he was done... armoring up.
Her clit still throbbed, even hours after her last orgasm, from continuous
release. Watching him dress didn’t help at all. He made her want to melt
back into him and demand another bout of sex. Elodie threaded her fingers
and pushed her legs together in an effort to stop her body from wanting the
wrong things at the wrong time, again. He can smell it every time. I knew
that would be trouble.
Stop it. Elodie tore her eyes away, relocated her double banded sports
bra and fled to the bathroom. It was time to hide her femininity anyway.
The pressure of the disguise returned as she settled the bra into place.
Gunner appeared in the doorway, resting his shoulder on the frame, as
she stepped into a clean uniform he sourced for her.
“You look like a boy.”
She cringed. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Why? Isn’t that what you’re aiming for?”
 “Only because I have to. I’m tired of it. All of it. The façade. The game
that has no end. Winning it is impossible and winning isn’t something I’ve
ever seriously wanted to do.”
She also didn’t want Gunner to see her as a man anymore, but she
would never admit that out loud.
He cocked his head. “Then why do it? You know, besides the obvious
reason?”
“You already know that answer.”
“Chesnik. Family.” He sighed. “Still fucking clueless why though.
Would you follow him anywhere? To the ends of the black universe? To
hell?” His voice grew angry and she didn’t know why.
“Yes. No. Maybe.” Elodie frowned. “I don’t know anymore. One time I
would’ve followed him anywhere. He’s my dad and he was all I knew but
now... I’m not so sure,” she answered honestly.
“But you’d consider it?”
Would she? “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him. He’s the only thing I was ever able to love and
he’s my dad. It’s always scared me, the thought of losing that love. I mean,
what else is there without it?” Elodie lowered her voice despite herself,
already slipping into her disguise, albeit unwillingly. “What’s the point of
living if you never really live? Losing him in the brig was one of the worst
experiences of my life. I don’t think humans are meant to be alone.”
“Would you die for him?”
“Of course I would! He’s my dad.” How many times would she have to
say it? “But I know I would never have to. He’d never let me and he’d die
for me too.” Talking about love made her uncomfortable. Especially with
him. “Wouldn’t you die for family?”
“I don’t have any family. So, I wouldn’t be able to answer that. Plus,
dying isn’t something a Cyborg can easily do.”
She caught his eyes in the mirror. “No family? What about other
Cyborgs? Wouldn’t you consider them family?”
He shook his head. “Don’t look so crestfallen. We’re made the way we
are for a reason and although that reason no longer exists, we have freedom
and power in place of family. We do have each other, that’s true, but I
would never consider the rest of them my family.” He laughed. “Cyborgs
can’t stand being around each other for long periods of time. We innately
repel.”
“You do?”
“Strong personalities.”
Hmph. “I can see that.”
“Maybe it’s our technology. If you get enough ‘Borgs together we heat
up a room like a sauna located on the surface of a star, and that’s before we
start fighting,” he added, laughing. “Regardless, we repel.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” She wondered what her life would be like if
she didn’t have her dad, the choices she would’ve made. Power and
freedom would be nice... “Do you like being alone?”
Gunner didn’t immediately answer her. She watched his face in the
mirror as an unreadable expression took away the smirk that bowed his lips.
She suddenly regretted asking and was about to apologize when he
spoke.
“That’s a hard question to answer.”
“You don’t have to answer it.”
He shook his head. “I will... It’s just hard to explain.”
He’s at a loss for words? Her brow crinkled.
“I was created half a century ago as a fully grown, functioning human
being.” Gunner paused again. “Family and loneliness mean different things
to me than they do to you. When I opened my eyes that first time I knew
exactly what and who I was. I was born with all the knowledge I needed to
exist in this reality. The machine was natural. The human was natural.” He
shrugged. “The jackal not so much.”
The jackal? She opened her mouth but he continued talking before she
could ask.
“It’s not common knowledge that each Cyborg is built differently, for
different purposes. Technology can do so much but only so much can fit in
the space of a body designed like a physically fit human. What is
commonly known, though, is that we’re all designed with strength—some
more than others—and the power to seed into the network and siphon
energy. We all have speed. We all have perfect memories that function like
storage units and a hard drive with practically infinite space. That’s the
machine inside us, and machines don’t need family and they don’t get
lonely. The problem is that not all of us are ruled by the machine, and
regardless of what technology we’re given upon birth, we still have a
conscience and we still have emotions. So your question is a hard one to
answer.” He pushed away from the wall. “Each Cyborg created does have a
different function and a different power stored within. Some call it checks
and balances. I call it intrigue.”
“But jackal?” She was still stuck on jackal.
“Let me explain.” He took a step toward her. “The moment I woke up, I
knew something was different about me. I had all this knowledge and I
knew there were other Cyborgs—like me—waking up in separate vats
throughout the cybernetic facility. My first memories were of feeling ill. I
knew, instinctively, that Cyborgs didn’t wake up feeling that way, but there
I was, freshly created, and feeling unnatural. There was a third part to me,
an animalistic part, that agreed with my illness. I had just experienced life
and yet I had an affinity for death.
“In those first minutes of waking I registered my abrupt obsession as a
malfunctioning calibration, maybe a misplaced code, but the more I gleaned
from my makeup and from the others around me, I quickly realized that the
illness I was feeling wasn’t an error at all. It was a bestial contender for my
headspace. That different part of me, the one that made me unique
compared to all other Cyborgs, also made me unpredictable.
“Some beasts are docile, some beasts exist in perfect harmony with their
environment. Those beasts are not jackals. We were all coded to win a war
and war meant death, a lot of death. But in those first few years of my life, I
wasn’t only filled with bloodlust like my brethren. I was filled to the brink
with hunger, and I was ravenous. I felt at home among the corpses. Fucking
docs spliced an opportunistic, pack-centric carrion-eater with a machine and
then sent their creation off to war.”
Elodie stiffened her spine and held her ground. “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Eat...carrion?”
“Never.”
Gunner stood at her back. Her fingers gripped the edge of the sink, her
knuckles white. Relief filled her but so did her curiosity. “Did you want to
though?”
His eyes flickered red. “Yes. The problem with a jackal-machine-human
hybrid is the jackal thinks it’s a great idea and the machine sees an abundant
energy source ripe for the plucking, but the man...” Gunner paused, “...the
man is horrified. Horrified and outnumbered.” He pressed a hand to her
lower back. “I have more control over myself than that, Ely, so don’t look
so sick.” His palm was hot against her spine. “I never ate a corpse but I’m
also not infallible. I didn’t do it out of motherfucking spite. Those who
made me knew what they were doing and maybe it was a fun test for them,
to see how far they can push us before we lose control. I wasn’t going to
give them the satisfaction.”
Gunner ran his hand up her body until he held the back of her neck.
“No. I did what you did. I hid in plain sight and pretended normalcy. And
although I was surrounded by corpses—constantly—for years, I buried that
third part of me until it was like it never even existed. Because I am a
spiteful bastard that didn’t want them to win. It was probably my biggest
mistake.”
Gunner’s eyes went dark red and glazed as if he was looking into the
past. To something she would never truly see. When he didn’t continue
Elodie prompted, “Why was it a mistake?” She glanced down at her
camouflage and wondered if she was making one herself.
“I corrupted myself.”
“How?”
“I erased some codes that I shouldn’t have.” He pried one of her hands
away from the sink to capture it between his own. “I was looking for the
parts of myself that gave control to the jackal but I ended up reconfiguring
my basic settings instead. To do so is tantamount to suicide.” Gunner
shrugged. “But at the time I was sick of feeling at home among the dead.
And I’m not even a goddamn spider! Or a bat. I know a guy who
obsessively rests upside down. Obsessively. Can you imagine?” He released
a grim laugh.
Confusion still gripped her. “Did it work? What happened after you
messed up your codes?”
“It did work. When it happened, I was commander of a battle station
and suddenly I had no driving will to fight a war that wasn’t mine. Cyborgs
want nothing more than to kill Trentians. Taking even one of those alien
bastards out gives us a better high than any possible combination of
narcotics. The scientists figured Pavlovian reinforcement to our basic coded
desires was a good fail-safe. I inadvertently axed that part of my brain. I
had dozens of ships in my fleet, all designed for guerrilla warfare and
planetside battles. I got up, walked out of the bridge, hijacked one of the
flyers and deserted. The shock I created brought on panic from the pretty
boys in charge. My desertion branded me with eternal exile.”
Silence settled between them.
She hadn’t realized how little she knew about the dangerous man at her
back until just then. And he was right, loneliness and family meant vastly
different things to them. On top of that, the war had ended when one of the
Cyborgs single-handedly demolished a Trentian colony ship roughly forty-
five years earlier.
Everyone learned that as a child, but that had to mean that Gunner had
already been alone for almost half a century.
She wanted to turn around and hug him, to bury her face into his chest
and breathe in his hard smell, but that meant she’d have to stop looking at
him, if even for a second. They watched each other quietly until the
distance his words at first created slowly receded.
Until they were gone altogether and it was just the two of them again.
In a bleak situation.
Alone.
Gunner lifted a pair of scissors that she’d set aside earlier by the sink
and raised them to her hair. He twirled them with his fingers and she was
transfixed.
“Do you regret it?” she eventually asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
A small smile twisted the corner of his lip. “Because since then, they
have never even tried to create another Cyborg like myself, at least one who
preferred the dead over the living.”
“So you’re no longer hiding then?”
“Not anymore. Losing me was a costly shock—god, I love how much
money I’m worth—and a setback. It created some political strife but it was
for the best in the long run. Those that came into power after the war ended
took into account that Cyborgs couldn’t be controlled forever. If they
wanted our continued help and for us to never turn on them, we would have
to be as free as any natural born man.”
“And your exile?”
“I’m not allowed to enter commercial air space or any Earthian-
controlled colonies without prior notarized clearance from both the head the
EPED and the fleet admiral in control of the region I’m visiting. I’m not
allowed on any star port or waystation that is in full control of the
government on pain of imprisonment. My contact with the civilized world
is to be at the barest minimum,” Gunner said as he took the longer strands
of her hair between his fingers started clipping away.
“Didn’t the government go after you when you deserted? Wouldn’t they
try to kill you or lock you up? Even I knew that back then and treason is
one of the highest crimes one can commit. You should be dead.”
“Power and freedom.” He smirked. “Elodie, I’m still employed by
them.”
She deadpanned. “You are?”
“Yes.” Her strands fell softly around her shoulders in waves as he
tugged her head back and forth and styled her hair. “The EPED or the
Earthian Planetary Exploration Division. A pseudo-private corporation
under the government umbrella. I’m a retriever for them and the job suits
me. They can make use of me and send me to the brinks of the known
universe to hunt and bring back whatever it is they want to study... Or to
have quietly vanished from existence and in return I’m paid enough to keep
my ship maintained and have purpose.”
“But after everything you’ve been through, don’t you want more?” She
wasn’t exactly sure how old Gunner was but if he was created around the
time the rest of the Cyborgs were, then he was at least twice her age. I
would want more.
“Do you think I deserve more?”
“Yes, because you’re alive and free and scant few have the opportunities
you have. You were exiled by the same people who are employing you, who
created you. I would think you’d want more out of life than eternally
roaming the edges of the known universe and working for them. Why not
run?”
“I tried that. Nothing changed.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand. You could go off the grid,
change your name, and get new upgrades. You could find a new ship and
fly it so far away that no one would ever encounter you again. If you’re
above the law why not just leave? You didn’t regret it then, what’s so
different now?”
Gunner set down the scissors and ruffled her hair. “I don’t want to,” he
said again and smiled, turning her around to face him. “Don’t get me
wrong. I’ve thought about it. I’ve tried and each time I turned back.”
 “What stopped you?”
“What stopped me? There’s nothing out there and that scares me too.
What else is there without this?” he asked, suddenly looking at her directly,
intensely.
Her words from earlier were thrown back in her face. Gunner searched
her eyes, imploringly, and she took a short step back, bewildered. The
strings that pulled her to him cinched and wrapped around her heart. He
rested his hands on the sink to either side of her.
He’s going to kiss me.
She dug her nails into the palms of her hands. He leaned down and she
leaned back. Her lips parted and the guns on his cheeks pointed to his
beautiful bow-shaped mouth.
If he kisses me...
But his lips never met hers.
“Well, are you ready?” The words breezed over her forehead and he
took a step back.
She wasn’t ready. Not anymore. She was overwhelmed.
“No.” She licked her lips against the kiss he didn’t give her. “But it
doesn't matter.” Elodie maneuvered around him, fleeing and leaving the
bathroom behind. The courage she once held was now gone. “I don't want
to be here anymore.”
Her heart raced as she collected the rest of her supplies, stopping at the
table to pick up her contraption and a piece of piping she was going to
wield as a weapon.
When she was done, she headed to the broken door. Her eyes briefly
looked at the punctured wall, to the gel casings that littered the floor from
the food replicator, and to the pile of blankets lying in the corner. The place
had become a sanctuary and one she would always remember...but it was
time to leave.
Gunner stood at the edge of the room quietly. Elodie refused to meet his
gaze.
A surge of excitement shot through her. The taste of freedom was at the
tip of her tongue. When he finally approached, he looked bleak but self-
assured and she wondered what he was thinking.
It was time to go.
He didn’t say anything as he gripped the door panel and shoved it into
the wall. Heavy plumes of heat and steam, damp with humidity, cascaded
over them as the giant machines came back into view and the sounds of
shifting metal with it.
They stepped out together. Gunner took the lead and her excitement fled
as she watched him walk away from her. Sweat beaded on her brow as he
moved steadily further ahead. She knew he did it for her but it wasn’t
helping. The gap between them widened. They were vastly different but she
felt connected to him, now more than ever.
I don’t want to say goodbye to the only true friend I’ve ever made. The
only person who sees me... And each residing step onward brought the
possible inevitability closer.
Because Elodie knew, once they were out of this hellhole, life would
return, and with it, their very real differences.

GUNNER MONITORED EVERY footfall behind him, listening to Ely

following the path he set out for them through the rigs. She was at home
within the machines and although he wanted to turn around and help her, he
didn’t. He needed her to follow him of her own volition and he didn’t want
to make her appear weak or feel unprepared with his newfound obsession
with her well-being. He gritted his teeth and continued forward.
She was in her environment even if it was an unsafe one, but knowing
that didn’t make it easier for him to not want to turn around and shield her.
“We’ll be rejoining the other prisoners soon, are you prepared?” he
asked instead, adding to the distance she’d already created. He wasn’t an
idiot. I know why she pulled away.
It was also so he would not turn around and press her into his side.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Was he prepared? The question made him scoff as they ducked under a
railing, dodged a steam vent, and turned the corner. Even now, with the
barrier still between them and the others, he could already begin to sense
the activities of the prisoners. They were preparing.
“If you get hurt...” He hated the silence. “They die. If you die, they all
die. You’ll be safe.”
Elodie made a humming sound. “I’m not that worried. Not anymore.”
His jaw ticked. “We’ll be moving fast.” The door that led them to the
rest of the ship came into view. Gunner stopped before it and turned around.
“It’s time to uphold my end of the deal.”
Sweat dripped from her hairline and caught in her eyebrows. He wanted
to lean down and lick it clean off her.
“So we’re finally heading to the escape pods?” Elodie lifted the sleeve
of his jacket and wiped it off.
His fingers twitched.
“No. We’re not.”
“We’re not?” She tilted her head. “What’re we doing then?”
“We’re taking over the ship,” he answered and already his mind filled
with the images of finally breaking into the bridge and confronting the
captain. Worry clouded Elodie’s features and he raised his hand to cup the
back of her neck. Her pulse thrummed and he ran his thumb over it, petting.
“You still want the ship they stole from you back? Is this for your ship?”
she asked.
“No.” Gunner smiled softly. It was the truth, the realization wasn’t
surprising. “I’m going to bring them in.”
“Who? And in where?”
“I work for the EPED, Ely. Like I said before, I’m a retriever. A
Monster Hunter. And I found some fucking monsters the EPED would love
to have.” He leaned slightly back and smirked. “See, I’m not such a selfish
prick. Although, they’ll owe us a fortune for my lost vessel.” The corner of
her lip twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile but he would take it.
“I never thought you were. I guess unless you’re an adorable prick.”
She laughed.
He grumbled, “Not this Cyborg, and despite my fucking tattoos, I am a
government employee. It doesn’t sound so badass when I say it but maybe
after all this, I’ll tell them to change my title from acquisitions specialist to
hero or I won’t take any more jobs.”
Elodie laughed some more. The sound was addictive. If she continued,
he was going to be coming back for seconds. He lightly squeezed her nape.
“You’ll always be Gunner to me.” Her expression abruptly sobered. Her
eyes drifted from his to the door. “The others may not agree, though, and
it’ll be dangerous.”
“Everything is dangerous. But you’ll follow me?” His other hand
cupped her chin.
Her eyes were back on him now but they looked distant and glazed, like
all emotion had seeped out of them and vanished into the ether. Gunner
knew that look, knew how far away and searching it could be, and
wondered if Elodie might be, once again, receding back inside herself.
Suddenly, her eyes cleared and she nodded. “Yes, I’ll follow you.”
It was the answer he wanted and yet, somehow, it offered little
reassurance.
 Chapter Nineteen

GUNNER PRIED THE DOOR open.

Several men, including Chesnik, waited for them on the other side.
They rose to their feet and peered at him and Ely. Elodie squeezed past his
side before he could stop her. For a moment her tall, willowy body brushed
up against his, bringing back vivid memories of the last few days. A surge
of jealousy zapped him as she rushed to her father’s side.
He bristled, watching the reunion, but followed shortly after, ducking
through the door himself. Gunner stopped himself from tugging Elodie back
into his arms and away from her dad.
She was his. She had promised everything to him. The jackal urged him
to prowl and corner his prey but he stopped the bestial impulse before it
could ascend to the forefront of his thoughts. He knew the terms were left
unspoken between himself and Ely.
He dropped his hand atop Elodie’s shoulder and settled with towering
over their reunion.
“Chesnik,” he said.
“Cyborg.”
If looks could kill, the man would be drowning deep in the red glow
from his irises. Elodie detached herself from her dad and stepped back. As
she did so, a couple others ex-prisoners approached and looked on with
curiosity.
She lifted the distress beacon out of the jacket’s inner pocket.
“Did you get it to work?” Chesnik asked.
“The parts are all in place and it turns on. It just needs something to
boost it. We still need to wire it to the ship.”
One of the other prisoners came over. “What is it?”
Elodie answered, “It’s a beacon to the network, a signal outside of this
place and since the security is down, if I can get it to work, we could maybe
get some help.”
Gunner reached out his hand. “It’s a backup plan.”
Chesnik eyed him suspiciously despite Elodie handing over the
contraption. Gunner found the power switch and turned it on. All eyes fell
on the Cyborg, looking to see if the homebuilt piece of tech met his
approval. Elodie had made it work and he was proud. He didn’t know when
it had happened, but he did feel a weak, fluttering signal coming from the
device. He shut his eyes and shared his energy with the beacon. The signal
intensified as he poured himself into it, using his own tech to channel
farther outward. Before long, the white-noise static of a radio signal
sounded from the audio board.
He seeded into it like he seeded into the ship and temporarily lost
himself as the signal grew. A hand fell upon his arm and brought him back
to reality.
Elodie squeezed his bicep. “Are you okay?”
He handed the beacon back to her. “I couldn’t connect to the network
but the signal is strong now and is using me as an adapter. If anyone comes
close to us, they’ll be able to pick it up. Keep it safe, because if it breaks we
lose the connection.”
Elodie nodded and took a step back.
Gunner turned to face the others.
“I hear the chairs are more comfortable on the bridge. Let’s find out,
shall we?”

“I DON’T TRUST HIM,” Chesnik said.

Elodie stood stiffly at the other end of the hallway. Gunner and some of
the other men were preparing weapons by the elevator. The door kept trying
to close but was stopped again and again, and the sound of it was giving her
a cluster headache. Each bang was like a gong, a countdown, and it made
her increasingly uneasy.
“I do,” she murmured.
“Going to the bridge is suicide. We’ve already lost men. Some of whom
didn’t even make it off the elevator before they were gunned down. Their
corpses came back ravaged with bullets and smoking from laser wounds.
You should’ve seen them. If you had, you would know that I’m right.”
She knew why her father felt the way he did, but she made her choice
and she was sticking with it. I chose to trust him. She trusted herself; she
trusted her choice. Elodie shuffled back and forth on her feet.
Taking over the ship had never occurred to her until Gunner mentioned
it, but the idea was sound, especially since she knew how capable he was.
He knew the ship better than any one of them and not because he had lived
on it or walked its hallways but because it was a machine, just like him.
Machines never changed.
“Ely, you’re not listening to me. I’ve been up there with the pirate crew.
I know what they’re like and what they’re packing. They have dozens of
androids on their side. The only reason we’re not all dead—”
“—is because of Gunner,” she finished for him. The only reason she
wasn’t standing naked in the flesh markets of Elyria right now was because
of Gunner. If the pirates had never captured him she would be in far worse
circumstances. Even though her dad had come for her and released her from
the brig, that didn’t mean he would’ve still gotten the chance if it hadn’t
been for Gunner creating a distraction.
“It’s because they can’t easily get to us, Ely,” he tried to correct. Elodie
turned toward her dad, tearing her eyes off the Cyborg and the men
gathered around him.
“Why do you hate him so much?”
“He fucking bargained for my daughter’s body. There’s no honor in that.
Do you think he would be helping us now if you were a man? No.”
She threaded her fingers together to stop them from twitching. “You
don’t know that.”
Would Gunner have still helped them? Gunner hadn’t even known she
was a woman at first. We became friends through the diversions. Elodie
chewed on the inside of her cheek.
“I do know. I know because I’m a man and so were you until recently!
They’re looking at you.”
She twisted away and scanned the others. Some were looking at her.
Their gazes felt heavy on her skin but she didn’t feel afraid. In fact, it was
freeing. They didn’t look at her with menace, or lust, or any other peevish
expression she’d come to know from being among men her whole life. “I
can take care of myself.”
Her dad sighed. “You’re breaking my old heart, boy.”
A sudden burst of anger flooded her vision and she jerked back around
to face her dad. “You broke mine first!” His eyes widened and his lips
thinned. “You left me first,” she accused. “Don’t tell me I’m breaking your
heart. It’s unfair after all you’ve put me through.”
She could see the guilt wheedling at him. “We couldn’t both stay,” he
started.
 So much guilt. It made her angrier.
“You. Left. Me. All alone in there.” She pointed in the direction of the
brig. “You didn’t tell me your plan, even a half-baked one. You didn’t
reassure me at all. I followed you my entire life and when I needed you
most, you vanished. How am I supposed to forgive you? I don’t even know
where to begin.”
“I should’ve told you something but—”
“—I don’t care.”
“Boy...”
“Stop calling me that! It happened and it’s over. I keep going through it
in my head and the sad part is, I understand why you did it, I understand all
of it.” Her voice lowered and she deflated warily. It wasn’t like her to be
overtaken by emotion. “And I’m glad you left... Because then maybe... One
of us would have had a chance to survive. I’ll never forget it, even though I
understand.”
“I’m sorry...”
“I thought I was going to have to watch you die, Dad. Or get beaten.
When it all happened and the other two men volunteered, it broke my heart,
it broke something inside of me and I was convinced that when that gun
went off it was going to be your body on the floor.” She closed her eyes and
shuddered at the memory. “I don’t know how to describe it. Horror. Agony.
Despair. So don’t tell me I’m breaking your heart.”
“Ely,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. It may have been
because she’d never raised her voice to him before. Elodie searched his
face, hoping to find regret but there was none. At least none for his actions.
He’s only acting guilty because he has to.
He patted her shoulder awkwardly and she wished he would hug her,
that she had read him wrong, but it didn’t happen. There were strangers
surrounding them and they had appearances to keep up.
“It worked out,” she whispered numbly. Her eyes latched back onto
Gunner. He was looking at her from across the room.
“It did,” her dad agreed after a heavy moment.
“Gunner was thrown into your cell within hours after you left.” Her
dad’s eyes went from imploring to angry in a flash. “Because you left, he
got put in the cell next to mine. Because you joined the crew, he was
thrown, quite literally, into my life.” Her voice came out shaky but careless.
She no longer cared if she hurt his feelings. “He saved my life.” Elodie
pulled away, needing a moment to collect her thoughts.
“I should’ve never left you.”
“No. You shouldn’t have, but you did.”
“So you’re putting all the blame on me then, are you?”
Shrug.
“I’ll take it, boy, because I know I’m at fault but don’t be stupid just
because I was.” He gestured toward Gunner. “Because at the end of the day,
you close your own eyes. No one closes them for you.”
She listened to her dad walk away, and it was suddenly easier to breathe
when he was gone. Elodie looked back up to find Gunner still watching her.
He had never stopped watching her and had probably overheard the entire
exchange.
She licked her lips and held the connection an infinitesimal moment
longer before her heart dropped and she glanced away. Stay smart, Ely.
A short time later weapons were distributed and checked. Gunner had
gone through each firearm as if it was his devil-given duty to make sure
every single gun worked properly. When he’d handed her an automatic rifle
and she had handed it back with the tips of her fingers, Elodie had never
seen a more perfect look of mortification on any living man in her life. It
would’ve made her laugh if the tension between them wasn’t heavy enough
to be cut with a knife.
Elodie wiped her hands on the overlarge sleeves of Gunner’s jacket. The
beacon was tucked in a pocket within and she could feel the heat of it
pressed against her chest. As the men collected, she moved to the back of
the group and further away from them. It was out of habit. No one noticed
those hidden in the back.
“I’m going up first to clear the way.” Gunner’s voice boomed low
through the hallway. He raised his arm and pulled back his sleeve to reveal
part of his skin shifting away from his wrist. A projection of the ship’s
schematics appeared in the air. “There are three main levels on this
legionnaire and we’re at the bottom.” His finger moved through the map.
“Our goal is the top.”
The ship looked like nothing she had imagined.
The top deck was barely attached to the rest the ship and it came off like
a bird that had its neck broken. A bird with its wings closed tightly against
its sides. And where the eyes and the beak were supposed to be was where
the bridge apparently resided.
“Where are the emergency escape pods?” Someone called out, asking.
Gunner gestured vaguely toward the second level. “We’re not headed
for them, it’s too dangerous. We don’t know where we are in space so we’ll
be taking our chances here with the crew and take over the ship from
within.”
“But the odds—”
“The odds...” Gunner chuckled hauntingly. “The odds against a Cyborg?
Do you want to bet on the odds against me? Just so you can float around in
a small capsule, hoping that you’re close enough to a habitable planet, or
port? Risking the pods is an option but if you’re out there and you find
there’s no place nearby to land, you’re fucked. Fucked in a small space,
alone. You may have enough rations to get you through a week, maybe two,
and that’s only if the current crew kept the pods stocked. I promise you, a
clean death is preferable to dehydration. We head for the bridge.”
Some of the men grumbled but Ely couldn’t see who.
Someone else spoke up. “We have to be within days of habitable
planets. The slave rings are on Elyria.”
Gunner’s eyes flickered red. “They are.”
“We warped recently...”
“It’s too dangerous to stay onboard,” someone else said.
“We’re outnumbered. We’ll never make it.” Elodie recognized the last
voice as her dad’s.
She watched the men around her but could see the light of Gunner’s
eyes flaring brighter in her periphery. “Some of the crew will join us when
we arrive. There’s unrest above and I’m sure those who were in the brig
prior to being recruited will join us. Like Chesnik here.” Gunner nodded his
head at him, eyes ablaze, singling her dad out. “There’s no loyalty owed to
a captain who shuts himself away behind walls to let his crew fend for
themselves, especially when they’re dying. We’re not outnumbered.”
“The androids? What about them?”
“Will be ours once I get near them.”
“And we’re supposed to trust that you can do that?”
“What choice do you have?” Gunner shoved the sleeve down and the
map disappeared. “I commanded during the war against far worse odds than
this. Feel free to join the cowards that refused to leave the brig. I won’t stop
you, but I have a stake in keeping you alive. So you can choose to join me,
or you can choose to leave. I don’t give a fuck whether or not you want my
protection but you’ll have it if you follow my orders.”
A thunderous noise filled her ears as Gunner’s fist hit the wall. The men
startled back around her from the violent impact. Gunner’s expression was
wild and pissed. It was frightening in its intensity, even more so as the red
glow died back into the grey.
He made a slow show of pulling his hand away from the indent his
violence had created, popping his metal joints, and jerking fingers that and
been wrenched at odd angles back into place. Some of the metal inside his
hand had pierced through his skin. A hush fell over the group. He showed
no pain.
Elodie knew a punch like that would’ve drilled right through a person,
obliterating every atom in its path. She understood why he did it but she
hated that he hurt himself on her account. She wanted to go to him, but
something kept her feet rooted to the spot. It wouldn’t help anyone if she
went to him now and took his hands in hers.
“I’ll go first and clear our pathway. When the elevator comes back
down, that’s your cue to follow. I’ll be waiting for you above. It won’t be
long.” Gunner looked at her and no one else. She nodded.
No one else said a word.
He turned away and shoved the crate into the elevator.
And then he was out of sight.
Elodie took a step forward before she could stop herself.
 Chapter Twenty

THE zing of laser fire sounded right as the door shot open. Gunner
plastered his back to the side wall and kicked the crate forward to stop the
doors from closing.
He dove down and ducked behind it as more shots blasted his way.
Androids. He scanned the periphery and triangulated the energy
signatures. They assaulted him from further down the hallway; the robots
had been programmed to fight him off. He channeled his way through the
space and counted at least two dozen. There could be more that were still
powered off and waiting as reinforcements.
He quickly overpowered those closest to him and scrambled their
coding. He searched through their transmitters, rearranged them to connect
his own, and took control. Those in his power stopped abruptly, turned
around by his will, and shot down the other androids at the end of the hall.
The mechanical battle reverberated off the walls as metal fought metal,
and even when it was over the resounding vibrations continued to parrot
throughout.
When it was over, he sent the few robots he forcibly controlled to scout
the hallways ahead and check the crew’s quarters.
He rose from his spot and jumped over the crate, flexing his muscles,
and tugged one of his guns out of his holster.
The corridor remained in the condition he left it, but the bodies he’d
decimated were rotting now. The stench of bloated decay was
overpowering. Even the acrid burning laser residue from the android
showdown was quickly eclipsed.
The stink awoke memories he would have preferred to keep buried. It
brought forth a million recorded minutes of feed from the war.
Gunner closed his eyes, trying to find his way out of the maelstrom of
chaotic memories. Elodie’s face surfaced, floating above the raging torrent
of death that engulfed his conscious mind. He latched on to his promise to
protect her and clawed his way out of the nightmare caused by the carrion’s
reek. His beast protested Gunner’s dominion, but he subdued the animal
behind an iron resolve.
 After he regained control, he lifted the gun in his hand—the gun that
still smelled of his mate—and rubbed it across his nose. The jackal was
pouting before, but now it was ecstatic. When his senses and systems
cleared and his zombie-like androids returned, he kicked the crate inward
and let the elevator go.
His lips twitched up. Ten minutes. It took him less than ten minutes to
claim new territory. It reminded him why he was an impatient man and
sneaking about a ship in the dark was not his thing. As he waited for the
others to join him, he surveyed the carnage that decorated the floors and
walls in gruesome overkill.
The captain didn’t have it cleaned up. Gunner kicked through the
human and android remains, nudging them to the sides with his boot as he
went. He has to know there’s a Cyborg on his ship. He must know I’m
coming for him. That depended entirely on the two men he let go... The
thought was unsettling. He turned his eyes up and stared at the ceiling as if
he could look through it.
He expected real men—a real fight—to bar his path. Another trap?
Ballsy was gone but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be one. The shaft
groaned, interrupting his thoughts. Shortly after, half of the group appeared,
clutching weapons in nervous, sweat-dampened hands. He looked over
them to find Elodie at the back with Chesnik. They stepped off the elevator
wide-eyed and uneasy.
“Where’re the others?” he asked.
“We figured it was best if we didn’t all come up at once,” Chesnik
mumbled as he looked around.
They didn’t trust him. Clearly, they didn’t want to. He, on the other
hand, had nothing to prove to them and he almost wished they would
dissent and leave him be. My life would be easier for it. But only as long as
Elodie remained with him. His eyes landed on her. Only if their dissension
didn’t bleed into her. She came to him as if his thoughts could summon.
Gunner’s eyes remained on hers as he yelled out to the others, “Loot
what you can find but don’t attack the working androids, they’re ours now.
Stay on point. We don’t know if there’s any traps.” Ely turned her attention
to the dead as he spoke, her face devoid of color.
“You did this?” she asked.
Gunner closed the short distance between them and blocked her view.
“Yes.”
 “Indiscriminately?”
“In self-defense.” His voice lowered, “There were survivors.”
She lightly rested her brow upon his chest and nodded. The muscles in
his arms stiffened. His fingers twitched. He wanted to wrap her up in his
arms, hold her to him, but resisted the urge. “You did it for me.”
He narrowed his eyes in question.
“For our deal,” she added.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
The color returned to her skin and he opened his mouth to ask her why.
Why was she thanking him? He never got the words out because the
elevator reopened and the remaining men poured out. Elodie turned away
from him at the sound.
The rest gathered with them and they made their way in silence through
the winding hallways of the new floor. Doors were left ajar on either side of
them, revealing the crew’s quarters, bedding and all the human detritus that
went with it. There was nothing for them here unless someone wanted a
change of clothes or to scavenge old tech. Eventually, the smell of decay
faded into the background.
Gunner eyed the ceiling again. He hadn’t been up on the top deck since
he was dragged aboard but he would have remembered the layout even if he
hadn’t downloaded the ship’s schematics into his systems.
The top deck. The working deck. The best security and the most
essential rooms apart from the engines. The medical bay, the armory, and
the bridge crew. There’d be a docking platform above as well as below. On
normal ships two access points were available; docking below was meant
for supplies, storage, and machines while the entryway above was meant for
people—diplomacy.
The entry sat to the front of the vessel, separated from the floors below
and because of that it only had one central entry and exit point to the rest of
the ship. It was designed that way so that if any of the machines
malfunctioned or blew up for any reason, the important fuckers would be
well away from it.
Gunner stopped short of the panel to the second elevator shaft and
pressed his hand against it, making a direct connection.
Nothing. Security was dead everywhere.
 He called over his shoulder, “I can sense moving heat signatures, but
they can be masked. One thing I can say for certain is that there’s life above
and we’ll be facing more than androids next.”
“Are you going first?” someone asked.
“Yes. Same as before,” he said as Elodie once again moved to the back
of the group. He would’ve preferred that she stayed close to him but no one
paid her any mind where she was, it was the only thing that tempered his
need for her.
One of the men came forward, dragging a metal table from a nearby
room. They maneuvered it by the door to use as their next shield.
“I’ll be making a straight shot to the bridge and will be able to cover
you if you leave the path laid out. The remaining androids will go first. Wait
for my signal before you move forward... And don’t get distracted by your
mates who were recruited, we’ll deal with them at the end. If shit hits the
fan,” he added, “rally back here.”
Gunner called the elevator. “Everyone stand back.” The group shuffled
away to the sides as a hush fell over them.
After a moment, one of the prisoners spoke up. “What happens after all
this is over?”
I’ll never have to see your fucking faces again.
I’m going to beat Stryker’s skull in. That fucker’s going to pay for my
lost ship.
I’m going to take Elodie home.
“We head home.” Gunner looked down at his hands, one of them still
clutching his gun. I don’t have... Not anymore.
“I’ve never heard a better set of words my life.” Soft chuckles sounded
the air.
“Gunner!” Elodie’s voice pierced the laughter. “There’s a noise coming
from the beacon!” She moved into the center of the group and headed
toward him just as a faint, low groan fell upon his ears. Her footsteps came
closer.
He jerked his head and looked around. His audio twitched—tugged and
prickled. Ely was at his side now when he reached out and grabbed her arm.
The sound was unfamiliar and he focused on it as he pushed her away,
but it grew louder by the second and before long the others had noticed it
too.
 No, he knew that sound. His muscles tensed just as his internal tech shot
a warning through his systems. He knew that low impending hum.
“What the hell is that!?”
Gunner shot away from the shaft right as the door slid open, thrusting
Elodie to the ground and landing on top of her, propping up his weight just
enough not to crush her. The doors blew off and sliced through the space, a
cutting breeze hit his back, and a roar filled his ears.
Fire and metal shards pierced and ravaged his exposed skin—singeing
his clothes—as the bomb ruptured. The world devolved into an
impenetrable, muted orange haze. Elodie moaned and he shifted his weight
over her.
His hands cupped the side of her head to cocoon her as much as he
could. A short eternity passed before the shockwaves ended. Gunner rose
slowly as the smoke began to clear. The air was thick and grimy. It made his
eyes water and his vision distort.
Elodie was tensed beneath him, her body locked down with fear and
even after he unpinned her, she didn’t immediately rise with him. Gunner
moved slowly as a growl tore out of his throat. Pain scrunched her features
as the falling ashes covered her face.
“Are you okay?” He lifted over her and kept her head in place so she
couldn’t look away. She’d taken a lot of his weight. “Test your muscles,
does anything hurt? Elodie?” She gazed uncomprehendingly up at him.
“Ely?”
She abruptly startled into him, hacking and choking. His hands drew
around her body and brought her close to him. He was thankful she was
alive. Gunner crowded her face with his and blew filtered fresh air over her
mouth. She sucked in air between coughs and when she caught her breath,
Gunner picked her up and carried her out of the immediate wreckage.
Waves of heat burst and blazed the walls on either side of them. The
metal plates along his back burned where his skin had melted away.
Elodie gripped his shirt as he moved them out of the smoke and it fell
away in ribbons from his body. Her coughs continued and he cupped the
back of her neck and wrenched her head closer to him as spittle and ash
cleared her lungs.
“You’re okay. Do you hurt anywhere?”
Her nostrils flared as sooty tears streamed down her cheeks but she
shook her head. “Not,” she coughed again, “bad.” Her voice came out raspy
and weak. Gunner ran his hands all over her anyway, checking for breaks
and any sign of swollen flesh. He didn’t discern anything but he checked
her over twice more as she continued to clear her throat.
“You’re fine.” She’s okay.
It took a while to convince himself and he couldn’t stop touching her in
the process. He was afraid if he did, she would crumble into a pile of ash.
His pain became more noticeable as the minutes passed and he didn’t need
to feel or take a look at his back to know that parts of it were exposed
straight down to the metal.
With one hand still on her, he peeled the rest of his tattered shirt from
his shoulders and threw it aside.
Elodie sat forward and wiped her face and blinked the ash from her
eyes. Gunner watched grimly as she lifted the sleeve of his jacket to reveal
a splotchy bruise blooming along her forearm. His fingertips trailed it softly
and checked again that nothing was broken.
“You’re,” cough, “heavy.”
“It’s the metal, babe.”
“That...” She winced and drew the sleeve back down, “I guessed.”
“Tell me you’re okay.”
She sniffled. “I’m okay. Are you?” Her eyes slipped over his welted
shoulders.
“Don’t worry about me, I heal fast and my body has already numbed the
pain.” She continued to eye his singed flesh and he added, “My skin will
grow back shortly.”
“Lucky.” Elodie swallowed. “The others? My dad!?”
He didn’t give a damn about the others but he straightened anyway with
gritted teeth and went back to where the explosion went off. He
encountered most of the men before he re-entered the smoke. Those closest
had suffered third-degree burns and some broken bones but others had
made it through safely and were now helping those who were hurt. He
deployed the remaining androids to protect them and find medical supplies.
He went to Chesnik last and checked him personally. The man let
Gunner review his injuries in stony silence. Gunner couldn’t let Ely’s father
die on his watch. Once he got the man safely away and reassured him that
Elodie was okay, he made his way back to her side.
She sat with her back up against the wall, blinking the smoke and burn
from her eyes.
 “Your dad’s fine, better than most, and everyone is alive.” He crouched
in front of her. One of his androids appeared with a medical kit. Gunner
snapped it open and rummaged through to find cleaning cloths, pain-killers,
and two small cans of healing serum.
The ship suddenly groaned around them and they both raised their head
to look around. It was followed by a vibration that shuddered the floors and
walls.
“What was that?” Elodie asked, her voice uneasy, as she sat away from
the wall.
“I don’t know.” He moved closer to her anyway. “Yet.” Several minutes
passed as they waited for it to happen again but it didn’t.
“You’re not good at this, are you?” she asked.
His attention returned to her. “What?”
“Helping others.”
“No,” he agreed.
She laughed softly and he pulled the top of the can off.
“You said time would stop for you if you willed it. I still disagree with
that. More now than ever.”
Gunner shrugged and moved her clothing around to spray her skin. “I’m
a selfish fucking man.”
Elodie smiled. “I guess that makes me selfish too... because I wish you
could stop it again. ‘But time stops for no man.’ No woman either,” she
finished, ruefully.
Gunner ran his hands up her arms and through her short hair. “That,
Elodie, is where you have never been more wrong.”
Her eyes met his. “Prove it,” she whispered. “Prove it and make time
stop again.” The ship trembled as she spoke and they both tensed and
braced for another sudden impact. He pressed her back into the floor and
shielded her again until the shuddering was over.
“What is that? That’s the second time now...”
“I’m not sure.” And that concerned him. When he tried to seed himself
back into the ship, he flinched. His energy stores were nearly drained. The
microchips in his nanocells were using what was left to repair his body.
As if on cue, Elodie grabbed his hand and brought him back out of the
digital space. She moved around him, drawing the medical kit near her, and
used the second can of serum over his back. He dropped his brow forward
and closed his eyes in pleasure, reaching out to grip her ankle, making sure
she wouldn’t leave him as he slipped back into the ship.
“The beacon!” Elodie jerked and his hand tightened on her leg. Gunner
rose to his feet as she moved to look around for the gadget as if it would
magically appear.
“Let me check,” he told her and went back to the wreckage. He found
the gadget against the wall. Elodie was behind him when he turned around.
She grabbed it from his hands and flipped it back on. He felt the signal
come off it immediately and the static noise refilled his ears.
“There’s no voice anymore. There had been a voice before.”
The ship rumbled, howling anew and Gunner led her back out from the
smoke. Explosive surges of energy flushed through him. He focused on it.
Suddenly, a static voice appeared from the beacon and several of the
other prisoners joined at their sides.
“Sta... own... stan... d...”
“What’s it saying?”
“Stand down. They’re telling us to stand down.”
“Stand down? Do you think it’s coming from the bridge?” Elodie asked.
The same words repeated over and over again from the beacon. Chesnik
came forward and took the contraption from his daughter, upping the
volume and changing the signal. The static cleared slightly until the voice
on the other side was easily discernible.
Gunner turned on his heel and stormed back to the elevator shaft, now
no more than a black hole in the wall. Elodie’s footsteps sounded behind
him.
“I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t... Gunner? If it’s not from the bridge then who is it from?”
The ship trembled again, this time louder and more violent than before
and the echoes of things falling apart rang all around them. He found Ely’s
pipe, picked it up and handed it back to her.
“We’re being attacked.” And he had an idea who was attacking them.
Gunner cupped her face and pressed his lips heavily to her temple before
pulling away. “Stay here, Elodie, don’t fucking leave this spot. I’ll be back
soon.”
Worry scrunched her features but there was no more time for comfort.
He had a fucking pirate ship to save.
GUNNER PEERED UP INTO the blown-out elevator shaft and climbed in.
Even with his humanoid muscles partially melted off on his back, he pulled
himself up. He used the friction on the rubber soles of his boots as leverage
to propel him faster.
The process was grueling but he made it.
Explosions continued to hit the ship, and each passing second it seemed
to grow worse. Numerous blasts of energy cascaded over and through him
and he siphoned what he could from each surge. Despite the rocking blasts,
he knew he couldn’t stop to regroup because he could physically and
mentally feel the ship’s systems dying around him. His fingers punctured
the shaft wall and he gritted his teeth against another eruption.
Time to bring the shit show to a close. He hefted himself up.
Blood pooled in rivulets down his back to collect and soak into his pants
but he could already feel his wounds closing, his skin rebuilding, and his
flesh weaving back together.
The closed doors to the top deck came into sight and renewed his vigor.
With one hand he rammed his fingers between the crease at the door and the
wall and forced it open. He dropped back, expecting an immediate assault,
but nothing happened.
A quiet hallway devoid of life came into view as he swung back to the
ledge. It was the last thing he expected. Gunner lifted himself up until he
stood in the empty, pristine corridor. The walls were clean and white and so
unlike the hell that had taken over the levels below. He sucked in a heavy
breath as his snout pulled away from his face. The smells up here were no
less unpleasant. The air was thick with hatred and frenzy.
He encountered several androids that had been forcibly turned off on
either side of him. Gunner powered them on and forced them forward,
expecting another trap.
He watched through their eyes as they scouted the hallways to find
emptiness beyond.
His hand shot out to brace against the wall as another bomb hit the ship.
The explosion rocked the ship harder this time; he could feel the inertial
stabilizers struggling, and that could only mean one thing...
The ship’s shields were down.
 Gunner shot forward into a sprint. He fell upon the pirate crew just as he
sensed them and joined them in their chaos. The androids had a few of them
held up against the walls. The rest startled back at his appearance and some
raised their weapons but when he didn’t attack, they slowly backed off.
Gunner recognized one of the men. One of the two he had let go after losing
Ballsy.
His weapon was still half raised and sweat drenched his clothes. “We’re
being attacked,” the man said.
Gunner started past him and continued on to the bridge. “I know.”
“Can you get into the bridge? Juke is going to bring the ship down if
someone doesn’t stop him!”
Rage filled his veins and he twisted back to grab the man by his neck,
thrusting him against the wall. “Who put the fucking bomb in the elevator?”
The man’s eyes clouded over in fear.
“I-I didn’t.”
“Who then?” Gunner let the jackal partially transform his body. His
canines ripped from his jaw to fill his mouth with blood.
“It was to protect us from the androids,” he stuttered, his face going red.
“Juke controls them remotely and we needed a way to keep them from
coming up to kill us.” Gunner dropped the pirate and left him gasping on
the floor. He didn’t have time to kill the entire crew as the lights flickered
overhead.
He needed to get into the bridge. Because it didn’t matter who owned
the ship if the ship was a loose collection of debris floating in space.
Gunner ran through the chaos until he entered a large room with heavy
barricaded doors at the other end. Men were scattered about, trying to break
through the final barrier that stopped them from taking control of the ship.
They moved away when he approached as he entered the thick hollow
realm of attempted mutiny.
He slammed both his palms onto the door, leaving indents in the metal.
His nails grew long and sharp. Gunner dropped into a crouch and let his
skin recede into his body and the plates of his frame burst outward.
When his shift—energy reached its zenith, he ravaged the door with all
of his might.
Steel and iron shredded to pieces beneath his claws.
 Chapter Twenty One

SHE WATCHED UNTIL GUNNER disappeared high up in the elevator

shaft, her hand gripping the side paneling as he went out of reach. Out of
sight.
Elodie turned away and slammed her back against the wall as another
explosion rocked through the ship. It was followed by a hollow, whining
sound. A shiver sliced up her back as the noise only continued to escalate
by the minute. It seemed like the ship itself was crying out. It wasn’t a
comforting sound.
She’d brought dead and dying machines back to life, but this was
different.
She’d never heard a machine die.
Elodie shook herself and peeled away from the elevator chasm that
reverberated the sound she didn’t want to hear—the wrenching sounds of
the ship falling apart, but not Gunner’s return.
She made her way back to the others. Her body ached and her eyes
burned from the smoke but she pressed forward, knowing she was lucky
that she hadn’t sustained any serious burns or broken bones like some of the
others. Gunner was to thank for that.
He had saved her life. Again. The image of his gnarled back returned
unbidden to her thoughts. She didn’t understand. She could chalk it up to
their deal but after everything that had happened between them, she wanted
to believe it was more.
Her focus turned to a man who was leaning up against the wall and
slightly away from the others. His skin was covered in welts and his leg was
bent at an odd angle.
Elodie quickly rummaged through some of the medical kits that were
scattered about, looking for any leftover supplies that hadn’t been used by
the others to help him. She brought what she could find forward and
kneeled at the stranger’s side.
His eyes slit open to watch her as she peeled back the sealing tape in her
hand. Elodie pinched the gash closed on his forearm and placed the tape
over it. The tape held the skin in place and that was all she hoped for.
 Medical had never been her talent. The man clasped his hand over the
wound and eyed her warily. She pulled back his frayed clothes to reveal
even more burns underneath.
She picked up the half-used can and wiped her mouth on her sleeve,
releasing the remainder of the serum on his wounds.
“Ely, right?” he asked.
“Elodie,” she corrected. “My name’s Elodie.”
“Pretty. Like a song.”
“Thank you...” She frowned.
The can sputtered as she moved to his leg. She shook it until more spray
came out.
“Are you scared?” he asked as she worked on him.
“Yes.”
“I am too.”
She moved the empty can to his head. The entire right side of his face
was red and angry, skin peeling back in strips. He cringed when the ship
violently trembled.
“I was in the cell across from you.”
She lowered her hand and she looked into his pained eyes. Recognition.
It hit her slowly, and her finger almost broke the can’s trigger.
“You were,” she whispered, searching his face. “You never spoke.”
“Neither did you.”
“I had nothing to say.”
“Neither did I.”
Elodie dropped her eyes and let go of the empty can. Useless. She
wiped her brow and dug through the kits nearby, looking for something—
anything—that could take away the man’s pain. It wasn’t fair that she had
made it through the explosion with nothing more than a few scrapes and a
couple bruises.
“There’s nothing left in here.” She pushed the kits away in disgust. “I’m
sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled at her through the pain.
She forced her eyes to meet his. “I’m really sorry.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to help.”
“You did.”
 Elodie shook her head and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t feel helpful. She
barely knew this man, but he spoke kindly to her, and she had sat captive
across from him for weeks—weeks—without learning his name. Guilt and
confusion assailed her. She wished Gunner was by her side to help sort
through her turbulent emotions. “I’m sorry,” she said again, rising to her
feet, and moving away before he could stop her. She decided she didn’t
want to know him, didn’t want to form another connection with another
being. Gunner already took up all of her thoughts.
God, I hope he’s okay.
A hand caught her bruised arm.
“Dad.” Elodie fell against his chest in defeat. Warm arms banded
around her back, the same arms that rocked her to sleep when she was a
child, and she sagged into him. Where had all the time gone? She never felt
so old and so young at the same time. At the worst time. Her dad rubbed her
back as fresh tears formed on her eyelashes.
“It’s time to go.” He curled her under his arm and she pressed into his
side.
“Go where?” Elodie let him lead her away from the wounded.
“Home.”

WITH THE LAST LINGERING flashes of energy, Gunner gritted his teeth
and broke through the final layer of metal between him and his prey. Claws
curling around the ravaged steel, he vaulted through the shredded hole.
His gaze landed on the empty captain’s chair right as the barrel of the
gun pressed into the side of his head.
“You don’t want to do that,” Gunner snarled.
“Cyborg,” Juke mused. “Took you long enough.”
Gunner twisted to face the captain. “So you knew.” The man before him
was unexpected compared to the others on the ship. He was clean-cut, and...
unassuming, with a thoughtful, dark expression. Cool blue eyes were set in
a stony face that gazed back at him curiously.
“I knew.”
“You didn’t jump ship?” Now his own curiosity was piqued.
Juke removed the gun from his temple and walked away. Gunner’s eyes
followed him to the giant panoramic view of space, to the vision that lay
before him. A laugh escaped him as his eyes met dozens of battleships that
surrounded the pirate ship from all sides.
He knew those ships, knew them well and was a little offended that so
many had shown up for a one-man job. I was doing fine, fuckers.
“Couldn’t get there,” Juke answered, bringing his attention back to the
captain. “My men wanted to see me dead before your secret came out. And
it came out quick I might add. Did you know that?” The man laughed
grimly.
“Enlighten me.” Gunner let the rest of his jackal form recede back into
his skin as he prowled across the bridge and took a seat in the vacant
captain’s chair. He enjoyed the feel of his blood soaking into the leather.
“When?”
“Right after you started murdering my men. Right before Ballsy fucked
off. He was probably the smartest man on my ship, leaving when he had the
chance. He damn near killed the entire crew when he destroyed the security
feeds and I lost all visuals of my men. I would’ve figured he was dead too if
the ship hadn’t alerted me to that escape pod. I knew it had to be either him
or you, but I knew it couldn’t be you because why would a Cyborg leave—
flee, really—from the only lead he had? To get revenge?” Juke waved his
gloved hand at the window.
“That didn’t answer my question. What gave me away?”
“Your ship. Your ship gave you away.”
Gunner sat forward and rested his bloody elbows on his bloody knees.
“You cracked my codes?” He was oddly unsurprised after all that had
happened. Ballsy knew he was a Cyborg when Gunner had confronted him,
and he’d had a weapon that had fucked with his systems. The sociopath had
bypassed his security codes. “So, what was it? The correspondences? My
lab? Was it the cybernetics medical unit hidden behind my armory?”
Gunner spread his legs and braced against the violent vibrations that
shuddered through him as another missile hit the ship.
When it stopped Juke replied, “None of that. None of that gave you
away.”
“You can’t win this battle, Captain, so why don’t you give up while you
still have your life?”
Juke laughed. “They won’t destroy us. Why would they do that? They
know you’re on this ship. Why else do you think we haven’t been shot into
oblivion yet? They have enough firepower to erase us.”
 Gunner’s eyes drifted from the ships outside to the captain. “How?
Really now? What gave me away?” He was beginning to go on the
defensive as he thought back to everything that happened in the last two
weeks.
“How do they know? Same fucking way Ballsy and I discovered your
existence here. There was a goddamned tracker on your battlecruiser.
Someway, somehow, my men missed it. Even Ballsy missed it.”
Gunner should’ve felt relief that they hadn’t been able to break through
his security but he didn’t. He burst out into laughter. Impossible.
Juke turned around and narrowed his eyes. “We had your ship for less
than three days, Cyborg, before a militarized fleet showed up out of the blue
and took out the entire organization. Dozens of ships, cargo, everything,
every man was either killed or seized in a matter of hours. Gone in a day.
You really think my crew wanted mutiny over a couple of murders?” Juke
sneered. “Someone gets murdered every fucking day on this ship. No. Word
got out about what happened. That was the reason they were after me.
Fear’s a great motivator, and suddenly, they had nothing left to fear.”
Gunner’s nostrils flared and he barely registered Juke’s words. His head
was still wrapping around the fact that there was a tracker in his ship.
Impossible. APOLLO would’ve sensed it. He would’ve sensed it. The idea
was ludicrous unless...
Gunner clenched his hands and returned his attention to the battleships
outside the window.
He took a deep breath to fill his nose with the scent of his lingering
blood and sweat—the lingering death that he so enjoyed. Every code was
his. Every system configured and examined. APOLLO was his. Even his
Gunner girls were clean—in a manner of speaking—with his own personal
programming, programming no one else knew.
The idea that the EPED had been watching him, keeping tabs, filled him
with rage. It was a death sentence to encroach on a Cyborg’s personal
systems without allowance.
Years in exile. Years alone. All because of the people he worked for.
His eyes trained on the ships that surrounded them, closing in by the
moment. Vibrant arrays of light and metal debris littered the battlefield.
Juke was right; there was no need to fight or to stand down because the
Peace Keeper fuckers were probably already boarding the ship.
“Are you going to kill me, Cyborg?”
 Gunner was halfway shifted before Juke could finish his question. A
low growl hummed darker, needier, up from the back of his throat. Once
again his human teeth dropped out of his gums and scattered around his
feet. His eyes swayed back and forth between Juke and the ships closing in.
Did they watch him now?
“I would bargain my life for your ship,” Juke said. “But they have it.
The only reason we weren’t with the rest of the fleet was because of our
cargo. We were on our way to Elyria—as you may have guessed—until we
weren’t.” Juke stared fixedly at the teeth that rattled around between them.
Gunner canted his head. Would he kill Juke? The idea held favor. “The
slave rings,” he whispered. “You were on your way to the slave rings.”
Elodie and everything she was arose in his head. Her shivering, dirty
figure leaned up against the cold walls of the brig, the smell of her sweat
and the heat of her flesh against his skin; the sound of her sighs and soft
gasps of air. The barriers she erected over every calculated response and the
way her eyes grew wide when he penetrated those barriers.
Gunner pictured her, standing naked at the flesh market.
He knew her ability to act under the pressure of an ongoing nightmare.
Would she have survived the Elyrian slave markets? Some did.
The men out in the hallways hollered, their voices rising, the ruckus
increasing as they fought through the jagged tunnel into the bridge. The
ship rumbled and vibrated and groaned. The lights on the dashboard flared
red. He didn’t need to connect with the systems to know that the boarding
process had begun. Gunner drew back his lips to feel the stifling air drift
across his canines.
“Juke.” He rose slowly to his feet, meeting the captain’s eyes in the
glistening panel glass. He closed the distance, shaking his head. “I’m not
going to kill you.”
Juke closed his eyes in relief.
Gunner lunged forward and sank his teeth into the man’s back, gouging
out the vertebrae, yanking until his spine tore through flesh, muscle, and
then finally the layers of cloth that had once covered it.
The bones splintered apart in his mouth and blood sprayed through the
air. A shocked, guttural sound escaped Juke’s lips before no sound came at
all.
I lied.
 Chapter Twenty Two

THEIR STEPS WERE MUFFLED by the noise around them. The air
cleared until it was almost fresh. No decay, no smoke, nothing. She raised
her eyes to see that there were several others up ahead, but she paid them no
mind as her dad dropped his arm from her shoulders when they got closer.
They entered a large room. Her breath hitched. Her feet stopped.
The escape pods.
Elodie twisted out of his grip. “No.”
“The ship’s under attack. We can’t stay here. We need to leave.”
“You heard what Gunner said about the pods, we’re no safer in them
then we are here.”
Chesnik smiled, brightly, hopeful, and it took her aback. Why is he
smiling?
“It’s the Peace Keepers.” Her dad lifted the distress beacon in his hand.
“They’re the ones attacking the ship. They’re the ones saying to stand
down. All we have to do is get off before they blow a hole in the hull and
we’ll be free! They won’t hunt down captives.”
She eyed the beacon warily as her father turned it up. Elodie could hear
men talking on the other side but it was all still crackly and faint.
Regardless, she could make out words like neutralization and the constant,
monotonous blip of stand down.
“We can’t be that far away from commercial airspace,” Chesnik said.
“It’s time to go.” He moved away from her but turned back when she didn’t
follow. She was still trying to listen to the wispy noises coming through the
machine. “Ely?”
“Then why are they firing on the ship if they know we aren’t all
pirates?” she asked. Several men filtered around her, heading for the escape
pods. She watched as each crewman began to prepare their own.
“Maybe because we’re not fucking standing down? We can’t trust that
this old ship will have a functioning life-support system. If the damn
captain’s firing back then there’s no choice for them but to go on the
offensive. Either way, we can’t stay.”
 “How can you be so sure?” She took a step back. Gunner was heading
to the bridge at this very moment—if he wasn’t already there.
“Don’t be an idiot. They know.”
“Know what?” One of the programmed escape pods shunted into the
wall and then vanished. Her eyes drifted from it to her father.
“They know the ship has captives on it, because all pirates take
captives.” Her dad reached for her again and she took another step back.
“They connected to our distress signal. They’re expecting us. We won’t be
fired upon. Come now, it’s time to leave.”
Just then another explosion hit the ship, worse than before, and she and
her father were knocked off their feet. A hum filled her ears as several of
the systems nearby restarted. Elodie balanced herself against the tremors as
her father regained his feet. She twisted to look down the hallway. “What
about the others?” The ones they had just walked away from. The man with
the broken leg and the burns on his face.
Her dad pulled her up with a grunt. “There’s no time for them.”
“And Gunner?” she hissed.
“He has his own agenda. You know that as well as I do.” He grabbed
her arm violently and jerked her forward. She slid several steps before she
fought him. His hold on her arm tightened painfully.
“I’m not leaving!” she shrieked.
“They’re neutralizing the fucking ship, boy! If we don’t leave, we’ll
die! Hard vacuum doesn’t give a shit whether you are a pirate or not!” He
dragged her to the pod and she resisted the whole way, but the more she
struggled, the harder he pulled. Pain speared up her forearm. A rush of
adrenaline surged through her just as they reached the pod’s doors.
Leveraging all of her weight and muscle, Elodie jerked backward and
wrenched her arm free. The momentum flung her on her ass and tripped her
father. She skidded away as she rose to her feet.
“Dad,” she mustered, breathless from fear and adrenaline. “I told you
I’m not leaving.”
Another explosion had her careening to the side, sending her back to the
floor. Her fingers strained over the metal as she scrambled to stand again,
holding her ground. Suddenly, the lights flickered overhead, diverting her
attention just long enough for her father to slam into her and wrap his arms
around her back. He lifted her off the ground until her feet no longer
touched the floor.
 “Ely! Stop fighting!”
She couldn’t stop fighting. She wasn’t going to leave Gunner.
Elodie sank her teeth into her dad’s shoulder. Curses filled her ears, and
his hold on her faltered. A second. It was enough to pull away and get her
feet onto the ground. But he was stronger than her and she knew she was
going to lose the battle. There was no way her dad was going to let her stay
on the ship.
“Please,” she begged. She knew he was going to win and send her off
into space, and if that happened she knew she would never see Gunner
again. “Please!”
“Fucking hell,” her dad roared and shoved her into the pod. “I’m trying
to save your life!”
“And I’m trying to save his!” She twisted around, screaming and
pummeling his chest. His fist came out of nowhere and she had no time to
dodge it.
Pain exploded in her head and stars cascaded across her vision as she
slunk back into the tiny space. Elodie clutched her brow as blood pooled
out of her nose. Her senses flooded with shock. He hit me.
“I will beat you into that pod if that’s what it takes to save your life!”
His word struck and she hunched into herself, clasping her nose, unable to
move as her dad entered the small space in front of her. “I’m sorry, boy.”
His voice was gruff and grief-stricken.
Tears streamed from her eyes. “I’m sorry too.” Her hand inched toward
her hip to grasp the pipe attached to her side.
“You’ll forgive me when—”
She slammed it into his shoulder, and he never finished the sentence.
Elodie struggled around him until she was free of the tight space. She knew
his shock would be as short-lived as her own.
Energy sizzled through her as she knocked him back, aiming for the
shoulder she had hit with all her might. Her dad dropped, dazed, and stared
wide-eyed back at her as she stepped out.
“You’ll forgive me too, Dad, but I’m not leaving him,” she whispered.
The escape pod sequence clicked in the background and a countdown
began. Goodbye, Dad.
“Goodbye, Elodie.” He said right before the panel door closed between
them. She took another step back as the pod drifted into the wall, away
from her and into the endless grey haze that filled her vision. And then, it
was gone.
Elodie stood there, staring at the place where her dad had just been.
Last time it took them less than a half-hour to say goodbye. This time it
took them mere seconds.
She wiped the blood from her nose and took another step back, and then
another. The rest of the men had already left and there were only empty
spaces where the other pods had once been.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath just as the lights went off
overhead. The noises deepened as darkness cloaked her. She waited until
her eyes adjusted to the subtle glow as several emergency outlets powered
on.
What’ve I done? Dizziness assailed her, and a pounding, piercing
headache began to form behind her eyes. Elodie unzipped her jacket and
lifted it to staunch the remaining blood coming from her nose.
“Ely?” someone said from behind her.
She spun around. A shadowy figure appeared in the distance, bent out
of shape and clutching the wall. Elodie lifted the pipe in front of herself
defensively and took a step back.
“Elodie, it’s me.”
“Gunner?” she breathed.
The figure groaned and leaned into the wall as another tremor went
through the ship. She rushed forward, then stopped. A red aura, almost too
dark to notice, illuminated from his eyes. It cast his sharp features in muted
shadows and gloom, but as her focus shifted and she bridged the last
remaining steps between them, she noticed the flare wasn’t reflecting his
mood; it was weak.
His back hit the wall with an agonizing grunt. He slid to the floor as she
reached forward, dropping her weapon, and cupped his cheeks.
“Oh my god, Gunner.” Fear and worry numbed her. “Are you okay?”
Elodie didn’t wait for his answer before peeling back the remaining
shreds of his clothing to check his wounds. The material was soaked with
blood. She hoped that it wasn’t all his. She’d seen him in several damaged
states after fighting, but never like this. It was almost as if every time he left
her, he came back to her in an even worse state than before.
“I’ll be fine,” he groaned, resting his head back, and hooding his eyes.
 “Y-you don’t look fine!” Elodie fought back a fresh wave of tears,
dropping the wet clothes to her side. “Stay here! I’m going to go find a
medical kit.” She moved to stand up, but he caught her wrist in a grip.
“Don’t bother.”
She tried pulling her arm from his hold, but he only tightened it further.
“We need to get you medical treatment right now,” she argued, her nerves
fraying. “The ship—”
“—is being boarded.”
That stopped her. “What are they going to do with us?”
Gunner smiled weakly. Weakly. It wasn’t a word she’d ever associate
with him and it struck fear into her soul.
“It’s the damn government. They kind of...” he flipped his hand, “found
us. You should’ve seen how many ships are out there. I’m feeling rather
insulted.”
Elodie shook her head. “I don’t understand? Does that mean you got to
the bridge? Did we stand down?” She reached up and pushed back the
loose, wet hair of his bangs.
“Everything is over.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t answer any of my questions.”
He chuckled and pulled her into him. She let him press her into his side,
even though he was covered in grime, but so was she, so what did it matter?
Elodie rested her cheek on his chest. Gunner’s arm hooked around her
shoulder and held her close. Something was off. He’s no longer warm...
“We’re safe.”
Elodie clenched her eyelids shut and curled into him as much as she
could, draping her leg over his middle. “Gunner...you’re cold. Why are you
so cold?”
“Weak.”
Her heart hurt. “What happened?”
“A lot,” he laughed softly. “I got captured by these damn pirates and
they stole my ship.”
“I mean...”
“I was hit with an explosive that rebooted my mainframe. They beat me
soon after I awoke. A shit ton more happened over the next couple of
weeks. I just haven’t had a chance to regroup yet, but I’ll be fine.”
He sounds so tired. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
 She heard the heavy, impending sound of footsteps nearby,
accompanied by yells.
“I hope not. It’s been entertaining...”
Her lips twitched into a small smile.
 Chapter Twenty Three

ELODIE FOUND HERSELF in another cell. It seemed to be a theme.

Not long after the soldiers boarded the pirate ship, she and Gunner had
been cuffed and carted off. A day had gone by since then and she’d been
left alone in a small room with nothing but silence to pass the time.
The biggest difference, though, was that this cell had solid walls on
every side except for the opening. That aspect, despite all that had
happened, hadn’t changed.
There were a few other notable differences. She was clean, she didn’t
have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, there was a soft cot and a toilet,
and she received regular meals throughout the cycle. No one bothered her,
and it was beginning to drive her crazy.
She paced the small space inside. Her confinement would’ve been
easier if she knew what had happened to Gunner and her dad.
Countless men had flooded the hallways of the pirate ship, boarded
from elsewhere, and they had neutralized everything within. That’s where
they had found her and Gunner, and the rest of the men from the brig that
had not made it into the escape pods.
Her fingers touched the healing bruise on her arm. The throbbing ache
of it had already begun to fade.
The soldiers had taken her away from Gunner and brought her to the
medical bay on one of the ships of the small armada that had come to their
rescue. She’d seen some of the other prisoners from the brig throughout, but
for the most part, they’d been kept separate from each other.
The quiet man who had been in the unit across from her was alive
though. And she hoped, in some way, she had helped make that happen.
Gunner made that happen. She buried her face into her hands and
thanked the stars that it had been the Peace Keepers that had picked up on
the distress signal, and no one else. Elodie tensed and released her muscles,
hoping—mentally screaming—that Gunner was okay. She hadn’t seen him
since their capture. Maybe they realized these cells couldn’t hold him and
took him somewhere more secure.
 Her eyes darted around her cell, over the creature comforts that she now
had. Her life could’ve ended up so differently.
She touched the walls and the contraptions, feeling the gears and then
feeling herself just to reassure that this wasn’t all a dream. That she wasn’t
just about to wake up and be back among the smoke and men; returned to
her cell on the pirate ship.
Elodie knew when she dreamed; dreams were in sepia, not white, like
the room she was in. But she couldn’t stop clenching the bedding in her
hands and feeling the smooth walls to save her life.
She knew her sleep would be haunted by her time aboard the pirate
ship; the recruitments, the beatings, the fear. But it gave her hope that
Gunner was also in her dreams.
Her Cyborg with sharp ears and sharp teeth.
“Hello?” Elodie called out after pulling her hand away from the wall.
No answer. Hours had gone by with no answer.
She moved to the bars and gripped them. There was a small hallway
leading from her cell, white and crisp, clean and gleaming, and there was a
door several yards away that remained shut.
The soldiers didn’t know yet whether or not she was part of the pirate
crew. She couldn’t blame them for being careful. Those that could vouch
for her were also under suspicion, probably being held somewhere else.
Maybe they kept the women in separate cells from the men.
Elodie released the bars and cupped the back of her neck, kneading the
strain from her muscles.
Suddenly, the door opened, and she dropped her arms. Please let it be
Gunner.
An unfamiliar man in a dapper black suit entered the space. Buttoned
and ranked. The proof was on his jacket lapels. All the soldiers on this ship
looked the same. They blurred together with their stiff, tailored clothing,
and their regulation shaved heads.
“Elodie?” he asked, approaching her.
She cleared her throat and nodded. “Yes. Is Gunner okay?” she blurted
out. “Have you found the escape pods that shot out of the pirate ship? Why
am I being held? Where are the others? Please, tell me if Gunner is okay...”
The man continued on as if her questions had never been asked. “Have
you, at any time, been in cohorts or affiliated with Captain Juke’s crew?”
 “No... Never except for my dad. I was forced onboard and locked up in
the brig.”
He looked at her steadily with a face she couldn’t read. It was handsome
even in its coldness, but it didn’t have guns on its cheeks so it meant
nothing to her.
“Have you, at any time, remained loyal or connected to someone who
joined his crew after your arrival?”
Elodie rubbed her hands. “Yes.”
“Who?”
“My dad, Chesnik. We were brought aboard together and after several
weeks of incarceration, he accepted recruitment.” Her mouth dried up as
she said it. Was she saying too much?
“And did you remain in contact with him after he joined Juke’s crew?”
Elodie licked her lips. “He released me from the brig... He and Gunner
released everyone from the brig,” she added, dryly.
“As you say. Would you be able to recognize those among the prisoners
from those prisoners who had accepted recruitment after being captured?”
“I might be able to, but I’m not sure. I kept my head down most the
time. It was safer for me that way.”
“But if you saw them, would you recognize, or at least try to recognize
those who worked for Juke and his affiliated organization and distinguish
between them and those who escaped with you?”
She paused. “Yes, some I would know. Does that mean I’ll get to see
them?” She didn’t want to see them but it was her best chance of knowing
whether her dad had been captured. Gunner wouldn’t be among them, not
with his history working for the government, but the possibility of it filled
her heart with fleeting hope.
“In time.” The suited man turned to leave.
Elodie gripped the bars. “Wait! Please! Please wait,” she begged, her
voice hitching. When he stopped and turned back to face her, she could’ve
cried. “What happened?” Elodie swallowed. “We were...escaping, and
suddenly the ship was off kilter and Gunner had to...get to the bridge to stop
it.” She closed her eyes briefly as his bloody body came into view. “Is he
okay?” Not knowing was slowly killing her inside. “Anything, please just
tell me anything. I can’t stand the silence,” she shook her head. “There’s
been too much noise in my head for far too long.”
“Elodie,” he eventually said. “How long have you been in space?”
 “My whole life,” she answered quickly.
His eyes crinkled and he nodded. Sadness. Pity. She didn’t know.
“Why?” she asked.
“You shouldn’t bother with a man like him.” He was talking about
Gunner. “The smartest thing you can do, when this is all over, is to go back
to Earth or one of the other colonies, and try to forget any of this
happened.”
She wiped her cheeks, not realizing they were covered in her tears. “I
can’t.”
His face softened.
“You don’t understand. I can’t. He’s my friend,” her words hitched. “I
love him. It doesn’t make sense.” She dried her face. “I know, but I need to
tell him that. I need to at least tell him that before...” She couldn’t find the
right words. “Before this all comes to an end.” Elodie turned her face into
her shoulder. Gunner’s jacket was no longer around her frame, having been
stripped and taken away from her in the medical bay.
The soldier stared at her as she tried to compose herself. She waited for
him to say something—or to leave—and the longer he stood there watching
her, the harder it was for her to maintain any semblance of composure.
Years she had cultivated her brave facade, and now, all of her work had
been stripped away.
“Never follow your nightmares.” His voice was sad and she closed her
eyes.
Elodie listened to his footsteps as he walked away, and she continued to
listen long after he was gone and the door had been shut behind him; she
was back within the uncomfortable silence, alone.

“YOU SHOULD LET HER go,” Stryker sighed. His projection was
displayed in the center of the cabin.
Gunner slammed his fist into the wall. It wasn’t the first time. There
wasn’t much wall left to abuse. He clenched his fist and it came back out of
the paneling tangled in wires that sparked against his flesh.
He should let her go. He just didn’t want to. A day had come and gone
since the Peace Keepers subdued Juke’s ship and boarded it. They came like
a swarm shortly after, accompanied by a battalion of bots and men, to
cleanse everything from within.
 They had found him on the floor, twisted and deranged. Elodie had
covered him, tried to protect him from the guns that were leveled at him.
He’d been a shell of his former self, still hungering for more blood, with the
taste of Juke’s cartilage in his mouth. He’d never wanted Elodie to see him
that way.
But damn had it had felt so good.
It had been sublime. A gruesome climax experienced through a crimson
lens, and she’d been his reward at the end. But as he gazed into her worried
eyes, reason returned and he hated that she’d seen him like that.
I should let her go.
He shot a look at Stryker. The Cyborg wore his mask like always, thick
and sharp around his face. He didn’t envy the snake, but if it were him,
Gunner would never wear a mask. Anyone who came within striking
distance would be doing so at their own risk.
Stryker refused to acknowledge that the poison he spewed could be a
good thing.
“It’s for the best,” Stryker added.
“The best?” Gunner’s eyes burned.
“You’re an unpredictable motherfucker. I’m surprised this woman let
you get close at all. You have a tendency of making everyone walk in the
opposite direction of you and it’s not just because you’re an asshole, but
because their life usually depends on it.”
Elodie had let him close. But did she really have a choice? So close.
She had let him in and then she’d let him stay. Gunner had never felt
more at home than he did with her. Her touch was bliss. He wanted to sink
himself into it, drown in it, and never reach the surface.
Gunner stopped himself, pulling at his hair, shutting the thoughts down.
Bringing forth phantoms of her tortured him. The memories played
perfectly in his head, every nuance recorded for eternity, every detail his to
scrutinize and overanalyze.
And like a drug, he wanted more of it. He wanted new memories to
replay and add to the old ones, to seduce and feed off of. He let out a heavy
breath.
“I don’t think I can let her go.”
The snake grumbled. “Let me be the voice of fucking reason. No one
should be around you. No one. I shouldn’t even be around you. I don’t need
my ass to get exiled like yours.”
 “Could you give up Norah?” Gunner asked. Stryker had told him all
about what happened and why he’d never responded to Gunner’s
communications. That this woman, Norah, had sent out a distress call of her
own, and like the hero Stryker always pretended to be, he’d answered it.
Gunner chuckled. It was almost laughable, the timing. Stryker glared at
him as if he’d gone crazy.
If the snake hadn’t answered that distress call and responded to
Gunner’s communications instead, Gunner wouldn’t have stopped to
investigate the Blessed. If they had both just done their fucking jobs, they
would still both be monster hunters for the EPED. A month ago they had
been.
Now, the snake—perfection himself—had quit, and Gunner was stuck
dealing with Dommik for all future drop-offs. That’s if he didn’t jump ship
himself.
He thought about dropping the job, especially after discovering that
he’d been tracked and that the EPED had been keeping tabs on him for god
knows how long.
The fucking swarm himself tracked him. No one else had that deadly
combination of access and resources. Gunner had no proof...but he wasn’t
done searching for it.
When he’d taken back his ship, after the Peace Keepers—enlisted by
the EPED—followed it across the galaxy in search of him, Gunner had
docked it on the same ship Elodie was on and then searched his vessel
thoroughly. He knew what he was looking for but he’d been unable to find
it. A piece of the swarm himself.
“I could never give Norah up,” Stryker said.
“And yet you can kill her with a kiss,” Gunner provoked.
No answer for that. Stryker shifted and his hologram moved to emulate.
It was thick, the heavy few minutes of silence that hung between them.
“Did you eat the captain?”
Gunner warily lowered himself into a chair. “No.”
“Then there’s hope for you at least.”
Hope and Elodie were one and the same.
Hours later, Gunner washed himself up, scrubbed until his skin was red
and raw enough to trigger his healing nanobots. He trimmed his hair and
shaved away the stubble he let grow over his face the last couple of weeks.
He rubbed his thumb, still not fully healed, knowing the other half remained
deep within the bowels of the broken down mass of the legionnaire. A piece
of him left behind, although a new piece would soon replace what he’d lost.
He donned his new uniform, one he had to replicate, as the last had been
destroyed when the pirates raided his ship.
Gunner pressed his hand against the walls of the lavatory-turned-
brewery and slid it over the whirlpool tank that sat quietly in the corner. The
beer was long gone but the machines had been untouched. He could smell
the lingering fragrance of hops in the air, bitter and sweet.
But the rest of the ship wasn’t the same. Not after what the pirates had
done to it, and not after what he had done to it in search of the tracker.
The armory had been pillaged, the medical bay depleted of all its stores,
the hidden cybernetics room looted of all its million-dollar tech. His bridge
stank of others who’d made a home in his place as they attempted to hack
his machines. He could even smell Ballsy when he focused, thin as the trail
was.
The EPED acquisitions, for the most part, were fine. The doors that led
to the laboratory were destroyed almost beyond repair, brought down by a
bomb or a cannon of some sort. There had been a bazooka in his armory. It
could’ve been that. Waste of perfectly good munitions.
Gunner wished he could’ve seen the pirates’ faces when they finally
made it through. When they first laid their eyes upon the giant glass
enclosures that were filled with flora. Flora that still waited to be offloaded
and sent back to the EPED base on Earth.
There was very little money in the prospects he had stored within his
most heavily barricaded part of the ship. There was nothing for the pirates
to want. But still, if there’d never been a tracker on board his vessel, they
would’ve made a killing selling off his personal gear.
Not one of his androids remained, though. That part of his kingdom had
been stolen away.
Gunner stretched out the sleeves of his jacket and walked off his ship.
The landing zone and docking bay of the giant Peace Keeper battlemass
filled his view, as did the hundreds of men and robots working the deck.
Battle flyers and diplomatic ships lay on either side of him; they went on
for miles in both directions. In a way, it reminded him of Ghost City, but
much, much larger. The battlemasses weren’t warships, they were gigantic
movable fortresses for the Earthian military fleet.
 No one stopped him when he entered the main vessel. People watched
but kept their distance. It was the first time he had emerged in days.
He was after one thing, and one thing only. Elodie. She’d been calling
for him, wanting him, and they had tried to keep him away. He’d let it
happen. Distance and time can change a person... But it hadn’t changed
either of them. His little talk with Stryker had only strengthened his resolve.
He knew what he wanted, and he had never been one for self-deprivation.
Gunner followed his nose to the holding units. They weren’t hard to
find. He knew the smell of captivity well.
The alluring perfume she seemed to exude seeded like a welcoming
mint through the endless passageways. Fresh and new and invigorating. The
metal plates in his body vibrated with anticipation. His heart steadily
increased with each step. He would always be able to find her, always be
able to smell her.
His footsteps and stride lengthened. Speed bit at his heels, and the
closer he got, the quicker his jackal became.
Mate.
He could sense her now, mere yards away from him. There was nothing
that could stand in his way, not even the metal walls and the barriers.
A man in a uniform stood before the last door that led to her. Gunner
outstretched his fingers then bunched them into restraining fists at his side.
“Elodie,” he said breathlessly.
The guard eyed him warily but nodded. “She’s being held within.”
“Currently.” Gunner didn’t break stride.
The guard didn’t answer—at least not quickly enough—and Gunner
shoved him to the side. The locking mechanism of the door came loose at
will and he pushed the panel aside quietly. A series of cells came into view
but only one was occupied. He only sensed one person. He only felt her.
Elodie’s smell flooded his nose and her proximity electrified every fiber
of his being.
Gunner approached her room quietly. It was the only one that had bars
erected, but it was also the only one transformed into private quarters. He
was pleased that she was kept away from everyone else. He’d demanded it.
Her quiet, even breaths came to him first, her body second as he
rounded the corner. Elodie was lying on a bed facing the wall, her back to
him, sleeping peacefully.
Completely unaware that he was there.
 Gunner watched her for some time, suddenly uncertain how to proceed.
He’d given time the chance to erode the strange bond between them, for her
sake more than his, but it only made the ache in him grow each hour he
stayed away.
But his patience had its limits. No one had ever disagreed with that.
Gunner wasn’t sure if he was there to say goodbye or to capture her
anew. He had no plan but the immediate, instinctive need to see her—to be
near her, even if it was the final time.
He didn’t know what they had now that their time was up. Technically,
the deal between them had been satisfied.
His jackal propelled him forward and his machine-self agreed. The man
in him was an outlier, having lost the battle to play hero.
He never entertained the thought that he was a good man.
Gunner turned away and found the mechanism that opened her room.
The bars sank into the walls with a quiet swish. Elodie remained asleep.
He moved forward and sat down next to her pallet, leaning his back
against the wall, his head tilted to the side to rest behind hers. He breathed
her in and waited. Watched.

HER HAIR FLUTTERED, tickling the back of her head. It was

accompanied by a soft exhale of breath and a wave of heat.
Elodie’s eyes snapped open and her body went rigid. Her hair moved
again and she reached up to touch it, to get rid of the feeling, but her fingers
were caught and held tight. The hand that held her was rough and calloused
and gripped her almost desperately.
She twisted around and found Gunner sitting on the floor next to her
bed.
Relief flooded her as she took in the sight of him: handsome, groomed,
and so unlike the prisoner she’d been next to for weeks. They stared at each
other silently for a time, neither one of them able to say a word.
“You clean up well,” she said, breaking the silence first with a smile.
“And you’re dressed like a girl,” he teased.
Elodie scooted back and lifted the covers on her bed, inviting him in.
Gunner, without breaking the connection they shared, joined her under the
blanket. The bed dipped under his weight and her body pressed up against
his.
 His arm hooked above her head and slid under her cheek and she
clasped his shirt hard. He pulled her closer until she was cocooned in his
arms. Elodie released a happy sigh as her bare feet threaded through his
legs. She rubbed them over his boots as she settled into him.
“Gunner...” Elodie said breathlessly.
“Elodie,” he whispered back, a dark, low rasp she’d come to love.
Another hot breath fell across her brow and she closed her eyes to drown in
it. To remember everything they’d been through.
Before long, her pulse slowed to a rhythm that matched his and she
succumbed to the smell of his heat and aftershave—content.
If this was a dream, she never wanted it to end.
The next time she woke, he was gone.
 Chapter Twenty Four

ELODIE WAS RELEASED that very same day.

The officials brought her forward along with several of the others, and
cross-examined their stories. It helped that during the takedown of the
pirate organization, the mining ship she’d worked on had been recovered
and the records of the employees were still intact.
It proved her innocence.
Those who weren’t freed—or had taken recruitment—remained in
holding until they underwent their trials.
To her disappointment, those who’d left in the escape pods had yet to be
tracked down.
But the news she’d received was good: several had shown up at a
nearby star port and her father’s DNA was within one of the pods. That was
where his trail ended. There were no more data signals for the Peace
Keepers to follow and vanishing into the stars wasn’t a difficult
task...especially if you started off-world.
If she really wanted to, Elodie could find him. She knew her dad well
enough to know what he would do and where he would go. There were only
so many jobs he would take, and even if he changed his name, she would
always be able to recognize him.
Elodie followed the yellow light of passageways that signaled the
direction of the landing zone. Her nerves were frayed and her feet felt
heavy, but she’d made up her mind.
I just have to convince Gunner... if he needs convincing. She wasn’t sure
if he would need it at all, but weighing all of the odds was safer. It guarded
her heart.
They were on opposite sides of a vast spectrum, after all.
If her feelings for the Cyborg were one-sided, it wouldn’t be the end of
the world. At least that’s what she kept telling herself. I have a whole
universe of options now.
She repeated that over and over in her head, but her thoughts always
drifted back to Gunner. There was only one option she wanted. Ely never
thought freedom would feel so burdensome.
 Her chuckle was filled with self-deprecation. I don’t think I have a taste
for it.
Some of the others had taken jobs with the Peace Keepers. They had all
been offered positions within hours of their innocence. It was surprising,
but she supposed it made sense. There were far too many jobs on a space-
faring vessel and far too few people interested in filling them. With the
experience she and the other prisoners had shared, working for the
government was a far safer option than working on a ship that could be
brought down again.
The hallway abruptly ended in an atrium and a giant archway, beyond
which was the landing zone. The air grew colder as she stepped into the
large space, and pungent grease and oil hit her nose. She was bombarded by
loud noises from the ships being worked on and repaired in the zone.
The landing zone was cavernous—larger than any port she’d ever been
on. A seemingly endless amount of ships, and the machines that maintained
them filled her vision. Her brow creased as her eyes roamed over
everything at once.
Gunner was here somewhere, but she never expected that somewhere
would be the end of a labyrinth filled with men and metal. People and
androids passed her by with little more than a glance, each heading to a
destination set out before them. She envied that they knew where they were
going.
Elodie stepped into the void.
It was so different from the cramped, dark spaces she’d worked within
most of her life, and she craned her neck to take it all in. The liveliness felt
unnatural to her. Her fingers curled into her hands and then her hands
crawled into her long shirtsleeves.
The machines she worked on in the bowels of starships were always in
motion, but it was a predictable, rhythmic motion. To her untrained eye, the
loading docks looked like a small battle.
She tempered her uneasiness and began her search.
Before long she was among the flyers and the entry hall was lost behind
her. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for but she believed that when
she saw it she would know. Gunner had a way of drawing eyes.
The ships towered above her like skyscrapers and she was lost in their
shadows. Some were so large that she couldn’t see the top of them while
others were barely big enough to hold one person comfortably.
 Elodie stopped. The hair on the back of her neck rose and she felt eyes
on her. She turned slowly around, her gaze darting everywhere, scanning
everything.
Then she saw him.
Gunner was up a ramp, leaning inside the open hatch of a ship, his body
relaxed and yet still menacing in his prowess. Even in his leisure, he
demanded caution from those around him. There were androids, ships, and
small machines between them, walking and moving through her line of
sight, but his watchful stare never faltered.
Elodie stood motionless, staring right back.
He’s waiting for me.
A small smile tugged at her lips. Suddenly, all her worry and
uncertainty vanished. Every other option she’d forced herself to consider
died like starving weeds in her head.
In a flash, she ran to Gunner, grinning like a lunatic while dodging the
obstacles in her way.
Elodie slammed into his body before he even had a chance to uncross
his arms, hers banding around him. There was no way she was going to let
him go. No way was she going to give him a chance to reconsider. She
burrowed her face into his chest and clasped him tightly, rubbing her brow
back and forth, feeling her Cyborg take over her soul.
His arms came around her slowly and she tightened her hold. His rough
hands touched her back lightly until they moved. One shifted up to cup the
back of her neck while the other slid down, positioning under her ass.
Gunner abruptly jerked her up—her legs hooking his waist—and caught her
upturned mouth. He kissed her desperately, filling her up.
Elodie slipped her hands all over him, grasping and touching anything
in her reach, unable to stop feeling him. It wasn’t until he hefted her further
against him that she realized he’d carried her into his ship and away from
prying eyes. She continued to press herself into Gunner and held onto him
as he lowered her feet back to the ground, his lips chasing after hers the
whole way. Breathless, she cupped his cheeks and broke the kiss to meet his
eyes.
Red and bright.
“You waited for me,” she said.
“I did.”
“Why?”
 “I hoped that you would follow.”
“Of course I would. I thought I might have to convince you.” Elodie
smiled. “We’re very different.”
“Not for long.” Gunner breathed hotly over her brow. She wasn’t sure if
he knew how much she liked when he did that, though she suspected he did.
It would always remind her of her safe spot, the one place that gave her
comfort within that nightmare. “You needed to make the choice yourself.”
“I made it a long time ago.”
“And in desperation.”
“Not for me. When I said everything, I meant everything,” she argued.
Gunner pulled back with a smirk. “Remember, I’m in exile. You’ll be
alone with me for the rest of your life.”
“I like being alone.” She looked around at his ship for the first time.
“With you,” she added, her eyes going over the mess of the interior. Walls
had been ripped off, bolts and screws littered the floor, tools haphazardly
placed. There were exposed wires and piping, and when she looked farther
in, entire doors had been broken off or blasted in. “You got your ship back.”
“The EPED and the Peace Keepers were able to track it to where the
pirates had it stored.” Gunner led her in. “They were already looking for me
before your distress beacon went off. Fuckers thought I needed help.”
Elodie laughed. “I’m glad they did. I’m glad we’re not on that freighter
anymore.”
“What? You didn’t want to help me captain a crew of prisoners and
mutineers for a few days? Bring in a new reign of terror?”
She slanted her eyes at him. “No. Neither one of us is cut out to be
around people. We’d make terrible leaders.”
“Terror, Ely. Reign of terror. And it works. I already have the iron fist,
see?” he answered her question, flexing his hand.
“Is the ship...working?”
“Most of the damage you see is superficial. The pirates cracked some of
my codes and looted a lot, but I’ve replenished most of the supplies. But
enough about that.” They stepped into a large room filled with glass
enclosures and thick flora. She wasn’t expecting to see a well-kept jungle
smack dab in the middle of Gunner’s ship. The lush and vibrant greenery
was out of place among the rubble and metal.
Gunner turned her to face him and grazed his knuckles over where her
nipples had begun to peak under her shirt and sports bra. Elodie grasped
him as they grew taut under her clothes. “You’re mine,” he whispered.
“Only if you’re also mine.” She leaned into him.
“Machine, man, and animal. All yours.” Her breath left her as he said it.
She had needed to hear him say it aloud. “Which do you want first?”
The last time he took her, Gunner had dominated her. She wanted him
to do it again.
Gunner didn’t give her a chance to answer as he stripped her shirt off
and pressed her to the wall. Her breasts spilled out when he ripped the
center of her bra, his mouth kissing and nipping them in the next instant.
Elodie arched into him and struggled out of her pants. His were already
miraculously pushed down as he reached down and helped her. His cock
sprang out to slide between her crux and through her folds. It was velvet
and hot, the push and shove filled with demand.
She sank her nails into his shoulders as his hands spanned her behind,
opening her up. Gunner pressed his thick, pierced tip to her opening,
testing, and grazing his teeth from her nipples and up her neck. Her pussy
clenched around it, deliciously stretched open to take him.
“Man,” she begged. “I want the man.”
With a growl, he speared her in one thick thrust. The back of her head
slid up and down the wall as he fucked her against it. She held on, held him,
magnetized to keep the connection, rocking her hips with his. Her first
climax had her melting into him, and her second was in unison with his.
Gunner dragged the flat of his tongue over her face, licking off her
sweat while his frantic thrusting continued for a short time after. When it
was over, she was on his lap, on the ground, their arms wrapped
protectively around each other.
“There’s just one thing.” He brushed his lips over her head.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m going to need help repairing it.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t let me rub off on you too much,” he teased but his eyes darkened
as if he didn’t agree with his words. Her mouth dried up and her throat
closed. Gunner was intimidating even when he wasn’t covered in blood and
decked out in weapons. Weapons he threatened to penetrate her with. Her
core tugged and her belly tightened and he grasped the back of her neck
again and held her hard against him.
 “I can help repair it,” she whispered, squeezing the words out. “I have
steady hands and years of experience.”
His eyes narrowed and his teeth gleamed. “You’ll work for me. Not the
EPED.”
Elodie nodded. “I have one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You can’t mark anything with your urine anymore. Even if it isn’t
urine, but some super Cyborg serum I’m not aware of. It’s disgusting.”
Gunner’s lips slowly, devilishly curled up into a smile. “Deal. And...”
“And?” she asked.
“No more pretending that you’re a boy. Not that it wasn’t fun, but you’ll
realize the act won’t fly once you see your new uniform,” he said.
“Ha. I’m not going to wear a uniform. Especially one chosen by you.
Otherwise, deal,” she laughed and rubbed her pussy over his thigh. “Easy
enough.”
He caught her chin and forced her to face him. “So you’ll stay.”
“I’ll stay.”
He searched her eyes. “I would kill for you. Have killed for you. And
would do so again. You understand?”
“I would die for you,” she told him back. “I understand.”
Gunner dropped his hand and she rested her head against his shoulder.
His heady warmth enveloped her while his ship descended into quiet,
comforting silence. She closed her eyes against the broken metal paneling
and the exposed wires—blocked out the vivid green plants. The grey didn’t
meet her this time. But the red did. And for the first time since she could
remember, Elodie looked forward to the future.
A burning, red-hot, wildfire future.
 Epilogue Chapter One

SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.

Gunner helped her onto the medical bed. His hands were warm,
constricting, yet soft in the way he handled her. Elodie would’ve been
afraid if it weren’t for him. Or for the others that meandered in the
background, preparing the drugs that would soon be within her system.
Drugs. Not just any replicator-synthesized, standard commercial drugs,
but cybernetic drugs, ones laced with DNA altering capabilities. The kind
that existed for some groups, like Cyborgs, but were otherwise unknown to
the rest of the universe.
Her hands ran down the length of her thighs, rubbing the thick flannel
cloth with her palms, over and over. Gunner caught her hands and kissed
her knuckles, then turned them over and kissed her wrists, willing her to
look up into his eyes. No words needed to be spoken. The look they shared
said it all.
A woman stepped forward, fixated on the supplies she held in her
hands. Dr. Rose Cagley, a Cyborg doctor—a female Cyborg in all its oddity
—set the items down on the pallet next to Elodie and began to prep them.
“Are you nervous?” Cagley asked.
“No. Should I be?”
Cagley chuckled. “No. Not at all. But I think he is.” The doctor
motioned to Gunner.
Elodie laughed back. “I think so too.”
“I’m right here,” Gunner brooded. “How long will this take?”
“Not long,” Cagley answered, unconcerned. The woman seemed to be
one of the only people unconcerned with Gunner’s presence. Since the
minute they arrived in Ghost City earlier that cycle, it had been a trial. At
first, Gunner’s ship was escorted by two others into the giant docking arena,
and when they stepped out of the hatch, armor-clad Cyborgs met them.
They didn’t greet them, but rather they loomed like scary sentinels off
in the corners and down the walkways, watching with hands poised over
their weapons. Elodie had seen them, even the ones that didn’t want to be
seen. After a lifetime of hiding from the eyes of others, she always knew
when someone was looking at her now.
The only reason they hadn’t been stopped would’ve been for Rose, who
had met them outside Gunner’s ship. And a man named Matt, who,
according to Gunner, had bought a small fortune of brew from him.
Walking from the ship and through Ghost City was an experience unlike
any other. Elodie had expected a city. Or at least a busy star port, but what
met her was a steely cavernous ship, not unlike the Peace Keeper
battlemass, but much smaller and way more streamlined. The walls glittered
in silver and white, galvanized and sleek. It was quiet and menacing in its
top-of-the-line interior. The shadows in the corners were still grey though,
and many ships docked throughout were personalized to such a level that
they seemed out of place with the overall interior. But the quietness was
what really got her, and the men.
So many battle-born men. Her eyes couldn’t take it all in, not in the
brief period of her passing through, mainly because the men kept
demanding her attention. They stared at her as if she was a captive, or a
slave, and the realization came to her slowly.
They think I’m not here willingly. Not with him. They watched Gunner
with even more scrutiny than they watched her. For the first time, she
reached between them and clasped his hand. To her surprise, he accepted
the gesture, threading his fingers through hers.
After that, she didn’t care what the other Cyborgs thought.
“Good,” Gunner said, shifting her thoughts back to the present.
Cagley cleared her throat. “The procedure doesn’t take long but the
recovery can. It’s different for every person.”
“Do I need to remain here during recovery?” Elodie interjected quickly
before Gunner could.
“I would recommend it but as long as—”
“We’ll be leaving as soon as she’s clear to go,” Gunner said.
Cagley nodded and smiled. “Probably for the best. The others don’t feel
comfortable with you here, given your...” the doctor cleared her throat,
“...reputation. But I won’t release her,” she turned to Gunner, “until I know
she’ll be okay.”
Elodie wiped her palms on her pants again, feeling them dampen with
sweat. She didn’t want to remain here longer than she had to either and it
wasn’t because of the Cyborgs, or the animosity they had toward Gunner.
Her trepidation wasn’t because she’d only encountered one woman on the
whole ship—which would’ve alarmed her months ago—but because she
didn’t like how open everything was.
It had been one thing, working on a giant mining rig in the past, because
back then, ninety percent of her time was spent stuck in tight and enclosed
spaces, but now that she had the ability to wander or go most anywhere,
Elodie realized she preferred the confinement; she preferred being able to
keep track of everyone around her.
A loner. She didn’t like the prospect of dealing with other people more
than she had to. Gunner’s ship was her home now, and it was the only place
she wanted to be.
“All right, Elodie, I’m going to need you to take off your shirt. Gunner,
I’m going to need you to take a seat in the corner. Alternative, you can sit in
the waiting room outside.”
Gunner didn’t move. Cagley appeared unfazed. Elodie shot him a look
and pointed to the chair. “Sit in the corner.”
He smirked and moved to the corner. Elodie watched as he leaned back,
put his hands behind his head, pushing his legs out, and relaxed—all
devilish smiles. I know that look. I’ll be sitting in my own corner later. The
idea made her belly tie up in knots and her pussy tighten. His smile grew.
Blushing, and being a tease, she lifted off her shirt slower than was
necessary. Cagley snickered as she placed a glass box next to the supplies
on the pallet. It was filled with long tubes filled with clear liquid. The box
iced over and clouded as it defrosted from wherever it came from.
“Before we start, I’m going to give you an injection of pain-dampening
nanobots. If you feel any pain, let me know. This is optional, but those who
turn it down usually only ever do so the first time.”
“Okay.”
She prepared a needle and swabbed Elodie’s arm. A moment later a
calming euphoria flooded her.
“While that kicks in, just hang tight, I’m going to lock the room and
sanitize the space. Elodie, have you ever been in a cybernetics lab before?”
Cagley asked as she punched in a series of numbers and an antiseptic
smelling gas filled the space. It was gone the next moment and was
replaced by a beam of light that traced the floors and walls.
“No. Only the one on his ship.” She looked at Gunner, who was still
grinning like a demon.
 “Ah. Then, don’t be perturbed by the scrubs. Some people are afraid of
the lights. They think they’re radioactive but they’re harmless.”
When it was over, Cagley returned to her side and opened up the box.
“These are virgin nanocells, ready to bond and reconfigure to your genome.
They’ll significantly slow your aging and will increase your ability to heal.
Having them won’t make you a Cyborg but will extend your natural
lifespan, prevent nearly all illnesses from incubating, and will heal you of
any illnesses you may already have.”
Cagley pointedly looked at Elodie’s hands and arms, which had years of
burns and scars from the job. “They won’t be able to revert any physical
wounds or scaring that may have already occurred.”
“Will they...change me?” Elodie asked.
“No. They’ll regulate your hormones but otherwise, no, they can’t cure
any mental or emotional illnesses. They can only help.”
“How does it work?” Elodie ran a finger across the chilled glass box,
her tip coming away wet.
“Besides forcing new cell growth, and without getting into days of
explanation, the nanocells will, for the most part, mitigate your dependence
on oxygen as fuel. The moment a human is born, oxygen begins to kill you.
We need it to live but to live it very slowly gifts us with death. The
nanocells will stop the death part.”
Elodie took a deep breath. “And breathing?”
“You’ll still need to breathe,” Cagley laughed. “Maybe not as much but
I’ve never seen a person stop breathing after the procedure. That part of you
is ingrained to the very fiber of your being. Even Cyborgs breathe, more
than is necessary. It’s one of those strange phenomena that just
signify...life.”
“That’s comforting.” Elodie took another steady, deep breath, just
because she was now so focused on it. “You’ve done this before?”
“Many times. I’m not sure if you’ve met Katalina, but she went through
it two months ago, and Norah, who recovered no more than three weeks
ago.”
Elodie knew of Norah but not of Katalina. Norah was Stryker’s partner,
and Stryker happened to be one of the only Cyborgs Gunner was friendly
with. “And it’s always turned out fine?”
“Absolutely. You’re not the first human to fall in love with a Cyborg.
This procedure has been around as long as they have. They are still only
part machine, regardless of what they try to tell you.”
Gunner humphed.
“Fall in love?” Elodie giggled, feeling light-headed and giddy, glancing
back at Gunner who looked like he’d just swallowed something slimy and
wriggly. The guns on his cheeks warped and ballooned. “That man over
there doesn’t like using such frilly words.”
Cagley looked back and forth at Gunner and her. “No, I suppose not. He
can’t let all those other dangerous Cyborgs out there know he isn’t as
badass as he appears. What would he do then?” she teased.
I like her.
“I’m sitting right here,” Gunner retorted petulantly.
“And you’re doing a good job of it,” Elodie burst out, laughing. Damn,
he’s going to corner time me later. She liked corner time, how could she
not? Gunner knew she liked it too, but she would never tell him out loud.
“Are you ready?” Cagley asked, pulling out a tube with her gloved
hands.
Her smile wavered. “Yes.”
“This will feel strange.” She opened the tube and poured it into a long
thin container.
“How so?”
“It’ll feel like you’re being tickled with a feather, everywhere at once. If
you don’t know how that feels, imagine a...bug that is crawling just
underneath your skin. Regardless, it will tickle and you’ll want to scratch.
Lie back and give me your hands.”
Elodie watched silently as Cagley restrained her wrists to the pallet.
“How long will it last?”
“Until the transformation is done.”

HOURS HAD GONE BY AND she was still squirming like a maggot on
the pallet. There wasn’t any pain but the need to scratch and tear at her skin
had almost been a madness in itself. Cagley offered to put her to sleep, but
Elodie refused. She was thankful for the restraints and the numbing effect
that still tightly gripped her body, and although a billion different reactions
were happening inside of her, she still retained a fairly clear head. Gunner
had told her this would be over fast. She would have to talk to him about his
idea of what ‘over fast’ meant.
 Gunner sat beside her now that the nanocells had attached to her and
didn’t have the ability to attach to him. Even if they did, his body would
absorb them or kill them off. At least that’s what Cagley told her after the
reaction had been going on for some time.
“How are you feeling?”
Elodie unlocked her jaw and winced. “Frustrated.”
“Oh?”
“I really, really want to scratch or maybe dive into a pool of water.
Maybe take a three-day shower or stand out in the freezing cold until I’m an
icicle with no feeling left. Is there a cold planet nearby?”
Gunner chuckled. “You’re over sensitized. I’ll take care of that later.”
Elodie pursed her lips. “Take care of it now!”
“I don’t think so, Ely. Rose may be the only Cyborg on this ship that’ll
vouch for me. If she came back in here to find me fucking you while you’re
restrained, she’d drag me out before your orgasm ended.”
Her eyes widened. “Would an orgasm help?”
More laughter. “It probably couldn’t hurt. What kind of question is
that?”
“The kind that distracts me.” She sighed and wiggled. Gunner loomed
over her and crowded her space, pressing a soft, knowing kiss over her
pouted lips. That small touch alone, that small relief, was enough to make
her moan. He rose up.
“Another,” she demanded.
“Later.”
Elodie sagged with a grumble. Later.
A ping sounded by the door. “Come in,” Elodie yelled.
Cagley entered the space with a tablet in her hand. Gunner shifted
slightly to let her near. She was the only being who Gunner willingly let
near her. They hadn’t encountered many people as they repaired his ship,
but he still felt the need to shield her. The fact that he trusted Cagley, in
some small way, had Elodie trusting her too.
The doctor checked over her vitals quietly, unusually tense from their
previous encounter. Her soft features now held an edge to them that hadn’t
been there before. A minuscule crease between her brows and an even
slighter crease to her lip.
“Am I okay?” Elodie asked after a minute.
“Very much so.”
 Relief.
“Are we able to leave now?” Gunner stepped forward.
“Not...quite.” Cagley prepared another needle and injected a fresh dose
of that numbing serum into her arm. Elodie sighed and settled back.
“What do you mean not quite?” Gunner asked.
“You’re being requested to join Cypher and several of the others
above.”
Elodie looked between Cagley and Gunner.
“Why?” he asked angrily. “He could just meet me here or ping me on
the network. Isn’t Cypher usually hibernating?”
Cagley shrugged her shoulders and pulled up a stool to sit down next to
her. “I don’t know, but I’ll stay with Elodie until you get back.”
Gunner didn’t move and Elodie wished she could reach out and take his
wrist. He stared at the door with a distantly. She felt bad for the door. When
he looked at her that way, his attention was overwhelming, but he adored
her. Gunner had no care for the door.
“Go,” Ely urged.
He glanced her way. “I’ll be back soon.” He looked at Cagley. “Make
sure she’s ready to leave when I get back.” Then he was out the poor door
and gone.
Elodie turned her focus to the doctor sitting beside her. “Is everything
all right?”
“I don’t know.” She canted her head. “But there’s always something
happening. I stopped caring about the small things long ago. If it doesn’t
affect my ability to operate my lab or impact my supply chain I let the
others decide what the appropriate response is.”
The doctor untied her long brown hair, and for a moment, a silken
cascade of dark chocolate locks fell around the woman’s shoulders before it
was re-tamed. It was alluring, almost unnervingly so, but inviting and
warm. Her aura was maternal. The kind that could be clearly seen from a
distance and understood without ever knowing the person at all. Elodie had
never seen a more beautiful woman in her life. The female Cyborg’s beauty
was so different from the imposing men of her species that she found it
strange.
A vixen. I would’ve expected female Cyborgs to be provocative. Not
motherly. Cagley looked no older than Elodie herself, yet she was drawn to
her like a child to her mother.
 “Why are you different?” Elodie blurted out, kicking herself as she said
it.
“Different?”
“From the other Cyborgs. You were all made around the same time?
The men,” she nudged her head, “look like battle machines.” Elodie briefly
bit her tongue. “I don’t mean to offend you, but you make me want to hug
you, and the others... They make me want to avert my gaze and walk in the
opposite direction.”
Cagley burst out into laughter, and it went on for some time. Elodie
blushed.
“I am different, but then again, every Cyborg is. I look the way I look to
be inviting, and I’m glad I still am.” She released another soft laugh. “I was
designed after the head cybernetic doctor’s wife. She had died years prior
during the war. He was an old man by the time I awoke in my vat but he
was standing over me, shielding me with a towel away from prying eyes.
His wife was kind, he told me, and so he hoped I would be too.”
“And then he sent you off to war? That doesn’t make sense.” Elodie
twitched her fingers wishing she could itch more than her palms.
“No, but I wasn’t meant for the front lines. I was pre-programmed with
dozens of years of cybernetic research and human medical care. The
cybernetics doctors couldn’t go to the battles, so they needed someone to go
in their place, and so they made me. It was my job, along with several
others created in my division, to take care of the Cyborgs damaged in
battle.”
“I guess that makes sense. You’re very beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Cagley smiled.
“Aren’t you afraid of being surrounded by,” Elodie swallowed, “men?”
“The Cyborgs? No. They’re honorable for the most part. They wouldn’t
come near me unless I invited them to and vice versa. I wasn’t designed to
be helpless either. My strength is not at their level, but I’m still far ahead of
a human and no Cyborg would jeopardize their relationship with me, as I’m
the only one on station capable of rebuilding them. Why?”
“I was afraid to be around men.” Elodie tilted her head to look back at
the door, hoping Gunner would return. When he didn’t, she continued, “Not
so much anymore.”
“I’m glad. Even more so that the jackal has made you feel that way.
They mate for life, did you know that?”
 Elodie looked back at Cagley, eyes wide. “They do?”
Cagley nodded, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “They do. I guess you
own Gunner now. Be careful where you point him.”

GUNNER ENTERED GHOST City’s top deck solarium, bypassing the

entrance to the control room, and headed for the conference room. Without
knocking he stormed in and slammed his hands on the glass-alloy table. It
didn’t splinter, but it did shake.
Cypher sat heavily in a chair at the front while Breco stood off to the
side.
“What’s this about?”
“Nightheart has contacted us, and since he is your boss, and he asked
for you personally, we figured you should be here,” Breco mused, flicking
something off his sleeve. The Cyborg looked as uncaring as Gunner was
irate. It was only the three of them in the large room, but the space felt
small.
Gunner clawed his fingers over the glass before straightening. “And to
answer my question?” He didn’t even want to be on Ghost City, let alone in
a room with several of his brethren. If it weren’t for Elodie, he would be a
trillion miles away, waiting and working on ship repairs with her, spending
his cycles the way he wanted to. With her.
But her health was more important, and this ‘upgrade’ was long
overdue, as far as he was concerned. They also needed to resupply. So their
little vacation had a minor detour, finding them stationed at Ghost.
Cypher mumbled, half-growling with his eyes closed. “There’s a
problem.”
Gunner turned his attention to him. The man was in a constant state of
‘hibernation’ although that wasn’t really what was happening with him.
Cypher just always appeared to be asleep, but that was mostly because he
was regularly tied into the Network, monitoring all of the information that
flew across Ghost City. Many underestimated the Cybernetic bear, but
anyone who pulled him out of his cyber vigil risked serious consequences.
A hologram appeared and Nightheart’s figured filled one of the chairs
next to the central table. Bastard looks grim. Gunner felt some small
pleasure in knowing his boss was...brooding. Nightheart’s eyes searched the
room before he started speaking.
 “Gunner.” His eyes landed on him.
“What is it now?” Fuck greetings. The man had a tracker on his ship.
The only reason Gunner continued working for the EPED was because it
gave him access to most of their after-action and exploratory reports. And
spite. Spite had a lot to do with it.
“I have your next mission.”
“And you couldn’t give it to me through Mia, on my ship, where you’re
not wasting everyone’s time directly?”
“It concerns everyone present.”
Breco stepped forward. “How so? We’re separate entities. The EPED
isn’t supposed to know of our existence. Just because a couple of Cyborgs
worked as your monster hunters doesn’t mean you can lay claim on all of
us. Nothing concerns us. We are sovereign.”
“This does concern you and it will result in repercussions that will echo
across all of humanity if not dealt with immediately,” Nightheart said.
“Zeph has gone rogue.” He leveled another look at Gunner. “Like you did
back in the day. The EPED is after him, and the government is itching to get
involved. We can’t let that happen.”
Gunner sighed, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “And what do you
want me to do? Apprehend him? Retrieve him? Wipe his existence from the
universe?”
Gunner could literally feel Breco and Cypher bristle at his words. The
room was growing smaller still by the second. A Cyborg threatening to kill
another Cyborg...wasn’t standard practice.
“Preferably one of the first two but kill him if you must.”
What a cold-hearted, deliciously unhappy bastard. Gunner smirked. He
hated his boss, but who didn’t? But fuck did he really enjoy him sometimes.
“You’re talking about destroying a Cyborg! One of us!” Breco slammed
his fist on the table this time. “And you’re bringing us into this? We won’t
help you.”
Nightheart turned his cold, dead eyes to Breco. “I’m not asking for your
help. I’m telling you to stay out of it. If Zeph asks for sanctuary, deny it.”
“Why the fuck would we do that?” Breco sneered. “What’s the point of
having a haven if it’s not to get away from fuckers like you?”
“Because you won’t like what happens if you do.”
“Is that a threat?” Cypher spoke up for the first time, eyes half-open
now.
 “Absolutely.” Nightheart shrugged.
Gunner interjected before Breco roared some more, overall amused.
“What did Zeph do?” He twiddled his thumbs. “Wasn’t he supposed to be
with that shark guy? What’s his name? The one you’re trying to recruit to
take over Stryker’s position?”
“He abducted a woman.”
“Against her will?” Cypher asked.
“And a child. Against their will,” Nightheart answered.
Gunner sat back and closed his eyes. Fuck.
 Epilogue: Chapter Two

GUNNER CARRIED ELODIE back to his ship. Cagley had released her
into his care as soon as he returned to the room. He paid the doctor a small
ransom in credits, knowledge, and various other goods he still had stored on
his ship. It was enough to set him back, but he would’ve gone into debt for
Elodie’s procedure.
She squirmed in his hold and hooked an arm around his shoulder,
hefting herself further against him. Her other hand clasped the side of his
neck.
“What’re you looking at?” he asked, looking around at Ghost City
himself, trying to see it through her eyes. All he ever saw was a whole lot of
the same old shit.
“Why are all the hatches open? All the docked ships have their hatches
open and unguarded.”
“It’s law. Ghost City’s captain demands a show of trust. If we’re
allowed into the city, the city is allowed into us.”
“So...we can just walk onto any one of these ships and... I don’t know?
Steal things, steal them?”
Gunner chuckled. “Only if you want to die. Or worse, be imprisoned.
Just because the hatches stay open doesn’t mean others are welcome. But
yes, if we were so inclined, we could board one of these other vessels and
do what we pleased.”
“My dad would like it here.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” They had found Chesnik, after following
his escape pod’s trail to a nearby port after they left the Peace Keeper
battlemass. From there, Gunner followed his nose to the slums of the port
where Chesnik was hanging out with some of the other escapees from the
pirate freighter. They had changed their names and were working off the
payment for those new identities.
To his utter horror, Elodie asked her dad to join them and help rebuild
his ship. Gunner would’ve suffered it, suffered him, if it meant keeping
Elodie happy, but the nano gods were on his side that day and Chesnik
stoically refused.
 Elodie paid off her father’s debt, since she still had access to their funds
from her previous job, and got him the best treatment a Cyborg’s ship could
afford for his wrenched shoulder. They split ways after Chesnik signed on
to another crew, a small mercenary vessel, one that he could manage alone
without having to worry about hiding his daughter’s identity in the close
proximity of others.
He learned something fundamental about Elodie then. That she wasn’t
good with goodbyes. Of any kind. And to his chagrin, he now kept tabs on
Chesnik’s whereabouts that brokered onto stalking.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Because there’s nothing for him to do here.”
Elodie looked around. “You’re right. It’s all too perfect. I expected
more.”
“Oh?”
“Ghost City... The name seems dreary but also fun? Maybe grungy
machines, smoke, and glitz. I didn’t expect it to be so...”
“Ghostly?” He laughed. Several Cyborgs eyed them from a distance,
and he flared his eyes.
“So boring.”
“There’s a bar and nightclub,” he argued but he also agreed. “And a
gladiatorial pit.”
“There’s also a lot of Cyborgs,” she stammered as they came upon one
standing outside his ship. “A lot of male Cyborgs.”
“Yeah. It sucks, doesn’t it?” He stopped and looked down at her. “I
received another job.”
“What is it?”
“To capture a criminal, dead or alive.”
She sighed and looked from the ship and back at him. “That sounds
about right. I’m staying with you.”
“You are,” Gunner agreed and started walking again. His hold on her
tightened as he approached Cypher.
Elodie pressed her lips against his ear, her breath tickling it and sending
a spark straight to his cock.
“Who is he?” she whispered.
Gunner turned his face toward her. “An asshole who can hear you,” he
whispered back.
Cypher narrowed his eyes.
 “Tell him I just got out of a procedure and that I’m mutating and
tickling, and flustered,” she huffed another sultry breath, “and frustrated.”
“I think he wants to talk to us.”
Elodie shifted in his arms, clutching his neck and shoulder with both
hands. Gunner hefted her closer. “Tell him it’s not a good time. Tell him to
leave.”
“Leave.” Gunner looked at the man.
If Gunner was utterly horrified with the prospect of Chesnik living on
his ship. Cypher was utterly bored.
“I scanned your ship for trackers,” Cypher said unfazed. “I didn’t find
anything.”
Elodie sighed again and he gripped her tighter. “I never asked you to
check.”
“You didn’t, but Stryker made the rounds and told the others. I found
one on Dommik’s ship so I thought I’d better take a look.”
“And? Can you trace it and find out its origins?” Gunner already had a
hunch, but didn’t have any proof.
Cypher smiled, a toothy smile with dimples and all. The Cyborg was a
big guy, stocky, like a man who lived to lift weights and eat. No one would
ever expect that the Cyborg slept at least six days out of every seven day
Earth week.
He pulled out a small bug, no bigger than a pinky nail—or Elodie’s tiny
pink clit—and handed it over. Gunner released Ely’s legs and held her tight
against his side as he surveyed the piece.
It was exactly what he’d expected.
“What is it?” Elodie asked, taking it from him.
“A bug. An extinct one from Earth. But this one is made of metal and
enhanced, like me.”
Her eyes widened. Gunner wondered how many drugs Cagley had given
her. “It’s a Cyborg?”
“It was. But it’s dead now,” Cypher answered.
“Can we keep it?” Gunner asked.
“Sure thing.”
Cypher moved out of the way and Gunner picked Elodie back up,
walking into the hatch. He called over his shoulder, “I’d search Ghost City
if I were you.”
“Already have,” Cypher grumbled, somewhere far off.
 He closed the hatch and ordered APOLLO to disembark. By the time he
carried Elodie to his armory, they were already thousands of miles away
from Ghost. She was rubbing her body up against his, shivering, pulling at
his clothes and grazing her skin with her nails all at once.
“Cagley told me something interesting.”
“Oh?” Gunner set her down among his weapons and grabbed a belt
from the cabinet, taking her wrists and tying them together and attaching
them to the wall at her back.
“What’re you doing?”
“What did Cagley tell you?”
“That jackals mated for life.”
Gunner smirked. “And I’m keeping you restrained like the good doctor
ordered.”
“Gunner,” she deadpanned. “I itch everywhere! I can’t stand it. It’s like
I’m being tickled under my skin.” Elodie twisted on the table and tried to
get loose. He grabbed her waist and sat her back upright to face him. “Let
me go,” she breathed. Gunner rested his hands on the table on either side of
her, caging her in, a smile twitching his lip.
“Not until it’s over.”
Elodie’s nostrils flared, her brow creasing. Her body squirmed. He
relished it until she jumped forward and ran her tongue straight over his
cheek, licking his tattoo. She slid back languidly, clearly satisfied with
herself for catching the Cyborg off guard.
Gunner leaned into her and ran his nose from her shoulder to her ear. He
didn’t touch her otherwise.
“You never told me,” Elodie whispered, shaking under him. “Why you
have tattoos of guns on your face...” Gunner could smell her arousal. It was
building and thickening the air by the second. His back stiffened and he
bowed over her, moving his nose from her ear and into her hair. He could
hear her skin prickle with goosebumps even though his fingers remained
stiff on the table.
Every moment, his ship drove them deeper into space. Every moment,
his patience was poked with a hot iron. Every moment, what he had in the
cage of his arms became more real.
Gunner gripped the edge of her pants and stripped them off her legs.
“Some people refer to their arms as guns because that’s the best weapon
they have. My tattoos point toward my best weapon, and I don’t intend to
use it for talking.”
 Author’s Note and Dedication
What’s Next?

THANK YOU FOR READING Ashes and Metal, Cyborg Shifters book
five. If you liked the story or have a comment, please leave me a review! I
love hearing from fans. You guys keep me going!
Gunner’s story wouldn’t have come together if it weren’t for my family,
friends, and readers. This past Spring had struck me with some difficult
realities and revelations and I had so many amazing people to help me
through it. First, I want to thank my sister! She’s brilliant and amazing and
I’m so very proud of her for publishing her first story this year. What better
way to connect to this world if it weren’t for siblings? She made this story
shine.
Second, I want to thank my husband for always willing to lend a hand
and help me out. Ever heard the phrase: Do you live under a rock? Well, I
do. I live under a rock and in a hole and he’s both to me. The ultimate
protector.
Thirdly, I want to dedicate this story to Tiffany Roberts (you’ve seen
those Kraken books around, yeah?). She’s become one of my greatest
friends since starting this journey of being an author and is always, always
there when I need her. She made this story sparkle.
A special shout-out to the Monster-loving Ladies! You know who you
are. :)
And last but not least, to all my readers, my fans, and bloggers. To all
the messages you send me, the emails of thanks, and the ever-present
support you fill me with on a day-to-day basis. YOU keep my butt in the
chair. YOU allow me to play story Tetris and help me bring my characters
to life. Thank you for that and thank you for reading my horror and my
love.
Thank you.
This is where I tell you what I’m working on next haha... but at this
moment, I’m planning on working on several projects at once for the later
half of 2018. Usually, I pick one adventure and go for it but I have a couple
of characters cluttering up my headspace. I won’t leave you completely
hanging though. Zeph’s book, Cyborg Shifters book six is one of those
stories I’ll be working on! And his story is a big turning point for the
series... ending the lovely men of the original cast (and poor puppy Reid)
and introducing a couple new ones to follow.
The EPED does still need to fill Stryker’s position, after all.
Keep an eye out for Zeph’s story, book SIX of Cyborg Shifters, and for
several others that will be announced at a later date! Turn the page for
Zeph’s blurb...
 Chaos Croc
JANET WAS A MAN EATER.
She knew what men wanted, took what she pleased and used that to her
advantage. But the men who lived in the small colonies on her home planet
were not the same as those who traveled and conquered the universe. They
were nothing like the Cyborgs who showed up to solve all her family’s
problems, especially the green-eyed god who crowded her space.
So she used him like she used the rest—and bit off far more than she
could ever chew.
Zeph carried a demon on his back, one that scratched at the inside of his
skull relentlessly. No one would guess that the neon green knight had a
terrible secret, not with his charm and his lies. And because of his charisma,
his razzle-dazzle darkness, the EPED used him for all he was worth. But
sometimes missions can’t be fixed with diplomacy. Sometimes you have to
follow your own instincts—even a croc’s instincts—to go after what you
really want.
He wanted Janet. He wanted to keep her.
But the demon wanted something else entirely.

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