Episode Eleven
Blood
The taste of blood was thick on his tongue. Streaming from his nose into his mouth, One couldn't wipe the blood away because his hands were bound to the chair behind his back.
He truly didn't know the answer to the question. But that didn't matter. They would never believe him. He did his best to muster his focus despite the throbbing across his face. He wasn't much of a fighter, but that's because he was the smart one. If he couldn't convince them he didn't have the answer, he'd have to give them another reason to stop hitting him.
Child
Oh, gods. Not Five.
They tied her to the chair across from him. Sometimes he would forget that she wasn't an adult—she'd saved their hides with her gift for computers and technology so often he'd wondered how they'd gotten by before her arrival. On occasion, he'd even found himself envying the easy way she seemed to integrate with the crew, as though she belonged among mercenaries.
This was not one of those times. Tears of terror streamed down Five's face and she looked at him desperately. She appeared every bit the child she was. He had to do something.
Save
Why was protecting Five up to him, anyway? The other three were the fighters. They had numbers, and weren't even tied up. Yet they'd let the captors take Five. But what could he do? He couldn't fight. His attempt to outsmart the captors is what led to Five being here in the first place.
Still, his mind and his words were all he had. As he continued to talk, they stopped threatening to tear off Five's fingers, and instead made even more indecent insinuations. Somehow, he'd continued to make things worse.
An alarm from the bridge. Saved by the bell.
Regard
One regarded Five. It occurred to him that this was the first conversation they had shared, just the two of them. He wondered why. They had a lot in common—they were the only ones not part of the original crew.
He was tempted to tell himself it was because she was just a kid. Yet she was clearly close to Two, and spent a lot of time with Six. Four had taken her under his wing to train her. He'd even seen her laughing and bantering with Three.
The others had formed a relationship with Five, why hadn't he?
Dislike
One had only ever paid much attention to two other crew members: Two and Three.
He could admit it—he'd been taken with Two from the first time she beat him up for control of the ship. It was a confusing and complicated relationship, made all the more confusing and complicated when they started spending nights together.
His feelings for Three were quite the opposite: he simply hated the man. He'd disliked and distrusted him from the start, but when he'd learned the truth, his blood boiled at the mere thought of sharing the same air as the soulless assassin.