Silver wouldn’t be caught dead being so pedestrian.
Picking and munching on wild berries, humming absently to herself, it’s not long before she winds up at the very edge of the Rec Zone. The campsite boundary is marked by a large chain-link fence, erected at the southern part of Broad Channel Island where the wilds give way to block after block of crumbling Old World buildings in an area called the Cut Off. The bridge connecting the southernmost tip of the island to the Unknown Territories beyond was destroyed long ago, so there’s no chance of any unwelcome Chimeran intrusions, but the whole area is dangerous enough without them. The buildings could collapse at any time, and since more than half of all Rec Zone vacationers are children, the risks would be innumerable.
As the last dregs of light begin to disappear over the horizon, Silver wraps her fingers around the cold metal links of the fence and stares intently into the darkness.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Alex’s voice jolts her back into reality, but she pretends not to be caught off-guard by him.
“You don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I know exactly what you were thinking. Now c’mon.” He slips his hand around her waist. “Let’s get changed before dinner.”
Silver lets him drag her away from the fence, back to base camp and into their tent. They’ve rented it just for this trip, and Alex has gone all out with the extras.
He’d insisted on a pillow top airbed rather than a ground roll, and Silver could swear that the luxury double sleeping bag he spent a day’s wages on is even snugglier than the duvet they have at home.
As the icing on the cake, he’d whipped out some extra soft pillows and a bed warmer, and at that moment, Silver developed a pretty clear idea of his expectations for the week, suspecting that none of them involve partaking in the prescheduled activities they’ve already been signed up for by Maydevine.
Indeed, hoping to make some of those expectations a reality already, Alex pulls off his t-shirt and lies down on the airbed, waiting for Silver to notice him.
Seconds pass.
When it becomes clear that his bare abs aren’t having the desired effect on her, he opts for a different tactic.
“Hey, Mrs. King.”
Bingo.
Silver’s head turns in his direction so fast that she almost gives herself whiplash. Despite the reference to a long dead tradition, she likes the way the words sound on his lips.
He pats the bed next to him, inviting her to join him. As he does so, the ring on his finger catches against the light of their tent lamp. It’s a simple sterling silver band with an Ella Cross symbol engraved into it, and it satisfies her ego quite nicely.
She slides onto the bed next to him and lets him cradle her head in the nook of his arm, his other arm quickly slipping around her hips and pulling her against him. His body’s hot like fire, and her stomach proffers a little flip as their lips meet.
“I don’t think we have time for this,” she warns him between kisses.
“We’re on vacation.” More tender kisses. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
Famous last words.
Ting-a-ling-a-ling!
A loud, tinny sound emanates from the Rec Zone HQ, and Silver’s stomach responds accordingly: it rumbles.
It’s dinnertime.
She leaps out of Alex’s arms. “It’s about time! I haven’t been this hungry since …” She has second thoughts about completing that sentence.
She hasn’t been this hungry since she was a Fringer, and those memories aren’t yet far enough in the past. She was officially repatriated the same day she became the Hunter General, which was precisely two months ago today. She still bears the scars from her drugged-out fight with the trio of Chimera in Jake’s butcher shop, and the Governor’s words at her hospital bedside are still nagging at her.
Welcome to the dawn of a new age.
Cryptic bullshit.
Shrugging those disturbing thoughts away, Silver makes a beeline toward the lure of food: spit roasted Chimera belly.
Mmm.
Dinner is cooked every night by the Rec Zone staff over the smaller campfire. When the bell rings, the campers gather and take their fill, sitting around the larger fire to socialize.
Alex gives himself a few extra moments of privacy, waiting for his arousal to subside before he follows her. Glancing around the site, it appears that many of the eighteen tents currently pitched in the Rec Zone belong to young couples on romantic getaways. In the middle of the school year, that’s not unusual.
One such couple remains conspicuously absent from dinner. The roar from the fire barely obscures the strange noises coming from inside their tent, and Alex’s lips curve into a wicked smile as he sits down beside Silver with a plate of food.
“I reckon we could give them a run for their money.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Uh-huh. A little bit of competitive spirit is healthy. Plus, I don’t think it hurts to keep consummating our marriage. You know, just to make sure that we’ve fulfilled our marital obligations properly.”
“I don’t know that there are too many more ways we could try it. If we haven’t gotten it right by now, I don’t think we’re ever gonna.”
“It’s only been three days. Give me enough time and I’ll come up with something.”
Silver blushes, but the warm glow of the campfire obscures it.
Three days ago, the consummation of their marriage had occurred within hours of the small, understated service they’d had at City Hall. They’d barely left the bedroom since, and Silver is getting the distinct impression that Alex wants to keep it that way.
Not that spending a week in bed with him would be any kind of hardship for her, but she can already feel herself starting to get a little antsy.
She needs something to do.
She needs excitement.
She needs to kill something.
CHAPTER TWO
Downward Facing Hunter
Rising with the sun, Silver emerges from the tent and stretches every muscle in her body. Six years in the Fringe District had trained her body to tolerate sleeping in even the worst conditions, but just two months back in the Sentinel District is already starting to make her soft.
One look around the campsite at all the zippered up tents and Silver can tell that she’s the first camper to rise—and that’s not a surprise. She’d give anything to be able to sleep in past dawn, but her body’s hardwired for the Hunter Division.
Just like Jimmy Harkin’s.
She finds him sitting on the stoop of the Rec Zone HQ, sipping a mug of freshly heated coffee. At her approach, he pours a second mug from a thermos and offers it to her.
“I’ll bet you’ve been awake for an hour.”
Silver accepts the mug with a smile and settles down beside him on the stoop. “At least.”
“It’s a hard habit to break.”
Silver snorts. “Tell that to Alex.” She tips her head in the direction of their tent. “He’s sleeping like a rock in there. I’m not sure I like the effect the Police Division’s having on him.”
“You’re sure it’s the Police Division?”
“What else?”
“Contentment.”
“He’s not a cat, Jimmy. It takes more than a full belly and a warm blanket to satiate him.”
“If you say so. But if you ask me, it’s a symptom of the difference between love and money.”
“Meaning?”
“Hunting was always just a job to him. He was a six-year vet by the time you met him, but I met him as a rookie, straight out of the Academy.”
“And?”
Jimmy shrugs. “There was never any emotion with him, that’s all. He showed up, did his job, and went home. That was it.”
“He was an accomplished Hunter. He—”
“He was going through the motions,” Jimmy cuts her off. “He’d been given a life changing opportunity and he took it. Who wouldn’t? A life in the Di
vision is a readymade career.”
“You’re saying he never wanted to be a Hunter?”
“I’m saying he never would’ve cared if he wasn’t. That’s the difference between him and us: we’d hunt no matter what. Money never had anything to do with it.”
“Says the man who lives and works on an island that prohibits weapons. What do you hunt with here? A water pistol?”
Silver’s only teasing him, but his face remains taut and serious.
“I never said it was easy to adjust to a life without a gun.”
Before Silver can press him on that, a shrill female voice cuts through the air. Not quite a scream, but more like a wail. Jimmy tosses his mug aside and bolts toward the sound, trying to disguise a distinct limp. It’s easy to hide the old injury at walking pace, and Silver had barely noticed it until now. Respectfully, she follows a pace or two behind him, not wanting to rub her able-bodied form in his face by beating him to the scene, even though she easily could.
By the time they round the corner onto the main campsite, the woman is shrieking at the top of her lungs. Other campers have been woken from their sleep and are beginning to congregate around the agitated mother-of-two, who’s now wielding a fire poker at another camper.
Jimmy splits them up.
“Where do you think you are?” He snatches the poker away from the screamer. “This isn’t the Fringe District, woman. Sentinel District rules still apply here.”
“Good.” She folds her arms defiantly. “Then you can have that man arrested immediately.”
“What for? You were the one brandishing a weapon.”
“He stole from me. He snuck into my tent and he stole my private property.”
Silver recognizes the accused as the tree hater from the day before. Caught up in this argument on his way to the men’s showers, he’s naked beneath a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s of middling years, chubby, and his sandals are at least one size too small for his very wide and hairy feet.
He laughs at his accuser. “I’m the one who should be pressing charges. You just assaulted me!”
A rather heated exchange of words ensues, and Silver elects to watch the performance from a distance. Taking this opportunity to sneak over to the breakfast cart while all the other campers are distracted, she nabs the nicest looking berry muffin and keeps one ear on the proceedings.
She gathers it has something to do with a misplaced pair of undies.
Behind her, Alex is one of the last campers to drag himself out into the open. Still wearing pajamas and rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he does his best to ignore the kerfuffle and follows his nose toward the smell of food. Grabbing himself a flapjack, he flops down beside Silver on a nearby bench and finds himself with a front seat to the unfolding drama.
As the row escalates, he looks on in amused silence while Silver watches him take a bite out of the flapjack.
“Since when do you eat breakfast?”
“Since my first choice got taken off the menu.” He rolls up his sleeve to show her a nicotine patch stuck to his upper arm. “The patch will deal with the cravings, but it’s up to you to keep my fingers busy.” He winks.
“I can’t believe you got so excited about coming to a place that prohibits you from feeding your lifelong addiction.” Silver shakes her head in wonder. “After this experience, maybe you can show me some kind of empathy and actually cut me some slack every once in a while.”
Alex is suddenly struck by her. She never talks about her sobriety so candidly. In fact, this might be the first time that she’s ever come close to using her name and the word ‘addiction’ in the same sentence. She’d been off the kicks since before her banishment, but the liquor … well, she’d always vehemently denied that was ever an issue.
Not that it matters much in the end. Addict or not, she’s been dry since her repatriation.
“Are you okay?” Alex wonders.
“I guess I should be thankful.” Silver looks off into the distance. “When those Chimera ripped me apart and put me in the hospital, they almost bled me dry. I got a free detox, thanks to all the blood transfusions.”
That’s not really an answer, but it’s probably as close as he’s ever going to get to one. He drops the subject, and in the silence that follows, he feels the need for a distraction.
With his mouth full, “What’s going on over there?” He nods in the direction of the arguing campers.
“It looks as though there might be a thief among us.”
“Hmm.” He takes another bite out of the flapjack, wholly unconcerned.
“I think they’re about to call in the Police Division.”
Alex says nothing.
“The Police Division,” Silver repeats, turning to look at him. “In other words: you.”
“Na-uh.” He wags a finger at her. “I’m on vacation.”
“You’re still the Chief of Police.”
“And I’m still on vacation.”
Silence.
With Jimmy’s assessment of Alex’s motivations beginning to weigh on her, Silver has to ask: “Do you like your job?”
“What kind of question is that for seven o’clock in the morning?”
“I’m just curious.”
“A job’s a job. Why?”
“No reason.” She sighs.
Before another silence has a chance to creep in, Jimmy marches over to them.
“Could I get your help over here for a second?”
Alex doesn’t move.
Silver nudges him. “He’s asking you, not me.”
Alex gives an exaggerated sigh, brushes flapjack crumbs onto the ground, and jumps up from the bench. He strides into the middle of the group of gathered campers, pajamas, sandals and all, and makes a most confident and theatrical proclamation.
“There’s a thief in our midst!”
Far from settling the crowd, the confirmation that a crime has indeed been committed sets the campers into a verbal frenzy. Alex quiets them by holding up the palm of his hand, then he points directly at the woman who started all of this nonsense.
“You had your privacy violated. Am I correct?”
She nods. “That’s right.”
“Some sneaky little pervert took it upon himself to creep inside your tent while you were sleeping, and rummage around in your intimates. Is that the truth?”
“It is,” the woman declares triumphantly.
Jimmy leans in to Silver. “Where’s he going with this?”
Silver shakes her head. “Not a clue.”
Alex has the full and absolute attention of everyone in the campsite—except for the antisocial couple who have yet to emerge from their tent at all—and he’s getting more animated by the second.
“As you rightly suspect, the culprit is indeed here with us this morning.”
The crowd erupts.
“But it’s not this man.” Alex points to the hairy-toed towel guy and silences them all. “Oh, no. He may be guilty of a most heinous podalic crime—the abuse of a good pair of sandals—but he definitely did not take your panties.”
The towel guy looks down at his feet, slightly confused.
“This was not our culprit’s first offense!” Alex continues. “It is, in fact, the same pervert who watched my wife urinate behind a bush!”
Silver drops her head into her hands. “Oh, geez.”
“He stole our compass!” Alex testifies. “And he left us lost and starving in a dense forest, with no hope of rescue!” His eyes are as wide as saucers.
“What’s his name?” one of the campers shouts.
“Yeah! Who is it?” another joins in.
Righteous roars break out all around.
For the dramatic finale, Alex points out the thief. “There he is!”
Perched high up in a nearby fir tree: a squirrel.
Dangling from a branch not far away: a pair of women’s panties.
Mystery solved.
“Now shut up and eat breakfast.” Alex scowls and walks
away.
Silver holds back a giggle. Following Alex inside their tent, she watches him get dressed and tries to coax a smile out of him.
“Come on, Sherlock. You enjoyed that little show more than you want to admit.”
“People are such morons.”
“No argument, but—” She stops herself abruptly. “Wait. Are you wearing yoga pants?”
Alex turns to her with a wide grin, his good mood apparently restored. “We’re going to meditate.”
“I hope that’s a euphemism for you taking a shit, ‘cause I’m not—”
Alex grabs her wrist and pulls her out of the tent, not giving her much of a choice in the matter.
“You might enjoy it.”
Yeah, right.
Silver proves him wrong about that in the first half-hour. She couldn’t possibly be any more bored. She’s easily the most flexible person in the group, and most of the positions in the instructor’s repertoire are those she was taught during her first years in the Hunter Division Academy.
Balance.
Poise.
Flexibility.
All traits of a good Hunter.
Silver checks her invisible watch. It’s been at least an hour. Fully extended in the downward facing dog, her will to live slowly evaporating, her face just inches from the ground, she notices something unusual in the dirt.
A footprint.
It rained a little last night, and the ground is just beginning to harden under the morning sun. The footprint is perfectly preserved, and it’s not human. At least, not exactly.
If Silver didn’t know any better, she’d say it was Chimeran. It has the right number of toes, and it’s from a creature that walks bearing weight on the balls of its feet. The talon marks are clearly visible, and the size of the foot would be congruent with a large male … but it can’t be. It appears to be from a bipedal creature, and there’s something weird about the toes: they’re not divided quite right. If a human or Chimera were to step in deep mud, the mud would ooze up in between the digits and leave quite a distinctive pattern, but this print’s not like that. It’s almost as if the toes are webbed.
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