The Trap (The Hunt Trilogy)

by Fukuda, Andrew

  Ashes and embers fall on us like snow.

  She looks at me, her eyes shining bright, her skin radiant.

  “I’m ready,” she says. We both are. We’ve done enough eating, drinking, and sleeping over the past few days to fuel us for the long haul.

  I look beyond the fortress wall, to the dawn sky. I stare long and hard, the way my father did on this wall countless times. I think of his letter I’d found, now secured in my pocket, on paper so tattered and creased and small, Sissy and I had missed it for days. The letter was not addressed to me but to a mysterious person named “Tobias.” But the letter spoke of me. I would rather die than hurt him again. My father’s words about me, words I will never forget.

  I imagine my father standing here not so long ago, all alone on these fortress walls, a broken man. Perhaps his eyes roamed one last time along the line of trees below, both wanting and fearing the sight of Sissy and me emerging from the forest, survivors of the Heper Hunt. And perhaps he had wept silent, lonely tears as he ran down the ramp and sailed off into the eastern skies on his hang glider.

  How heavy my father’s heart must have been. He had sacrificed everything: his wife, his daughter, and now, he believed, his son. And for nothing. The guilt, the disappointment, he carried it alone. I can see his heart breaking as he flew, the pieces breaking off like shards and falling. Until there was nothing left. I can see him undoing his straps. I can see him plummeting to the earth. I can see his hang glider, now unmanned and lighter, blown upward into the skies light as a feather. I would rather die than hurt him again.

  “You’re thinking of your father,” Sissy says gently.

  “I am.”

  She smiles, just a half smile. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?” I say softly.

  “Maybe it’s not what we think. Maybe he wasn’t sending us afar to simply perish. Maybe…”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe he just wanted to give us a new start. In the only place he knew we would be free. Far away. A new beginning.” She stares eastward, and when she turns to look at me again her eyes are fresh and sparkling. “Benefit of the doubt,” she says, smiling fully now.

  Not long ago, not far from where we now stand, Clair had told me something about my father. I remember this now. It hadn’t really registered at the time, but her words now resonate within. My father, she’d told me, after he’d returned to the Mission, would sometimes fly all the way to the metropolis. He did so in the hopes of catching a mere glimpse. Of me. Even if it had to be from afar, she’d said, way up in the skies.

  For years, I had roamed the streets of the metropolis, gazing upward, hoping, with childish yearning, to catch sight of a remote-controlled plane. Hoping for some kind of message from my father. Anything. But, heartbroken, I’d given up after only a year or two. But my father had come. Only he was too late; by that time, except for occasional forays to the fruit orchard, I rarely went out in the daytime. He flew over the empty metropolis the same way I’d once walked its empty streets. Searching but not finding. I had given up too soon. And my father had come too late. We missed each other.

  “A new beginning,” I say. I stare at the horizon, brimming with the dawn’s glow. “Yes. I’d like to think that.”

  She nods, her eyes clear and bright, her hair blowing in the wind. She makes a final adjustment on a strap. “Are you ready?”

  I nod, my eyes damp. “I am. I really am ready now.” My heart is thumping, pumping. Then, because I can’t help myself, I untie my straps. Sissy’s eyes widen with pleasant surprise as I walk up to her. We kiss long and hard, and when we finish we smile at each other, our foreheads still touching.

  “East,” she says.

  I nod. “Follow the Nede River on the other side of the mountain.”

  We kiss one more time, softer this time. Then she is running along the fortress wall, kicking hard and fast. She leaps through the gap in the wall, and I watch as she expertly catches the current and soars securely upward. As she breaks eastward, her hand lifts up into the air for a second, her fist pumping.

  I smile. One last time, I look at the Mission. Then I am running down the fortress, leaping through the gap, sailing through the skies. Within minutes, I’ve closed the distance between us. We’ll hold this formation. For how long we don’t know. All we know is that so long as the wind is behind us and our hang gliders hold together we’ll keep flying east.

  East. Toward that very spot where the sun is rising now, peeking over the distant horizon, radiating streams of orange and red and crimson. And should we find nothing, should we find no one, should the Nede River disappear, merging into the mythical sea, we will yet keep flying for as long as the wind continues to push us east. We will fly uncountable hundreds, even thousands, of miles, to the other side of the sea, to the other side of the earth where no dusker would ever dare to even imagine exists. And only then will we land.

  And there we will make our home. We’ll build from the ground up. From the two shall spring forth a civilization. Our children, and their children, and their children yet, until our people are more numerous than the stars in the sky, and the grains of sand in the desert. And our weaknesses we shall turn into strengths. Our abnormalities shall be hewn into battering rams. Our resistance to sunlight, our instinct to explore, our ability to swim, to love, our intelligence, our will to survive, our emotions, our loyalty. From these aberrations shall arise a people more dominant than the original species.

  We will take what we have learned from them and make it ours. We will incorporate their technologies into our civilization time line, catalysts to our own human progress. Architecture, computers, weaponry, science, all inserted at the right junctures in our advance, seamlessly and organically woven into our history like it was our invention all along. We will take their vocabulary, their language, make it our own, make it subservient to us. To mock them, we will use the very same names of the nations and continents and seas on which they fashioned their lies about us.

  And when, centuries later, millennia later, we have conquered every land and every continent and even the seas that flow between, when our population is great, we will come for them. We will come for them. We will find them, and they will be nothing to us. Nothing. They, with their vulnerability to sunlight and aversion to long-distance travel, will still be penned in by the same provincial Vast. And we will pummel them. We will pummel them, they will wilt like candles in a blaze. We will drive them into the ground, scattering them into isolated pockets of the world where they will be holed in dark caves, forced to retreat into dark closets in shuttered rooms by day. Forced to retreat into mountain castles where they will learn what it is to be alone, to be isolated, to be an aberration. Until they are reduced to insignificant footnotes in the annals of not even history, but of folklore. All memory of them erased, they will be mocked in the pages of fiction, reduced to mere stock stereotypes, caricatured as pale and effete loners.

  In front, flying smoothly, Sissy turns her head around, gives me a quick wave. I wave back. The dawn light is splashing all around us now, flaring off our hang gliders into overlapping kaleidoscopes of color. So many hues and tints, as if we have flown right into a firestorm of intersecting rainbows.

  I unzip my jacket and take out a stack of papers. I release the pages one at a time, then all at once. They flutter in the wind like the manic flapping wings of an injured bird, the multitudes of silver crescent moons blinking and flickering. They drift downward, silently, almost peacefully, into the Nede River, where they will sink and disappear forever.

  I think of the land we will make our home. We will not call it the Land of Milk and Honey, Fruit and Sunshine. That was my father’s land, but this new land shall be mine and Sissy’s. It will be a reversal of the world we now know. I gaze at the Nede beneath us, thin as a silver arrow pointing the way forward. It will be the last thing we see of this land.

  The name of our new home will be the reversal of the Nede.

  We shall call it Eden.<
br />
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My heartfelt gratitude to Rose Hilliard, my editor, for her wisdom and guidance in shaping each book of The Hunt trilogy. I am also indebted to Catherine Drayton, my agent, for her continued advocacy and counsel.

  I would also like to thank my parents, for their support, and my two brothers, who inspire me to reach higher and farther. My sons, John and Chris, continue to surprise and astonish and bless me, and I am thankful and humbled to be their father. And most of all, my deepest thanks and love to Ching-Lee.

  Also by Andrew Fukuda

  Crossing

  The Hunt

  The Prey

  Praise for The Hunt

  “The story is bona fide creepy, and as it builds to its cliff-hanger ending (which delivers quite a good twist), readers will be torn between hoping Gene can maintain the ruse and that he will take on the bloodsuckers already. As revolutions go, this one is well worth keeping on your radar.”

  —Booklist

  “In this terrifying and inventive adventure, Fukuda turns the vampire novel inside out.… With an exciting premise fueled by an underlying paranoia, fear of discovery, and social claustrophobia, this thriller lives up to its potential while laying groundwork for future books.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Take the overwhelming aloneness of I Am Legend, add in the hunt of The Hunger Games, and you’ll see why this combustible combo results in a tense moment-to-moment calculation of Gene’s chances at survival.”

  —Justine Magazine

  “Fukuda takes the feeling of isolation that dominates adolescence and builds a world around it in a novel where the tension rarely slackens. He turns up the violence a notch from The Hunger Games with language that is as graphic as it is eloquent. Readers will hanker for answers as they’ll discover a kindred spirit in Gene, who so eloquently describes the feeling of being an island in the middle of a vast ocean.”

  —Maximum Shelf

  “I was blown away from the first chapter all the way to the end. Fukuda did an excellent job turning the world of vampirism upside down. Wonderful descriptions, great imagination, and very tight characters. If you love vampire worlds, then read this book. You will not want to put this one down!”

  —Night Owl Reviews (Reviewer Top Pick)

  “The dialogue is authentic and intense, the setting is grim and frightening, and the narration is superbly executed—lending an immediacy to the action as it unfolds. A fine piece of work.”

  —The Examiner

  “The Hunt is utterly disturbing, dark, twisted, but incredibly fascinating at the same time. It was a ride like nothing else I’ve read before. Gene was a smart and sharp hero I loved to follow! And the ending was incredible with a cliff-hanger that will leave you hanging and wanting more—right now! If you are up for a thrilling ride then go and get The Hunt!”

  —Bewitched Bookworms

  “The Hunt was fast-paced and awesome, propelling me forward with each new twist. It was dark, gritty, and intense. Gene was a dynamic character, while the surrounding characters were insanely creepy. They were ruthless, and it was perfect. And the ending? Just right!”

  —The Passionate Bookworm

  “Action-packed, heart-pounding, page-flipping action. I’m thoroughly in love. The Hunt is a riveting, thrilling read—definitely one of my favorite books of 2012 so far. I can’t wait to get my hands on a sequel, even if I have to wait a year for it.”

  —YA Reads

  “This book was hard to put down. I kept thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it! I just love this new world Mr. Fukuda created.”

  —Milk and Cookies

  “Holy. Crap. This book is creeptastic! Some parts gave me shivers and others had me gasping and screaming out loud. I loved every minute of The Hunt! I couldn’t put it down. It’s horrific, terrifying, gruesome, and inspiring. A story of survival, loss, and sacrifice that had me reading late into the night and early into the morning. If you haven’t already added The Hunt to your TBR I highly recommend it.”

  —Paperblog

  “Great book. The Hunt is at once intriguing and frightening. It’s twisted and dark with just enough hope that it kept me on my toes and turning the page. I can’t wait to see what happens in the series because it should be interesting!”

  —I’m Loving Books

  “Andrew Fukuda has given us a vampire version of The Hunger Games … one of the creepiest novels I have ever read. Gene is a beautiful character. Seeing his feelings really made this story for me … a must-read.”

  —I Heart YA Books

  “I fell in love with this book. I’m just going to say all the huge cliché things right now, because they express my sentiments exactly … ‘I couldn’t stop turning the pages,’ ‘I was up reading all night,’ ‘I didn’t want the story to end,’ and ‘I CANNOT WAIT TO READ THE SEQUEL!’”

  —Taming the Bookshelf

  “Very unique. This book is a standout. Andrew Fukuda has some good and original ideas. This series will only get better with each sequel.”

  —Poetry to Prose

  “The action never stopped! Brilliantly written … the author weaves the story of Gene and his lonely, isolated life, and his desperate fight to blend in that is literally a fight for survival. The book ends with an interesting puzzler, meaning much more to come in the next installment. Highly recommended.”

  —YA Lit Ramblings

  “Andrew Fukuda has the amazing ability to successfully create an alternate reality where … in one of the most action-packed endings that I have read recently, it all comes down to one thing: surviving. With a last line that will leave you stunned you will immediately want to hunt down Andrew Fukuda and demand to know what happens next. This book definitely deserves four stars!”

  —The Book Vortex

  “The Hunt gripped me from page one. Completely refreshing. The world Fukuda creates is fascinating and creative. I ended up loving it—creeped out, a little scared, holding my breath. A book I finished in one sitting. The Hunt is violent, intense, and absolutely captivating. I highly recommend this. I will definitely be reading the sequels!”

  —Rex Robot Reviews

  “One of the best vampire books I’ve ever read! This is a breath of fresh air within the genre.… Definitely makes my best of 2012 so far list. If you’re looking for something fresh to read within the paranormal and dystopian genres, The Hunt is for you.”

  —birth of a new witch

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ANDREW FUKUDA resides on Long Island, New York. After earning a bachelor’s degree in history from Cornell University, Fukuda went on to work as a criminal prosecutor in New York City. He now writes full time. Visit him on the Web at www.andrewfukuda.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE TRAP. Copyright © 2013 by Andrew Fukuda. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design by Elsie Lyons

  Cover photographs: couple © Steve Gardner/Pixelworks; cliff @ Colin Anderson/Getty Images; city © kwest/Shutterstock.com; lightning © Ross Ellet/Shutterstock.com; moon © Ajay Shrivastava/Shutterstock.com; screws © Provasilich/Shutterstock.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Fukuda, Andrew Xia.

  The trap / Andrew Fukuda. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. (The hunt trilogy; [3])

  ISBN 978-1-250-00512-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-02076-5 (e-book)

  [1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Hunting—Fiction. 3. Survival—Fiction. 4. Horror stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F9515375Tr 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013025065

  e-ISBN 9781250020765

  First Edition: November 2013

  br />   Fukuda, Andrew, The Trap (The Hunt Trilogy)