I fished them up off the cave floor, and crawled out of the cave. I stayed low, looking around for the hunter.
But instead, I saw Christa, a few feet away, aiming the shotgun at something in the distance.
I stood up. “You shot the gun?”
She turned to me. “Good morning.”
“Why the fuck did you shoot the gun? You want to give away where we are?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know about that. But I thought that I should see if I could shoot the thing or not. I mean, if I’m going to use it to protect myself, I should know if it’s going to be any good to me, right?”
“Under normal circumstances, maybe. But not when there are men with guns looking for us. Get back in the damned cave before they show up.”
She slung the gun over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. “I overheard what you were saying to Emmett the day he got shot. You said that we needed to go after Rolf. Cut off the head.”
“Actually, Emmett said that,” I muttered. What was her point?
“We have guns now, Silas,” she said. “What are we waiting for?”
“Get back in the cave,” I said. “We’ll talk about this in the cave.”
She shook her head. “See, the way I figure it, if the hunters do come to investigate that gunshot, we shouldn’t be in the cave. We should be hidden and waiting for them. Then we can shoot them.”
As plans went, it was pretty good.
I nodded. “Okay.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Okay? You like my idea?”
“Yeah, it makes sense,” I said. I looked around. “Where do you propose we hide to wait for these guys?”
She chewed on her lip, surveying the area. “I didn’t get that far, actually.”
I peered up at the morning sky, at the leaves blocking our views of the clouds and sun. “What about if we climbed a tree? We’d be able to spot them from high up to shoot them.”
* * *
I had to retrieve the other gun from the cave. I also brought some water and trail mix. But then we quickly found an appropriate tree and climbed up the trunk as high as we could get. Christa, lighter than me, perched above me on a branch. I sat below her, leaning against the tree trunk.
For about fifteen minutes, we were completely quiet.
And nothing happened.
“Maybe they aren’t coming,” she said. “Maybe they didn’t hear the shot.”
“They’re coming,” I said. “It’s going to take time, though. They only know the general direction of the shot, not our exact location. We need to be patient.”
So we were quiet.
Waiting.
In another ten minutes, we still hadn’t seen anything.
I peered up at Christa. “So, are we just going to pretend like last night never happened?”
She furrowed her brow. “No. But I don’t see why you’re bringing that up at a time like this.”
I wasn’t sure either. It had been really nice last night, making love to her. She’d been sweet and wonderful, and I’d really enjoyed it. Last night, right afterward, I hadn’t been thinking much about it. But now, with nothing to do but watch the quiet woods, there were things that didn’t make sense to me about the whole incident. “Well, we don’t have anything else to talk about,” I said.
“What’s there to say?”
“If I’d died, and you’d been locked up here with Emmett instead of me, would you have jumped his bones?”
“Oh my god. You are obsessed with the idea that I wanted to sleep with Emmett.”
“Well, you did, didn’t you?”
“No,” she said. “You know, every time Emmett comes up, you’ve got to connect it to what I said. You don’t even think about the fact that he’s dead. That doesn’t even matter to you.”
I sighed. “It does matter. It’s just… you know, there’s nothing we can do about that.”
She was quiet above me. “You’re used to it. To people dying all the time. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to it.”
I toyed with the gun, making sure I had extra shells. “I don’t want you to get used to it.”
We didn’t say anything.
I looked down at the ground below. Everything was green. It looked cheery, and it annoyed me.
I bit my lip. “Did you fuck me for comfort? Would you have fucked anything?”
“Yes, it was for comfort,” she said. “That’s why you fucked me back, wasn’t it?”
“I…”
“I was freaked about what I did to that guy. I just wanted to forget it.”
“Right,” I said. “And I was handy, so…”
She laughed. “Oh, I get it. That’s what this is about. You’re getting possessive. You want me to fall madly in love with you. But I haven’t. And that’s driving you crazy.”
I glared up at her. “That’s not it.” But I had to admit it stung to hear her say that. It wasn’t that I wanted her to be madly in love with me. However, I wouldn’t have minded it if she at least liked me. I wasn’t sure how she felt about me at all.
“Is that what all the other girls do, Silas? Do you wait for them to profess their undying love to you before you dump them?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not an asshole.” I considered. “Okay, I’m an asshole, but I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Right,” she said. “I’m not going to be like those girls, Silas. I’m not going to follow you around like a puppy dog.”
“I don’t want you to do that.” The fact that she was different was what had drawn me to her in the first place, wasn’t it? “I don’t see how I can be possessive when there’s no one else here besides you and me.”
“Because you want to possess me.” She giggled. “You want me to be yours and yours alone. You want me to marry you and have your babies.”
“No.” I clenched my jaw. And then something occurred to me. My gaze snapped back up to her. “Hey, um, about babies?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“The serum means I can’t get sick,” I said. “So, there’s no chance of STDs or anything, but we didn’t use a condom, so, I mean, is there a chance that you and I, like—”
“No,” she said. “I get that Depo shot. I’m not ready to procreate.”
“Oh, good.” I breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the ground. I tried to not look at the bright, happy green leaves and instead keep my eyes open for the hunters.
“I guess we get a pass on not even talking about protection,” she said. “Since we’re running for our lives and all?”
I looked up at her. “Yeah, it wasn’t anything like a regular hook-up.”
She grinned at me. “Are you disappointed?”
“What? No.”
“Oh, come on, admit it, you kind of wish you’d knocked me up, don’t you? That would mean that I was yours.”
“I don’t want to possess you.” I checked the gun again. She was starting to annoy me even worse than usual.
“Oh, poor Silas,” she teased me. “You wish we could have woken up in each other’s arms and whispered sweet nothings to each other, don’t you?”
“No,” I said. But now that she mentioned it, maybe it would have been nice to wake up close to her. She hadn’t even slept close to me. There were tons of nights before we’d ever had sex that she’d been closer to me while we were sleeping.
Her laughter rang out above my head, airy and amused.
I wanted to strangle her. I twisted my head to see her again, fixing her with a glare. “So, why didn’t you want me to play with your tits? You have some kind of trauma or something in your past?”
She stopped laughing and blushed bright red. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “No. It wasn’t bad what you were doing. It was only that it felt good.”
“You don’t want it to feel good?”
“It made me feel out of control. It made me feel vulnerable. I explained this to you last night.”
“No, you didn’t.”
&nb
sp; “Maybe you weren’t listening because you were blissed out and half asleep.”
Now that she mentioned it, I remembered her saying something about not letting guys touch her so that she could feel powerful. “Wait, you mean you really didn’t want me to do things that pleasured you because you were afraid that I would have power over you?”
She shrugged self-consciously. “I don’t know if I’d say ‘afraid.’ More uncomfortable, really.”
I gave her a sarcastic smile. “Well, that’s not fucked up.”
“Oh, shut up, Silas,” she said. “Like we’re not the same. You don’t want to be out of control either. That’s the whole reason why you don’t have girlfriends, and why you won’t let yourself think too much about the people you’ve killed or the other horrible stuff you’ve had to go through. So, sure, maybe I’m a little fucked up. But you’re fucked up too.”
I hesitated, letting that sink in.
Was she right? Was I a control freak?
I had to admit that the paranoia that I had stemmed from worry about people trying to hurt me. That was something I couldn’t control, but I did my best to control what I could. I remembered making sure Sloane had a gun the night that I’d been certain Rolf was trying to break into my house. I remembered checking on Christa, making sure she hadn’t been hurt.
I guessed I did want to control things.
But what she was saying. It wasn’t the same as me. I opened my mouth to explain to her that denying herself sexual pleasure so that she could stay in control was a horrible idea, but then I saw the hunter.
He was walking directly beneath our tree. He had on full camouflage. He crept along the ground with his gun drawn, quiet and quick like a cat.
I looked up at Christa. She was staring up at the sky.
I touched her foot.
She looked down at me, annoyed.
I put my finger to my lips.
She nodded.
Then I pointed at the hunter.
Her eyes got big. She made a motion to get her gun.
I shook my head.
She furrowed her brow.
I held up a hand. I mouthed, “Wait,” at her.
She looked confused, but she nodded.
We watched the hunter.
He walked around beneath our tree, straight past us.
After he was far enough away that I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t hear us whispering, I said to her, “He’s alone. We don’t want him. We want Rolf.”
“So?” she whispered.
“So, let’s not shoot him, let’s follow him. When we see Rolf, we shoot him.”
She considered. “Okay.”
* * *
We kept back. So far back that occasionally, the hunter disappeared from view, swallowed up by the forest and the branches and greenery. It always frightened me. I was afraid that when we moved forward, we’d lose him entirely.
But we didn’t.
For the bulk of the day, he burrowed deeper into the woods.
Around noon, he turned and went in a completely different direction.
We followed him across the stream. He walked south for a few hours.
I wasn’t sure if he was still looking for us, or if he was heading back to meet up with Rolf, or what.
We just followed.
After some time, he stopped to eat. He opened a can of Coca-Cola and ate some peanuts.
We stopped too, some distance away. We ate some of the other hunter’s trail mix and jerky.
His meal finished, he stood up and stretched. He picked up his gun and peered out into the woods.
He swept his gaze around him, at the forest surrounding us.
But then he stopped.
He was staring at us.
Or was he?
We were hidden behind some thorn bushes and an old, hollow log. Was any part of us visible? I looked around, trying to see what it could be.
But the hunter snapped the butt of his shotgun to his shoulder, aiming at us.
Before I could react, he pulled the trigger.
The shell burst into my ankle, which erupted in a spray of blood and splintered bone.
I cried out involuntarily. That was what had been visible. My leg. My stupid leg had been sticking out.
Christa unslung her gun from her shoulder. She pointed the barrel at the hunter.
I fumbled for my gun as well.
The noise of our movement pinpointed our position.
He shot again.
It hit me in the gut—punched a big bloody hole in me. I cringed. God damn it, I could really go without ever getting shot again for the rest of my life. I gritted my teeth, trying not to make anymore noise.
Another shot. Loud. Right next to my head.
Christa had pulled her trigger.
The hunter looked stunned.
Her shot had gone wide, but he hadn’t expected to be shot at.
“Wait,” I gasped through the pain. “We need to find Rolf.”
“Rolf will come to the sound of the shots.” She popped another cartridge into the gun and pumped it. She squeezed the trigger again.
The hunter let out a little cry of surprise.
Blood blossomed on his chest.
“Nice shot,” I said.
“I hit him,” she said, sounding pleased with herself.
I was feeling woozy.
The hunter fell to his knees. His hand went to his chest. He looked at the blood there. Stared at it—confused.
I clutched my wound. “This is going to make me go dark,” I said to Christa.
“That mean you’re going to die on me?”
The hunter crumpled to the ground.
I grunted. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Damn it, Silas.”
“I’m sorry,” I managed. “It’s not healing fast enough.”
“You suck,” she said.
“Get his gun,” I said.
She scrambled over me to the body of the hunter.
“Make sure he’s really dead,” I called after her.
And that was all I knew.
* * *
“You really are a feisty one, aren’t you?” a voice was saying.
I struggled to open my eyes. I was healed, but I didn’t feel a hundred percent yet. All this dying and healing was taking a toll on my body. It needed proper fuel and care to take this kind of abuse.
I groaned, rolling over.
“You can stop that struggling,” the voice continued. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I opened my eyes. I knew that voice. That was Rolf.
He was standing in front of me. So was Christa, but she was tied to a tree. She had a cut, right above her eye, and blood was dripping down over her face. Why was she tied up like that?
Motherfucker. He’d come to the sounds of the shots all right. But I’d been useless.
Oh fuck. I remembered the way he’d touched her when we were in that van. He was going to… no.
I scrambled to my feet.
Rolf turned to me. “You’re awake, then. Finally. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting.”
I lunged for him.
He calmly placed the barrel of a shotgun against Christa’s head. “Stop moving, Drake.”
I halted, rooted in place. Motherfucker.
Rolf gave me a bland smile. “So, you’ve killed all of my hunter friends now. Which really pisses me off. I have no idea what I’m going to say to their widows. If one of them were dead, maybe a hunting accident would seem plausible, but all of them? You’re putting me in a tight spot, Drake.”
I glared at him. “I’m sorry that you’re inconvenienced, Rolf. Really, I am.”
He laughed. “If I weren’t so annoyed, I’d be impressed. Not one man I’ve brought out here has lasted this long or inflicted the kind of damage you did. You two even had guns.”
The guns.
He pointed. He’d gathered them up. They were in a bundle next to his feet.
We’d lost the guns. My heart sank.
If only I hadn’t been dark when he showed up. If I hadn’t been dark, I could have stopped this. He’d be dead right now. It would all be over.
But now…
Motherfucker.
“Thing is,” he said, “I can’t really let the deaths of the others get in the way of doing what I brought you here to do. I’ve got to show you what it’s like.”
Show me what it was like?
Rolf whipped the shotgun around and pulled the trigger.
The shot caught me in my midsection, only a few feet higher than the one I’d just healed from.
I was thrown backward. I landed on my back.
I struggled to get up, but I barely managed to sit up.
“That shouldn’t kill you,” said Rolf. “But it should keep you from moving. I want you to have a front row seat while I fuck your girlfriend.”
No.
I shook my head. I forced myself up onto my knees. “Come on, Rolf, this has nothing to do with her.”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “This has everything to do with her. This is about you understanding what it’s like to have your woman stolen from you, Drake.”
I looked at Christa. Her face was white. Her lips had lost almost all of their color. She was tied to the tree—her arms wrapped around it, bound behind her back. Another rope bit into her legs. “Silas?”
I needed to stand up. I needed to stop this.
I tried to push myself to my feet.“She’s not… she’s not my girlfriend.” That was the truth after all. It didn’t matter that we’d had sex. She’d made it pretty clear that it didn’t mean anything to her.
But in a way, that almost made it worse. Because she wasn’t connected to any of this. And I…
I cared about her.
And if he touched her…
Rolf grasped Christa’s shirt and ripped it open, baring her white skin. Her ribs stuck out stark and gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. She was so thin. We hadn’t been eating well. She looked even tinier than she ever had.
She whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut.
I felt sick. “Stop.”
He laughed at me.
I was bleeding. I felt lightheaded. I looked down at the gaping hole in my stomach. The blood in the center of the wound was so dark, it was nearly black.
Bad idea to look. A wave of nausea hit me, making it hard to stay upright. I teetered. I grunted.
“Oh, you’ll heal that right up,” he said.
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