Several of the men in cells talk to him, well aware that the working inmate is their best bet for contraband, or information, or just a few minutes’ entertainment to break up the monotony of day after day spent staring at the same featureless walls and hostile faces. Eating the same slop. Threatening the same guards.
On his way out the door at the end of the aisle, the inmate has to push his cart around the bowl of gruel still standing in front of William Truman’s cell, just out of his reach.
The hours pass slower than ever while I wait for them to come for me. Even if I weren’t planning to fight my execution, I would look forward to it for the change of scenery alone.
I stop pacing my cell when I notice Graham watching me. Wasting the energy is stupid anyway, considering what’s coming. When I sink onto the floor at the back of my cell, he gives me a respectful nod. “Give them hell,” he says in my language.
And I fully plan to.
After me, Graham has been here the longest, which means he’s next. We’ve never discussed my plan, or the fact that he clearly has one of his own, but that knowledge hangs there between us, and it’s good to know that if I fail, he’ll still be there to take up the fight.
Dalton marches down the aisle for the hundredth time during his shift, glancing into every cell over and over, to make sure we’re not up to anything. And that we know we’re constantly being monitored.
He stops at the end of the aisle, and for a second, I think he’s going to give poor William Truman some food. Instead, he yells something I can’t understand, his face flaming red.
A second later, a stream of urine arcs between the kid’s bars and hits Dalton in the face—a feat only possible because of the relatively low gravity on Rhodon.
Dalton sputters, then shouts as he backpedals out of the stream. Over the red line. Out of my field of vision.
His shouting intensifies, and the man in the cell across from the kid’s laughs, then grunts. A thin spray of blood arcs across the floor.
Dalton reappears between the red lines, holding his baton. Blood drips from the end of it. For a moment, he stands in the puddle of piss, breathing deeply, not like a man trying to get his temper under control, but like a man welcoming the rush of rage.
He lifts his left arm and taps something on his wrist screen.
The kid’s cell door slides open. Dalton pushes a button on the end of his baton, and it begins to hum with electricity.
He rushes into the cell, baton raised.
The kid backs up, eyes wide. Dalton brings the baton down like a hammer. The first swing breaks the kid’s arm with a meaty-sounding thunk. He screams as the guard swings again, and again, and again.
Dalton breaks both of the kid’s arms, his collarbone, and several ribs. Inmates up and down F block hoot and howl, eager for a show, even those who can only hear what’s happening, and I make myself watch. Without flinching.
Violence is what put us here, and it’s what will take us out, when the time comes. That’s the nature of this place and of everyone in it. Including the guards.
In most cases, the only difference between the guards and the inmates is the uniform each wears.
Soon, the smell of sizzling flesh rises through the air. The kid stops screaming. But Dalton doesn’t stop swinging. No one comes to stop him.
When he’s finished, Dalton steps back into the aisle, between the red lines. He’s winded and covered in arcs of blood splatter. I can only see the kid’s legs, because the rest of him is blocked by the concrete wall of his cell. But his legs aren’t moving.
Dalton taps his wrist again, but instead of closing the cell door, he says something into the screen.
“Cleanup on F block,” Graham translates for me.
A few minutes later, two guards come in, guiding a levitating stretcher. A thin, uniformed inmate follows, pushing a cleaning cart.
The guards lift William Truman onto the stretcher and push him down the aisle without bothering to cover his body or strap him down. Then the inmate hoses down the aisle, spraying blood and urine into the cell at the end, where he presumably washes it down the waste hole.
In mere minutes, it’s as if the kid never existed.
My neighbors shout riotous cheers, not for the guard who killed an inmate, and not for the inmate who peed on a guard, but for the fact that today, something happened. That they had something to see, other than the face across the aisle and the backs of their own eyelids.
They’re still cheering an hour later, by my best guess, when the door at the end of the aisle opens again and four more guards come in. Dalton is with them, and he’s changed his uniform, but instead of resuming his post, he stays with the guards who stop outside my cell.
“It’s time,” he says, and I don’t need Graham’s translation to understand.
My cell door slides open, and two of the guards aim pistols at me while Dalton steps forward with a set of wire cuffs.
I could fight him, and I might be able to kill him before the other guards fire. Especially with him blocking their aim. But as satisfying as it would be to take Dalton out, I don’t want to die in this dungeon. I want to see the sun one more time. I want to feel the wind.
I want the satisfaction of taking out my own executioner, forcing the warden to send in a whole squad to hunt me down.
If I’m going to die, it’s going to be on my own terms. In a blaze of fucking glory.
So, I let Dalton pull my hands behind my back and tighten the wire cuffs around my wrists, and though I can’t understand his words, I know from Graham’s previous translations that he’s telling me that if I try anything, he’ll run an electrical current through them.
As they pull me out of my cell into the center of the aisle, I give Graham a nod of goodbye. “Give ‘em hell.”
3
MACI
“Don’t make me say it again.” The voice is male. Not obviously young, but not old either.
Slowly, I turn to face him, my gaze glued to the carpet. My toes look pale, half-buried in the plush pile.
“Drop your hands.”
I let my arms fall to my sides and dig my toes into the carpet, trying to think about nothing at all as his gaze roams over me. I can feel his attention like the heat from a bonfire I’m standing too close to. Not warm and comforting, but blisteringly painful.
I think my soul is starting to singe.
“How old are you?”
I’m not sure whether he’s trying to make sure I’m legal—though surely none of this is legal—or hoping I’m not.
“Twenty Earth-standard solar units,” I whisper.
He doesn’t ask my name or offer me his.
“Sit on one of the couches.” The man marches past me, headed for the bar, and in my peripheral vision, I can see the lump in his pants. So, I close my eyes. “If I have to tell you again, there will be consequences,” he adds.
I open my eyes and hurry across the room to the nearest of the couches. I wonder how much of a security deposit he paid for me. And whether he expects to get any of it back.
“Are you hungry?” he asks as I settle onto a black leather cushion. “It doesn’t look like they feed you much.”
Here, they haven’t. But yesterday I ate fresh rabbit, still sizzling from the spit. That may sound like a ridiculous thing to eat, to a man who can afford all of this, but in Settlement A, fresh meat is a feast of the highest order.
I shake my head. I’m afraid I would vomit whatever I ate all over him.
The man shrugs on the edge of my vision, then tosses a purple berry into his mouth. “Would you like a drink?”
I’m pretty sure I could keep a drink down. Maybe that would even settle my stomach. Maybe he will let me drink enough to pass out, and I can just sleep through this entire nightmare.
Or maybe all the other ladies will get in trouble if I pass out and can’t be an active participant in my own torture.
I shake my head again.
“Suit yourself. Screen.”
“They only show a couple of feeds here,” the man at the bar says as glass clinks and liquid pours. “And while I like the fights…” There’s another clink, and the reflection in the middle window pane shows me that he’s dropped a glass stopper into a decanter. “…tonight I’m here to watch my brother’s hunt. Feed two.”
The scene on the screen changes, and suddenly I’m looking at a man in reddish camouflage pants and a matching hunting jacket, being fitted with a helmet sporting an integrated camera. “Is it supposed to be this tight?” The man on screen plucks at the clingy material of the shirt beneath his open jacket, and someone off screen assures him that it is.
The caption at the bottom of the window pane reads, “Scott Hansen.”
If that man is the brother of the man who rented me—with a security deposit—then the man behind me must also be a Mr. Hansen.
“Mute,” Hansen says, and the screen goes silent. “Have you ever seen the hunt?” He rounds the couch I’m on and sits next to me, holding a glass of amber liquid, with two floating ice cubes. “Wait, of course you haven’t. You’re new, right?”
I nod, relieved to note that while I am completely nude, he’s still fully dressed.
“You can probably see some of it from over there.” He points at the middle window pane, to the right of the screen still showing his brother. When I don’t get up to look, he nudges my shoulder with his own. “Go on. We’re not that high up. You should be able to see something.”
I go, not because I want to see something, but because he’s already told me that if he has to repeat an order there will be consequences.
I can feel the man watching me as I walk toward the window, my arms stiff at my sides, my bare skin prickled with chill bumps from the cold, climate controlled air. Below, on the broad, rust-colored lawn stand several huge light fixtures bright enough illuminate the tall metal wall surrounding the grounds. At the rear of the lawn, there’s a heavy-duty gate. Through the gate and over that back section of the wall, I can see a huge swath of the deep red forest.
Closer to the building I’m in, almost directly below the window, I see Scott Hansen in his hunting clothes and helmet, standing there on the lawn in the middle of that bright puddle of light. At least a dozen people are at work all around him, helping him prepare equipment. Adjusting the lights. Aiming small, high-tech cameras.
Whatever’s happening on the lawn is being broadcast on the screen in this room, and presumably in all the other rooms as well.
“You see him?” the man behind me asks. “That’s my brother. Scott. He’s forty-five today. This was my gift to him. And to myself.” His voice grows husky with lust, and my eyes close as I suppress a shudder. “The Resort, on Rhodon. Hell of a birthday present, huh?”
I can only nod. I have no idea what a hunting trip to Rhodon costs, but Audra, Tyson, and I spent the past month hunting in zone four for free. Our biggest catch was a turkey. Surely Scott Hansen hopes to bring in something bigger. I don’t understand why anyone would come all the way to the edge of the galaxy just to hunt. Or use a prostitute.
The knowledge that that’s what I’ve become settles over me with a more pressing weight than Hansen’s expectant gaze. A colder touch than the air on my bare skin.
I don’t know what he’s going to expect of me, but whatever it is, surely it’s better than what Danna endured in zone six. Better than what would await me in zone four, without Audra and Tyson.
On the lawn below, someone hands the hunter a long black rifle. Light flashes from the top of it, and when I glance at the screen, I realize it’s glaring from the lens of some kind of scope. And that Scott now has a pair of goggles wrapped around his helmet, waiting to be lowered onto his head.
“Infrared,” Hansen says from the couch. “So he can see in the dark.”
I frown, curious in spite of the circumstances. At least having something to watch out there helps distract me from what’s about to happen in here.
Hansen sees a reflection of my frown in the window pane and laughs. “I know, it seems nuts to start at night huh? I think they do that for the adrenaline factor. But I know for a fact that Scott’s planning to sleep during the day and hunt at night, while it’s cooler. See that thing on his wrist?”
I glance at the viewing screen again. The hunter has a thin, curved com device strapped to his forearm. I squint, trying to identify the model. It’s the kind of thing typically used by law enforcement, virtually identical to the coms I’ve seen on the arm of every guard here.
My fingers spasm with the ghost of an urge to type. My eyes hunger for the glow of the screen, the scroll of the code as I scan for the block I need… I would give anything for a closer look at that tech.
Hansen sees my interest. “It’s a communications portal with satellite positioning. It won’t tell him where his prey is, nor will it show him footage from any of the cameras hidden in the woods. Because that wouldn’t be sporting. But it’ll point him to any of the cabins or ration stations in the enclosure.”
I frown down at the lawn. How big is this enclosure? How long will this hunt last? If we’d had satellite positioning, infrared goggles, and a rifle, Ty, Audra, and I could have shot every turkey in zone four within a week.
“Come watch with me.” Hansen pats the couch cushion, and my eyes fall closed again, the enclosure forgotten. The tech forgotten. I can’t move. He clears his throat. “I said—”
I turn, and for the first time I see his face. He looks like his brother, down to the malicious gleam of anticipation in his eyes. I struggle to breathe around the lump in my throat as I sink onto the couch.
He laughs at the distance I’ve put between us. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
I fold my hands in my lap and stare at them.
“What, can’t you talk?” When I don’t answer, he grabs my chin and turns my face toward him. His gaze has gone hard. His grip hurts. “You told me your age. Why go silent now?”
I clear my throat, but my voice comes out as less than a whisper. “Because nothing I say will change any of this.”
“True enough.” He lets me go, yet I can still feel the pain of his cruel grip. “But then, that’s your fault, isn’t it? Good girls don’t get sent to the Red Rock.”
“And good men don’t buy unwilling women.” I don’t know where the words came from. They flew from my mouth before I could even taste them on my tongue, and for a second, they hang between us. Echoing in my mind like a roll of thunder.
He looks as surprised as I am. Then he sets his drink on the coffee table, and his arm flies.
The back of his right hand smashes into my left cheek, and I hit the back of the couch so hard that my ribs hurt almost as much as my face does. For a moment, I can’t think. I’m not even sure what happened. All I know is that I’m naked and I hurt.
“Consequences,” the man growls. Then he hooks his hands behind my knees and pulls me forward until I’m lying on the couch beneath him. It takes a second for his face to come into focus, because it’s backlit by the light from the ceiling. And because I’m still reeling from the blow.
He unbuckles his pants and shoves the zipper down one-handed, supporting his weight on his other hand and pulling my hair in the process. “We have all night, sugar. If you’re good after this, maybe I’ll be gentle next time.”
I sob as he pushes his pants and underwear over his hips freeing his cock to jab at my stomach.
“It’s okay to cry.” He wedges my knees apart, then shoves them up, and panic blazes through my veins. My vision narrows to a black-rimmed tunnel. I wedge my hands between us and shove him as hard as I can.
I’m not very strong, but he’
s not expecting resistance. He loses his balance and rolls onto the floor. His shoulder smashes into the coffee table and his glass falls off the edge, drenching him.
He yelps, shocked by the sudden cold, and I scramble over the couch and back away from it. “You’re going to pay for that,” he spits as he pushes himself to his feet. He deliberately sets his glass back on the table. Then he rounds the end of the couch toward me, fists clenched. Face flaming.
“Please. I’m sorry.” I’m not even sure if he can hear me. “Please don’t…”
He lurches for me and I scream as I scramble backward. Then I turn and run for the door, praying that it’s unlocked. But the knob won’t even budge in my grasp. So I scream again and pound on the door. “Help me! Please!” I know begging the guards for help is pointless. But I have nowhere left to go and nothing left to try.
I smell the biting scent of alcohol a second before the man grabs my shoulder. He spins me around and throws me against the door, then grabs a handful of my hair and smashes my skull into the wood.
My vision fades to a pinpoint of light. My knees buckle beneath me. For a second, I’m aware of nothing but tearing pain in my scalp, then I feel carpet scratch my bare hip. The bathroom flies by on my right.
He’s dragging me away from the door by my hair.
I scramble to get my feet beneath me while I grab his arm, trying to ease the pressure on my scalp. But the best I can do is clutch his wrist so that he’s dragging me by my arms rather than my hair.
When we get to the couch, he jerks me from the floor by both arms and throws me onto the cushion. “If you move,” he growls as he shoves his pants to the floor. “I will break your jaw. Which is going to make it pretty damn hard for you to suck my cock.”
I cower into the corner of the couch, rubbing my burning scalp, trying to lose myself in the plush cushions while he takes his time unbuttoning his drenched shirt. Watching me. This is a test he seems to want me to fail. But I’m too scared to move.
Hunter Page 3