I cross my arms over my chest, both to shield myself and to keep my hands from trembling. “He gets a rifle? I don’t suppose I get a weapon?”
Harris only laughs as she taps on the com screen strapped to her arm.
“How is that fair?”
She looks up at me again, her gaze cold. “Fair isn’t the object. You’re here to die. And to entertain the clients until that happens.”
“Okay, but wouldn’t that entertainment last longer if you gave me a way to defend myself?”
“You get what you’re wearing. Speaking of which…” She looks up as a door whispers open behind me. The guard who went in search of a sports bra steps into sight and shoves his find at me.
I pull the stretchy black bra over my head, and this time, I don’t bother with a thank you. “So…what happens if I win?” I whisper as I settle the straps over my shoulders. “If he can’t catch me, you release me back into zone four?”
“Win?” Harris looks up from her tablet again. “This isn’t a contest. He hunts you until he finds and kills you. If that takes longer than a week, we reschedule next week’s hunt. But just so you know, the guard betting pool has you going down within an hour of release.”
My teeth grind together, but I don’t argue. I’m well aware of my own weaknesses. But they’re not aware of my strengths, and I have nothing left to lose. No reason, anymore, to keep my mouth shut. “Still, hypothetically speaking, what happens if I kill him? Would that be winning?”
Harris laughs out loud, and Dalton snorts. “If you kill him, we’ll have bigger things to worry about, because this hell-planet will have frozen over.”
“Well then get ready to zip up your coats,” I mumble.
That time Dalton laughs. “She’s funny. I almost feel bad for betting a small fortune that Scott Hansen will blow a hole right through that pretty face.”
“Fuck you.” The words hardly carry any sound, but I know he’s heard them when his amusement melts into anger.
“That what you want?” He pulls me close with one hand on my ass and starts squeezing. “We’ve got a few minutes…”
“Dalton,” Harris snaps. “Not unless you’re willing to spend twenty-thousand credits.”
He stares down at me, and I struggle to calm my racing pulse.
“Dalton,” Harris repeats, and I hear her unsnap her sidearm from its holster.
“The last guy who grabbed me died naked and alone on the floor,” I whisper through clenched teeth, so he can’t see how badly my chin wants to tremble.
“You threatening me?”
I shrug in his grip. “What are they going to do? Kill me twice?” I wish he’d pay the twenty grand for a few minutes alone with me. I stand a much better chance of getting away from one guard than from a roomful. Even if that chance is still infinitesimal.
But Dalton lets me go.
Harris re-snaps her holster and makes a round-em-up gesture to the guards at my back. “Let’s move out.”
My armed entourage escorts me down another stark, sterile hallway, and my pulse races faster with every step. Despite my reckless bravado, I can hardly breathe through the fear tightening my chest.
Two guards hold open a double set of doors at the end of the hall, and we step out onto the back lawn, into a pool of bright light that makes the moonlit night all around look much darker by comparison. I look up and am not surprised to see a guard station in low orbit overhead. But from here, on Rhodon’s surface, I can’t see the shimmering pyro-shield, a transparent barrier surrounding the entire planet, which will incinerate anything passing through it. The only way off this planet is through a hatch in the pyro-shield, which can only be operated by one of the guard stations.
Which means that even if I manage to win the unwinnable game and somehow escape the hunting enclosure, despite the fact that I have no survival skills, I’ll still be stuck here on Devil’s Eye. At the mercy of four million other convicts, instead of a few dozen guards and one civilian hunter.
Maybe I should just give up now. Maybe I should just sit down on the lawn and refuse to move, until they have to shoot me.
No. Audra and Tyson would never just give up. Neither can I.
The guard I saw on the screen earlier is explaining to a camera pointed at him that they’ll be delaying the hunter’s entrance into the field by another half hour, so that the convict who killed his brother can be released with a head-start.
Next to the guard, Scott Hansen looks grim and determined, still wearing his helmet, complete with infrared goggles, and holding his rifle. His jaw bulges when he sees me being led toward him, and my heart jumps into my throat. He looks just as determined to kill me as I am to survive.
“You’re dead, bitch,” he growls as my escort brings me to a halt facing him, with the host guard between us.
“So is your brother,” I say through clenched teeth.
Dalton eyes Harris. “I thought you said she didn’t talk much.”
Harris shrugs. “She didn’t.”
“Okay,” the host guard says, his attention focused on Hansen. “Are you ready?” Hansen nods. “We’re going to release her with a thirty-minute head start, during which we’ll recap for the audience the reason for the delay and the new target. After that, we’ll let you enter the enclosure, and from then on out, everything’s the same as before, except today you get two kills for the price of one.”
“I understand,” Hansen says. “Are there any restrictions on the method of execution?”
“Nope,” the guard says, and my stomach pitches. “Do whatever you want with her. We’ll see it all through your helmet camera, as well as infrared-capable cameras stationed throughout the field. We expect inmate Bishop, here, to go down pretty quickly, but the other one…” The guard shrugs. “Well, hunts have been known to take several days, and we don’t have another one scheduled until next week, so take your time.”
“This is sick,” I murmur, scanning what I can see of the forest. I spent most of my time in zone four in the woods, but I’ve never had to run or hide out there. I have no idea where to go. “I don’t know how this is even legal.”
Harris shrugs. “The law says murder convictions are an automatic death sentence. How and when the convict dies is up to Universal Authority.”
That way, the government can turn a blind eye and keep its hands clean.
“Okay! Everything set?” The host guard looks to Harris for an answer, and she nods. “Let’s do this!” He turns back to the camera. “Put thirty minutes on the clock.” Then he looks at me.
My heart slams against my sternum. My feet are sweating in the strange, thin shoes.
“Maci Bishop, you have admitted to the murder of Steven Hansen and have been sentenced to execution for your crimes, that execution to be delivered by the victim’s brother Scott Hansen. Beginning in five.” He holds up one hand, fingers spread, and my own hands clench into worthless fists.
“Four. Three.”
I push my long hair away from my face, suddenly wishing I had some way to tie it back.
“Two.”
Adrenaline shoots through my veins, sharpening my vision and making my pulse race.
“One!”
I take off across the lawn for the gate in the wall, focused on the forest beyond, and as I approach, the gate begins to slide open. The soles of my strange shoes slap the short, rust-tinted grass. My arms pump at my aides. My hair flies behind me, tangling in the wind.
Though the days on Devil’s Eye are too warm for comfort, nights are cold, and while I’m sweating from exertion at the moment, as soon as I stop, that sweat will dry. And I will freeze. But I can’t worry about that yet. One thing at a time.
The first thing is to make it to the trees.
I sprint through the gate, and the moment I’m past, it grinds to life behind me, already closing. Seconds later, I pass out of the light from the lawn into the thick shadows of swaying foliage. Seconds after that, I burst through the tree line into the woods.
> Momentarily at a loss, I stumble to a panting halt with one arm resting on a tree trunk. I’ve never been in the woods alone, either on my homeworld or on Rhodon. I have no idea how big the hunting enclosure is, but I know it must be sizable, if hunts typically last several days. I also know that Hansen has infrared goggles. If I am in his line of sight, he’ll see me.
Maybe I should climb a tree; the trunk beneath my palm feels sturdy enough to hold me, but the lowest branches are too high for me to reach.
I could dig a hole and hide. The soil feels pretty soft beneath my feet, but I have nothing but my own hands to use as a shovel.
Whatever I do, I can’t afford to do it this close to the tree line, and chill bumps are already rising on my arms and legs as my sweat dries. So, I head farther into the woods, as fast as I can run.
5
CALLUM
I run for the first ten minutes, counting down seconds in my head as I leap over roots and shove aside low-hanging branches, trying to get as far away from the gate as possible before they release the hunter into the enclosure. But about a mile in, I stop, listening for the grind and squeal of the gate opening. There isn’t much else to hear out here, without the noisy night insects native to my homeworld. Surely the gate gears should still be audible at this distance.
After a couple of minutes of listening, I carry on at a quick walk, on alert for any sound other than the rustle of leaves in the wind and the soft scurry of nocturnal rodents. Based on the lack of tracks and scat, there doesn’t seem to be anything any bigger than that living in these woods.
Another half mile in, I stop again to listen. I need to hear the hunter before he hears me, and I’ve just decided to climb a tree and wait for him to pass when I notice something odd in the distance. An unnaturally straight, thin tree trunk, highlighted by moonlight coming through a break in the reddish canopy. I angle toward it, careful to step in soft drifts of rotting leaves and avoid twigs and branches, but the closer I get, the less like a tree that trunk looks.
It’s a post. One of four, holding up a platform high overhead, accessed by a rudimentary ladder made from slats screwed across a single pole.
A hunting stand. Based on the moonlight shining through cracks between the boards above, I can see that it’s empty.
I climb as fast as I can, ignoring the splinters that bite into my palms. On the open platform, I lie flat to reduce my profile and make myself harder to see. And to aim at. Then I take a long, careful look around.
It takes several minutes for me to process the constant rustle and sway of leaves in the wind and to classify those as natural movements and sounds, but once I have, I can mentally dismiss them and look for anomalies. For motion and noise that can only be attributed to a human cause.
Footsteps. The crack of twigs breaking. The huff of breath.
But for nearly an hour, by my estimate, I see and hear nothing out of the ordinary. This hunter, whoever he is, is either too skilled to be detected or too unskilled to have made it this far.
Either way, he’s fucked.
If the warden wants me dead, he’s going to have to do better than one rich asshole playing at hunting like little kids play dress-up.
Then, finally, I hear the snap of a twig. Instantly on alert, I scan the forest floor for motion. I expect the hunter to be stealthy. To be practically right beneath me before I see him, but instead, he…
He is not a he.
I frown when I see her, bare skin a shock of pale flesh against skimpy black garments, as well as the sea of dark shadows. She’s…a child.
I blink, trying to refocus my tired eyes. This makes no sense. More than an hour has passed with no sign of the hunter, but now there’s a child in the field? Dressed like I am, plus a sports bra, without so much as a bottle of water or a protein cake in the way of supplies?
Has the warden let some asshole pay to hunt a kid?
Why is there even a child on Rhodon?
There isn’t. There can’t be. Surely she’s on the right side of legal, whoever she is. But even if she is grown, she’s either stupid or completely inexperienced, stomping through the woods as if she’s trying to step on every twig and branch in her path. Why would they put a girl like that in the enclosure? She’ll be too easy to find. Too short a show for the spectators and too little excitement for the asswipe “hunter.”
Unsatisfied customers are not repeat customers.
Which means she’s not game. Not really. She’s a trick. A worm dangled in front of a fish, to lure him onto the hook. The hunter’s probably watching her from somewhere, waiting for her to draw me out.
Only I can’t be lured. Even if I haven’t gotten laid in the year since I was arrested.
Instead of watching the girl pick her way through the woods, panting softly, making entirely too much noise with every step, I scan the rest of the forest, looking for the hunter. If he’s close enough to see her, he’s close enough to be seen.
Yet there’s nothing moving out there, other than the girl tromping through the woods and leaves blowing in the wind.
Maybe he’s got a tracker on her, so he doesn’t have to see her to follow her. If that’s the case, I can afford to get a little closer. To take a better look.
The girl passes several yards from the hunting stand without noticing it—or me—and when she’s finally out of sight, I begin my slow, quiet descent, hoping the ladder doesn’t creak. She isn’t hard to find, once I reach the ground, because even her softest inhalations and most careful steps stand out in the odd quiet of a forest absent most of the wildlife it would have on my homeworld.
I follow her, careful to stay to one side in case she looks back, but her head never turns. Her gaze seems glued to the ground in front of her, so focused is she on staying quiet that a bear could sneak up on her unnoticed until her head was in its maw.
As could the hunter.
If she’s bait, she doesn’t seem to know she’s bait. Her fear feels too real, as do her clumsy attempts to muffle her own footsteps. But a sheep tied to a post is no less likely to draw out a lion just because it doesn’t know the lion is there.
If I help her—even if she truly needs help—I’ll still be playing right into the hunter’s hands.
So, for now, I follow her. It’s disappointingly easy.
After a painfully slow half-mile trek, I decide to test her. I deliberately step on a twig.
The snap echoes through the woods and I’m relieved when she freezes. Then she turns to look for me, but she can’t tell where the sound came from. For a moment, she stands still, scanning the shadows. Then she ventures back the way she came, looking for the source of the sound, and I realize that if the hunter is allowed to kill the bait, she is truly doomed. That kind of survival instinct is good for nothing but a quick death.
She steps into a pool of moonlight—yet another mistake—and I get a better look at her face from my hiding spot in the deep darkness behind a tall clump of thorny brush.
She’s older than I thought. Not by much, but the wariness in her expression, as well as the petite but mature swell of her hips, tell me that though she’s small, she’s definitely of age.
And she’s the perfect bait. Any man in my position, facing eminent death after a year spent alone in a cage, would either want to help her or fuck her. Or help her so he can fuck her.
I can’t afford to fall for that. I should just turn and head in the opposite direction, because if she’s not out to trap me, she’s in the same position I’m in, and she’ll slow me down. Make me careless. Get me caught.
Yet when she turns back around, I find myself following her again, watching as she throws her hair over her shoulder in frustration. As she rubs her arms for warmth and clenches her teeth to keep them from chattering.
She’s really beautiful, in a delicate, helpless kind of way. And even though she’s about as stealthy as a screaming toddler, she hasn’t been caught yet, and she hasn’t given up, which means she must have something going for her.
/> A minute later, I realize she’s not wandering aimlessly through the woods—she’s following a trail walked into the ground by all the hunted men who came before us, as they followed the path of least resistance.
Yet another mistake. But one I can use.
I veer farther to the east and move quickly through the underbrush, quietly overtaking her position on a parallel heading, then I work my way back to her path. Ahead of her. I climb a tree, settle into the crux of two branches, and wait.
After a few minutes, she comes into view again, still carefully picking her way along the path. Then, suddenly, she goes still. She turns slowly, warily, and a chill washes over me. I lean forward, scanning the forest behind her for movement. Listening for sound. But there’s nothing.
Yet she takes off running down the path, headed my way, as if the hunter is right on her heels.
A second later, I hear it—the rapid pounding of heavy footsteps through the woods, heedless of the noise they make. There’s something off about the cadence of those steps. It’s definitely not the hunter.
It doesn’t even sound…human.
The girl trips several feet from the tree I’m in, and breath explodes from her lungs as she hits the ground. She sobs, then pushes herself up, and her palms are bleeding.
The footsteps come faster, racing toward us, and she’s crying, terrified as she takes off again. Behind her, the underbrush rustles. Whatever is out there is moving faster than she is. Faster than she can.
If I help her, I’ll be playing right into the trap. Sneaking off into the woods where I can’t see what happens to her would have been one thing. But I can’t just sit up here and watch her die.
Twisting, I hook my feet beneath a crook in the branch I’m balanced on, then swing down with my arms extended. She’s trying to look back as she runs, terrified, and she stumbles right into my grip.
I grab her beneath her arms and grunt as I swing us both up, then it takes another grunt of effort from that position to lift her onto the branch. She sucks in a deep breath, and I can feel a scream building in her lungs. I pin her against me, her back pressed to my chest, and slap my free hand over her mouth.
Hunter Page 5