Assuming they don’t decide to drop more guards in via shuttle. But I’m not going to mention that possibility, because neither of us has had more than a few hours sleep at a time since this whole ordeal started, and we won’t make it to the northern gate without rest. And her idea is our best shot at that.
“What’s all that?” I ask as messages pop up one after another on Dalton’s screen. In her language.
“They’re all confirming receipt of my message. And…celebrating. With rather explicit descriptions of what they’d like to do to us, for making them trek out here.” She taps through to the map, then selects a filter that shows several vaguely house-shaped symbols. “The nearest cabin is still the one northwest of here. Can you read that heading?”
“Yeah.” Map reading in her language is pretty much the same as in mine. I orient Dalton’s wrist com so that the directions on the map line up with the actual directions. Then I point to the northwest. “That way.”
“Okay. We’re going to have to be careful not to veer from that heading, because we can’t access the system again to check the direction without revealing that we’re still free.”
“That cabin doesn’t look very close to the northern gate,” I say as I study the map.
“It’s not. The farther north we go, the fewer cabins and ration stations there are. I’m assuming that’s because most inmates don’t make it this far in, which means most hunters don’t need to either. Regardless, we’re still well more than a day’s hike from the northern gate, if we were to head straight there. We’ll be veering off course significantly by going to the cabin. But I don’t think we have much choice. We need rest.”
She’s right.
It takes us nearly three hours to find the cabin, and during most of the hike, I’m fairly certain we’ve veered off course. Her sigh of relief when it finally comes into sight tells me she was worried about the same thing.
“This is the last one before the northern gate,” she whispers as we scout out the area around the cabin. It’s all clear, and the camera mounted near the top of the door is dark. Dead. “After this, I guess it’s do-or-die.”
“Maci, it’s been do-or-die since the moment I met you.”
“But not until then? You were out here before you met me.”
“Before I saw you running through the woods, half dressed and terrified, I wasn’t really expecting to get out of here alive. Don’t get me wrong; I fully intended to take Scott Hansen down first, live and on camera, to show those bastards that they’re not invincible out here, with their guns and their tech. But I assumed after that I’d be gunned down in short order by a whole squad of guards. And I probably would have been, if not for you and your particular brand of skills.” I hold up her arm to show her the wrist com. “Which is not to be confused with your other, more newly acquired, yet no less impressive skills…”
“Are we talking about oral sex now?” Her flush makes me want to say dirty things to her, just to watch her reaction.
“I wasn’t going to narrow it down that specifically. But yes.”
She laughs as she pushes the cabin door open and I follow her in. We leave Lucky outside, and through the window I see him go into stand-guard mode.
We’re both too tired to eat and still fairly clean after our dunk in the stream. So, Maci takes off her ill-fitting stolen pants and collapses on the bed. I drop my gear, then I strip down to my underwear and join her. “So, based on what happened at the stream, I’m guessing Lucky will come in pretty handy with whatever guards are posted at the northern gate.”
“Yeah. I feel a little guilty about that, though,” she says. “I mean, those guards probably haven’t been hunting us. And they didn’t lock me in the room with a rapist. Or strip you down to your underwear and send you out here unarmed.”
“Maci.” I roll onto my side so I can look at her. “If they’re stationed in zone two, on the ground, then they know what’s going on at the Resort. Continuing to work here makes them complicit in everything that’s happening.”
Her brow furrows in a frown that would be adorable, if it weren’t so frustrating. “Does it though?”
“Yes. Because tomorrow, they could be assigned to the death row cages in the basement. That’s where I saw Dalton kill some poor kid who’d only been here a few hours. The day after that, those gate guards could be assigned to deliver some other woman like you to one of those rooms. They might have to hold her down for some rich bastard to rape. They might be in charge of sending out the hounds to rip apart the next inmate who doesn’t play by the rules out here. All of the guards here are just as guilty as any of the inmates. So, if you’re going to feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for the poor bastards still lined up in cages in the basement. My friend Graham is still down there. In fact, he’s up next, after me.”
“You had a friend on death row?”
“I made a friend on death row. Talking to him was the only thing that kept me sane, sitting there for months on end, eating the same gruel. Staring at the same bars and walls, knowing that the first time any of that changed would be the day they sent me out here to die.” My chest feels tight just thinking about that. “We’re going to get out of here, but Graham’s going to die as soon as we’ve made space for him in the enclosure.”
“Like Danna.” Maci frowns. “Well, hopefully she won’t die, but she’ll still be stuck here.”
“Who’s Danna?”
“She’s the first woman I met at the Resort, when I woke up in the dorm. She got me showered and dressed. Oh, god.” Maci’s eyes widen with a memory. “She told me that I had to play by the rules, because when one of the ladies messes up, the others all pay. And she was only talking about inadequate personal grooming.” She sits up, her voice rising with every word, until she sounds near panic. What do you think they did to all those women after I killed Steven Hansen?”
“We don’t know that they did anything. Maybe they only tell the women that to keep them in line.” But I’m lying.
“Even if that were true.” And she clearly knows it isn’t. “I’m just leaving them behind. We’re going to get out of here, but the guards are going to keep stripping women and handing them over to rich fuckers like the Hansens. They’re going to keep sending men out here to be hunted. Callum, we can’t just let that happen!”
“Hellkitten, there’s nothing we can do about it. And the truth is that those women are probably better off at the Resort than in the open population. You got lucky, but most of them would be in the same situation they’re in now, only without good food and hygiene. And each other’s company.”
“That’s not true!” Her eyes flash with passion. “I mean, it’s true for some. But there was a women’s settlement in zone four, and the men left it alone. Well, mostly. They had this deal where the women would give some of us to the men, to keep them from raiding. But even the women like Audra and me, who got sent to the men’s settlement, we had choices. They were bad choices, but they were our choices. And it was temporary. At some point, it would all have been over, and Audra and I would have gone back to the women’s settlement to live in peace. Relative peace, anyway.
“But the women in the Resort…they don’t have any choice. They don’t have any time limits. If they fight back, like I did, they get executed. And if they don’t, I assume they’ll be stuck sleeping with strangers until they’re too old to be desirable, and then what? They’ll be thrown out into the open population as defenseless older women, without a community to protect them?”
“Maci, it sucks,” I admit. Yet that’s a hell of an understatement. “It’s unfair. Unjust. Unacceptable. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“There has to be.”
“We’re only two people. Don’t get me wrong. We’re totally badass,” I say, but that doesn’t even get a hint of a smile out of her. “But there’s only so much we can do against several squads of guards, armed with laser rifles. Maybe if there were more of us. Or fewer of them.”
“Or if they didn’t
have rifles…”
“Maci…” I know that look. “Whatever you’re thinking, it won’t work.”
She frowns at me. “You haven’t even heard it.”
True. And what I don’t want to admit is that even if her idea might work—even if it’s the most brilliant, justifiably violent idea anyone’s ever had on a prison planet—I don’t want to do it.
“Hellkitten, we’re almost out. And I may not know what you’re thinking, but I know it’s dangerous. We’ve nearly been killed a dozen times in the past few days, and the last thing I want is to give someone else a chance to get near you with a gun, or a knife, or a fucking nasty thought. I want to get you out of here. I want to get us out of here.”
“I want that too. But we both know they’re not just going to let us walk out. Even if we kill the guards at the north gate, they’ll just hunt us down in the buffer zone. And we have no reason to believe that Lucky’s permissions extend to the gate into the next zone. There are no robo-dogs in the open population. Not that I’ve ever seen.”
“We’ll find a way to open—”
“What if I have a way? What if I know how to free the women in the dorm, and the men on death row, and give you and me a chance to slip out with them in the chaos?” She grabs my hand, and her gaze holds mine with just as fierce a grip as she has on my fingers. “Callum, I might know of a way to shut this place down.”
For a moment, I can only stare at her. She’s tiny, and fierce, and beautiful, my hellkitten. But she’s also fragile and defenseless.
“I can see what you’re thinking,” she says. “But I can’t leave and let this keep happening to someone else. I’m pretty sure that when Audra and I escaped zone four, we destroyed the treaty for all those other women. I think we made their lives worse by trying to make ours better, and I can’t do that again. I won’t. You don’t have to help me, but I have to do this. I have to at least try.”
She’s serious.
Fuck.
I’m not going to be able to stop Maci from throwing herself into danger unless I knock her out and carry her over my shoulder all the way to the north gate. And as perfectly willing as I am to go caveman on her, if it’ll save her life, I don’t think I can get either of us out of here without her awake to tap on that screen, as necessary.
But what if she’s right? What if she actually has a better idea?
I groan as I meet her gaze. “Okay, hellkitten. I’m assuming that all your ‘what ifs’ aren’t truly hypothetical…?”
17
MACI
We lie face to face in the bed, and Callum’s eyes grow wider as he listens to my idea. “Maci, that’s…ambitious.” I’m not sure he believes I can do it. But he believes I’m going to try, with or without him.
“I know. And it all hinges on them not figuring out what I’m doing in time to lock me out of the system. Or them not being able to lock me out.”
“How would that work?”
“I’d have to gain administrative access.”
He runs one finger from my collarbone over the curve of my right breast, through my shirt, slowly cresting at my nipple as it grows hard beneath his touch. And suddenly it’s difficult to think about my plan. About anything other than where his hand is, and where I’d like his mouth to be. And I’m pretty sure that’s intentional. “Can you do that?”
“In theory. But that’s not my forte. I’m more of a ‘punch a hole through the firewall’ kind of girl than an intricate details hacker.” His finger slowly circles my nipple, and despite my effort to concentrate, I find myself breathing more heavily. “That would take me some time, and that’s time we can’t afford, because the minute I access the system, they’ll know where we are.”
“So then, what’s the plan, if we can’t get admin level access?”
I fight the urge to arch into his touch. To wordlessly demand more. “I didn’t say we couldn’t get it. I said we can’t afford the time it would take to hack my way in. But if I do it like I did with Dalton’s wrist com…”
Callum scowls. “You want to kill someone on the administrative level just to get access to his permissions?”
“Or her permissions.” I roll toward him and slide my bare leg over his hip. “The commander is a female guard named Harris. She’s the one the warden dealt with. Which means she’s our best bet. But I’m not sure I can actually kill her.”
“That’s where I come in?”
I shrug against the pillow. “You, or Lucky.”
Callum pulls me closer, until my stomach is pressed against the erection straining his shorts, my leg tucked around his hip. “How are you going to get her out here? If she’s in charge, chances of her coming into the enclosure are slim.”
I blink at him, surprised he hasn’t figured this part out yet. “She’s not going to come to us, Callum. We’re going to have to go to her.”
“No.” His hand goes still against my back. His voice is made of steel. “Maci, we are not going back to the Resort.”
“We have to. That’s the only way this plan will work.”
“No. The object is to get out of here, not backtrack to where they had us locked up. We might as well turn ourselves in!” I start to argue, but he cuts me off. “Even if we could sneak in, it won’t work. We’ll never be able to get to Harris.”
“Yes, we will,” I insist. “She won’t be expecting us to march into the Resort. Into her office. And you can’t defend against what you don’t expect.”
“They’re already defended.”
“Callum.” I lay one hand on the side of his face, staring across the pillow at him. “We’ll figure this out, because we have to. I can’t leave here knowing what will continue to happen to the rest of the women. And even if most of the men on death row have earned an execution, they haven’t earned this kind of execution. No one deserves to be hunted for someone else’s entertainment.”
“I don’t care about them,” Callum growls, leaning over me so that I have to roll onto my back.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” The wrist com whispers a translation as he tugs my shirt up and over my head, his voice gravelly and filled with a yearning that seems to reach well beyond simple lust. “There aren’t any saints on death row, Maci. Including me. I would let them all die horrible deaths if that were what it took to keep you safe.” He tugs my shorts off and pushes his own down, then settles himself between my thighs. His eyes hold a quiet desperation. Something between an anguished fear and a powerful hunger. “There’s an entire planet beyond those gates.” He slides one hand up my thigh, tucking my leg around his hip. “If we make it out of zone two, they’ll never find us. We can leave all this shit behind. We could have a life out there.”
I groan as he slides into me in one stroke, filling me. Leaving me speechless. Breathless.
“That’s what I want for us.” He pulls out slowly, then pushes in again, his pubic bone brushing my clit with an exquisite pressure that is somehow both too much and nowhere near enough. “That’s what I’m going to take for us.” Again, and he’s found a breathtaking rhythm now. And I’m so ready that I can already feel that spiral building. “I’m not going to let you put your head in the lion’s mouth, Maci. You’re mine. And I’m damn well going to keep you.”
What begins with a languid intensity I can feel all the way into my soul becomes an urgent drive. A frenzied race run not to win, but to experience. This is different than before. This isn’t just sex. This is a claiming, as much about our souls as about our bodies.
Callum thrusts hard, and I cling to him, riding the desperate ferocity of his need like a shuttle flying out of control. The reckless pace feels intoxicating. Electrifying. My pleasure builds until I’m panting with each motion, arching into him, almost as eager for release as I am for this to never end.
He comes with a groan and a series of hard, fast strokes, and I’m right behind him. Clutching him. Trying to make this last because, though I understand that for him this was a demonstr
ation—a statement of what I mean to him, even after only a few days of life-and-death struggle—for me, this is a goodbye. At least for now.
I need to protect the other women just as badly as he needs to protect me.
We collapse in a tangle of sweaty limbs, and his breathing grows slow, his heavy arm draped over my stomach, as if he can’t stand to let go of me, even in his sleep. As if he knows what I’m thinking…
I set an alarm on the wrist com, then I let myself drift into sleep, trusting Lucky to wake us up if anyone gets close.
When the alarm goes off a few hours later, a soft buzz from the wrist tucked beneath my head, I can’t tell that Callum has even moved. I carefully lift his arm, then crawl off the bed the long way to keep from waking him. As I pull my clothes back on, I stare out the window to make sure Lucky’s still there. That the administration hasn’t somehow revoked my access and undone all my hard work.
If they have, I can’t tell from Lucky’s stand-guard pose or from anything showing on the wrist com without accessing the system.
I feel guilty about what I’m about to do, but Callum has left me no other choice. I can’t leave zone two without at least trying to free Danna and the other women. There are enough of us that we could be our own community. We could act as a unit to protect each other. We could carve out a settlement for ourselves, like the women’s settlement in zone four.
I really want Callum to do this with me. To stay with me afterward, in the open population. But I can’t make that choice for him.
Despite my determination, my heart breaks as I tap out a short message to him on the wrist com and select the option to translate it into his language. Then I use his knife to prick my finger and write the translated words on the door, where he’ll have to see them.
I clip the sheathed hunting knife he took from Hansen onto my belt, leaving him with the rifle and Nellis’s folding knife, then I shove several protein bars, several water purification tablets, and a bottle of water into my pockets, to supplement what’s left in my canteen.
Hunter Page 17