I lifted my chin. “Now what?”
He took a step closer and stared down at me. “You tell me.”
I forced myself to swallow around conflicting emotions — fear and lust and something I could have sworn was anticipation — that had lodged themselves in my throat like a boulder. “You’re the one who said you made the rules.”
I waited for him to reply, but instead of speaking, he leaned in and lowered his head to my neck. I shivered as his hair brushed against my cheek. My nipples were hard, my breath coming fast and shallow.
My back was pressed against the cool stone wall of the tunnel, but I was on fire.
He inhaled deeply, his nose grazing the sensitive skin of my neck just under my ear. “Now you hide, little bird.”
“But… I thought it was over if you caught me.” I was frozen in place, the inch of space between us like nothing at all. Like it was a force field holding me in place.
His lips brushed against my neck. “Did you want us to catch you?”
“N-no.” I hated myself for stammering. For sounding so weak. “I just thought that was the rule.”
“We didn’t catch you,” the blond pointed out.
I was getting more confused by the second — if I belonged to the men who caught me, why wasn’t I being escorted out of the tunnels by the bird men? — but my head was starting to clear.
I might not understand the rules, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth again either.
“So I can go?”
The dark-haired guy in the mask straightened, and I was almost positive I caught the shine of laughter in his eyes. “Do you want to go?”
“Obviously,” I said, even though it wasn’t at all obvious, even to me.
He stepped away and swept the space between us with one hand. “Then fly away, little bird.”
I took a step forward, half expecting them to stop me. They didn’t, and I moved faster, picking up my pace until I was running, into the darkness and away from my body’s traitorous desire.
10
MAEVE
I ran for a long time,stopping every couple of minutes to listen, to make sure I wasn’t about to run headlong into another team of men or one of the girls who were also fanned out in the tunnels.
How many of them had been caught? How many still haunted the tunnels, trying to evade capture until our time was up?
It was easy to believe I was alone. I didn’t hear another sound, and I’d given up keeping track of where I was in relation to the town above us. It should have terrified me, but after being cornered by the men in bone masks (anyone but them), I was more afraid of being caught again.
They wouldn’t let me go a second time, and I had to win.
For June.
Every now and then I came across another digital clock glowing from one of the tunnel walls, the red numbers counting down the remaining hours and minutes in the Hunt. Time seemed interminable. I’d think I’d run out a couple hours only to find at the next clock that it had been thirty minutes.
I started dreading the clocks, and I avoided looking at my phone, hoping to be surprised by the passage of time when I stumbled upon another one.
I’d just rounded a corner into another tunnel when I hit a patch of loose dirt and rock on the floor. I barely registered it before my feet went out from under me, arms flailing as I tried to grasp onto something.
I went down hard on my hands and knees, and something sharp bit into my right hand as I caught my fall.
A cry escaped my mouth before I could stop it and I froze in that position, listening for the sound of footsteps running my way.
They never came and I sat back on my ass and did a quick inventory of my body. My hand hurt like a bitch but the rest of me seemed okay. I followed the pain to my palm and found a small but sharp piece of shale embedded in my skin.
