No, only Cain was around, and he was only capable of making everything better.
I crouched and held my breath when the rabbit paused near a tree. Its nose twitched, but the rest of it was frozen. Then it tilted its ear, as if it heard a sound, and darted into a nearby bush.
“Shit,” I muttered. Should I keep following it? It had already been a while, and I didn’t want Cain to worry about me. Besides, it was way too fast. I wasn’t ever gonna get to pet it or touch that fluffy tail.
I paused when I sensed the infected nearby.
Here? How?
I looked toward the pit trap, but it was undisturbed. That wasn’t the direction I was feeling them, either.
It was more toward the nearby cliff.
I should get Cain. No, I?—
Something hard pressed against the back of my skull, and a choked sound erupted from my chest.
“Found you.”
That voice.
I would never forget that voice.
Hunter.
The stark terror that exploded through my body completely froze me, and in an instant I was dragged back into the past, to every feeling and thought that had ever run through me when this man was around.
I was a hound and he was my master.
Days of endless nothing filled my mind, days of lying around, sleeping, getting yelled at, being pissed on. Days of hunting the Corrupted for them, being shoved and hit with guns and hands and feet. Days of wishing there were no more days, that an endless night would come and sweep me away.
Hunter’s laugh was cold and cruel and crawled beneath my skin, coiling around my bones and holding me frozen in place. “You thought you could just run away and that was it?” His voice was closer when he bit out, “You never should’ve come to that town, you worthless dog. But thanks, I wouldn’t have found you otherwise. I didn’t even recognize you ’til I saw those freaky fucking eyes.” He laughed again. “I thought you’d crawled into a hole and died somewhere, considering I fucking shot you. You’ll wish you had when I’m through with you. I’ve been watching you for weeks now, waiting to get you alone. Who’s the big guy, your new owner? Too busy getting fucked to notice me, huh? Disgusting.”
He shoved roughly at my head with the barrel of the gun, and a sharp, stinging pain sliced through my skull.
But it snapped me out of whatever terrified daze I’d been stuck in, and I started to sprint away. When the first shot rangout, I fell to my stomach, covering my head with my arms and trembling like the pathetic dog I was.
“Move again, and the next one goes in your head. That was a warning. I’m not fucking around, Three.” Leaves crunched beneath his boots as he stalked over to me. “You thought you could just run off after killing my brother?”
The clink of metal on metal filled me with dread, and I couldn’t stop myself from begging him. “No, please, please don’t?—”
Pain exploded through my head and hands when he struck me with the butt of his rifle, and then he was stomping on the back of my thighs with his heavy boots.
“Shut. Up,” he gritted out. “Just shut the fuck up, you piece of shit. Oh, I can’t fucking wait to chain you up. Maybe I’ll cut off your hands. No, your feet. How’s that, huh? Good luck trying to escape after that.” Something cold was slipped around my wrists as he laughed, and when he sat down hard on my back, I wasn’t thinking about the chains anymore. Now I was just trying to breathe.
I hoped I died. Death would be better than being caged again.
I didn’t fight it. Didn’t try to get out from under him as he kept talking to me, saying words that were muffled and fading away, sounding more and more distant the longer he sat on me. When he briefly lifted himself off me and turned me over, I gasped in air, trying to focus my fuzzy vision on him.
He’d chained my hands up behind my head and attached them to a collar around my throat. The only thing I had to fight him with was my mouth and?—
He grinned down at me as he pulled something from his belt.
A muzzle.
But I was also seeing him for the first time, and…
The right side of his face was practically gone. It was burned away, all the hair gone, the skin just melted pink scar tissue.
