When the horn dies, the woods inhale.
“Alright Boys, you can go track her.”
The Boys take off, no hesitation: Colton slips into the brush to the right, while Rhett and Julian go in opposite directions, flanking the path she probably thinks is safe. The Board and their pets watch from the field’s edge, all eager and nervous and pretending they haven’t just loosed a pack of rabid animals.
I watch the line where she vanished, the branches still shaking from her passing, the flick of white through the black. She’s smart; she doesn’t take the path Issy and O did. She goes uphill, toward the old orchard, the ground packed with dead leaves thatsuck at your ankles. Her feet are bare, and already I know she’s leaving a red breadcrumb trail.
The seconds crawl. My hand throbs where I sliced it, the blood drying sticky and thick. I want to chase her, want to tear after her and drag her down, but that’s not how this Hunt will play out.
At exactly twenty-nine minutes, I start walking.
I don’t sprint. I stalk. Every sense on edge, ears wide for the sound of a snapped twig, the tang of sweat, the faint throb of a heart that’s running out of time. The woods are cold and bright in the moonlight, the shadows blue instead of black, and every branch looks like a hand reaching for your throat.
I take the same angle she did, moving slow at first, letting my eyes adjust to the motion. The light shows where she brushed against a pine, needles scattered on the ground. There’s a thread of white from her pajama leg snagged on a twig, and just below it, a drop of blood the size of a teardrop.
I smile.
She’s easy to love, but easier to track.
I follow the trail, the rhythm of her panic mapped in every broken fern, every print in the half-frozen mud. I see where she doubled back, tried to mask her path with a clumsy cross-pattern.
I pause. Listen.
Somewhere deeper in, I hear the unmistakable crunch of boots—Rhett, or maybe one of the others. But farther off, almost lost in the silence, is the sound of movement that doesn’t belong. It’s too regular, too soft, like a team moving in sync. Not Feral. Not even human, really.
I keep going.
I push through a corpse of birch, then freeze. Ten yards ahead, the pajamas are caught in a thorn bush, torn and stained at the ankle. Dahlia’s nowhere in sight, but I see where she went—down into the dry creek bed, the mud slick and black.
I follow, boots sliding, and drop into the ditch.
Her footprints are there, but so is something else—heavy, careful. Military boots. Not the kind the Board uses for their hired goons. I crouch low and listen, really listen.
Voices, too low to make words. A click. Static. A response. Metal on metal.
I move up the ditch, keeping below the lip, tracking the new scent—oil, gunpowder, bad cologne. It’s a Castillo, has to be.
Above, I see a glint—just a second, a silhouette with a handgun out and pointed at the trees, sweeping slow. He doesn’t see me. He’s looking for her.
I get closer, crawling now, hands in the mud, blood from my palm painting the leaves as I go. The guy is good. He doesn’t make a sound, and he signals twice—two fingers, then a thumb—like he’s talking to someone behind me.
There are three of them. Maybe more.
I don’t care.
My mind is a red haze, and I want to splatter his brain all over the forest floor.
I keep to the ditch, up and around, watching as the nearest Castillo ghost disappears behind a tree, then I break cover and sprint up the far side, staying in the shadows.
Dahlia’s footprints go left, then right. She’s trying to fake them out, maybe hoping to lose them at the old shed up ahead. It’s a wreck—windowless, door hanging on by a hinge, but the inside is pitch black and you could hide in there for hours if you didn’t mind the rats.
I get there first.
I slide in, quiet, and the smell hits me—fear, sweat, blood. I follow it to the far corner, where she’s pressed herself into a ball, knees to her chest, arms wrapped tight. Her eyes are wild, and the crown of flowers is half off her head, petals smashed and black. There’s blood on her foot, a lot of it, and more on her ankle.
She sees me and doesn’t scream. She bares her teeth.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” she whispers.
