She moves again, and this time I close the distance.
When she reaches the mill, I let her get inside. She thinks it’s safe, that maybe the walls will hold. They won’t hold me out, butmaybe, if I’m lucky, the Boys won’t enter and neither will that fucking cameraman.
I just have to claim her fast enough.
I circle the clearing, step around the debris. The windows are shattered, the chimney barely holding. Her silhouette is easy to spot through the open gap where a door once hung. She’s pressed flat against the wall, trying to be smaller than she is.
I take a second to memorize the way she looks. The hair stuck to her cheek, the streak of blood on her knee, the eyes wide and wild.
This is what I came for.This is what the Hunt is mean to provoke. Primal instinct. Feral need. The separation of the Boys from the Men.
I step into the doorway and she doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch.
She just stares, mouth tight, hands balled into fists at her sides.
I cross the room slow. Deliberate. There’s no need to rush. Not anymore.
The Hunt is over. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Her body is rigid, her back flat to the wall. I stop in front of her, inches between us. I don’t touch her, she needs time to come down from the high.
She’s trembling. I want to taste it, want to see if the adrenaline is sweet or sour.
I lean in, nose to her throat, and inhale.
She smells like fear and want, like the edge of violence and the possibility of something better. My fingers ache to leave marks, to show the world that she was mine first and last.
“Run,” I murmur.
She doesn’t.
She stands her ground, even though she has to know it’s pointless. “No. I’m done running.”
I press my hand to the wall beside her head, trapping her without touching. She lifts her chin. Defiant. Always.
“So fucking pretty.”
I bring my other hand up, slow, and trace her jaw with the back of my knuckles. Her skin is cold, but her pulse is burning.
“I don’t want them watching.” She whimpers, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes as she squeezes them shut.
“This isn’t about them,” I say. “It’s about you and me.”
She opens her eyes. They’re wet, but they’re sharp.
“Then do it,” she says. “Claim me. Or whatever it is you came to do.”
I smile, all teeth.
“Gladly.”
I lift her up, one hand under her thigh, the other at her waist. She wraps her arms around my neck, not to hold on but to resist.
She wants to fight.
Good.
I push her against the wall. The wall creaks. Her breath stutters, but she bares her teeth.
