“Damn it.” He shut the safe, sliding the weapon into the holster at the small of his back, then stilled. If he walked back out there with a gun at his spine, she would never trust him.
Pushing his dark chestnut waves back from his forehead, he searched his mind for answers. There were still several hours left until dawn. Three hunters had already been pulled—Hadrian Welles being one of them. He couldn’t leave the room unarmed.
He checked the magazine, and hesitated.
When he emerged from the dressing room, the bathroom door remained open. He paused at the threshold, head tilted as he listened. Water lapped against copper. No sobs. No sounds of distress. Just the quiet rhythm of someone trying to find peace in a place that offered none.
He holstered the gun at his back and let her be.
Jack moved to the bed and straightened the tangled sheets, smoothing the dark silk where her body had lain. The pillow still held the imprint of her head, a ghost of blonde hair and dried blood. He lifted the pillow, bringing it slowly to his face and breathed in the unique scent. Recognizing what should have been unfamiliar to him.
He flipped it over and arranged the remaining pillows against the carved headboard, restoring order to a space that devolved into chaos the moment he started breaking his own rules.
His phone waited on the nightstand where he had abandoned it earlier. The screen lit at his touch, displaying a cascade of missed calls. Hunter. Stone. Ash. All three Volkov brothers had tried to reach him, their concern escalating with each unanswered attempt.
Jack ignored the voicemails and crossed to the far wall, where a brass bear head protruded from the plaster. Small enough to pass for decoration. Ripping off the black tape he’d sealed over its eyes, he stared at hidden lenses. Every guest suite in the lodge contained similar fixtures, a security measure the Volkovs made no effort to conceal. Their guests understood the terms of their hospitality. Privacy was an illusion, and the bears saw everything.
Jack looked directly into the camera, pointed toward the bathroom, and withdrew his phone.
His thumb moved across the screen, composing a message to Stone.
* * *
She’s bathing. Everything is fine. Send food.
* * *
The response came within seconds, a wall of text that Jack didn’t bother reading. He caught fragments as he scrolled. Protocol. Liability. Medical attention. What the fuck are you thinking?
He pressed the tape back over the bear’s eyes and powered off his phone.
The fire burned low, so he added two logs, watching as the flames caught and climbed. His mind leapt back to the vision of her weeping in the tub.
None of this was supposed to happen.
The Feast of the Fallen had operated for ten years with little to no incident, but over the last few years, returning guests seemed to take his generosity for granted. Egos inflated as fortunes grew, and their sense of privilege swelled with narcissistic entitlement that made them think the rules were merely suggestions.
In the first hour, he’d found several targets that needed to be taken down. By the second, he had already ordered two hunters removed from the game.
Rumors spread as men disappeared. Helicopters removed the tributes who forfeited, as swiftly as the Volkovs’ security detail extracted those who violated the rules. Those hunters currently waited in private cells, pacing anxiously, not yet understanding the consequences of their actions.
Those men were the exceptions. The rest, for the most part, understood the game and played by the rules. Respecting safewords and behaving accordingly.
Jack watched the cameras every year, taking note of those who displayed questionable tendencies. They might follow the rules here, motivated by the desire to be invited back, but outside of The Preserve, when they thought no one was watching, he bet they acted differently. Those were the hunters that made it to his list, the ones he’d observe relentlessly in the months that followed.
It should have been a failproof system, but every population had some level of rot.
Reaching for the top book on a nearby stack, he lifted his battered copy of Walden and thought of Thoreau’s failed search for utopia.
Even a place as picturesque as Walden Pond eventually showed damage from human existence—and that had been done by the one person who desperately wanted his plan to succeed. Perhaps the cruelest flaw of human nature was not the desire to destroy, but the desperate need to claim what could never be owned—an entitlement that only left wreckage in its wake.
Maybe The Feast was always going to end this way—destroyed by the animals that made it functional. But what about the people it helped?
Jack’s inbox overflowed with letters from former tributes, messages of gratitude, and transformation that he kept in a locked file on his private server. Some wrote to thank him for the money that had saved their families. Others described the freedom they had found and the new lives they had built on the foundation he provided. A few requested the chance to participate again, their hunger for the game awakened rather than satisfied.
Those he offered employment to instead.
Vanessa had been one of the first. A tribute from the third year, sharp-tongued and sharp-eyed, who had seen through the spectacle to the machinery beneath. She understood what the Feast truly was, and she had wanted to help. Now she welcomed new tributes with the warmth of someone who had walked the same path, her presence a promise that survival was possible.
