Is she crazy?
Holy shit. The bitch is setting me up.
I don’t think after that. I react. I drive my fist into her stomach, hard.
The air blasts out of her in a strangled sound as she folds, hands flying to her gut. She stumbles and I knock her aside as I shove past, bolting into the dark before she can recover.
My knee screams, but adrenaline drowns it out.
Behind me, she starts yelling. Not words. Just noise.
Fucking bitch.
I round a corner and duck behind what I think is another shuttered storefront, pressing myself flat against a wall. I clamp a hand over my mouth, chest heaving, every nerve screaming.
Her voice cuts off abruptly.
What follows isn’t silence.
It’s chaos.
Clothing ripping. Limbs smacking against tile. A dull,meaty sound like fists landing. Someone grunts. Someone else swears. The girl shrieks, high and raw, then the sound breaks into choking sobs.
Then a click.
Some sort of restraint snaps shut. Clean. Final.
The noise plateaus after that. Efficient. Controlled. But not quiet. Anything but quiet, the girl’s agony reveals. She gave it her best shot, I’ll give her that.
I slide down the wall, shaking, bile burning the back of my throat. My hands stink like sweat and blood and panic. I wipe them on my jeans without thinking.
That could’ve been me. That would’ve been me if that girl had her way. Thatwillbe me if I stop thinking.
This is what the Hunt does. It doesn’t just pit us against them. It turns us on each other.
I push myself back up, forcing my legs to hold. The darkness still presses close, but now I understand it better. The lights going out doesn’t mean the Hunt is over. It means they’ve decided to stop making it fair. If it ever was.
I move again, quieter now, slipping away from the echo of the girl’s capture, deeper into the mall’s dead veins. Whatever comes next, I won’t announce myself.
And I sure as hell won’t trust anyone who’s still running.
15
VI
I don’t stop moving right away.
I put distance between myself and the girl who tried to sell me out, duck hard into shadows, and let the sound of her and her captors cover my movement. Her screams finally fade.
I can’t see what they’re doing to her, nor do I want to, but I can tell it’s not clean. It’s not quick.
I keep going.
My breath hitches with something ugly and sharp.
Yeah, you thought you could fuck me up.
Not today, lady.
