Time stretches. My legs burn from my awkward crouch. Sweat cools on my back. The silence presses in, heavy enough to make my ears ring. I don’t move until the flickering lights outside dim again, then brighten, then settle into their sick rhythm.
I risk another look. The corridor is clear.
I ease back from the window and scan the store. The back room door hangs crooked from one hinge. A dressing room curtain stirs in a draft I can’t trace. Someone has spray-painted a number on the far wall, tall and clean. No symbol. No warning. Just a number.
What does that mean?
That bothers me more than the screams did.
I sink lower and force my breath steady. The mall hums around me, a low vibration I feel through my knees and palms. Somewhere, men move. Somewhere, decisions are made.
Somewhere women are captured, becoming Runts. Products of the Rotter Hunt.
These guys think they’re so clever, calling their prisoners Runts. Fucking bastards.
I replay what I saw of the woman just captured. The spacing. The timing. The way they cut her off without rushing. The way the strap appeared, ready, like it had been waiting in that pocket for a while. The tap on the sign. The answer.
Rules. Not written. Not spoken. Enforced anyway.
I think about the laughter I heard earlier, the sound that chased me into this store. That wasn’t the whole thing. That was noise on the surface. Distraction. Beneath it, something colder runs the show.
I swallow and flex my fingers, working the stiffness out. My body still wants to bolt, to keep moving until my legs give out, probably what got the barefoot girl caught. She ran straight until there was nowhere left to go.
I won’t do that.
A shadow passes the storefront again. This one pauses.
Shit.
I angle my head, listening.
Breathing. Controlled. Close enough that the hair on my arms lifts again. I stay still, teeth pressed together. The shadow shifts, then moves on.
They’re sweeping.
Not chasing. Clearing.
Maybe I can just stay here? No, that won’t do. I count to twenty before I move again.
When I do, I slide along the checkout counter and ease toward the back room, the place customers aren’t allowed to go, orweren’tallowed to go, back when this place was still a going concern. The door creaks when I push it open, loud in the quiet. I freeze, hand on the edge. Nothing answers. I slip inside and pull it mostly closed behind me.
The room is small and cluttered with boxes. Old stock, half-rotted, lace yellowed with age. So much for snagging some new panties while I’m here. I laugh. Wouldn’t that just be so baller, to win the Rotter Huntandwalk out with a wardrobe of new undies?
Something whispersnot fucking likelyin my ear, but I chase it away. Must stay positive.
I wedge myself between two stacks of storeroom junk and sink down, back against the wall. My boots leave dark marks on the cardboard.
I picture the girl’s face when the strap clicked shut just now. Not terror. Something flatter. Resignation, for sure.
That’s when it lands fully. This isn’t about catching whoever they can. It’s about sorting.
I slow my breathing and listen again, mapping the sound, counting the gaps. Steps. Pauses. Answers I don’t understand yet.
There are rules here. Which means this place can be played.
Somewhere inside this mall, a winner earns a Favor no one can take back.
I don’t want mercy. I want that Favor, because losing isn’t an option I think I could survive.
