You had to be in the right place at the right time.
It was part of why we tore through the tunnels like animals. Sure, it was fucking fun to run and skip and howl, to give into all our impulses, impulses that probably would’ve gotten us locked up if we did them aboveground in the light of day.
But also, we covered more ground by running, and since we always had a goal in mind — even if that goal was just playtime with one of the Hunt girls — we needed to cover as much ground as possible before the other teams.
“Better move before someone else marks her,” Hawk said as we continued past them.
“Thanks for the advice,” one of them drawled as we started running again.
“Was that fucker being a smart-ass?” Vigo asked. “I think that fucker was being a smart-ass.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Let them hunt their way.”
“At least they’re not looking for Cassie.”
Hawk let out one of his war cries and we flew past several of the purple bulbs hanging from the ceiling, intermittent piles of junk, and one stack of bottled water. It was a far cry from the sleek offices in the city where I used to make my living, trading invisible shares in companies that made other people — and myself — rich.
That had been fun at first. Exciting, even.
Amassing wealth was an addicting game. How much would you risk? How far would you go?
It was gambling really, betting that this company or that would make money or lose it. That a merger would make money or lose it. That a fresh influx of capital would help a company grow or enable it to make foolish business decisions that would ultimately tank its value.
I’d enjoyed it for a while, had gotten off on the thrill. It wasn’t just the payoff: the high-rise apartment with walls of windows, the new car every year (paid for with cash), the beautiful, pampered women and five-star vacations.
It had been the fucking thrill. The risk.
Except after a while, it hadn’t seemed so thrilling. That was what people didn’t understand about money: it was inherently boring. There were only so many things you could buy with it. Only so many things you could do with it.
And when you reached that point, it might as well be Monopoly money. It was that meaningless.
Which was why I’d ended up with Hawk. He’d been a suit too — albeit a different kind of suit — but he’d read the writing on the wall of his own psyche, had gotten out before he’d been kicked out, unlike Vigo who’d left a trail of damage in his wake atthe university where he’d been a professor before they’d finally forced him out.
Hawk had shown me there were other ways to take risks, risks that involved more than money.
Like the Hunt.
The tunnels were risky for the girls, and if they lost, what came after was risky too.
But for us the risks lay in what happened if the girls won. Then we would have to kill for them, and no one had been more surprised than me to find that when the victim really deserved it, killing made my dick even harder than making money.
And that was the thing about Hunt girls: their intended victims always deserved it.
The fucking incels of the world wanted everyone to believe that women were weak, that they were emotional, that they weren’t capable of making good decisions. But in all the years we’d been playing in the Hunt, I’d never met a single girl whose victim didn’t deserve what they got.
If you wanted to hear about the worst of humanity, all you needed to do was talk to a woman. They bore the brunt of society’s weakest, most cowardly men.
Who could blame them for wanting a little revenge?
I thought about Cassie Montgomery, making her way through the tunnels, trying to win.
Who did she want dead? And why hadn’t she gone to Bram to get it done?
9
CASSIE
I was lost.Hopelessly and completely lost.
