“What are you dragging me into, Santi?” she asks, seriously.
“You’ll see. I promise it’ll be exciting,” I assure her without elaborating.
“I’m learning, Santi,” she says, her words coming out slow and cautious. “That you only have one mode and it’s ‘exciting’.”
I don’t bother to stifle my grin as I take a road out of town and in the opposite direction of Gnarly Pines. Immediately, we’re engulfed in woods. The winding road isn’t one taken often and it's been a while since it’s been repaved.
We bump along in the dark of the cab in silence for a moment before Blair asks, “No axes tonight?”
I wink at her. “They’re in the back.”
Blair nods as leans back in her seat.
My excitement at the fun we could have is being tested by my nerves which are fraying as I wonder how Blair will react to what I’ll show her. She doesn’t say anything for the duration of the trip but neither do I. By the time we get to the small cabin off the dark, unnamed dirt road, the silence is thick enough to cutthrough. I drive around to the back of the one room cabin so that the truck is out of sight to anyone that approaches, then I cut the engine.
Blair says nothing as I climb out, following my lead. I round the back of the truck and pull the old toolbox over to me. I undo the latches then open the top. I reach for two black humanoid masks, then a pair of old and a pair of new leather gloves that are inside.
I toss Blair the new leather gloves and a mask. “Put those on.”
She does what she’s told. When she looks up at me through the mask, my cock grows swiftly into a painful erection. Swallowing hard, I reach forward and lift it off her face so that it sits on the top of her head.
“I want to see your pretty face for as long as I can,” I tell her when she gives me a confused look.
She turns her head away but not before I catch sight of the shy smile spreading across her face. Chuckling, I reach for the two axes laying in the back. Just like with the gloves, I offer her the new one.
“Santi…” Blair starts as she takes it from me. “Can you explainwhywe’re doing this? I’m not opposed to murder, per se but… usually when I commit a felony it’s to save my life—or Dad’s. And while I can’t say the same for Dad, he at least got paid for it. Are you doing this just for the thrill or… ?”
“Yes and no,” I start, anxious for her to finally understand. “Do you remember that I told you my dad died on the job? Well, I didn’t tell you exactly how he died.”
Blair watches me, her gaze sharp and unwavering. “No, you didn’t.”
“Well,” I start. “My dad walked into a trap house. Typically, in those places there’s just a bunch of druggies and a few sex workers inside, so when he went searching for the man who’d beaten his girlfriend so badly that she had a miscarriage, hedidn’t worry too much about trouble. He didn’t know that two gangs had converged in that same building and that a war had literally just begun before he walked inside. He barely got three feet into the warehouse before he was gunned down.”
“Oh, Santi…” Blair breaths, her eyes softening. “I’m so sorry.”
My heart twists but I continue, knowing that for her to understand, I need to say this.
“After college, I intended to go into the police academy and follow in his footsteps,” I push on. “But when I came home for his funeral, I learned the people responsible for his death had escaped capture. Eventually, the police department stopped bothering to even pretend to look for them. Dad never got his justice. That never sat right with me. I was so,soangry, Blair. My dad was a good man. He didn’t deserve what happened to him and the assholes who took his life, they didn’t deserve to live.”
Blair’s brows furrow as she considers this.
“So you… picked up an axe?” she asks.
I step closer, my body trembling with pent-up energy. Blair tilts her head back to continue to hold my gaze. I wonder what she’s seeing? Do I look like a madman?
“Not an axe, but a knife. I left Caddawalk and hunted those assholes down. When I found them, I wasn’t quick with it either. Dad got justice and I… I gained enlightenment,” I tell her in earnest. “I didn’t want to be a cop anymore. The thought of dealing with red tape infuriated me. It’s all just bullshit. So I started listening to police radios, I used my cyber security degree to hack the police department's computers, and I started a game I dubbed The Hunt.”
Blair hums thoughtfully, finally breaking eye contact to look around the darkness that surrounds us.
“And how does any of this—” she waves toward the cabin, “—play into this game?”
“Well, originally, I went after murderers, violent offenders, and whatever. I chased them all over the state, sometimes going into Ohio or down to Maryland. It was extremely uncoordinated and time consuming. But then I introduced Rhett to the game when he arrived,” I explain to her. “He narrowed down our victims to pedophiles. They’re easier to find thanks to the online public database and due to the sheer number of them. Then, Rhett had the bright idea to bring the creeps to us rather than us going to them. So, we bought a piece of land just outside of Caddawalk under a shell corporation, set up this cabin, and now we?—”
“Lure your victims here, where you kill them,” she concludes, glancing at the cabin.
I nod.
Blair says… nothing. I wait for her to say something, anything, but she simply stares around us. What does she think of all of this? Is she excited? Appalled? A bit of both? I can’t read her blank expression. Personally, I think The Hunt is a noble game. But IguessI can see how it would seem a bit morbid.
