A gloved hand shoved something into my palm. I lifted the mask and found an earpiece clipped to a radio. My hands shook as I jammed the earpiece in and secured the radio to mywaistband. I slid the mask back down, my breath fogging the inside.
The woman’s voice was right in my ear. “Good job. Time to choose your weapon.”
The illumination from an overhead floodlight stabbed down through the trees. I blinked against the glare and peered through the skull’s eyeholes. A table sat in the clearing: a knife, a pistol, and a battered wooden bat.
“Notably, the gun only holds one bullet. Choose wisely.” Her tone was clinical, patient.
Something rustled at the tree line.
A snap of twigs.
A footstep on rocks.
The forest sounded alive with teeth.
I was about to enter a game of catch-or-die.
A flicker of shock burned through me.
I stared at the weapons. The bat was honest, brute force I could handle. The gun was quick and final. The knife was close, personal, but it reminded me too much of Mackenzie, and my hand shook thinking of grabbing it.
My fingers itched. I wanted the bat. I grabbed it, spun it, felt the steady weight in my hands.
“Good,” the voice said. “If you fail, you will never leave these woods.”
“What?” My voice cracked.
“Tick tock. One hour, or she dies.”
My heart detonated. My fingers tightened on the bat until I could feel my knuckles whiten under the gloves.
“You’re threatening my wife?” I shouted into the dark, turning in a slow circle. “You think that scares me? I’ll kill for her. Includingyou.”
“That’s what we hope for,” she replied.
“What about the FBI? This is federally protected territory.Someone will save me.” I tried to sound defiant, but the words tasted hollow.
I was scared.
Really fucking scared.
But I didn’t want them to know that.
A soft laugh came through the speaker. “Camp Blackshear is Alliance territory now.”
The world dropped out from under me. Panic hit like ice. My throat closed, and beads of sweat began to slick the inside of the mask.
“Good luck,” she said, and the crackle of the channel closing echoed in my ear.
The floodlight snapped off.
Darkness swallowed me whole. The forest pressed in tightly, thick with silence. My pulse roared in my ears.
But I knew these woods. I could outsmart them.Could I?
I forced myself forward, one step at a time. The bat was heavy in my grip, slick with sweat. Every sound, the crunch of dead leaves, the rasp of my breath, felt too loud. Blood squished in my shoes.
Then, there was light.
