Page 11
That machine has never done that, not once. Dad reminds the gallery every season as if it’s a personal achievement. Now, in my second season, it’s going off in front of everyone.
Well, look at that. The pretty blond I’d noticed earlier is already in trouble, and the Hunt hasn’t even started.
Heads turn as I cross the floor. Candidates catch sight of the visor and drop their eyes, conversations dying off group by group until half the hall has gone quiet. Pathetic bastards. But then, pathetic built everything my family owns, so there’s that.
Besides, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I was raised for this. Somewhere along the way, I started enjoying what happens when people see me coming.
Everyone near the registration desk looks somewhere else.
He doesn’t.
His green eyes are huge, fixed straight on the visor, and there’s enough panic in them that I can taste it. His lashes are darker than they have any right to be on hair that blond. I’m the one who looks down, following the pulse in his throat to the open collar of his patched jacket.
Yeah, the visor is suddenly a very useful piece of equipment.
“Is there a problem?” I ask Anne, but I’m looking at him.
“N-no.” The word catches in his throat, but he keeps looking at me. Chin up. Spine straight. Trying not to show me how scared he is, even as the pulse at his collar gives him away.
I mean, just look at him.
From this close, he’s even cuter than he was from the railing. I want to make him react. I want to see how his face changes when I call him something that isn’t his name. I want to know how quickly all that stubbornness disappears when I put a hand on the back of his neck and press.
Prey. Something that runs from me.
But I don’t. Not here, not in front of the gallery, not yet, at least. No, for now, I file the thought under things I intend to do about him, and that file is already getting crowded.
Anne turns the holo screen toward me. The registration photo sits on one side, and the candidate stands on the other. Same pale hair. Same green eyes. Same narrow frame. Whatever set the machine off isn’t visible here.
His hair falls across his forehead, and he pushes it back without thinking. Freckles dust his nose. His jacket is patched at both elbows, but his boots are new. They must have cost him a fortune.
I read the name from the file. “Onyx Mercer.”
“Yes, sir.”
The accent comes in low and rough over the vowels, scraping somewhere behind my sternum.
“And you’re from Calder?”
I already know the answer, but I ask because I want to hear that accent again.
“Yes, sir. Born and raised.”
“That’s a long way to come.” I glance at the medical history on Anne’s screen. “A medical history this long, and you carried your own pack up all those intake steps without stopping to breathe?”
His jaw tightens. “I have good days, sir.”
“Do you now?”
He wets his lips once. “Today’s a good day.”
The machine thinks he’s lying. So do I.
Yeah, this is where I’m supposed to pull the secondary log, flag the variance, and hand him over to protocol. Elimination before the gates even open. But I’ve already decided I’m not going to.
“Run it again.”
Anne runs the scan. Amber flashes beneath his hand, and the alarm shrieks through the hall for the third time.
