Hunter

by Joanna White

Dalex grimaced.

  “Sine?” I asked, glancing at him.

  “Fine.” He winced.

  “How’s your ankle?” I asked Dalex.

  “Hurts, but I’ll be okay.” He looked away from my eyes. He was hiding something, but what? I took another drink, hoping to pick up something more from him, but all I could see were Sine and Wexx’s thoughts.

  “So, how did you find us?” Wexx asked me.

  “I saw you guys climbing up and when the fight started, I figured I’d help,” I replied. Keeping my responses short while making sure I answered their questions would imply that I was being truthful, yet not trusting them completely yet, like any normal prisoner would.

  “And you just decided to try and help us fight one of them rather than use that to your advantage and run?” Sine raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s how my parents always raised me. I still respect that.” I wanted to smirk, but I kept my expression carefully blank.

  Sine gave me a nod.

  Wexx placed his hands on his hips, narrowing his eyes at me. “I’ve seen a lot of the prisoners here. You weren’t the one that came over a week ago and Dalex came the day after that one... Were you from two and a half weeks ago?”

  “No, he got killed already,” Sine interrupted Wexx.

  “I normally stay with a group in the caves,” I replied, glancing at them. They exchanged a glance, and both believed it, even though Wexx was still wary. Sine was too hurt and exhausted to care.

  “The caves are one of the most dangerous places because it makes them easier to pick us off,” Wexx pointed out.

  Ah, so he had picked up on that. Very few prisoners did. I looked at him for a second before answering. “My father grew up around caves. He taught me a lot.”

  Wexx believed me. He wasn’t ready to trust me fully yet, but he believed me. Inwardly, I smiled.

  “Well, if we’re all okay now we should get moving. We need to get back down the mountains and in the woods before any of them come back. Especially that flying one,” Wexx said with a grimace.

  “I agree.” Dalex stood to his feet again.

  I took another drink and pretended to use the wall to steady myself, so they wouldn’t get suspicious.

  “You good?” Sine asked, glancing at me.

  “Yeah,” I murmured. My strength and power had fully returned, as if my weakness had never been used on me in the first place.

  I snuck a glance at Dalex and could tell something was bothering him, but I still couldn’t pick up any specific thoughts. The more I thought about it, the angrier it made me. I purposely slowed down and let Sine and Wexx get ahead of us. Just like I thought, Dalex stopped and glanced back at me.

  “You alright?” I furrowed my eyebrows, feigning concern.

  He was looking down at the ground. “Wexx mentioned that the prisoner from two weeks got killed…” He swallowed, still not looking at me.

  Narrowing my eyes, I paused, deep in thought. I had killed a whole group several days ago… so what? Why was Dalex really here?

  “Prisoners get killed every day.” Shrugging, I kept my tone matter-of-factly, but my voice stayed husky.

  Dalex didn’t answer; instead, he kept walking.

  “Why are you worried about it? You didn’t even know him.” I looked his way. He stopped walking and stared at me for a minute. He looked like he was going to say something, but he stopped himself.

  “Unless… you did?” I asked slowly. That was when I remembered Municx and Lehlax thinking about that one prisoner from the same village as Dalex.

  He hesitated a moment as if deciding how much to say. I concentrated on him as hard as I could, trying to pick up something…anything to confirm my suspicons.

  “No,” he snapped.

  Before I could say anything, Wexx shouted back at us, asking if we were coming.

  “Yeah,” I called back when I realized Dalex wasn’t going to answer. When I went to look at him again, he was already walking ahead of me.

  It took about an hour or so to walk down the paths and reach the bottom of the mountain plateaus. Most of the time I watched Dalex, trying to sense more about him, but I remained frustratingly in the dark about him.

  I briefly thought that he might have Hunter potential, but instantly pushed that thought aside.

  Better he die than live this life, I thought suddenly, surprising myself.

  “Where are we headed now?” I asked Sine. Dalex hadn’t said anything since he and I had talked, and he didn’t seem like he was going to for a while.

  “Our water supply is getting low, so we should head through the shadow forest, avoid the swamps, and make it to the river.” Sine continued cutting through branches as he spoke.

  “Shadow forest? River?” Dalex asked, finally speaking up.

  “Bordering the swamps is a forest that’s dangerous, but not quite as risky as the swamps. We go through the forest to the end, where the river starts, and get clean water.” Wexx had paused and was watching us both, but he soon slipped through the trees, following after Sine.

  “What’s so dangerous about the forest?” Dalex furrowed his eyebrows, struggling to keep up with the rest of us as we walked through the trees.

  “The trees are so thick they form shadows all over the ground. The Hunters pick us off from the trees, where they can see us clearly. Once we hit the trees we won’t be able to stop; just run straight through.” It was only a few seconds before I caught up with Wexx and Sine with my long strides.

  Sine and Wexx both stared at me.

  I shrugged. “That’s why I like the caves.” That time, I couldn’t help the smirk that spread onto my face.

  “We should get going,” Sine started, walking off.

  It would take us about a week to get around the mountain plateaus. Sine and Wexx thought it would be safer that way, that maybe we could avoid any Hunters. Once we had reached the bottom, as everyone rested, I managed to sneak off. I ran as quickly as I could around the mountains until I found my Inquiri blade. I slid it into its sheath at my hip, thankful to have it again. Mentally cursing Malik for throwing it in the first place, I returned before anyone noticed I was gone.

  The more time I spent with them, the more questions came to my mind. They seemed close, even Dalex, and they’d only known him for a week or two. Already they were risking their lives for one another, making sure they stayed healthy and alive. Sine and Wexx continuously checked on Dalex, making sure he could keep up and that he was alright.

  Once, we stopped to rest and eat a few leaves Wexx had found that he said was edible. I leaned against a tree and pretended to dose off. Wexx placed a hand on my shoulder and gently shook me.

  “Jared.”

  I peaked my eyes open at him, ready to kill him in an instant if he tried anything. But, to my utter shock, he wasn’t trying to kill me. He held out a hand full of the leaves. “We only have about a dozen, so it won’t fill us up, but you should take these and eat. Keep up your strength,” he said.

  I gaped at him in surprise, but quickly wiped my expression. Across from me, Dalex eagerly ate his fill, as did Sine. So, I took the leaves from Wexx and ate them.

  I was a Hunter, prepared to kill them at any given moment, and they trusted people so easily, even after running for their lives constantly, they still accepted me as one of them. Though they were still a bit wary of me at first, eventually it wore off and they trusted me and thought of me as one more friend.

  I tried to understand it, to understand their way of thinking. I could see into their minds and thoughts and yet, I still couldn’t understand them. Any of them. Dalex, though I couldn’t get anything but vague feelings from him, appeared and acted as if he’d accepted me just as much as Sine and Wexx.

  It wasn’t long before we encountered a group of other prisoners. One of them informed Wexx and Sine that Luke had been killed. Though no one said anything, Wexx and Sine both felt sorrow for their friend and a deep pity for Lehlax.

  It was the first moment I
doubted my actions. I had felt sorrow from many of the prisoners before, and there were many different kinds: the sorrow felt during death, the sorrow for a loved one, the sorrow of lost hope and never getting to see family again. I found myself feeling sorry for Luke…And guilty for what I’d put Lehlax through.

  What if I hadn’t killed Luke? It was just one thought, one simple, small thought that normally wouldn’t be seen as a problem. But it stayed there, trapped inside my mind, festering and growing until it was all I could think about. I could even picture it: Luke with the group of prisoners as they came and greeted Wexx and Sine.

  That night, as everyone stopped to sleep for a few hours, I ran off at full speed as anger coursed through my veins. I made sure no one was watching, digging deeply into each person’s mind until I was sure they were all filled with random images or dreams. Grabbing the prisoner that was on watch from behind, I stifled an outcry and ran him far away from where the others were gathered.

  I couldn’t understand them, and I couldn’t kill them, at least not yet, so this prisoner would have to do.

  I slit his throat.

  It was too quick and had done nothing for my anger. I quickly ran through the surrounding area until I found a couple of prisoners slowly making their way toward the caves.

  I wished I had my whip, but I had hidden it in case any of the prisoners with Dalex recognized it. I took out my Inquiri blade and dashed toward the prisoner on the left, stabbing him in the chest as I passed him by. I had been moving so fast and had hit him with such force, that my blade had stabbed him through his chest, piercing his heart, then had almost ripped out his entire left side. The prisoner beside him, when he saw what happened, vomited on the ground.

  I looped around, came toward him, yanked his collar, and sprinted up the tree at full speed. By the text time he blinked, we were nearly at the top, and then he screamed and struggled to get out of my grip. I slammed his face into the trunk and then pulled him around to meet my eyes.

  I looked into his mind, seeing myself through his eyes. My eyes had changed and were coal-black in color, and I could feel the terror swimming off him in currents. I took out the smallest dagger I had in my belt and stabbed it into his right lung, twisting it as cruelly as I could.

  I dropped him and smiled as I heard the rasping screams before the sickening thud as he landed. As soon as I made my way out of the tree, I walked to where the first prisoner’s body lay. I grabbed my Inquiri blade, quickly cleaned it off, and then ran back to where the group of prisoners still slept.

  In the days following, we split off from the group of prisoners. Everyone had wondered where the man on watch had disappeared to, so the other group left to search for him. Sine, Wexx, Dalex, and I started trekking through the woods toward the shadow forest. As we journeyed, I began peering deeper into their thoughts. I tried sorting out the unconscious ones; the ones they kept locked in the backs of their minds.

  Sine and Wexx, though they were similar in their anticipation of fighting, they had a few differences. Wexx concentrated only on his life here; those he had met and the friends who had become his brothers to replace those he knew he’d never see again. Sine thought of what life was like before, and longed for it again, despite that he knew he would never see it. It was both strange and fascinating to me. I had never imagined a life outside of Zagerah, a life outside of being a Hunter, but the more time I spent with them, the more I realized that life outside Zagerah truly existed.

  What was it like?

  Why was I wondering about it?

  When he had the opportunity to kill me, Dalex hadn’t. Neither had Municx. Even Sine and Wexx had hesitated. They didn’t kill.

  It’s different for them. They aren’t Hunters… They weren’t made into one like you were.

  I had no idea where the thought came from, but I quickly pushed it out of my mind.

  The next few days were the first I had gone without killing, or without the urge or need to kill.

  “Alright, alright…” a prisoner named Nurex started. “So, then, we get to the wasteland, and he’s drooling in his sleep. I wake him and he says something about stake. I swear, he was so hungry, he was gonna take a bite out of me!”

  The man he spoke with, named Deroni, shook his head with a wild laugh. “No, no. No, I was not! What Nurex isn’t tellin’ you is that we’d gone a week without game. I was just a tad hungry, that’s all.”

  Wexx shook his head and laughed. “Wow.”

  Deroni shot Nurex a glare. “You’re gonna make the new kid think I’m a cannibal or somethin’!”

  Nurex widened his eyes and smacked Dalex on the back of his shoulder. “Just don’t let him get too close, okay? He tends to bite and nibble sometimes.”

  Deroni scoffed. “Yep. That’s enough teasin’ on my behalf, please.”

  Nurex rolled his eyes. “Well, I could always pick on Wexx. I got plenty of stories about him. Like that one time, we went to the ice-caves, and this kid thought it was a good idea to go sledding…”

  Wexx pointed a finger at his chest. “Hey! That isn’t fair! We got ourselves lost down there and we were freezing to death, so I told him the fastest way out would be to slide down to the exit, since we were close.”

  Sine wiped a tear from his eye from the laugh.

  Here they were, inside a prison where death followed them everywhere and yet, they laughed. This strange, unfamiliar joy bounced from one of them to the other, spreading among them like an infection. I couldn’t understand it, no matter how I tried. Even Dalex, though he didn’t know them as well, cracked smiles with the rest of them. At any moment, they could die. I could have killed all of them if I wanted.

  Yet, still, they found time to… laugh. To joke. And to feel this infectious joy that only confused me.

  Though threat of the Hunters was always around them, they acted…different, as if their lives weren’t constantly in danger. There was no blood, no gore, no death, no killing. It was a life I had never known.

  Several days later, we ran into another group of prisoners. One of them constantly stared at me, and he thought I looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d seen me before.

  That night, just before he was lulled into a deep sleep, my face flashed in his mind and he suspected that I might be a Hunter. I sensed the thought the instant it crossed his mind and was in front of him before he even had a chance to sit up. With a grimace, I grabbed him by the neck and dashed through the trees so quickly that he didn’t realize what had happened until I stopped.

  “Just kill me, Hunter. Get it over with,” he hissed.

  For the first time in my life, I hesitated. It was only a millisecond, so short he didn’t even realize I hesitated at all, but it was enough.

  “I’m sorry.” The second the words were out of my mouth, I mentally cursed at myself. I grabbed his head and twisted it to the side quickly, breaking his neck.

  I made my way back to where Sine, Wexx, Dalex, and the others slept. Once again, no one noticed where I’d gone, or that a man they trusted, a man who they traveled with was a man who had been sent to kill them.

  When the prisoner’s friends woke up, they worried about where he’d gone. He wasn’t the kind of man to leave without saying something, so his friends searched for him. Wexx, Sine, and Dalex decided to help them look. Dalex and I walked off in one direction, while Wexx and Sine went another.

  After almost an hour of looking, he still hadn’t been found. His friends decided to continue looking for him, while we continued to the shadow forest. Dalex asked how much farther until we would get there, and Sine told us it would take about an hour.

  He was right; almost an hour later, we had reached the edge of the forest. We paused there, gazing into the darkness beyond the tree line, and I mentally cursed. I wouldn’t be weakened, but the shadows would temporarily take away all or most of my powers and abilities.

  Sine headed past the first couple of trees and instantly vanished.

  Dalex gasped
slightly.

  “The shadows have that effect. Come on,” Wexx said, taking a step forward.

  “Stay close and try not to lose any of us,” I murmured to Dalex before walking into the trees myself. I had never been on the shadow forest floor before. It was too dark for my taste. I could have made up an excuse to convince them not to go in, but I didn’t want any added suspicion since they completely trusted me.

  The shadows weakened my powers, though not enough to hinder me. It was another thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about; the fact that I’d had my powers taken away more times in just a couple of weeks than I had in all my years being a Hunter.

  It had all started ever since Dalex arrived here.

  I tried again to pick up his thoughts, but it was too late; I couldn’t see through anything and I couldn’t sense much from Sine and Wexx.

  Get ready. Vinmir is gonna have some fun, Malik murmured in my mind. So, I could still pick up thoughts from the Hunters.

  Got it, I thought back.

  And I’m ready for some payback. That new one is stronger than we thought, he said.

  I underestimated him, too, I answered him, thinking back to when I first met Dalex.

  Novarch and I wanted to go ahead and help you finish them all off, but Hindah still wants to play…And to keep testing that new prisoner; see what he’s got, Malik said.

  I stopped walking. Hindah never tested prisoners unless he saw potential in them. Even he thought Dalex might have Hunter potential. Instantly, my blood boiled. I didn’t understand why, but the thought of that angered me. Perhaps it was because Dalex had caused enough problems for me; I didn’t want him fighting by my side as a Hunter. Or maybe it was something even deeper than that.

  Perhaps I didn’t want anyone else to suffer the same fate as we did.

  “Jared?” a voice asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. Dalex had stopped walking and stared at me. Sine and Wexx stopped up ahead.

  “I’m fine,” I answered quickly.

  “Well, you said it yourself; don’t lose any of us,” Dalex said with a sarcastic grin.

  I rolled my eyes but followed him. As I watched him walking ahead of me a strange new feeling overcame me: