Hunter

by Emmy Chandler

  His gaze flicks over my shoulder, to where the shuttle is rapidly gaining on us, and even in the dark, I can see that he’s scared. “Maci. We are not going to die today!” He sweeps his foot out and knocks my legs out from under me, then catches me before my butt hits the bottom of the stream.

  I scream from the visceral shock of the cold water, but the sound that leaks from my throat is a mere ghost of the outraged shriek reverberating in my head.

  “Hold your breath,” Callum says, as Lucky walks into the water next to me.

  “F-f-f-or how l-l-long?” My nipples are like points of ice and every joint in my body aches. What good does it do us to hide from the shuttle if we’re just going to freeze to death in a fucking stream?

  “Until the shuttle is gone, and I sit up. Got it?”

  I nod. It’s too hard to speak now.

  “Okay. Take several deep breaths. Stretch your lungs.” He eyes the shuttle zooming toward us from the south while he follows his own advice. I suck in several deep breaths, trying to feel my lungs expand. Forcing them to hold more. “Now!” Callum shouts, to be heard over the rush of water, and the shuttle’s engine, and my own roaring pulse. Then he throws himself back into the stream, one hand gripping a root peeking out from the shore, below the surface of the water.

  I suck in another deep breath, but before I can make myself go under, he grabs my arm and pulls me down.

  Water closes over my face, rushing across my whole body like the assault of a thousand ice-cold needles. I grasp for something to hold on to, some way to anchor myself against the current, but there are no roots on my side, and I begin to slide downstream.

  I scream underwater and lose precious air as bubbles gurgle up to the surface. Callum grabs my arm again, and my slide stops. I blink as the shuttle floats into sight overhead, blurry, seen through the water. Its bright searchlights are visible through gaps in the canopy, and the leaves glow a bright, almost bloody red where the beams hit them.

  Lucky sits next to me in the water, and only his ears penetrate the surface. Blinking furiously to ease the burn in my eyes, I grab his front leg and hold on—he’s too heavy to float away—but my grip is weak. My hands are numb from the cold.

  While my lungs burn, demanding fresh air, the shuttle that raced toward us before suddenly seems to move so slowly. Has it detected our heat? Or is my desperation for air making time seem to stretch?

  Can the shuttle see us beneath the water? Can it see Lucky’s ears sticking up? Is there an actual human watching, or just the infrared scanner?

  Finally, the shuttle passes over the stream, and though I can still see it just to the north of us, I have to take a breath, or I’m going to drown.

  I let myself float up until only my nose and mouth are above water. Callum jerks me back down, and I gasp, sucking in as much water as air, but it’s enough to put out the fire in my lungs. And the shuttle doesn’t seem to be stopping, or even slowing.

  When it’s passed from sight to the north, Callum rises out of the water. A heartbeat later, without waiting for his all-clear, I burst from the surface, gasping. Coughing. Shaking violently. But the scariest part is that I can’t really feel it anymore. Though I’m shivering uncontrollably, now I’m mostly…numb.

  “I think it’s gone.” Callum pulls me to my feet, and the cold air on my bare, wet skin actually burns. “Can you hear the other one?”

  I shake my head. All I can hear is the clicking of my teeth together. The thunder of my heartbeat in my ears.

  “I’m sorry.” Callum tugs me onto the shore, where he kneels next to the supply bag and begins rifling through contents he can’t possibly see in the dark. “There was no other way. But cold is better than dead, right?”

  “N-n-not s-s-sure yet.”

  “Take your shirt off.” Though his own hands look less than steady, he pulls a clean, dry shirt from the late Scott Hansen’s bag.

  “Sh-sh-sheet…first,” I chatter as I pull the soaking shirt over my head. Next comes my drenched sports bra.

  He hands me the bedsheet, and I unfold it just enough to use it as a makeshift towel, wiping rivulets from my limbs and torso before I wring my hair out with it. The thin material isn’t very absorbent, but it won’t do me any good to put on dry clothes while I’m dripping wet.

  By the time I’m as dry as I’m going to get, Callum is naked, and even though we have much more pressing things to think about than sex, I wish for a patch of moonlight, so I could see him better.

  I hand him the sheet, and he refolds it to take advantage of a dry spot. While he dries off, I step out of my soaked shorts and pull the dry shirt over my head. I didn’t think my situation could get much worse than running through the woods in the middle of the night, half-naked, but it turns out that adding wet and shivering to the equation makes things much worse.

  While Callum pulls Hansen’s last spare set of dry clothes over still damp skin, I dig in the bag, hoping I’ve overlooked something that will fit my bottom half. The tee shirt covers my naked ass—though barely—but it does nothing to stop the frigid draft blowing in from beneath the hem.

  “I’m sorry,” Callum says again, as Lucky trudges slowly out of the water to sit next to me in the mud. “I wish I had something else for you to wear.”

  “Give me that last pair of boxer briefs.” My teeth have stopped chattering, but I’m attributing that more to sheer willpower than to any significant thaw. I feel like a human popsicle, and my hair’s still dripping freezing water down my back.

  He hands me the shorts, and I grab his arm for balance as I step into them. They’re way too big to stay on, of course, so I pull the waistband tight over my stomach and fold the extra over, then I roll it down twice, to hold it in place. The fix will probably work itself free after a few minutes of hiking, but for the moment, my ass and my girly bits appreciate the extra layer of insulation. And since the shorts are so big, they hang down to mid-thigh on me.

  “Okay, hand me your wet clothes. As soon as we get someplace safe, we’ll set them out to dry.” Callum shakes out the plastic package the shirts came in, and I drop my wet clothes into it. He shoves his in on top, and he’s just bent down to slide the package into the supply pack when I hear the distinct rustle of material from somewhere to our south—followed by the crunch of dry leaves.

  I freeze, and Callum steps in front of me. From around his bicep, I see a guard emerge from the shadows, pistol aimed right at Callum’s chest. Another guard steps out from behind him, aiming another pistol. “Step away from the girl,” the first guard says. “Then get down on your knees with your hands in the air.”

  This can’t be happening. My fists clench at my sides. We’ve lasted so long. I glance at Lucky, and a sick feeling churns in my gut. Why isn’t he attacking? Did they somehow reprogram him without me noticing? How? The wrist com should have alerted me.

  Unless the stream… But surely such an expensive com device is waterproof.

  Still shielded by Callum’s body, I tap on the wrist com, and it wakes up with a warm glow. It seems fine. But Lucky’s eyes…. The lights that make up his pupils haven’t gone out completely, but they’re dull and…flickering.

  He’s waterlogged. I can’t imagine the hounds aren’t water safe, considering they were also designed for exterior use, but evidently sitting in water up to his ears for several minutes was enough to give his system a little trouble.

  “I’m going to kneel.” Callum speaks slowly and calmly, and the translation echoes not just from my wrist com but from the ones the guards are wearing, as well. His voice seems to be coming from everywhere. “But I’m not going to step away from Maci. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She doesn’t belong here. You need to take her back to zone four.”

  “No!” I mutter from behind him, but he ignores me.

  “She’s a murderer,” the second guard says, and now that I’ve heard his voice, I recognize his shadow-drenched face. It’s Dalton. “She has a death sentence, same as you.”

 
I tap on the wrist com again, glad to find that feeling is returning to my hands, and I pull up Lucky’s diagnostics. Sure enough, he’s waterlogged. The progress bar estimates that he’ll be operational again in four minutes, after his internal motors have dried all the water from his parts. Until then, the only imperative he’s able to obey is the one keeping him at my side.

  “I know you.” Callum’s voice has a hard edge to it. “You work in the death row cellblocks.”

  Dalton’s grip on his pistol tightens. “Step away from the girl and go down on your knees, Fischer. Now. Or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  “You’re a murderer,” Callum continues. “I saw you kill someone in cold blood. That kid in the cage at the end of F block. Maybe you belong in here with us.”

  Dalton grits his teeth for a second. “Kid deserved what he got. And killing convicted murderers in the line of duty isn’t a crime. It’s an execution.”

  “If you don’t step away from the girl, we’re gonna demonstrate that right now,” the first guard says.

  “It’s okay.” I lay a hand on Callum’s back. “Don’t make them shoot you over me.”

  “They’re going to shoot me anyway,” he says. “They just don’t want to risk the laser going through me into you. Why?” he adds, and now he’s talking to the guards. “Shaw want her brought in alive?”

  “He wants you both alive, if possible,” Dalton says. “Scott Hansen’s son’s on his way, and he wants to pull the trigger himself, but he’s not a hunting enthusiast. Wants you both bound and gagged on your knees in front of him. But if we have to choose between you, we have orders to pick her.”

  “Why? I killed Scott Hansen.”

  “Yeah, but his son saw your home movies and thinks she’ll be more…fun.”

  “You even look at her, and I’ll rip your eyes right out of your head,” Callum growls.

  “Just shoot him in the leg,” the first guard says. “If it kills him, so what? As long as Junior gets to play with the girl before he kills her, he’ll be happy with Shaw, and Shaw will be happy with us.”

  “No,” Dalton insists. “Call it in. We’ll have them surrounded in minutes, and they’ll both go down easy.”

  I glance at the progress bar. Lucky is eighty percent dry. Come on, dog! What was the point of “taming” him if can’t defend us when we need him?

  We need another ninety seconds.

  “Wait.” I step around Callum, my hands held up at shoulder height, palms out, where I can see the wrist screen, but the guards cannot.

  “Maci, get back,” Callum hisses.

  “I’m freezing,” I tell him. “They have rifles. And I’m tired of running.”

  “No.” He believes what I’m saying because it’s all true. Even if I don’t mean any of it.

  “I’ll go easily,” I tell the guards. “Just promise me one thing.” The progress bar is at ninety-two percent.

  “We’re not here to make deals,” the first guard says, while at the same time Dalton asks, “What do you want?”

  “A quick death.” Ninety-five percent.

  I can’t be sure in the dark, but Dalton seems to be rolling his eyes. “That’s not up to us.”

  Ninety-eight percent. “Oh, wait. Never mind.” I give him a soft smile. “That’s what I was going to offer you.”

  One hundred percent.

  Lucky races past me without a sound but the pounding of his metal paws against the ground. The first guard screams. Half a second later, Lucky’s forepaws hit the guard’s chest, knocking him over. The scream dies in a wet gurgle.

  Dalton backs away, shouting, aiming his pistol at Lucky. He’s so terrified he’s forgotten that we’re as dangerous as the robo-dog.

  Callum tackles him, ramming his shoulder into the side of Dalton’s rib cage. Driving him to the ground with the crunch of bone. Dalton’s pistol clatters to the ground, and I kick it out of his reach.

  Callum sits up, pinning Dalton with his weight on the guard’s broken ribs. He punches him in the face over and over, pulverizing Dalton’s lips, and teeth, and nose, while he screams. While I can only stand there, stunned.

  When Dalton goes limp, Callum climbs off of him. As soon as he’s clear, Lucky lunges at the motionless figure on the ground. He clamps his metal muzzle around Dalton’s throat, his steel teeth shredding flesh and bone as if it were paper. Two seconds later, he steps back.

  Dalton has nearly been decapitated. His spine shows through the bloody, tattered remains of his neck, and only once I realize I can see that in disturbingly clear detail do I realize the sun is starting to rise.

  Our fourth day in the enclosure has begun.

  16

  CALLUM

  “Holy fuck.” I back away from the carnage, staring at the hurricane of destruction “Lucky” has just unleashed. I beat Dalton halfway into the afterlife. He would have been dead of head trauma in minutes. But the hound….

  Dalton’s throat is shredded. The other guard’s chest has caved in from the weight of the metal beast.

  For a second, I can only stare, thinking back to how I met Maci. How she was running from two of those tin bastards. She would have been less than a snack for either one of them. Yet this one now follows her commands more loyally than any flesh-and-blood dog ever would.

  Despite that fact, I turn to find her staring, just as shocked as I am. “You told him to do that?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s his base command. Kill enemies. That’s what he would have done to us, if I hadn’t inverted the parameters defining enemy.”

  “So, the only reason he didn’t attack Dalton earlier is…”

  “Because you were on top of him. He won’t go through a ‘friend’ to get to an ‘enemy.’”

  “What took him so long?”

  “He was waterlogged from the stream.” She’s shivering again, and I can’t tell whether that’s from the cold or from shock. “I was trying to stall while his system dried out.”

  “Holy fuck,” I whisper as my gaze is drawn back to the slaughter.

  “You already said that.”

  “It’s worth repeating.” I finally tear my focus from the two dead guards and scan what I can see of the sky for either of the patrol shuttles. “We need to get going. When the shuttles don’t find us between here and the northern wall, they’ll come back. And there are probably more guards nearby.”

  “Just a minute.” Maci stares down at the corpse with the crushed chest. “He’s kind of small for a guard. Think his pants would fit me?”

  “No.”

  She frowns. “Even with the belt cinched?”

  “Still no. But it’s worth a shot. Help me get them off.”

  Together, we wrestle the pants from the corpse. They are pretty small, and by some miracle, they’ve escaped blood splatter.

  Though I couldn’t fit one thigh into them, they fall right off of Maci until she folds the material in at her hips and cinches the belt. She rolls up the cuffs and tries on the guard’s boots, but those are way too big for her to run in, so with a disappointed look, she slips back into the thin rubber shoes.

  “What are you smiling about?” she asks when she catches me staring.

  “You look hot in a uniform.” I shrug. “Of course, you also look hot out of a uniform.”

  “You too. I’m going refill the bottles in the stream. Will you search their pockets?”

  “Yeah.” As I kneel in the dirt, she drops a purification tablet into each of three bottles, and Lucky follows her toward the water, blood still dripping from his gory metal muzzle.

  The guards don’t have supply packs, which tells me they’re either not planning to be out here for long, or that somewhere there’s a vehicle or another guard carrying supplies for the group. But there are several pockets in their uniforms, and they’re a virtual treasure trove of things I haven’t had access to since before I was arrested.

  Dalton’s pants hold a lighter, a pocket knife, a small flashlight, an actual fucking chocolate bar, a
nd a container of breath mints. There’s a full canteen of water clipped to his belt loop—and another one clipped to the pants Maci’s wearing—as well as an emergency flare in a case clipped to the other side of his belt.

  Dalton’s shirt pockets hold a peanut-butter-flavored protein bar and half of a vending machine sandwich.

  And, of course, both guards are wearing wrist coms.

  “Would it do me any good to take this?” I hold up Dalton’s arm to show her the com. “Could you make it work with my fingerprints?”

  “Not without accessing the system again and showing them where we are. Oh!” Her eyes light up. “Are his fingers still warm?”

  I grab the corpse’s hand. “Yes.

  “Great. Let’s see what he’s got access to…” She plops down on the ground next to him, careful to avoid the puddle of blood still soaking into the dirt beneath his neck, and uses the index finger of his right hand to tap on the com strapped to his left wrist. “Dalton using his own com won’t set off any alarms as long as they don’t know he’s dead.”

  “Which means we can find another shelter?”

  “Yes! I hadn’t thought of that, but we could both definitely use some rest. And what I was actually going to try might give us a little more time to spend there.”

  Curious, I watch her tap out a message using a corpse’s finger, a technique she’s getting disturbingly good at. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m telling the rest of the guards and the shuttle pilots that Dalton and his partner, whose name is evidently R. Nellis, have captured us and are bringing us in. And that they should all rendezvous back at the main gate. Which is the one that leads back into the Resort.”

  “You’re sending them home?” Damn. My hellkitten is smart.

  “Yes. And even if they figure out these guys are dead before they get all the way there, it’s nearly a full day’s hike back to the gate from here, according to Dalton’s map. At the pace they were keeping, anyway. This should give us several hours of rest. At the least.”