Hunter

by Emmy Chandler

  Cooper spins toward the door as a thunk echoes from the hallway, and I recognize the sound of a body hitting the floor. A second after that, I hear a gurgling sound, then a second thunk.

  “Call for backup,” Cooper says, his voice tense. But before the guard on duty can tap on his screen, the door slides open.

  Maci stands in the hallway, her hair framing her face in wild brown waves, a droplet of blood rolling down her left cheek. Her hands hang empty at her sides, a wrist com strapped to her left arm, and at first, I can’t figure out how the guards lying at her feet died. How the wall behind her got splattered in blood.

  Then four metal hounds appear at her sides, their razor blade teeth still dripping blood. “Heel,” she says, and they sit in a circle around her.

  Holy. Shit.

  “What the fuck…?” the guard on duty says.

  Cooper draws his gun. “Shoot!” he orders as he fires.

  “No!” I throw myself at the bars, grasping for him, but he’s out of reach.

  His trigger clicks softly, but nothing else happens. The other guard fires over and over, but again, there are no streaks of red light. No holes appear in the walls, or the dogs, or in my little hellkitten.

  “Let him out,” she says, and she still hasn’t looked at me. She’s focused on Cooper. “Cooperate, and I’ll let you live.”

  “Fuck you!” he tries to fire again, but his gun may as well be a child’s toy.

  “Attack,” Maci says.

  Metal hounds thunder into the room, and she follows them inside. Cooper screams. The other guard tries to flee around my cage, but the dogs are on them in less than a second, steel jaws snapping. Heavy front paws driving them to the ground.

  It’s over in a heartbeat. I stare, stunned, as a rivulet of blood runs from Cooper’s shredded throat beneath the bars of my cell, then down the waste hole into the running water.

  Out of people to kill, the hounds head back to Maci’s side, where they sit in a protective formation around her.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper while she taps on the screen strapped to her wrist. “What the fuck?” I have no better words, but she only laughs. Then my cell door swings open, and she throws herself at me.

  I pick her up in a hug, and the heat of her body against me, even through her clothes, is the most blissful thing I’ve ever felt. I’m not sure I can ever let her go again.

  “I was so afraid they’d already executed you!” Her mouth crashes into mine before I can answer, and I settle her legs around my hips, pressing her against the bars while I claim her mouth. Showing her that I’m fine. That I’m still here. Still hers.

  That she is still mine.

  My cock strains for her through the thin material of my briefs, and she laughs against my mouth. “I want that too. But first we have to get out of here. We have to get everyone else out of here.”

  “You did it.” Reluctantly, I let her slide to the floor. “I can’t believe you fucking did this!”

  “Well, I’m not done yet. In fact, you were my first stop.” She tugs me from my cell, and the hounds follow us toward the hall, like a deadly metal entourage. “The hard part’s still ahead, but Callum, we can do this.”

  I believe her. I always believed her. I just didn’t want her to take the risk, but now… “You actually disabled the guns? All of them?” That was her big idea. A way to even the odds between the guards and the inmates. To cause the chaos we’d need, in order to escape.

  She nods, her bright smile an odd counterpoint to the carnage lying all around us. “I wiped every print from the database. There isn’t a functioning gun in all of zone two. At the Resort or in the enclosure.”

  “Holy shit.” I run one hand through my hair, trying to wrap my mind around it all. “Okay. What’s next?”

  “We set everyone free. I’ll take the women, you take the men?”

  “Hell no. We’re not splitting up.” I’m never letting her out of my sight again.

  “Okay. So, the women first? I kind of want to get them out of here before we let the men free. I’m assuming they’re not all like you.”

  “Actually, they are. That’s both a problem and an advantage.”

  She frowns up at me. “I mean, they’re not all going to be nice, like you are.”

  “Hellkitten, I’m not nice. Well, not to anyone else,” I clarify. “But I see your point. Most of the men will be a threat to the women, but they’ll also be a threat to the guards. If we let them out first, I think they’ll be so preoccupied with tearing this place to the ground they might not even notice when we let the women out. I don’t think they even know there are women here. I didn’t, before I met you.”

  “Maybe we can get the women out without the men seeing them. If we don’t march them past death row…”

  “I’ll leave that up to you and your map. Follow me. The cellblocks are downstairs.” I lead Maci and her pack of metal hounds down the hall into a dark, concrete stairwell. The dogs sound like a stampede of horses on the steps, and when we get to the bottom, there are six guards waiting for us, guns drawn, either because someone upstairs raised an alarm, or because they understand that nothing making that much racket could possibly be coming to hug them to death.

  The second the hounds emerge from the stairwell, the slaughter begins.

  I grab Maci’s hand and lead her past screaming, flailing, bleeding bodies and the clatter of useless guns against the floor. “Wait,” she says as I tug her past the door to cellblock A. Then cellblock B. “Where are you going?”

  “We should start with F. I trust Graham to help us with the women.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure…” She stops outside of F block and taps something on her screen. The door swings open, and I march inside, viscerally satisfied by the reversal of fortune. By the fact that I’m uncuffed and uncaged, while the guard at the other end of the aisle suddenly looks confused and terrified.

  “What the fuck?” He draws his gun.

  “Try it.” I hold my hands up, daring him to shoot me while his wrist com translates. He pulls the trigger, and when nothing happens, his eyes go wide with panic. He backs toward the door at the other end of the aisle.

  A buzz rises from the cells on either side of me, celebratory shouts and questions I can’t understand, and Maci’s translator can’t keep up with.

  “You ready?” she calls, as my former neighbors get to their feet, and I can hardly hear the translation over the noise around us. All eyes turn her way, and before they can start shouting obscene offers at her, I march back down the aisle and stand in front of her.

  “Shut the fuck up, if you want out of here!” The chatter dies down as her wrist com repeats my order in the common language. “The guards are fair game, but if any of you fuckers even look at her, I’ll rip your fucking faces off.”

  Several of them laugh. I could take any of them one on one, but they know I’m outnumbered. They’ll take her from me if they can. But they have no idea what they’re up against.

  Then two of the hounds come to a stop at Maci’s side, having finished their slaughter in the hallway. Our mechanical backup has arrived. The laughter and grumbling fades into tense silence.

  “Okay. Go for it,” I say.

  Maci taps her screen again, and every cell in F block opens.

  The guard disappears through the door at the other end of the aisle. Two of the inmates race after him, but the door won’t open.

  I glance at Maci and she gives me a shrug—she locked the door to protect the guard. She’s clearly willing to kill those who stand in her way, but there are lines she won’t cross.

  That’s naive of her. But what’s done is done, and this is her coup.

  The hounds and I guard Maci while the inmates of F block evacuate. Graham is at the end of the line, eyeing the dogs while he tries to figure out how to safely approach.

  I wave him forward. He casts another doubtful glance at the hounds, then comes toward us with his hand extended. I shake it, then clap him on the ba
ck. We’ve been neighbors for a year, and I’m just now getting to shake his hand. Like a free man.

  “I knew if anyone could survive the hunt, it’d be you, Fischer, but this…” His eyes widen as the last four hounds finish taking down a squad of guard reinforcements, then walk right past the inmates on their way toward us. “What the hell is this?” He’s speaking my language, and Maci listens for the translation from her wrist com.

  “This is Maci,” I say. “They put her in the enclosure with me, and she wasn’t willing to shake the dust off our shoes until we’d pretty much burnt this place to the ground.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he says in her language, and though the formal greeting sounds absurd, while we’re surrounded by bloody corpses and metal hounds, she seems pleased by the civility of it.

  “You too.” Maci turns to me. “I’m going to let the rest of them out. We really need to get going.” Then she starts tapping on her screen again.

  “You up for a rescue mission?” I ask Graham, as the doors to cellblocks A through E slide open. Seconds later, death row inmates emerge from their long-term prison, looking confused and eager. Then stunned, as they take in the carnage.

  “Um…yeah,” Graham says. “Who are we rescuing?”

  I start to answer, but Maci lays a hand on my arm. “Not here,” she says with a glance around at the other inmates, who still have no idea their recreational efforts aren’t limited to killing the guards who’ve spent the past few months starving, beating, and electrocuting them.

  Maci uses her map to lead us through F block and out the door at the other end of the aisle, where we find another stairwell, unoccupied by either guards or inmates. Third floor,” she says as we climb, surrounded by the heavy thump of metal paws.

  “What’s on the third floor?” Graham asks.

  “Women,” Maci says. “We need to get them out of here without drawing the attention of either the inmates or the guards. Though if we have to choose, avoid the inmates. The dogs will kill the guards on-site, unless I stop them.”

  Graham seems to be processing that for several seconds, as we climb. “I can’t believe they’re putting women in the enclosure,” he says at last. “How could we not know that?”

  “They’re not here to be hunted,” I tell him. “They’re like party favors for the guests.”

  Maci snorts. “Until we fight back.” She glances at the map on her screen as we approach the top of the stairwell. “Okay, there’s an open area on the other side of that door. The client suites overlooking the lawn and the enclosure are on the left; we are not going that way. The dorm is down the hallway to the right. We’re going to get the women, then lead them down the hall in the other direction. There’s another stairwell at that end, and it’s normally locked, but I can fix that.”

  “Then what?” Graham asks. “This is all awesome, but is there a long-term plan?”

  Maci motions for me to answer while she taps on her screen.

  “The plan is to let the rest of the death row inmates tear this place apart, so we can escape into one of the open population zones in the chaos.”

  “We’re in zone two.” Maci holds her arm out, so we can see the map on her screen. “It’s heavily fortified, but thanks to Commander Harris’s com, I have access. The quickest way out is to head southeast from the front of the building until we hit the gate into zone three.”

  Graham nods, studying the map. “You don’t think they’ll come after us?”

  I shrug. “I don’t think there’ll be enough of them left on the ground to come after us. Station Alpha will send reinforcements, but with any luck, they’ll be too busy trying to secure this place and round up the inmates to chase the rest of us. Especially once we’ve made it through the gate.”

  “I wanted to try to get everyone out.” Maci looks up at him with an earnest expression. “But Callum convinced me that most of the guys on death row actually belong there.”

  “He’s right,” Graham says. “And you do not want to try to corral any of them along with the women.”

  “Agreed.” She nods. “So, I’ve decided to believe that even if they get shot when Station Alpha sends reinforcements, that’s a better death than they’d have out in the enclosure.”

  “It is,” I assure her.

  She’s too good for me. She deserves better. But I’m not going to let her go. I’m too selfish, and she’s too fragile, despite how badass she is here, in her element.

  I owe her protection, and if that keeps her at my side, even better.

  Maci squares her shoulders and pets the dog next to her right leg between its ears. As if it were flesh and blood. “Everybody ready?”

  Graham and I nod.

  Maci opens the door and walks into a lobby area outside the stairwell. I step around the hounds trying to follow her out, leaving Graham stuck on the landing until they’ve all passed.

  “Oh, shit,” Maci breathes, and I look up to find a dozen guards facing off against us, across the tile floor. Blocking the hallway leading to the dorm.

  Their holsters are noticeable empty, but each one of them carries a thick metal baton.

  “Don’t worry,” I whisper as the hounds fan out around her and Graham finally joins us. “Your pack will shred them.”

  “Now!” the guard on the end shouts, as he presses a button on the end of his baton.

  The familiar soft hum of electricity echoes across the lobby toward us, and it takes me a second to understand what Maci’s obviously already figured out.

  Their batons are electrified.

  22

  MACI

  I count twelve guards, each carrying an electrified baton and wearing thickly padded body armor. They’ve clearly figured out that their guns no longer work.

  “Put your hands in the air and face the wall,” the guard at the end calls out. They’re too far away for their chips to trigger an attack by the hounds, but I can send my pack after them with a single word. Yet I’m not sure I should.

  I don’t think their body armor will do much against teeth made of razor blades, but those batons… If the hounds’ exterior metal “skin” isn’t well grounded and the batons have enough amperage, one touch could fry their circuitry. That’s a lot of ifs. And the batons could just be a bluff.

  But they have four more batons than I have hounds.

  “What’s the plan?” Graham whispers from my right. “I’m good for at least two of them. Maybe three.”

  “Same here,” Callum says. “So, Maci, if you and your hounds can get the other six, I guess we’re good to go.”

  I can’t tell whether or not he’s joking. Until I look up and see his grim smile. They’re serious.

  “Stay back,” he whispers. “No matter what.”

  I want to argue, but I know better. I’m good at several things, but fighting isn’t one of them. Which leaves me only one move to make.

  “Attack!” I say in a loud, clear voice.

  The hounds stampede across the lobby, cracking floor tiles with every step.

  “Hit them in the muzzle!” The guard on the end takes a defensive stance with his baton raised. “There’s a diagnostics port in their noses.”

  Shit. That port is a direct electrical connection to the robo-dogs’ most vulnerable systems.

  The hounds slam into the guards like steel hammers, their razor teeth slicing through padded armor as if it were no more substantial than silk. Men scream. Several drop their weapons as the arms wielding them are shredded beneath layers of blood-soaked padding.

  A couple of the guards are driven to the floor, crushed by the hounds pinning them. The four who weren’t targeted by a hound lunge into action, swinging their batons at the muzzle of every dog in their path, like angry owners swatting pets with rolled up newspapers.

  One by one, the hounds go still with a soft sizzling sound and a smell like burnt ozone. When it’s over, there are five guards still standing, two with broken, bleeding arms. All five wielding electrified batons.

&
nbsp; “Stay back,” Callum repeats. Then he and Graham race in where the hounds have failed.

  I watch, transfixed, as Callum ducks, swings, and spins into kicks, targeting the electrified batons with the rubber soles of his shoes. Both men punch like their fists are made of iron, and though Graham clearly has some kind of formal training, Callum fights with a vicious abandon that seems to know no boundaries.

  And, it turns out, they can handle two or three guards at a time. Each.

  When three of the remaining guards lie on the ground, incapacitated but still breathing shallowly, I begin edging around the perimeter of the lobby, eager to ease past the fight and into the dorm. To start explaining to the women what’s happening, while Callum and Graham finish up with the guards.

  I’ve only made it a few steps when a hand closes over my mouth from behind. An arm wraps around my waist and lifts me off my feet, then swings me around to face the stairwell…where I find two more large men waiting.

  I kick and flail, trying to scream, but in less than a second, I’m in the stairwell. The door closes behind me, and the man holding me sets me on the landing but keeps his hand over my mouth as he leans down to whisper into my ear.

  “If you scream, I will rip your tongue right out of your head. Do you understand?”

  I nod frantically. When he lets me go, I spin out of his grip and back up until I hit the wall, my heart pounding a panicked, irregular rhythm in my ears. One of the men has his back pressed to the door and another is blocking the stairs. All three of them are huge.

  “Cooperate, and you’ll live,” the one on the landing with me—the one who took me—says. “Fight, and…well, that’ll just be more fun for us.”

  “Okay, let’s talk about this.” The back of my throat tastes like fear, sour and metallic. But I can’t let them see that. Men like this feed on fear. “I can get you out of here. I can—”

  The man on the landing grabs two handfuls of the front of my shirt and pulls me toward him. His arms flex, and he rips the material open, from collar to hem. His tongue snakes out to wet his lips. Then he spins me and grabs me around my rib cage, pinning my arms to my sides. “Get her pants off.”