The Hunter’s Treasure

by Lily Diamond

  It doesn’t take me long to figure out what’s going on, and it makes my cheeks burn with anger. My fists clench. Chad. Somehow, he’s either planted a transmitter in this room, or...he’s very close.

  Heart beating hard from anger, I take off my headphones and move as quietly as I can around the room, shining my tactical flashlight around, looking for gleams from hidden electronics. I don’t see any...but my eye is drawn to the open heating duct on the nearby wall. It leads straight up and down inside the wall, opening onto every floor.

  I crouch near it and listen hard, my eyes narrowing. There’s part of me—a small, sad, disappointed part—that hopes that this is not what I think it is. But I’m a big girl, and though it saddens the romantic in me, I’m not surprised when I hear soft snickering coming from below me.

  Oh, fuck you. I grab my cell phone and my flashlight, move quietly over to the doorway, and step outside into the cavernous, drafty hallway. I know where the spots on the stairs are that creak, and avoid them on my way down to kick some serious ass.

  I smell pot on my way down the stairs and my scowl turns into a smirk. This idiot has been down here getting high for hours, probably freezing his skinny ass off as he smokes through his stash and slowly loses focus as he tries to ruin my EVPs. And maybe he has managed to ruin some of them, but in return, he just handed me comedy gold—and even more material for my comeback.

  Recording video on my phone just like old times, I whisper into my phone. “Okay, guys, I was in the middle of recording EVPs when I found out that I’m not alone in here. And I’m not talking a squatter or a stalker, or a ghost. Nope.”

  My voice is still perky. Still unsinkable. “So someone decided he would show up and whisper up through the old heating ducts so he could mess up hours of my EVP recordings. Guys, who do we know who might try something like that?”

  I hurry quietly to the examination room below the area where I had been taping, the smell of pot leading me like a beacon. Once I get close I can even see a dim light coming from inside. My anger comes back, but I hide it behind a firm smile as I advance on the room.

  I step inside and see the huddled figure leaning against the wall at one side of the heating grate. He’s starting to whisper into it again when I shine the light on him. “Busted!”

  The scared-little-boy look of horror on his face as he tries to cringe out of the circle of light thrown by my flashlight is the same one he wore when I caught his ass in bed with Barbara. In its own way, it’s as satisfying as it is outrageous. “Well damn, Chad, just when I thought you couldn’t get douchier than fucking my roommate and trying to get my channel taken down, here you are, trying to fuck up my comeback video too.”

  “I was just—I was...” He stammers, shielding his dull hazel eyes with a hand. His dark brown hair is stiff with gel, and he’s still dressed like a skater even though he can’t board worth a damn. I can smell that scent that is uniquely Chad—a combination of pot, cheap cologne, and unwashed socks. It’s so strong I would be able to smell it from across the room.

  “I know what you were doing, dude. I’ve got your voice on tape with a timestamp. It will hold up in court, if the owner decides to press charges on you for trespassing.” I’m still recording as he paces back and forth along the wall like a trapped animal.

  “Trespassing? You’re crazy! Even the guard knows I’m with you!”

  “Nope. He knows you’re not part of my team anymore.” I use the term deliberately. I could break this boy like a twig in a fight, but he’s just the kind of coward to get belligerent if he thinks I’m here alone. My headache’s bad enough already, so I bluff.

  He looks up and around nervously. “You’re not here alone?”

  I don’t know what causes it, but immediately after he says that we both hear a soft thud and creak upstairs. Light, stealthy sounds, like those of a cat jumping in through the window could make. But they do sound a bit like footsteps.

  He looks up in alarm. “What the fuck, did you move on so fucking fast, you slut? Who is he?”

  I keep making shit up because I don’t have a choice. “My new camera guy, you mean. So, Chad the giant manwhore who has been through three girls so far since me—in a month—while I haven’t even dated, is jealous? Chad the master projectionist?” I say sarcastically as I advance on him slowly, and he backs away from me.

  “Hey, whoa, come on, no need to get salty.” He laughs nervously. “I just get jealous because this...all this...used to be ours. This project was our baby.”

  His fake sincerity makes me sick. I can’t believe that I ever fell for it before.

  “No, jackass, this project is my baby. I started it, I have always put in the bulk of the work, and your lazy butt got kicked to the curb a month ago. And everybody knows that.” I get a good shot of his very nervous expression. “Now get out. And don’t bother me or my viewers again.”

  I record him scurrying out of the room, and chase him down the hall with the camera while he glances back and swears. “Stop fucking filming!” he yells, knowing how many of his former fans will be laughing at him now. “Stop it! Oh come on, Amanda! Don’t be a bitch!”

  “Couldn’t be a bigger bitch than you!” I call cheerily as I chase him all the way out the front door. The last I see of him, he’s running down the hill toward the front gate. I film him the whole way, and then turn the phone to my own laughing face.

  I stop filming and shove my phone in my pocket, walking back inside slowly while the smile drops off my face. I’m angry, sad, and God help me, so fucking lonely that I’m swallowing back tears as I make my way back up the stairs. It’s hard as hell to get over the biggest romantic mistake of your life when he won’t leave you alone.

  “Fuck,” I mumble. My head is pounding with the effort not to cry. I’m wearing professional quality fixative on my makeup so I don’t have to worry about crying it off when I have to be on camera, but it’s the principle of the thing. I don’t want to shed any more tears because of Chad.

  Chad is a lot of things besides a cheating, perpetual child. He lies constantly, hates any kind of responsibility, makes a mess, forgets things, likes drugs and booze way too much, and God, he is a disaster in bed.

  A softboy uses foreplay as a weapon, using just enough to get you hot and bothered and then forgetting about everything but rooting around in your cunt once his dick is out. He leaves you half-done, maybe a little sore from his perfunctory fumbling, and the boredom and frustration sets in soon enough after that.

  Chad, fortunately, rarely lasted more than a couple of minutes, and his dick isn’t big enough to leave anyone sore. But he always acted like something was wrong with me when his half-assed fucking never got me off. That’s when I learned that “frigid” is a word that scumbag men use to shift blame for their inadequacy in the sack.

  I’m so distracted by fighting with my emotions that I forget for a moment about the soft sounds that I’d heard upstairs. When I walk in through the door, I freeze in place as I see a tall black figure with a bulbous head crouched on the floor across the room. It takes everything I have not to scream aloud.

  Chapter Four

  Drake

  I run into a problem as soon as I slip inside the hospital. Someone has set up some kind of video shoot in some of the rooms—including the one that the diamonds are in. On top of that, some stupid-looking kid is hiding on the second floor directly below the room I want.

  After nearly walking in on him, I'm stuck making my way up to the fourth floor room directly above the mental health section. There, I can listen in on the videographer—a perky-sounding girl—in peace. I quickly discover that I really have stumbled upon a film shoot of sorts.

  I've stumbled upon a ghost hunter!

  After a few hours of listening, I learn that her disgruntled little lout of an ex-boyfriend is the kid I ran into downstairs, and he’s trying to wreck her show for revenge. When she finally catches him and goes downstairs to confront him, I think that my chance has finally come to retr
ieve the jewels. The problem is the stupid boy lets himself get chased out in under a minute, and she comes back upstairs before I can retrieve my treasure.

  Her strangled gasp of shock startles me. I look up to see a pair of enormous green eyes staring at me from behind the hard glare of a tactical flashlight. I can’t make out much of her while squinting against that penetrating light. I can only see her outline...which even under the circumstances catches my eye right away.

  I have a split second to decide what to do: run for it and leave her wondering why I was in the room looking like I was going to search it from top to bottom, or try to charm her into forgetting that I shouldn’t be here. One more glance at those bottomless green eyes and I make my choice, holding up a hand. “Whoa!”

  She stops dead, blinking in surprise. I reach up and remove the helmet, giving her the most disarming smile I can manage as I show my face. “Sorry! I was scouting the building and I saw a light.”

  Three very telling things happen at once: her gaze sweeps over my face and then down over the rest of me; her guard relaxes halfway; and she rolls her eyes. “Oh holy crap, I thought you were Slender Man’s beefcake cousin or something. Who are you and what are you doing on my set?”

  She lowers the light enough that I can see past it...and now it’s my turn to eat her up with my eyes in return. She is a cute, hot, curvy girl with a sweet face. Her lustrous auburn braid has me imagining what it would feel like in my fist, and that voluptuous body makes me want to hug her tight and fuck her at the same time.

  “Your...set? Wow. Uh, sorry. Look, I’m Drake, and I was just scouting the building site for some of my urban-explorer buddies when I saw your lights and then heard voices. I didn’t mean to startle you, I swear.” I hold my empty hands out and keep my voice calm and reassuring.

  She lets out a sigh. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’m Amanda, and I’m doing a ghost hunting segment here for my channel. Christ, take your helmet off next time, seriously. My heart almost stopped.”

  She moves into the light of the work lamp and turns off her flashlight. “Urbex? I sometimes run into people who are into that while doing my shows.” She’s considering me. Her eyes skim over the contours of my body under the leather, more subtly than a man would, but bolder than expected.

  I look at her and remember that I haven’t touched a woman in six long, ugly months. It’s like a wave of heat from an oven washing over me. My skin tingles and my cock starts pushing insistently against the leather.

  What about seducing her? The delicious idea dances through my mind.

  I’m pretty confident that I can get her into bed if I can gain her trust. Even in a dusty, creepy old place like this, I still have game for days. And fucking her til she falls into an exhausted sleep, then grabbing the pouch and circling back to her sounds like a much nicer way of spending the night than out on the road.

  I lick my dry lips. “Yeah, I wanted to make sure the place was safe and a good venue before we come through with thousand dollar Go Pros and stuff.”

  Shop talk. Something relatable. I have to get her trust as fast as possible, or she’s going to get real uncooperative—and I wouldn’t blame her.

  The suspicion is slowly leaving her expression. “Well, I admit, this place would be great for an urban exploration series. We might even be able to cooperate a little if things work out.” She moves a little closer to me. “So what’s with the motorcycle helmet?”

  “Well, I have a motorcycle helmet handy since I rode my bike over. It’s cheaper and easier to wear it in when scouting than to take it off and replace it with gear that does the same thing.” I give her a little ironic wink, and she actually laughs a bit.

  “That’s fair enough, though in the dark it makes you look like an unusually hot Creepypasta villain.” She’s smiling at me again, and it warms more than my cock. She’s smart, creative, has one hell of an interesting hobby, and she’s that perfect mix of cute and hot that really disarms me.

  I lift an eyebrow. “Unusually hot?”

  Even in the dim light I can see her cheeks color as she glances away. “Well...yeah. Anyway, I just wasn’t expecting anyone else here tonight.” Then her expression goes speculative as she eyes me up. “Does the owner know you’re here?”

  I let my gaze shift a little in mock awkwardness. “Uh...well...no. I don’t usually bother at the scouting stage.” At her disapproving look, I give her my most disarmingly sheepish one. Anything to make myself seem a little less like a big, threatening guy in a lot of leather who just accidentally scared her socks off. “Besides, I’m not sure who to talk to.”

  The corner of her mouth tugs up. “I’ve got the owner’s contact information. You need to check in with him before you schedule any explorations here. Folks in Atlanta get pretty territorial about trespassing.”

  “Crap. That bad, huh? I didn’t know.” I should find a way of stashing things locally that doesn’t involve trespassing onto any place with security. I look around, making sure to keep my eyes off the patch of floor where I hid the diamonds under loose tiles and a broken floorboard.

  “Yeah. Also, if you don’t know this place, it is really easy to get lost. We had some urban explorer guys in here before us. One of them got lost in here for over a day.” She nods as she keeps eye contact, while I stare at her in genuine shock. “I’m quite serious.”

  “Wait, what? Did the guy get drunk or something? How did he get lost for a whole day?” That actually surprises me, although chatting this woman up and calming her down is more important than what we’re talking about.

  She is calming down, by cautious degrees. While I might be lying to her, her instinct to trust me isn’t wrong; I’m not here to harm her, and I won’t unless I absolutely have to. I might trick her or distract her a little, but only as much as it takes to get my hands on the jewels without her noticing.

  “No, actually.” She smiles a little. “This place has stood for over a century, and has changed ownership almost a dozen times—with new additions and renovations made with almost every owner. Five stories, three sub basements, and many wings that don’t quite match up. It’s not quite the Winchester mystery house, but in some ways it’s even easier to get lost in here.”

  “Wow. Damn. So going down in there alone is probably a bad idea.” I scratch the back of my neck, standing with one hip slightly lower than the other, very aware of her eyes on me. She seems to like what she’s seeing. Good. It will make things easier. “That kinda puts a monkey wrench in my night’s plans.”

  She hesitates...and then that luminous smile lights her face again and she offers, “If you need a guide, I know this building like the back of my hand. I’ve gotten lost in it too many times not to.”

  “Yeah?” That’s fairly impressive, though right now I’m more excited by the opportunity to get closer to her. Seducing her is just a means to an end—but what a delightful means. “That would be awesome. I know there’s no reliable floor plan available.”

  “Nope. First time I came in here, my idiot ex and I got lost for half the damn night. Six hours. It was ridiculous. I’m just glad I found the way out.” Her smile flickers a moment.

  “Me too. So,” I let my smile and tone get a touch flirty. “What’s a guy gotta do to get a guided tour of this place?”

  “It’s simple,” she proposes. “You help me film the rest of my special, and I’ll show you some of the really weird stuff this building has going for it.”

  “You know what, I’m fine with that. One condition, though.” My eyelids lower slightly and I let my smile go a bit flirty again.

  “What’s that?” she asks, her voice a touch softer and her eyes intrigued.

  “After we’re done, you let me take you for a drink.” My real desire, besides the diamonds, is to get straight to relieving this growing ache in my loins, but I’m still feeling her out. Seeing how into it she is.

  But then she smiles, and I know I’ve got her hooked.

  Chapter Five

  Amanda

>   The “monster” that initially scared the crap out of me has turned out to be the hottest guy I’ve ever met—all silver blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and black leather over bulging muscle. His smile is like a flash of light, and from the way he’s looking at me, I’m starting to think tonight might have a much happier ending than I’d expected.

  This is no softboy, but at the same time, I know he’s got some kind of agenda outside of what he’s told me. Whatever it is I suspect it involves fucking me, and I’m already half sold on that idea. It’s more than looks; he’s got a brain in his head, and something resembling a conscience, which puts him above Chad in those categories too.

  He seems to have understood his mistake in shocking me like that, and has been working very hard to try to put me at ease. I appreciate it, and it’s working. Once again, that puts him a cut above Chad.