Chapter 6 Maeve
MAEVE
This time I was prepared. I plunged into the blackness without hesitation, inhaling the familiar scent of the tunnels, damp and cold, dead things beyond the stone walls.
I’d been anxious in the days leading up to the Hunt. The ten hours I’d spent under Blackwell Falls three months ago had been scary and disorienting, but that had been because I hadn’t known what to expect.
Like most things in life, just knowing made everything less scary.
Which didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid at all. I didn’t know what it meant that Bram had marked me with his blood in the holding room, but I guessed it was a way to tell the other teams that he, Poe, and Remy were claiming me as their prey.
That scared me more than anything, because this time, losing would cost me more than my body.
The possibility pushed me forward, and I plowed through the darkness, running at full speed, knowing the first red light would appear in less than a minute.
Last time, I’d moved cautiously, not quite sure what was up ahead. Now I ran at full speed, knowing the old junk inside the tunnel was stacked against the walls where I couldn’t trip over it.
The chatter of other girls jockeying for position fell away as I reached the first red light. I remembered the blonde who’d caught up with me at the start of the last Hunt and wondered what had happened to her.
I hoped she’d gotten what she’d wanted. One of us should have.
I ran until my lungs burned, slowing down as I approached the first of the digital clocks scattered throughout the tunnels. It glowed red, the numbers telling me that I’d been running for a full nine minutes.
Based on my pace on the track at Blackwell High, I should be about a mile into the tunnels (what can I say? I never claimed to be an olympic runner). Adjusting for the disorienting darkness, I figured I was at least three quarters of a mile past the start of the Hunt.
I slowed my pace and tried to listen for the men over the huff of my labored breathing, but as far as I could tell, it was quiet. The men were either far behind me or moving too stealthily to hear.
I called up the maps of Blackwell Falls I’d studied in the three weeks since I’d left the Butchers’ loft.
Assuming I was right about my position, I was probably near Chasen’s, the upscale bistro on the north side of town.
The restaurant was a recent addition to Blackwell Falls, renovated eight years earlier when the town started to gentrify, but thanks to my research, I knew the building was old and had been there since the late 1800s.
If I was right about the tunnels, they would end less than a half mile ahead if I kept going straight.
A dead end would be catastrophic, so I turned left, mostly because I’d turned right last time, and I hoped to throw the Butchers off if they tried to retrace my steps from the last Hunt.
I needed some new moves in my repertoire, and pretty much all I had at my disposal was the stamina I’d built running on the track after my shifts at Lushberry and my newfound understanding of the history and layout of downtown Blackwell Falls.
I’d stuck to the right side of Main Street during the first Hunt, and it felt strange to know I was traveling under the road this time.
Far above me, Saturday night was underway, the north side of town closed up and quiet while bikers from the local MCs and members of the street gangs hung out at Syd’s or got riled up for Fight Night at the Orpheum on Southside.
I felt like I’d been entombed in the dirt, the tunnels silent except for the occasional drip of water from some unseen place.
I counted my steps as I crossed under Main and breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the other side.
I’d counted the distance between the sidewalks on one side and the sidewalks on the other more than once over the past three weeks, adding a few to account for the extra steps inside the Orpheum where the Hunt had started.
Now I was pretty sure I was on the other side of the street. Still not safe — if I could get to the other side of the street then so could the teams of masked men prowling the tunnels — but with enough distance between me and the others that I could slow to a walk.
I’d been nervous to be caught by one of the other teams, but now I wondered if they would heed Bram’s warning. That was what the blood drying on my face felt like: a warning to the other teams.
Stay away.
Would the Butchers let me wander the tunnels alone all night — a piece of meat no one wanted — or would they come after me themselves?
I shivered at the thought. I’d been scared of the other teams because they’d been unfamiliar, because I didn’t know what they would do to me if I lost the Hunt.
But the truth was nothing was scarier than being claimed by the Butchers, the three men who’d already caught me in their tangled web.