Chapter 11 Maeve
MAEVE
I walked slowly and took a swig of my water bottle. After eight hours in the tunnels, I’d already worked through two bottles, although I still had one of my electrolyte packets for later.
I kept it in my pocket like a talisman, like having it would act as some kind of charm to guarantee that I’d still be in the tunnels, uncaptured, hours later.
The first eight hours hadn’t been totally uneventful. First I’d run into the bird men ravishing the blue-haired girl. Later, I’d hidden behind a stack of wooden crates from the team in skeleton masks.
I’d thought maybe it was all over for me then, but they hadn’t even been on my trail, and they’d walked right past me, talking about a blonde from the holding room that they were hoping to find.
I’d been relieved when they passed. The silence of the tunnel was starting to feel like an old friend instead of an enemy, and I tried not to think about the obvious metaphor for the Butchers, who’d seemed terrifying during the first Hunt but who’d come to seem like the best of all options if I had to be caught.
I’d stayed behind the crates for a while, using the hiding place to doze for a couple of hours, during which one of the brunettes from the holding room ran past. I silently wished her well but didn’t reveal my hiding spot.
I was here for June. Everyone else was on their own.
I didn’t ask you to do this, June had said then.
You didn’t have to. That’s the point.
She’d gone quiet after that, and I tried to ignore the feeling that her silence was judgement. That even June — wherever she was — thought I was crazy for participating in the Hunt a second time.
When my legs had started cramping from the close quarters behind the crates, I’d emerged from my hiding place. I’d taken a few minutes to stretch the kinks out of my body and have some more water and my second granola bar. Then I’d squatted to pee near the wall.
It was gross, but this time I’d been prepared for the reality of it. It wasn’t like I had a choice.
The nap had left me alert but also restless: all dressed up and nowhere to go.
Best-case scenario, I had sixteen-ish more hours in the tunnels. Staying in one place for too long felt risky, but walking meant the possibility of running into one of the marauding teams of masked men.
Maybe even the Butchers.
I forced myself to ignore the way my heart lifted at the thought of seeing them again.
Or seeing Poe and Remy anyway. Bram could fuck off forever.
You lie, Maeve. You lie to yourself, the worst lie of all.
I ignored June too, turning my thoughts instead to Poe and Remy, a real testament to how fucked-up I was: my feelings for them held a danger all their own.
I’d felt bad leaving without saying goodbye to Poe and Remy. They’d been good to me while I’d lived at the loft, and while I didn’t dare call our fucking anything but that, they’d started to feel almost like friends.
And the fucking had been pretty mind-blowing too.
But after the incident with Bram in the kitchen, I just couldn’t face them. Worse, I didn’t trust myself to face them. Didn’t trust myself to leave.
Then I’d be just like June.
Not that my situation with the Butchers was the same as June’s situation with Chris. Chris had abused June. He’d dominated her, controlled her, made her feel small.
The Butchers had made me feel capable. Seen.
They hadn’t made me feel crazy for participating in the Hunt, for wanting Ethan Todd dead. That part was probably because they were more unhinged than I was, but after a year and a half of plotting vengeance for June, I wasn’t going to analyze it too hard.
And anyway, the common denominator between my situationship with the Butchers and June’s relationship with Chris lay in the fact that the Butchers were no better for me than Chris had been for June.
Near the end, we’d tried to tell June that Chris had changed, had tried to get her away from him. But she hadn’t listened. She’d been convinced that if she just stayed long enough, they could get back to the way things had been when they’d first started dating.
Fast forward to me living with the Butchers, getting sucked into their lives, liking them, and having Bram prove over and over again that I meant nothing to him. I’d become like June: trying to please Bram to get him to be nice to me, hoping he’d eat my cupcakes for god’s sake.
Wasn’t staying a form of self-abuse? What was that saying, the definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results?
No, I’d been right to leave. June had a million opportunities to leave. She’d ignored them all and ended up dead, buried on the mountain until the police finally found her body.
That hadn’t been a risk with the Butchers. I knew now they would never have hurt me. Not physically. But the longer I stayed the more damage they would have done to my heart.
Especially Bram.
I was so lost in thought that it took me a second to realize there were voices coming from up ahead.
Male voices.
I froze and listened, trying to gauge how close they were.
The answer: too close for comfort and getting louder by the second.
I turned around and started walking carefully in the other direction, trying not to make too much noise. Hoping the men would make a turn into one of the other tunnels.
But the voices got louder still, and a few seconds later, I heard the unmistakable sound of running.
I broke into a sprint. My footfalls were heavy and loud on the dirt floor of the tunnel, but I no longer had the luxury of worrying about the noise.
“There she is!” a man shouted behind me. “Get her!”
I glanced back and saw a trio of Scream masks moving through the shadows behind me like ghosts.
I ran as fast as my legs would allow, adrenaline flooding my body as the men grew closer, their footsteps louder, until I could hear their labored breathing.
I spotted an intersection in the tunnel up ahead and pushed my legs to go faster. Maybe there would be someone else in the next tunnel. Maybe even the Butchers.
I didn’t have time to contemplate how bad things were that I was actually hoping to be caught by Poe, Remy, and Bram. I felt a catch on my jacket as one of the men behind me grabbed for it.
I went down so hard my teeth rattled. My chin hit the dirt floor and I tasted the iron tang of blood on my tongue as I rolled onto my back, prepared to fight.
I kicked and screamed at the beefy man on top of me, but he pinned my arms with his thighs, his breath fetid as he grunted near my face, his sweaty chest slick and flaccid with age.
The mask was nightmarish up close, the mouth a twisted grimace, his eyes glimmering dark from the eyeholes.
“Stop fighting, you little bitch.” I froze when his hand made contact with my face.
I’d never been hit before — not once in my whole life — and the blow had landed like a meat tenderizer to my cheek.
It took me a few seconds to start fighting again, but when I did it was with renewed ferocity.
Who did this motherfucker think he was?
“Get off me!” I bucked to try and shake him off my body, kicking my legs and twisting my torso in the iron vise of his thighs. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
He switched tactics, leaning back and letting me wear myself out while he kept my upper body immobilized until I finally fell back onto the dirt floor, gasping and exhausted.
He was breathing heavy too. I took some satisfaction in that. The Scream team had caught me, but at least I’d made them work for it.
For at least a minute, there was nothing but the sound of our heavy breathing. Then one of the other men spoke from behind the guy pinning me to the ground.
“What are you waiting for? Get her clothes off. String her up.”