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It occurs to me for a brief second that I have no idea what will happen to us, but it doesn’t matter. I have been told what to do, and I will obey.
Let the games begin. Games I am certain will be as sick and twisted as our Masters and Mistresses can make them.
Familiar.
I am ready.
Dahlia holds her arm high in the air, then shoots the blank gun and yells, “Run!”
Chapter Two
We all take off, running as if in formation across the meadow full of tall grass studded with yellow flowers. Buttercups? But I have to run; no time to think. My legs pump, adrenaline driving me on despite the hard ground and the stones under my feet. I try to step carefully, but we’re going too fast, and I have no idea what the consequences might be if I slow down. All I know is I must run, as fast as I can.
We get to the trees—more giant sequoias and oaks—and dash into the woods. I hear laughter from somewhere behind us and dash behind a tree.
“This way,” Jordan says, grabbing my arm and leading me off to the left.
I go with him as the others shoot off in different directions, and another slave I’ve never seen before, a hugely muscled Boy with short blond hair, follows us.
The three of us run, darting around the enormous trees, and my lungs are working as hard as my legs, drawing in the dark scents of the forest: the greenery and tree bark, grasses and the fallen leaves and branches making mulch in the earth.
I dare to look behind me, and I see one of the Masters in camouflage gear, an evil grin on his face as he stalks through the forest. And he has a gun.
A gun?
What the fuck?
They can’t actually be hunting us. If nothing else, we’re too valuable.
But that doesn’t stop my heart from racing, my blood hot in my veins.
Surely they wouldn’t…
“Jordan,” I manage to pant.
He doesn’t look up. He mutters, “Don’t stop. Don’t think. Just go.”
I take his advice and run as if my life depends on it. Perhaps it does. Who the fuck knows what deviant shit they have planned for us?
My body is getting into a rhythm now, pacing with Jordan, and I sink a bit into that rhythm in the same way I sometimes do when I’m being beaten. The rhythm itself is some sort of magic. Subspace, I suppose. Or at least, that’s what it was back in the day before I truly became a slave. Subspace is a constant now. Slavespace. As I run I begin to notice my surroundings: the huge sequoias with their rough, dark red bark, and the sprawling oaks scattered here and there. The moss everywhere, the deep green ferns in clumps at the base of the trees.
Jordan grabs my hand and pulls me sharply to the right, and I follow, but the other Boy does not. I hear the pounding of his feet as he runs, then soon, it’s just our feet, Jordan’s and mine.
But my lungs are beginning to burn. As fast as I know I am, I can’t keep up this pace for much longer, and I slow down.
“Go,” I tell him. “I have to catch my breath.”
“No…” he begins as he slows to a jog to stay beside me.
I look up at him, his exquisite face that is really too pretty for a Boy, his dark buzz cut. The intensity in his dark eyes.
“Jordan. You have to go.”
He gives my hand a squeeze, nods, and dashes ahead. I stop, bending over and bracing my hands on my thighs, drawing in deep breaths as slowly as I can. As my lungs recover, I realize I am completely alone in the woods, that the early summer air is cool beneath the canopy of leaves and smells of damp now. I glance around, pausing to listen, but there’s nothing but the silent woods—not even the rustle of birds in the trees. Not even a breeze moving through the branches.
I’m a city girl, born and raised in L.A., but some sort of primal instinct kicks in and I sense I really am alone, certain no one else is in the immediate vicinity. I jog between a pair of oaks, then downhill a bit, and soon a narrow creek comes into view. I move toward it, my senses on high alert in case any of the Masters—the Hunters—are nearby. That’s what they’ve become in my head. Hunters. Predators in the forest. And from what Dahlia told us, we are in fact being hunted.
Which means I am prey.
