Page 10 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I ran for a long time, stopping every couple of minutes to listen, to make sure I wasn’t about to run headlong into another team of men or one of the girls who were also fanned out in the tunnels.

How many of them had been caught? How many still haunted the tunnels, trying to evade capture until our time was up?

It was easy to believe I was alone. I didn’t hear another sound, and I’d given up keeping track of where I was in relation to the town above us. It should have terrified me, but after being cornered by the men in bone masks (anyone but them), I was more afraid of being caught again.

They wouldn’t let me go a second time, and I had to win.

For June.

Every now and then I came across another digital clock glowing from one of the tunnel walls, the red numbers counting down the remaining hours and minutes in the Hunt. Time seemed interminable. I’d think I’d run out a couple hours only to find at the next clock that it had been thirty minutes.

I started dreading the clocks, and I avoided looking at my phone, hoping to be surprised by the passage of time when I stumbled upon another one.

I’d just rounded a corner into another tunnel when I hit a patch of loose dirt and rock on the floor. I barely registered it before my feet went out from under me, arms flailing as I tried to grasp onto something.

I went down hard on my hands and knees, and something sharp bit into my right hand as I caught my fall.

A cry escaped my mouth before I could stop it and I froze in that position, listening for the sound of footsteps running my way.

They never came and I sat back on my ass and did a quick inventory of my body. My hand hurt like a bitch but the rest of me seemed okay. I followed the pain to my palm and found a small but sharp piece of shale embedded in my skin.

Shit.

I eased the piece of rock from my skin, gasping as blood dripped down my wrist and forearm.

I felt lightheaded. I wasn’t good with blood.

Why would I be? Before June’s murder, my life had been sheltered.

I’d had a loving family and a safe home.

The biggest wound I’d ever gotten had been a cut from a paring knife while turning strawberries into flowers for my mom’s birthday cake (her favorite: vanilla with a whipped-cream-and-strawberry-coulis filling, topped with fresh strawberries cut to look like flowers).

I’d needed two stitches.

I thought about the makeshift first aid station in the holding room. Should I try to make my way back there, dress my wound? I discounted the idea almost immediately. As eerie as the tunnels were, it felt safer to be far from the entry point.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t need to be a wartime medic to know that I needed to stop the bleeding.

I tried to tear off a piece of my cropped T-shirt, but it was harder than it looked in the movies, so I had to take it off and get it started with my teeth. I ended up with an uneven piece of black fabric about six inches long and just wide enough to cover the wound on my palm.

Wrapping it around my hand, I pulled it tight enough to make me wince. Then I put my shirt back on — it was two inches shorter now and barely covered my tits — and got slowly to my feet.

I felt suddenly defeated. No more running. For now anyway.

I walked carefully forward, threading my way in and out of the red lights hanging from the ceiling, passing a couple chains — still unattached to any of the girls, thank god — until I came to another pile of stuff against the stone wall.

There was a long wood table, like something a cook might have used to chop vegetables in a Victorian kitchen, a stack of crates, a shovel and a pickaxe, and a box overflowing with papers that turned out to be handwritten accounting sheets, although I could barely make out the numbers and the other words were all but gone.

Packages of bottled water were stacked next to the table, put there at least somewhat recently from the recognizable labels.

I tore savagely into the plastic packaging, wincing as the motion tugged at the cut on my palm. I freed one bottle and downed the water in one long gulp, then removed another one and sipped it while I listened for voices.

It was dead quiet, and I had an image of the dirt pressing in around the tunnels, threatening to bury me alive.

My heart raced and I forced myself to breathe, studying the pile of stuff against the wall. It was just out of the glow of one of the red bulbs, close enough that it wasn’t pitch dark but far enough away that anyone passing by might not notice me.

In other words, a perfect hiding spot.

Maybe.

I felt the urge to pee and looked around. I hadn’t thought to ask the question in the holding room, but now it seemed pretty obvious that it was an important one. What did everyone else do down here?

I looked around for a container. The empty water bottle was a possibility, but I didn’t trust my aim. The last thing I needed was to have my hands covered in pee for the next — I pulled out my phone and checked the time — nineteen hours.

That was how long I had to stay hidden.

I eyed a dark corner a few feet away where my tunnel intersected with another. The need to pee was greater now that I was thinking about it, and while the thought of peeing on the dirt floor of the tunnel was kind of gross, what other option did I have?

I sighed and went to the corner, listened for voices, then pulled down my pants and relieved myself as fast as I could.

Now that I thought about it, I was surprised the whole place didn’t smell like pee, although I guessed the guys could take a break whenever they wanted and some of the girls would probably be caught sooner rather than later, which would suck but at least would mean they didn’t have to use the tunnels as a port a potty.

I wiggled my ass to do a little drip dry, said a silent apology to the tunnel and anyone who might happen upon my makeshift litter box, and walked back to the table and other stuff piled against the wall.

I studied the arrangement. Tiredness had started to seep into my bones. No surprise given the number of times my body had flooded with adrenaline over the past few hours.

Adrenaline had been great when I’d needed to run, but it was gone now and it had taken all my energy with it. I felt like I could have slept standing up. Plus, it was after five o’clock in the morning. I’d been awake almost twenty-four hours, and I hadn’t slept great the night before the Hunt.

I needed a power nap if I planned to keep running and hiding.

I moved the boxes and crates in front of the table as quietly as I could, grabbed another water bottle, and crouched down to wedge myself between the table and the stone wall of the tunnel.

Then I reached out to adjust the boxes and crates so they stood a chance of hiding my position if someone passed by.

I didn’t love that there was water here. It meant that the men were more likely to linger, stop for a drink, but I needed to regroup.

It took me a few minutes to find a comfortable position, but when I did, the pull of sleep came fast and hard.

My face felt tight with the blood that had been smeared on my cheeks by the blue-eyed man in the bone mask and his blond friend.

I could still see the shine of possession in their eyes when they’d marked me, but instead of grossing me out, the memory sent an unexplainable wave of lust through my body.

What would it be like to be caught by them? To belong to them for three long months?

No, I wouldn’t let myself think about that. I had to win.

I thought about June instead, heard her voice in my head: get some rest, loser.

Her laughter rang through my mind as I fell into sleep.