Page 11 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I woke up with a start. Disoriented, I looked around and realized I was still in the tunnels, wedged under the table between its base and the stone wall.

Had I heard something? Was that why I’d woken up?

I listened, but other than the faint drip of water coming from somewhere in the distance, the tunnels were as silent as they’d been when I’d crawled under the table.

Shifting, I reached for my phone. I’d been asleep for four hours. Not a bad way to kill time, all things considered, although I was sure I would have felt differently if I’d been found while I was sleeping.

Fifteen hours to go.

My hand throbbed, the piece of T-shirt I’d wrapped around my wound crusty with blood.

I reached for the bottle of water and took a sip. I wasn’t eager to pee in the tunnel again, but I needed to stay hydrated. While I nursed the water bottle, I tried to come up with a strategy for staying hidden in the tunnels.

But honestly? It wasn’t like I had a lot of choices.

I could wander and hope I didn’t run into one of the teams of masked men roaming the tunnels like packs of wild animals, or I could stay put and hope no one found me.

I thought it through, then crawled out from my hiding place. It was tempting to stay put, hope for the best, but if I was found, I’d be cornered. At least I stood a chance of evading capture on the move.

At least I could run.

I hid the empty water bottles behind the boxes, not wanting to leave a trail for the hunters. Then I grabbed a fresh bottle to tuck into the pocket of my jacket for later. It had taken me a long time to find the first stash of water and I didn’t want to risk not finding another.

Fifteen hours was still a long time.

I started out slow, my body stiff from being shoved into the small space under the table. I’d been walking for about a half hour when I heard a muffled whimper from the darkness up ahead.

I froze and listened again, wondering if I’d imagined it, but no, there it was again.

And it was definitely one of the girls.

I walked cautiously through the glow of a red light, then stepped into the darkness just past it. The whimper came again, closer and followed by the clink of chains.

“Hello?” I whispered.

“I’m here!” The voice was frantic. “You have to help me!”

I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight, then panned toward the voice. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the light landed on a naked girl chained to the wall.

She was barely recognizable as one of the girls in the holding room. A pretty redhead who’d been wearing leggings and a sports bra, her cheeks and forehead were now streaked with blood, her body smeared with dirt, strands of hair escaping from her braid.

“Oh my god…” I rushed over to her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not hurt but this is fucking crazy!” She thrust her chained hands at me. “You have to get me out of these.”

I shoved my phone into my pocket and left the top half hanging out so I could still use the flashlight while I looked at the cuffs.

“Which of them caught you?” I asked, inspecting the thick chains around her wrist.

“Hockey masks. Big motherfuckers. And they smeared their blood on my face too.”

They’d marked her like the two men in bone masks had marked me, and I remembered again the consent form we’d all signed.

I consent to be hunted.

I consent to be stripped.

I consent to be marked.

I consent to be owned.

The redhead had checked off three out of four.

“What did they do with your clothes?”

She tipped her head toward the floor. I rotated my body in that direction and spotted a pile of clothing on the ground.

“Assholes.” The cuffs weren’t promising. They were locked with a heavy metal mechanism that required a key. “I can’t get these off. Maybe if I had a bobby pin or something, but I don’t have anything like that.”

“Shit.” She sounded more pissed than scared. “They’re going to come back.”

I was starting to get my head around the Hunt. The men marked us with their blood to keep the other teams away, but they didn’t have to claim us then and there.

They could set us loose again. Toy with us a while.

Then, as if she’d conjured them, I heard the sound of heavy footsteps making their way toward us in the dark.

Panic flooded my body. It might be the men in hockey masks coming back to claim their prize, but it could just as easily be the men in bone masks looking for me.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and flattened myself against the wall next to the redhead.

“What do we do?” she asked.

She was clearly scared out of her mind, and I didn’t blame her one bit. I was terrified and I wasn’t chained naked to the tunnel wall.

“I don’t know.”

The footsteps got louder and a few seconds later a trio of hockey masks, creepy as fuck in the glow of my flashlight, appeared.

“Aw, look,” one of them said, “our girl is the sociable type. She has a friend.”

Their black clothing made them look almost disembodied. Thanks to the masks, I couldn’t make out any of their features.

“Unchain her,” I said. “She doesn’t want to play any more.”

“You heard the rules.” The man who spoke had a shaved head and wore a black leather vest over his bare torso. “No escape once the waiver is signed.”

The man next to him looked me up and down. “Maybe she’ll be more enthusiastic if we bring her friend.”

My heart pounded. Was the Hunt going to end here and now? Would I be claimed by the men in hockey masks instead of the men in bone masks?

“She’s already marked,” the third one said.

“Only twice.”

“Who marked you?” the guy in the vest asked.

“Bone masks,” I said.

One of the guys held up his hands like he was being robbed. “Fuck no.”

The guy in the vest stared at me for a long moment. “Get the fuck out of here.”

I glanced at the redhead, still chained to the wall. “But she— ”

“Isn’t your problem,” one of the men said. “Now go before I call the Butchers to finish the job.”

I looked at the redhead again.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I signed up for this. At least one of us should win this fucking Hunt.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, inching away. “I’m sorry.”

Then I ran, wanting to put as much distance between myself and the men in hockey masks as I could. Wanting to put as much distance between me and whatever they were going to do with the naked redhead as I could.

I signed up for this.

It was true, but that didn’t make it any easier to leave her behind.

I was coming to a T intersection — a stone wall with tunnels going left and right — when something broke through the silence.

I froze and listened: footsteps.

And not just footsteps. Someone was running.

I looked around for a place to hide but didn’t see one. The footsteps were louder, faster.

And it wasn’t just one person — it was several, all coming from the left of the T intersection up ahead.

A group of girls running together? Or a pack of masked men on the hunt?

I wouldn’t know until it was too late, couldn’t afford to stand still and wait. Panic rose in my body, and I flattened myself against the wall, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t make the turn into my tunnel.

My heart raced as the footsteps grew louder.

Closer.

I looked back the way I came, ready to run that way if the runners turned into my tunnel.

The running grew to a crescendo. A male voice whooped loudly, gleefully, and my blood ran cold when it was followed by a female scream.

My gaze was locked on the intersection, my body wound tight as the footsteps grew even louder. They seemed to come from everywhere all at once, a roar that ricocheted off the walls of the tunnels.

Then, a flash of blonde hair, extended like a golden banner as one of the girls raced past the intersection, followed by the three men in bird masks who disappeared after her.

They hadn’t even glanced my way.

I sank back against the tunnel wall, gasping like I’d been the one running, and closed my eyes. Had the girl on the run been the blonde who’d talked to me in the holding room, the one who’d walked with me at the start of the Hunt?

How many of the girls had been caught in the first ten hours?

I removed the water bottle from my pocket and took a couple sips, then waited for a few minutes to start moving again. When I got to the T intersection, I went left, not wanting to run into the team of men I’d just seen chasing the blonde.

Doubt and fear crept into my mind. The men had come out of nowhere, advancing on my position in less than a minute. I had to be careful, couldn’t let the quiet fool me into thinking I was in the clear.

I moved deliberately, listening as I walked, feeling every bit like there was an hourglass out of sight, the sand running out.