Page 2 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I hadn’t known about the tunnels under Blackwell Falls. Not until Hannah told me about what she’d called the Game. She hadn’t known all the details, just that it involved a nighttime game of hide-and-seek, one where the woman was always the hunted and three men were always the hunters.

It had taken some online sleuthing to suss out the details, but if there was anything I’d gotten good at since June’s murder, it was online sleuthing.

Once I’d fallen down the rabbit hole of the Hunt, mostly through firsthand accounts in the darkest corners of the internet, I couldn’t stop. Some of the women who’d done it called it a nightmare, but the more I learned, the more it seemed like my saving grace.

If I could win.

If I lost I’d essentially be a slave — for three long months — to the men who hunted me. Not exactly low stakes, but nothing about my life had been low stakes since June’s murder a year and a half ago.

I forced myself to breathe as I looked around the red-lit room. At least there was a first aid table. They weren’t going to let us bleed out down here where no one would ever find us.

Hopefully.

The scary dark-haired guy in the bone mask stepped forward and the room instantly got quiet. In his hands was a circular gold object, swung as casually as a fidget toy.

I didn’t think it was my imagination that everyone backed up a little, like he was surrounded by some kind of malevolent force field that might strike us all down.

The mask didn’t help. It was a dull gold, worn in places like it had been well used.

The piece that covered his face looked like an animal skeleton, and I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if had been real.

I could imagine this man killing things, stripping them of fur and skin, wearing their bones.

He stared at us through elongated eyeholes that were almost demonic, two horns jutting on either side of his head making him look like a primitive beast. His lips, visible where the snout of his mask ended, were almost obscenely full.

His biceps bulged as he folded his arms, and I saw that his eyes were dark enough to appear black through the holes in his mask.

“Welcome to the Hunt.” His voice was deep and gravelly.

I felt it like a shock wave in my body. “If you’re here, you know it lasts twenty-four hours.

If you’re caught, you agree to reside with your captors for three months and follow their orders.

If you’re not, you get one very big favor from the men who hunted you but didn’t catch you. ”

He was skirting the language of the prize, but I understood why. It was better not to put into words the fact that if we made it twenty-four hours without being caught, we could name our mark, a mark who would be quietly exterminated by the three men who’d tried to catch us.

My heartbeat quickened at the idea. There was nothing I wanted more.

“You’ll find water located throughout the tunnels,” he continued. “If you become injured, you can tend to your wounds at the first aid station.”

I glanced at the small folding table with the haphazard first aid sign above it, and a bark of dry laughter escaped my throat.

The masked man lifted his eyebrows. He stared me down, his eyes cold.

I had to force myself not to shrink from his gaze.

Silence stretched long and taut before he spoke again.

“The first aid station is a safe zone. You can stay as long as you like, but if you’re still there when the game ends, you lose.

One group of men will mark you. Once marked, you are officially their prey.

They might end the Hunt then and there. They might not. ”

His last sentence sounded ominous. If we were marked, why wouldn’t our captors end the game and claim their prize? What would they do to us instead?

“Once caught, you’ll wear one of these.” He held up the object he’d been swinging and I realized it was a thin gold collar.

My stomach twisted.

He picked up the clipboard on the table behind him. “You can still leave, but once the door is bolted and this consent form is signed, there are only two ways out of the tunnels: as a victor or a slave.”

He walked toward us. Toward me.

When he stopped, he was so close I could smell him, and I was horrified to realize I was wet.

He held out the clipboard, a challenge in his eyes.

I took it and read.

I consent to be hunted.

I consent to be stripped.

I consent to be marked.

I consent to be owned.

It was followed by a brief paragraph of legal jargon, but I got the gist: I was doing this of my own free will.

Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to run, and I thought of June, wondered if she’d had the same instinct with Chris in the days and weeks before he’d killed her.

Had she wanted to run? Or had she been too beaten down, too gaslit to try?

I didn’t know. What I did know was that she hadn’t run. I wished she had, but she hadn’t, and now I was here, trying to exact justice the only way I had left after the failed attempt to do it myself.

I signed my name.

Game on.