Page 7 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I knew two hours had passed because of my phone and the occasional digital clock mounted to the walls of the tunnel.

After I’d turned right, following the tunnels under the streets on this side of Main, I’d gotten increasingly disoriented.

It was like being in space, or what I imagined being in space would feel like: dead silent, the isolation total.

I thought about the blonde who’d followed me deeper into the main tunnel before turning and I wondered how she was doing, if she was still in the Hunt or if she’d been caught.

I was surprised to find the tunnels weren’t all empty. Random objects were scattered throughout, abandoned and glowing under the red lights: stacks of wooden crates, rusted tools, even furniture.

And there were doors too, all of them metal and locked with padlocks, probably leading to the businesses aboveground.

Worst of all were the chains. Scattered throughout the tunnels, they hung from hooks in the ceiling, their links heavy, the iron rusted. That would have been bad enough, but at the end of each set of chains were a pair of thick metal cuffs.

I remembered the waiver I’d signed in the holding room.

I consent to be hunted.

I consent to be stripped.

I consent to be marked.

I consent to be owned.

The words haunted me each and every time I passed another set of chains. I’d consented to this. All of it. Now the only thing I could do was evade capture, outlast the men who were at that very minute hunting me in the tunnels.

I didn’t use the flashlight on my phone unless I needed it, worried about the battery, and I stepped carefully into the darkness beyond the red lights, holding my hands out in front of me to keep from smacking face-first into one of the tables, sets of chairs, or rows of shelves I’d seen pushed up against the walls of the tunnel.

I kept expecting to run into a brick wall, to reach the end of the tunnel system, but it never happened, and I was more than a little freaked as I walked deeper and deeper under Blackwell Falls.

I’d just stepped into the glow of another red light when I heard voices.

Male voices.

I stopped cold, listening, trying to gauge where they were coming from, and was surprised to hear them echo from the tunnels ahead of me.

That was something I hadn’t counted on, that the tunnels might intersect in more than one place, allowing the hunters to lap me, then double back on me from a different direction.

I stood still just long enough to realize the voices were getting louder.

Closer.

I moved back the way I’d come in a hurry, and for the first time since the Hunt began, I felt cornered. Assuming all the men hadn’t lapped me in one of the other tunnels, there were more of them this way, but I couldn’t keep moving forward without running into the others either.

I didn’t know the rules of the Hunt for the men. Could any of them chase any of us? Or had there been something to the way they’d sized us up in the holding room, some kind of claiming?

I could hardly think it without feeling my cheeks burn. What would my educated, feminist parents say if they knew I was submitting to such an archaic dynamic, one where groups of men chased me through tunnels for the prize of my servitude?

I pushed the thought aside. My parents — my whole life — felt far away from the darkness of the tunnels. All except for June. She felt closer than ever, and I heard her voice in my head: don’t think about the ’rents, Maeve. Move your ass.

I hadn’t always listened to June when she was alive, but I listened to her now.

I picked up my pace as I doubled back. I only hesitated for a second when I came to the first set of intersecting tunnels. I was worried about getting lost, but I was more worried about being caught.

I turned right and felt a moment of relief when the voices of the men behind me got fainter.

But it only lasted a minute. The voices got louder fast, and I wondered if they were coming from the same guys I’d heard before or if I had a new group on my tail.

I’d been alone so long in the tunnels that I’d started to get comfortable, had started believing my only enemy was the darkness, the possibility of getting lost. The voices behind me (getting louder?) were a harsh reminder that I wasn’t here just to wander the tunnels for twenty-four hours.

I had to evade capture by the masked men who’d been looking at me and the other girls like we were their next delicious meal.

I broke into a jog, trying to put more distance between me and the men on my tail.

But it didn’t seem to matter. Their voices got louder and a chill ran down my spine when one of them let out a whoop that sounded less like a bunch of guys having some dark and dirty fun and more like a war cry.

A primal shot of fear ran through my body.

They were running now. I knew it because their voices got louder by the second.

I ran for another few seconds, passed another red light, then stopped in front of a bunch of junk pushed against the side of the tunnel. Straddling the boundary of the red glow, the pile of stuff was half in the light and half in shadow.

I frantically tried to assimilate what I was seeing: a rusted metal table with wheels, a haphazard pile of boxes, two stacks of metal chairs.

And something else: a hulking piece of furniture just past the glow of the red light: an old cabinet, tall enough to be wedged under the ceiling of the tunnel.

“I think I smell her.” The voice came from one of the men.

Close now. Way too close.

I flung open the cabinet doors, hoping for enough room to hide, then felt my heart sink when I saw that the cabinet was divided by a shelf in the middle.

The space above and below looked too small to hold me, but the voices were even louder now, so close I was surprised the men couldn’t see me.

I crouched down and wedged myself into the lower half of the cabinet, pulling my legs in behind me. I felt the thrill of victory in the moment before I realized the cabinet door wouldn’t close all the way.

I tried to pull my legs tighter against my body, but it was impossible. I’d taken up every ounce of space available and the cabinet door was still cracked open an inch.

And now it was too late. The men were right on top of me.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a deep voice taunted.

My heart beat so hard in my chest it was almost painful, adrenaline flooding my body, making me want to burst out of the cabinet and run.

But that would be stupid, and I forced myself to hold still, to quiet my breathing as much as possible as the three men paced in front of me.

I caught the flash of their bodies in the low red light seeping from the bulb a few feet away, caught sight of their masks, not the bone masks (anyone but them) but the birds of prey that had looked like deranged vultures in the holding room.

Then they were still, standing right in front of the cabinet where I was hiding.

“Think she’s hiding behind those boxes?” one of the men asked.

He was taunting me. They knew where I was. They were standing right in front of me, their legs visible through the crack in the cabinet door.

“Worth a shot,” another one said, his voice smug.

I heard the boxes topple over next to the cabinet.

“Hmm, that’s strange,” another voice said. “I smell strawberries. You smell strawberries, Hawk?”

“You know, now that you mention it, I do smell strawberries.”

I silently cursed my body wash.

“Me too,” the third voice said. “Do you want to do the honors or should I?”

“Nah, I’ve got this one.”

I barely had time to register the words before the cabinet doors were flung open.

Rough hands were grabbing my arms, pulling me from the cabinet.

I should have been scared. Who knew what these men would do to me now?

But all I could think about was June. I’d failed her.

And now I belonged to these bird men for the next three months.