Page 21 of Stream & Scream

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jaxen

Sunday

S he looks like a corpse when I find her.

Pale and limp beneath the ribbed roots of the oldest oak tree in this forest, skin scraped raw at the knees, lips parted on a ragged, uneven breath. The tree is a monster of its own.

I don’t go to her right away. I let my shadow fall over the roots but keep my hands to myself and my weight off the leaves. I kneel in the dark and watch her twitch in a restless sleep, lashes fluttering, mouth twitching at dreams she won’t admit to when the sun’s up.

Her breath hitches. She murmurs something I don’t catch. I lift a gloved hand and hold it there, an inch from her cheek, close enough to feel heat radiating off her skin. The animal in me hums at being so close to her.

“Easy,” I whisper to the air, to myself, to whatever’s listening.

The back of my gloved knuckle ghosts down her cheekbone. Slow. Careful. She leans into it in her sleep, then settles again. She doesn’t wake.

I linger longer than I should, watching her chest rise and fall. Counting each breath like it’s mine to protect.

When I finally rise, I circle the oak. Once clockwise.

Once counter. Every footfall measured—balls of my feet, edges of the boot, no crack, no crunch.

It’s easy to read the ground—the clotted paw print of a raccoon near the waterline, the half-moon of a sneaker scuff no more than two to three hours old, a skein of spider silk stretched unbroken across a low gap.

Nothing fresh within thirty meters. No drones moving overhead.

The wind’s out of the north, carrying our scent into the ravine.

Ours.

That buys us a sliver of time.

The comm in my ear comes to life, immediately irritating me.

“Hunter, status.” Milo. Smug even when he’s fraying. “We’ve got eyes on you. Why the fuck are you just standing around? Finish the fucking job. People are watching.”

I don’t answer. I let the hiss sit there until it sounds like he’s the one breathing through my mask.

Janice cuts in, her voice rough and worn. Typical considering she’s a chain smoker. She lights up a new one before the first is even finished. “Stop fucking around, Jaxen. You want your payout or not? Do your fucking job.”

Rory, the lapdog, comes next. “Think about the contract. You know the investors aren’t going to be happy if you don’t give them what they want. Think about the?—”

“Think about shutting the fuck up,” I say, finally, voice low and dangerous. “You wanted a show. I am the fucking show. You want a corpse, you’ll get one when I’m ready. Until then, you don’t breathe my fucking name, and you don’t fucking interrupt me when I hunt.”

A beat of silence.

Then Milo again, colder now. “You’re dragging this out too long. You think you’re fucking untouchable. Janice can edit it so it looks like you did the job. Viewers will cheer, the sponsors will cash in, and you’ll be nothing but dead weight on a reel.”

Heat spikes in my blood. My teeth bare against the inside of the mask.

“You so much as aim a fucking drone at her,” I growl, my voice thick with violence, “and I will crawl out of these woods, find you in that fucking truck, and I’ll make sure you’re the one screaming for the cameras while I peel you open really fucking slowly, Milo.

Your death will be the longest feed they’ve ever run. ”

Silence. Just the crackle of static.

He knows I mean it.

I thumb the comm off. The sudden quiet is relieving.

Blood buys silence. I’ve learned that. The right throat opened at the right time and suddenly everyone remembers I’m not replaceable.

I look down at Liv again. The bruises are still fresh, deep purple and angry where the ties bit into her wrists. Marks that scream what I already know—I was here. I’m still here. I’ll be here when everyone else is gone.

She twitches; a small, involuntary sound climbs out of her throat and dies. I check her pulse without touching, watching the hollow at the base of her throat. Steady enough. Dehydration’s the bigger threat. She’s barely drunk since the hunt began.

A crow sounds off twice to the east and the wind shifts a hair. I step back into the oak’s deeper shade and pull the tablet from my vest.

The screen is spiderwebbed but still works.

One press and the drone grid wakes. I send a false ping three ridgelines away, a decoy trail, and watch as three drones peel off to chase it.

That buys us a few hours of quiet as long as they don’t notice.

I drag a fourth drone off its circuit and park it in a sunbeam to bleed its battery dry and cut its feed. Less eyes in the sky.

I stow the tablet and let my hand rest on the rifle slung across my back. Check the knife. Check the sidearm. The pack on my hip clinks—water tabs, gauze, paracord, a flare I’ll never waste. Every piece where it belongs.

The hum comes low at first. A wasp in the distance, whining closer. I tilt my head, watching the tree line split as the drone drifts in, red light blinking like it thinks it owns the night.

“Hunter.”

Its speaker cracks, Milo’s voice emanating into the air. “Cut your comm again and I’ll have you extracted. Replaced. Don’t fucking test me.”

I let out laugh, quiet and sharp. The kind that cuts but doesn’t carry. “Extract me? With who, Milo? One of your clipboard-swinging pussies in headsets? You think any of those fucks could carry this show without pissing themselves on the first night?”

“You’re not untouchable,” he snaps.

“The fuck I’m not,” I murmur, grinning. “You can swap meat, but you can’t swap the fear. You can’t fake the way I cut, the way I make them scream. You try to put some other asshole in my slot and the audience will smell the fraud before he even touches one of them.”

Janice cuts in, voice as bitter as the fucking ash she’s inhaling. “You’re stalling. We need a body. Deliver or we’ll be forced to take action.”

I tilt my head toward the hovering lens, letting the grin spread wider. “Cut it. Then watch your precious ratings bleed the fuck out. Watch your sponsors scatter. See how long your empire lasts without me propelling it forward.”

There’s a pause, tight enough to snap. Then a third voice slithers in, softer, coaxing. “The viewers are engaged, Jaxen. But they’re waiting for closure. For the arc. Give them an ending.”

“The hunt is the arc. The ending is when I fucking say it is. Until then? Sit your asses down, sip your overpriced lattes, and shut the fuck up.”

The drone hums above, lens blinking red, but they don’t reply. They never do when they know I’m right.

And here’s the fucking truth they’ll never get through their skulls—I don’t give a shit what it costs.

Time. Blood. The last broken fragments of whatever’s left of my soul.

I’m dragging her out of this nightmare if I have to stack bodies in the tree line.

She’s mine now. That’s not love. That’s not mercy. That’s the truth.

The wind shifts. The crow shuts up, and that's my cue. I move, making a wide loop to the west. I string the line low, ankle height—first trip wire. Ten meters on, another, this one tighter. It won’t stop anyone tailing me, won’t even slow them down much, but it will fuck with their rhythm.

Steal a step, maybe second, and that’s all I need.

They want me to be predictable. Boxed and fucking leashed like an obedient mutt.

Fuck that.

This is my hunt. My forest. My girl.

Back at the root, she hasn’t moved. Her chest still rises in shallow movements. Sweat beads in the hollow of her collarbone. I wet a pad with my canteen, leaving it beside her head. If she wakes alone, she’ll drink. If she wakes up with me, I’ll give it to her myself.

I squat with my back against the oak. Sun cuts through the canopy in sharp slants. Wrong hour for a sweep, but they’ll force one if they can’t feed their advertisers. Let them. I’ve got patience they’ll never match.

The memories of the kills spool behind my eyes when I let the grip slip. Cody screaming. Chase’s skull breaking. Sierra’s mascara streaking with blood. Gwen’s green eyes turning glass as ART burned black across cedar. No shame. No pride. Just receipts. Proof I bought this hour. Bought her safety.

Get her out. That’s what I have to do.

My truck’s still buried under mud and brush, deep in the trees where no camera can sniff it out. I put it there weeks ago. Contingency. Emergency exit if the game went sideways. Always planned for myself, but I never planned on carrying someone else out with me.

Doesn’t matter. It’s our fucking exit now.

I’ll drag her through dirt and wire if I have to. Break throats, open arteries, blow holes in anyone dumb enough to stand between us and that wheelbase. Ugly I can handle. Ugly’s the only thing I’ve ever handled. Blood is my first fucking language.

All that matters is she makes it out alive. Because she’s mine. And no one, not the producers, not their drones, not even the pathetic replacements they’ll drop into my woods, gets to touch what’s mine.