THE VAN MOVES over uneven ground, gravel grinding beneath. You tried the doors repeatedly on the way out of the city, but they’re locked from the outside. No windows. No obvious way to punch out the taillights. Your hands have scoured every inch of the interior, feeling behind your back, but there’s nothing to cut yourself free. They took your pack, your knife, everything on you.
“How long do you think we’ve been driving?” you ask. You were on the freeway for hours—you could tell by the way the van sped up, the ride smoothing out over open road. It was only in the last hour that you switched to different terrain. Lying in the space behind the backseat, you can hear the radio beyond the plastic divider. There’s a country song playing. Something low and sad.
Rafe lies beside you, his chin nestled by your shoulder. He can barely talk through the cloth hood. “I’d guess about eight hours. They’re taking us somewhere.”
“I know,” you say. “But where?”
You feel him shrug. “When they open the door, we have to be ready.”
Rafe inches closer, his body hugging yours. Your right arm is numb from being on it for so long. You shift, turning onto your other side, trying to relieve the pressure. It’s hard to get any air, the fabric of the hood sucking in with every breath. They cinched it around your neck so tight you can feel the cord against your skin.
As you lie there, you have the heady, dizzying feeling of a memory coming on. You don’t say anything to Rafe. You let it take you, closing your eyes.
“Get up,” he shouts. He’s somewhere in front of you. They all are.
“Blackbird, get up.”
You’re on your back, your hands pressed into the dirt behind you. You prop yourself up on your elbows, trying to kick your legs out underneath you. You’re aware that your neck, your stomach—all the most vulnerable parts of you—are exposed.
Then one of the men yanks you onto your feet. Your hands are numb from the ties. Someone undoes them and cuts the cord around your neck.
When you pull off the hood you can finally breathe. You look up. There are ten of them, maybe more. An older man with a white beard. Two women in their thirties, their cheeks smeared with mud, hair pulled back. They’re all wearing camouflage. Dark greens and browns.
The kids with you are all lined up together. Twenty in each direction. All of you wear bright white. White T-shirts, white pants, socks, and sneakers. The boy beside you pulls off his hood.
Rafe.
“Your shirt,” he says. He peels his T-shirt up and away. “Hurry.”
You take yours off, exposing the white sports bra underneath. Some of the other kids just stand there. They’re frozen. They don’t move as you push down the thin white sweatpants, pulling them over your sneakers.
The men and women all watch. Another girl down the other end of the row takes her clothes off, too, knowing that she’ll be harder to track that way. In a forest, the bright white stands out. Rafe kneels down and plunges his hands into the mud. Wipes it on his face and chest. He covers his white cotton boxer shorts.
You do the same, smearing it over your face and chest, over the white cotton boy shorts. Then you turn and run into the woods.
Rafe cuts the other way, down a steep embankment and through the trees. As the last of the kids take off, the men and women start to give chase. You’re suddenly very afraid.
You dart through the forest, over roots and fallen trees. Whenever you hear footsteps behind you, you head the opposite direction. You’re not running toward anything. You’re just running away.
It’s no more than ten minutes before you hear the first shot.
“What is it?” Rafe asks.
“A memory. One of the worst ones.”
“From the island.”
“You’re the one who told me to get rid of my clothes. I was just standing there.”
“Most of the targets were. No one knew what was happening.”
The van slows. Branches scrape the sides of it, the gentle patter of leaves and brush. You sit up, leaning against the backseat. It’s hard to stay upright. The van pitches to the left, making a turn. The front dives into a ditch and you fall forward, then slam back against the divider. You try to stay aware of the positioning of the double doors. You try to keep your bearings.
“When we get out, we run,” you whisper.
“You lead.” You can hear Rafe somewhere above you. He’s pushed himself to stand. You kneel, then use the side of the truck to get up, trying to stay beside him. Your hands are still numb.
When the van finally stops they don’t say anything. You think there are two of them now, not three, but it’s impossible to be sure. The engine is off. The radio is silent.
You both move to the doors, crouching right beside them. Footsteps outside. One of the men is coming around the left side of the van. There’s the jangling of keys. You press your shoulder to the door, hoping you can surprise him when he opens it and knock him down.
The door opens. Outside, the world is dark—you can’t see anything beyond the thin fabric. You take two seconds to listen to the man’s breaths. He’s only a foot to your left. You jump down, launching yourself at him.
Your shoulder collides with his chest and he stumbles backward. You hear the air leave his lungs. When you hit the ground you roll, righting yourself, trying to stand. Before you can get up you hear the other one climb out of the front seat, his steps coming toward you. “Christ,” he says. “If you just hold still we’ll let you go.”
The other one is yelling. “Get down, don’t move.”
Rafe must have started to run.
One of them unties the cord under your chin, yanking off the hood. You blink, able to see for the first time in hours. The forest is lit only by the van’s taillights. The trees have a strange red glow. All you see is the darkness between them.
The guy you knocked over has gotten up. He goes back to the front seat, climbs in without another word. The man behind you clips the tie around your wrists and you are free, the blood coming back into your hands. When you turn he is already running back to the van. He gets in, slams the door, and the van barrels forward down the dirt road.
There’s no license plate. The logo on the back has been taken off—there’s no way to even tell what make it is. It speeds away and out of sight.
“They’re gone.” You go to Rafe’s side, your eyes finally adjusting to the dark.
The cord on his hood was pulled so tight there’s a thin indent around his neck. He rubs the skin. “Where are we?”
The woods spread out in every direction. The sky above is the clearest you’ve ever seen. It’s a deep bluish black, every star a perfect point of light. The air is much colder here than in the city. The moon is just a sliver in the sky.
“They took us north,” you say. “However far you can get in eight hours.”
You follow Rafe off the road and into the trees, where you’re more hidden. The ground is covered in dead leaves, which crunch beneath you as you walk. Thorn bushes sprout up in places, clinging to your jeans.
“We should go south,” you continue. “How long do you think it’ll be before we hit a main road? If we stay in one direction we should hit civilization eventually. If we can get to a phone, I can call Celia.”
“How long before they show up?” Rafe says. “That’s my question.”
You move from tree to tree, hoping to stay out of sight long enough to put some miles between you and where the truck dropped you off. “Just keep moving. We’ve gotten away from them before.”
But it’s only a few minutes before you sense someone watching you. You reach for Rafe’s arm, pulling him to a stop.
The silhouette is a hundred yards off to your right. He’s not trying to hide himself. Instead he stands between the trees, in full view. Moonlight casts down around him. He looks bigger beneath his thick jacket. His gun hangs at his side, the end pointing at the ground.
“It’s time,” he calls out.
It’s the same voice you heard on the other end of the line, the same voice you heard leading the hunter’s vow. Cal. Theodore Cross. The man who started it all.
The panic rises in your chest, a tight, twisting feeling around your heart. Each breath is shallow. Your lungs feel small.
“You didn’t think this was really over, did you? That I was going to turn myself in to the police simply because you asked?”
He waits for an answer as you move behind a tree, out of sight.
“They don’t have anything on me,” he continues. “They can’t prove anything. Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to the others. It’s cruel, you know, to give your sorry friends hope.”
“You’re the one who’s lying to yourself,” Rafe calls out. “You’re running out of time. They know about the room in your apartment, about the hunts.”
“Wishful thinking.” He laughs. “But if you are right, even more reason for me to enjoy myself tonight. To experience the thrill of the hunt. You two will play with me, won’t you?”
Rafe presses his back to the tree, grasping your hand. You scan the forest to the south. Thick underbrush, dense clusters of trees. There is no obvious place to go. You should be able to outrun him, but it’s a risk. He might start firing through the woods.
“We heard you’re the most skilled hunter,” you lie. “That you’ve killed every target you ever had.”
“I’ve been hunting forty years.”
“Head start, then. Five minutes,” you say, trying to keep your voice even. If you have anything over him, it’s that you understand the way his mind works. “It’s why you moved the hunt from the island to the cities, isn’t it? If it’s too easy, it’s not fun.”
He pauses. In the darkness of the woods, you can almost feel him smile. “Two minutes, not five. It begins now.”
You take off beside Rafe, your arms pumping, your breaths evening out. Adrenaline takes over as you hurtle through the woods. Two minutes will get you a quarter of a mile. Two more will get you a half. Your stomach is empty, your body tired, but you push yourself to run faster.
Rafe pulls out front, jumping rocks and tree roots, moving through the sharp brush, acting as your guide. As the moon crosses the sky, it feels like you’ve been running for hours, but you’re probably only a few miles south. You leap over a fallen tree, and your foot lands on uneven ground, your right ankle twisting beneath you. Pain shoots up your leg.
“What, what happened?” Rafe stops when he hears you collapse. You clutch your ankle, massaging it, hoping the pain will pass.
“I twisted it.”
Rafe pulls you to stand. “We can’t stop Lena, we can’t. . . .”
You start to move, but every time your foot lands the pain returns. You don’t have a choice, though. You have to keep moving, you have to keep going. He is right behind you, coming through the trees.