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Miranda sat at her work desk, checking herself in her compact mirror for the hundredth time in the past hour.
Today Lucas was returning from his business trip, and she wanted to look her very best. They hadn’t seen each other for over two months and had only spoken on the phone a few times since he’d been gone. He’d asked her to give him space. He was in London, overseeing the acquisition of another company. But that wasn’t why he’d requested space. He was finalizing his divorce and didn’t want his wife...soon to be ex-wife, to find out about her or Adam.
With the divorce in the works, they would finally be a real family. Everyone would be happy. According to Lucas, his wife had wanted out of the marriage for a long time. She had her own lover and had only married him because their parents were close friends. It had been the parents who’d wanted to join families to secure an economic alliance many years ago.
Miranda took a deep breath and snapped the compact mirror case closed.
This had been three years in the making. She’d started at Hanson and Sons as an unpaid intern while she was at University. She’d been a wide-eyed international student in America for the first time from Ireland. After she’d graduated with a finance degree, the company had offered her a full-time permanent position as a financial advisor.
She’d known Lucas was off-limits. He was married with grown children. But when he’d told her the history of his sham marriage and how it was in name only, she’d given in to his advances.
Now, all these years later, Lucas would be free to marry her and become a full-time dad to Adam. No more hiding their relationship. No more sneaking around. No more late-night calls. No more hotel meet-ups.
She rubbed her stomach, feeling the almost unnoticeable bump under her hand. Adam would have a sibling soon. Lucas didn’t know about it yet. She planned to tell him today. It would be happy news. She hoped.
The elevator at the end of the hall dinged, and, “Hiya, boss,” was passed around. Her heart fluttered. Eagerness pulsed through her. Lucas was finally back.
Miranda could barely contain the jitters. She stood, smoothed down the front of her skirt, and headed to greet him.
Shriek! Shriek! Shriek!
Miranda woke with a start, her heart lodged in her throat. Instinctively she reached for Adam and Lexi. She glanced around wildly.
Jungle. Jungle. And more jungle.
“Are the monkey’s coming to get us?” Adam asked with a yawn.
Miranda covered his mouth with a hand. “Shhh, only whispers now, remember?”
He pulled her hand away from his lips and whispered, “Are the monkey’s coming to get us?”
“No. We left them at the bridge. The pod carried us far away this time. I think they won’t be messing with us anytime soon.” At least she hoped. Lexi smacked her lips and yawned. Miranda yawned as well. Her eyelids were heavy, and her eyeballs burned. She was exhausted and shook her head, trying to wake fully.
Crap. She’d been up half the night setting the traps around their campsite. She would be running on fumes today. This was not the place to operate with a clogged mind.
She rummaged through the diaper bag, taking stock of their protein bars. With three people to feed, she could always use more. She pressed the food icon on her comlink and did the same to Adam and Lexi’s. She gave Adam a protein bar and dropped hers and Lexi’s into the bag. She gave Adam his water container and poured a little of Lexi’s into her bottle and swished it around to clean it.
Ideally, she needed a bit of dish soap to add to it, but nothing about her situation was ideal. When the bottle was clean enough, she added a few baby formula scoops and filled the rest with water.
She tried not to think about the single canister of powdered formula. Luckily, if it could be called luck, right before they’d taken her from Earth, she’d bought a new can to add to the half-empty can already in the bag. She had enough for maybe twelve more days if she only used half of what the directions called for and supplemented Lexi’s meals with protein bars she pre-chewed for her. Miranda took a deep breath. Hopefully, they would be long gone and back home well before she ran out of formula completely.
“Can you feed Lexi for me?” she asked Adam, who still looked sleepy.
Adam nodded and held out his free arm. Miranda wedged Lexi against him. Her butt was sitting between his crossed legs. Adam wrapped his arm protectively around her. Miranda gave Lexi her bottle, and she grabbed it hungrily, instantly taking it to her mouth. She took a few seconds to study them. They were a dynamic duo. Thick as two peas in a pod.
No matter how her life had turned out, she wouldn’t change anything. If she hadn’t given in to Lucas, she might’ve still had a nice paying job in America with a husband and other children, but she wouldn’t have Adam and Lexi in that scenario. They were the only thing that filled her heart with joy and made the past four years of heartache bearable.
She gave them both a smile. Adam smacked his lips, chewing vigorously on his food, and Lexi giggled around the bottle nipple.
I have to make it through this for them.
Miranda pressed her comlink, and the sleeping bag folded down, and she stored it away. With that taken care of, she got up and went to her main trap. She’d been so tired last night she couldn’t be sure if it was any good.
It wasn’t much, but it was all she had to keep them safe from anyone coming down one of the paths to capture them. She stopped short at the boundary of leaves she’d hoped didn’t appear noticeable. She pulled another handful from the surrounding trees for good measure and threw them down, using her foot to scatter the leaves around. She couldn’t see the sticks she’d placed strategically across the hole she’d dug in the ground.
Maybe a hunter won’t be able to see them either. The hole wasn’t nearly deep enough for a hunter to fall inside and get trapped. Although the rain had made the dirt soft, there was only so much digging she could do with her bare hands. Her poor fingers and nails would take days to recover. When she’d dug, she hadn’t been going for depth. She’d only wanted the many sticks she’d sharpened with a nail file and stuck in the mud, with pointing ends to the sky, to at least slow a hunter down and give them enough time to flee or call for a pod.
Miranda turned, thinking of all the other possible ways a hunter could get to them. Three. More if the hunter was willing to cut through thick vines. Her stomach knotted. She massaged the area with shaking fingers.
Be smart. Be crafty. Be one step ahead of the aliens.
As she made her way back to where Adam and Lexi were, she patted her front pocket where the taser her mom had gotten her for her birthday rested. It scared away any of the druggies who thought she was an easy target because she was at a bus stop with two kids. How effective would it be on an alien, though?
“I hope I never have to find out,” she muttered under her breath.
“What did you say, mommy?” Adam asked with a mouth full of food.
Miranda shook her head and went back to him. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
“Are we going to leave after Lexi finishes her bottle? I want to follow one of the birds that keep watching me.”
He tilted his head back, and Miranda followed his gaze. A brightly colored bird with feathers of different shades of orange perched in one of the tree branches above Adam.
A bird. An actual regular looking bird.
That shouldn’t have mattered to her, but it did. This was the first normal-looking creature they’d happened upon since coming here. The bird tilted its head to the side and let out a large squawk.
“We’re going to try something new from now on. You know how some animals sleep all day and are only active at night?”
He giggled. “They’re called nocturnal.”
She placed a finger over her mouth. “Not so loudly. We’re still hiding from hunters.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Hunters? Like the kind that hunts animals?”
Shit. Miranda hadn’t meant to use that word. “Um. Not exactly. But yes.”
His eyes opened wide. “Are they going to kill us?”
“Oh, honey, no. I didn’t mean to scare you. Remember the other day when those men in costumes jumped from behind the tree and scared us?”
His face was solemn as he nodded.
“They work for the campground. It’s all part of the adventure package. If we’re good at this adventure, they won’t find us, and we’ll win at the end. But if they do catch us, they’ll make us leave the campground, and we won’t win or get a prize at the end.”
“Wow. Why didn’t you tell me we get a prize if we win? Mommy, you should’ve told me that first. What kinda prize?”
She had to think fast. “A medal.”
Adam rubbed his palms together gleefully. “Ohhh, I want a medal.”
She dropped to a knee in front of him. “I think that if we behave like those nocturnal animals, we can avoid the hunters and win the game. I know we can’t change our sleeping schedules like nocturnal animals, but we have to try. When that alarm rings in the morning, we need to avoid the hunters. And when it goes off at night, then we can move about and be as loud as we want because the hunters aren’t working any longer and get to go home to their families.”
“So, this isn’t an adventure camping package?”
“Oh, but it is. It’s an adventure, deluxe camping package. A gaming package.” Ugh. The lies just keep coming.
“I like that. It’s so many things rolled up in one.” Then he asked. “What happens after we win and get our medals?”
“Then, we go home.”
Adam pouted. “But I don’t want to go home. Not yet. I like it out here.”
Miranda sat back on her heels. “The goal of this game is to avoid the hunters and win. If they catch us before we make it to the end...” Please God, don’t let him ask where this magical “end” was. “Then we’ll be crowned as the winners. The goal was never to stay here indefinitely, baby. We either go home with nothing or go home with the medal I told you about.”
“Will it be like the one Coach gave me when I played soccer in America?”
“A bigger one.” If they made it out of this, she would buy him the biggest medal her money could buy and drape it around his neck. It would be so big that he’d have a hard time standing upright.
His face set in determination. “I really want that medal, mommy. Dad would be so proud of me.”
She balled her fists and clenched her jaw. The only thing he wanted was to please a father who didn’t spend enough time with him. Now that they’d moved to Ireland, Lucas hadn’t seen him at all. There was an obligatory phone call once a week, but that was it. Adam loved his dad so much that it was painful to think about. He deserved so much better.
“Yes, he would, baby.”
Crack. Crack.
Miranda stilled.
Crack.
She craned her neck, angling her ear toward the sound.
Crack. Crack.
There was no mistaking it. Someone was coming down the path. Not the one she’d placed her trap on, though. The noise was coming from a different direction. As a rudimentary warning alarm, she’d broken up some branches and scattered them along another path to alert her of incoming hunters. She’d been bone-tired after finishing her hole and had almost decided not to spend the effort on the second path. Now she was glad she had.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered. She took the bottle from Lexi and dropped it in the diaper bag. She then looped the bag around her shoulder and plucked Lexi from Adam’s arms.
She stood and pulled Adam to his feet. After she secured Lexi in her sling, Miranda made eye contact with Adam and put a finger of her lips. He nodded his understanding. She tiptoed toward her hole and pulled Adam along. The grip she had on his arm was probably painful but loosening it wasn’t an option. She didn’t know what she’d do if they got separated.
When she made it to her trap, she took a big step over the leaves. “Jump,” she whispered to Adam.
“Mine!”
She startled at the roar from behind them and whipped around. Her eyes settled on an alien unlike anything she’d ever seen before. It was large and imposing with dark brown skin. Lighter shades of tan ran along its torso and upper thighs. Muscles were coiled and on display. It didn’t wear any clothes. Where a penis would be on a human at the groin area, there was a smooth plate.
“I claim you!” it continued in a menacing growl.
Her eyes snapped to the hunter’s face. Its mouth was a small slit and right above that were two dark holes. Smooth plates covered where she thought his eyes should’ve been.
“Stay,” it called out.
“Jump,” she whispered again to Adam.
Adam didn’t move. His frantic gaze was stuck on the alien. The hunter advanced on long, powerful legs. Its feet slammed against the ground making a thumping sound as he walked.
“Adam! Now!”
Adam blinked his stupor away then leaped as she pulled him, helping his momentum to clear the trap. There was no way they could outrun this thing. His stride was longer than hers. She backed away, keeping Adam behind her.
She could call a pod. But what if it took her straight to another hunter?
The alien advanced. Indecision filled her core. She wanted to get away, but she also didn’t want to be hand-delivered to another hunter with no way of escaping. Min had to fight her hunter when it had happened to her. Miranda didn’t think she would win if placed in the same situation.
“Stay away from us,” she warned in a shaky voice.
He stepped closer.
Wait. Be smart. If the trap doesn’t slow him down, I’ll call a pod.
She willed herself not to look at the trap and continued backward, putting more distance between them. If he cleared it, she would only have seconds to call for a pod.
The alien’s foot hovered over the leaves, then came down. His foot lost purchase and he snapped his head back, releasing an angry roar. He tried to right himself but lacked balance and fell to the side. A sickening gurgle followed. Then silence.
“What happened to him?” Adam whispered.
“Shh. Follow me.”
Miranda tip-toed toward the hunter. She smelled it before she saw it. Blood. Although the hunter was an alien, his blood had the distinct metal smell a human would have. One more step forward confirmed it. The alien was on his side. Blue liquid seeped from his body, dripping over the sticks. The sticks would’ve been inconvenient for a human, something that might’ve slowed them down, but to penetrate the skin like this? His had to be paper-thin, and his muscles not much better.
“He’s dead. Why did you kill him?” Adam’s voice was higher than usual. “We shouldn’t hurt people. Now he can’t go home to his family tonight.”
Oh, my God! What have I done?
She whipped around and dropped to crouch in front of Adam, forgetting about the dead alien. “Oh, no, honey. This isn’t a real person in a costume, like the hunters that work for the campground. This is a special robot that they use to help out.” She had to remove the guilty feeling bubbling in her gut. She’d killed someone. I had to.
She pointed toward the alien. “It doesn’t even have real blood. It’s just a machine. When this is over, the people who run this campground will come to get their equipment and fix it.” She forced herself to smile. “See? It’s all part of the game.”
Adam watched the alien warily. “It’s not real people? Are you sure?”
She would be lucky if he didn’t come out of this scarred for life.
But he would come out of it. The thought was made with such conviction she believed it herself. She used a free hand to ruffle his hair. “You betcha. I only paid for the basic package, but your dad paid for all the extras. He wanted to give you the best adventure package ever. So realistic.”
She hated using Lucas in her lie, but if Adam thought his dad had a part in their adventure, he would go along without so much as a question. To get them through The Hunt and back home, she needed Adam on board with everything she did, including killing an alien. When they got home, she would pay for therapy. Hell, she would get two or three jobs to pay for twice a week therapy for both of them. They would surely need it after this.
He pulled his gaze from the dead alien and gave her a half-smile. “I can’t wait to tell Grams and Grandad about our adventure. They’ll finally stop talking bad about dad.”
Would she ever see her parents again? She’d been so focused on surviving that she hadn’t let herself think about it. They were probably worried sick. Even Lucas would be worried when she didn’t answer the phone for his weekly call.
Miranda suppressed the choke in her throat and smiled brighter to hide her hurt. “Yeah, sure.”
Her parents hated Lucas with a passion. They’d blamed him for leading her on. They’d blamed him for getting her pregnant, twice. They’d even blamed him for her losing her job at the finance company.
Lucas was only partly to blame for one of those. She’d been more than a willing participant in their affair and hadn’t done much in the way of birth control. To her parents, as their only child, she could do no wrong.
Yes, she’d been upset with Lucas when he’d told her that he didn’t have plans to leave his wife. She’d gotten angry when he’d offered her money to “get rid of the baby.” But the meltdown in the middle of the workday and going bat-shit crazy on everything in his office? That was all her. She’d been fired instantly without severance or a back-up plan.
Adam pointed behind her. “So how are we going to take down the other robot, or is that one a hunter?”
Miranda turned slowly to where he pointed. Another hunter stood across the small clearing. This one was dressed in a black outfit that clung to his body. His arms were uncovered, revealing muscles under pale blue skin. He wasn’t as big as the dead alien. His height and build resembled any regular human man in good physical shape and lifted weights in their spare time.
While everything below his neck was human-like, his face screamed alien. It was diamond-shaped instead of oval, and he had deep V-shaped ridges on his forehead between his eyes. Hoops hung off a chin that didn’t have any roundness to it. His ears protruded from the sides of his head, and also held hooped rings. The sharpness of his chin and ears made his cheekbones high and severe.
Rings seemed to be the theme of this one because through his flat nose was a septum ring. The hunter’s coal-black eyes, while wide and deep-set, matched his face and made it appealing. He had shaved his head on the sides and the back. His white hair was high in a ponytail, and the length of it still hung past his shoulder. His appearance was strange but oddly handsome.
He smiled, parting his full lips, revealing a mouth full of canines. Miranda stood slowly. Alarm bells bounced around her head, drowning out all thought.
He pointed a hand, indicating the dead hunter. “He wasn’t smart, was he? He saw you jump over the leaves, yet decided to step on them.”
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll do the same to you,” she warned in a voice full of false courage.
His eyes twinkled with humor. “Do you have any other traps set, Mishka?”
She lifted her chin. “I might.”
He chuckled. The sound was light and...nice. Her shoulders relaxed. The tension in her neck receded.
“But you don’t, do you?” His voice was warm and oh so comforting.
“I don’t.” She didn’t want to lie to him. It was wrong to lie to such a friendly alien.
He took a step into the clearing. “That’s good to hear. I don’t wish to die today.”
She didn’t want him to die either. He was so lovely.