The Prey (The Hunt 2)

Epap scribbles individual names on each can. A good way to learn new names, he says. He is trying to be brave, trying to be strong. He writes Sissy’s name on her can. He is refusing to acknowledge the undeniable: in a few hours he will have to do the unthinkable. First to her, then to me. He scribbles my name on a can, as if to make a point.

I stare at the cans of peaches, standing side by side. My name, Sissy’s name, scrawled in block letters. Like names on our tombstones.

* * *

Nighttime. I spasm awake, feeling the chill of the desert night clinging to my bones. Even the light of the moon has become an assault on my eyes. The turning is nearing completion. A cool breeze whistles through the train car, tinged with the scent of smoke. I sit up, glance up. A column of thick smoke rises from the lead car’s smokestack. The engine must have automatically kicked in after we’d lost our downhill momentum. It will stay at this speed, in all likelihood, all the way to the Palace, never slowing down. Everything automated.

Like my turning.

I shiver, my whole body racked with tremors. My heart racing, my shirt sticky with the cold condensation of sweat. The slowness of the turning, an agony all its own. Moonlight splashes through the cage; the shadows of the metal bars bend and curve across the topography of our bodies. Now and then, a girl cries out, lost in her nightmare. I sit up, feel the crackle of dried, crusty bone. David sleeps fitfully next to me, anguished words murmuring out of his lips. I pull the blanket over him. His arm is draped across the empty space on his other side. Where Jacob would be sleeping.

The land lumbers by, miles and miles of nothingness. Sissy lies at my feet, her head nestled in Epap’s lap. The daggers sheathed in her belt glint in the moonlight, beckoning me. My fingers touch the rough leather of her belt. I unhook the strap, draw a dagger out. It is time.

Epap will not do it. But I can. I must. First her, then me.

I place the dagger against her neck. The blade sinks into her soft flesh; I see the ripple of her pulse beating just above the blade.

It is pulsing out with a slow steadiness, not rapid hammering. With a frown, I touch her skin.

It is dry. It is warm.

I place my hand over her heart. The heartbeat is steady and slow.

She’s not turning anymore. She’s unturning.

I stare at her calm, rested face, not understanding. A wind blows through the bars, and I shiver with the heated delirium of the turning.

“Sissy?”

Her eyelids flutter slightly. She is coming to. Her arm slips out from under the blanket, knocks against the peach cans by her head. Mine and hers, side by side.

I think I see something, and my heart, for reasons not immediately apparent, starts to hammer away even faster.

And then I hear something, the voice of my father, his voice startlingly clear even after so many years: You’re looking but not seeing. Sometimes the answer is right under your nose.

Sissy starts to stir awake. Her tongue laps out, dry and white, moistening her cracked lips. Her eyelids begin to open, not with the jittery flutter from earlier in the day, but with a sureness about it.

In a few moments, she will come to, sit up, look at me.

But not yet. My eyes fall on the cans again, standing side by side. At the letters scrawled, the names Epap had written on them.

Gene. Sissy.

But not quite. Because her name, with so many letters, is only partially visible. Just the first three letters are visible, the last two letters disappearing behind the curvature of the can.

Sis.

The name the Scientist christened her with.

And suddenly, I am thinking of the hang glider. It was always meant to be the two of you. I am thinking of Krugman, his insistence that the Origin was something typographical. Of Epap, saying my father always gave names for a specific reason. Of my blood, in her, conjoining with hers.

I keep staring at the names, and I am a blind man who suddenly gains sight.

Gene. Sis.

Gene. Sis.

Genesis.

She starts opening her eyes, eyes that I will never look at again in the same way.

Her eyes open, locking onto mine. She does not flinch, does not blink against the moonlight splashing down on her face. She will think my eyes widen because of gladness, because of surprise, on seeing her revive.

But they widen only because of realization; because of the truth that has been staring me in the face all this time. Right under my nose.

Genesis. The beginning.

The Origin.

Not me. Not her. But both of us.

Together, we are the cure.

Don’t miss the final book

In the Hunt trilogy

Coming September 2013

Acknowledgments

Catherine Drayton has continued to be an agent par excellence. I am thankful to have in my corner someone so dependable, whose insights and business acumen I have come to both rely upon and take for granted. Thank you also to the übertalented people at InkWell Management, especially Richard Pine, Lyndsey Blessing, Charlie Olsen, and Kristan Palmer.

I am especially indebted to Rose Hilliard, my editor at St. Martin’s Press. I have a deep appreciation for her wizardly editorial skills, warm encouragement, and elegant guidance. This book breathes clarity, depth, and life because of her. Many thanks also to Matthew Shear, Anne Marie Tallberg, Joseph Goldschein, Loren Jaggers, Paul Hochman, Jeffrey Dodes, and NaNá V. Stoelzle.

Thank you to Ingrid Selberg, Venetia Gosling, Kathryn McKenna, and the rest of the team at Simon & Schuster UK for embracing this series with such tireless dedication.

For their generosity with time and words, I am forever indebted to Andrea Cremer, Becca Fitzpatrick, Richelle Mead, and Alyson Noël. Your early support meant—and has continued to mean—the world to me. Thank you so much.

Thank you to Monsters Calling Home for inspiring me.

And finally, to Ching-Lee and the boys, for love and support and laughs and rest and hope and fun and excitement and joy and sanctuary and inspiration and a hundred thousand other reasons.

Also by Andrew Fukuda

The Hunt

Praise for The Hunt

“The story is bona fide creepy, and as it builds to its cliff-hanger ending (which delivers quite a good twist), readers will be torn between hoping Gene can maintain the ruse and that he will take on the bloodsuckers already. As revolutions go, this one is well worth keeping on your radar.”

—Booklist

“In this terrifying and inventive adventure, Fukuda turns the vampire novel inside out.… With an exciting premise fueled by an underlying paranoia, fear of discovery, and social claustrophobia, this thriller lives up to its potential while laying groundwork for future books.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Take the overwhelming aloneness of I Am Legend, add in the hunt of The Hunger Games, and you’ll see why this combustible combo results in a tense moment-to-moment calculation of Gene’s chances at survival.”

—Justine Magazine

“Fukuda takes the feeling of isolation that dominates adolescence and builds a world around it in a novel where the tension rarely slackens. He turns up the violence a notch from The Hunger Games with language that is as graphic as it is eloquent. Readers will hanker for answers as they’ll discover a kindred spirit in Gene, who so eloquently describes the feeling of being an island in the middle of a vast ocean.”

—Maximum Shelf

“I was blown away from the first chapter all the way to the end. Fukuda did an excellent job turning the world of vampirism upside down. Wonderful descriptions, great imagination, and very tight characters. If you love vampire worlds, then read this book. You will not want to put this one down!”

—Night Owl Reviews (Reviewer Top Pick)

“The dialogue is authentic and intense, the setting is grim and frightening, and the narration is superbly executed—lending an immediacy to the action as it unfolds. A fine pie

ce of work.”