The Trap (The Hunt 3)

I hear a click of metal. Sissy has pulled the dart gun off her back, jacked back the trigger. She points the gun at me, her eyes fixed warily on the drool splattering down my bare chest.

“We re-turn now,” she says. “You first. ”

“No, wait. ” The words sloshing in my mouth, drowning in my saliva.

Her head snaps. “No. Now. ” Her words coming out lispy, mired in wet bands of saliva in her mouth. “I dart you. Then I’ll turn the gun around, dart myself. ”

The floor starts to tremble, the walls shake. I gaze outside quickly. They’re almost upon us, the millions from the metropolis.

“Wait,” I say, lifting my arms. “Just wait. ”

The dart gun trembles. Because she’s feeling it, too. The conflict. The equivocation.

“I’m going to shoot you now,” she says. “Don’t move. ”

“Wait. ”

She stares into my eyes, past the drab, unreadable expression of my face. And in my eyes she sees something I’m trying to hide, and it is the very thing she’s trying to deny.

We don’t want to be re-turned. We don’t want to be squeezed into the confines of heper nature again.

Hands trembling, the smallest flash of fear breaking through the plane of her face, she raises the dart gun, points it at my neck. “Never forget who you are,” she says, and starts pulling the trigger.

A flash of movement. From behind her. A mere blur, a flash of white, whorls of flaming red.

Ashley June, a bullet of ferocity and velocity, smacks into Sissy’s side. Sissy goes flying, the dart gun skittering across the floor. Ashley June pounces, her body looping right across the suite, landing on the dart gun. She spins around, the gun pointing at Sissy.

Fifty-five

ASHLEY JUNE IS a pyre of savage beauty. The dusk sun has descended into her hair, and the stars become imprisoned in her eyes. I’m seeing her not through the scope of a sniper rifle or the tinted glass of the Panic Room. Nor, most of all, through heper eyes. But in the flesh, in dusker flesh, with dusker eyes. And it is as if I’m seeing her for the first time. And when her gaze falls on me, my lungs grow hot because I have forgotten to breathe.

“You,” she says. A huskiness scraping her monotone voice. Her face shines with the alabaster white glow of a corona. “You did it. You turned. I knew you would. ” Her tongue licks out. “It feels perfect, doesn’t it?”

“What have you done?” Sissy says. “What have you unleashed here?”

Ashley June’s face flicks back to Sissy. “I did what anyone would have done in my position. What you would have done. ” She turns to me again. “I used my knowledge to my advantage. I stole in here, hunted down as many hepers as I could. It was easy. They were all in the basement, like food served up on a platter. Then all the Palace staffers wanted in on it, started hunting down the remaining hepers. It was an all-out binge. Better than advertised. ”

A pained wistfulness flares in her eyes. “It was supposed to be just me and you, Gene. To celebrate your turning. How awesome would that have been. All that heper blood and flesh and bone you missed out on . . . ” She stares outside, at the approaching masses of people. “And now look, you’re just like those latecomers. Not a heper left. Except one. ”

My eyes swing to the tanks, to David floating, eyes still closed.

“Not that one,” she says.

“Then who—”

“Her,” she says, keeping the muzzle pointed at Sissy. “Once we re-turn her. ”

“Stop. You don’t understand,” Sissy says. “We can help you. We can re-turn—”

“Sorry, but we’ve already had this conversation. ”

“You don’t get it,” Sissy continues. “We’ll dart ourselves with this Origin serum and—”

“—it’ll turn us back to heper?” Ashley June finishes. “Do you really want that? Be honest now: do you really want that?” Ashley June scratches her wrist. “Because by now you’ve realized how much more comfortable you feel. Everything simply flows better, doesn’t it? Feet and hands gliding and sliding in synch instead of crashing about like uncoordinated appendages. ”

Sissy steps toward Ashley June. “Give me the dart gun. ”

But Ashley June only shakes her head, raises the gun. “Everything that has fallen apart is coming back together. Everything is being restored. Everything is going to be perfect. Except there’s one last thing to do. ” The temperature in the room suddenly plummets.

Ashley June, keeping the muzzle pointed at Sissy, places the stock of the gun firmly against her shoulder.

Sissy falls into a crouch, lips pulled back, fangs jutting out.

Ashley June hisses, her finger tightening around the trigger.

Sissy kicks out with her legs, bounds toward Ashley June. Closing the distance by half, Sissy leaps at Ashley June. Fangs bared, claws unsheathed.