Page 2 of Hunted

Unsurprisingly, he was now flanked by his two best friends and brothers in arms: Evander Lockwood and Deklan Pearce.

Evander, or Van as they called him, was a literal genius. Despite looking like someone’s preppy college brother, with a tall, wiry frame, blue eyes behind glasses with wire frames, and sweet, honey-brown curls, he was giving Milo Thatch in the best of ways—at least until he called you out in front of the class and asked a question that made you feel like a moron for not knowing the answer.

I’d made it a personal challenge to always know the answers, but he never seemed to call on me for them anyway.

Deklan was another story altogether. Known as Dek to his brothers and Instructor Pearce to us, he looked more like Beckett’s actual brother than Van did. An inch taller, he possessed the same, strong sleeper build, but his eyes were what set him apart. Sharp, hazel irises stared back at me across the lawn, lingering for a moment longer than polite. They flashed with some hidden thought I couldn’t even begin to guess at before he jerked away in clear dismissal. The movement only highlighted the cords in his neck and the Grim Reaper tattoo plastered down the left side of it.

I’d always found it somewhat amusing—that a literal assassin pretty much announced his line of work in ink across his skin to any who dared read into it.

The trio of unmatched killers standing silently in front of our cohort had graduated four years ago and were nothing short of whispered legends within these halls. Somehow, they’d already risen through the ranks to hold positions of authority at the Academy—faster than anyone else, ever.

Suspicious, if you asked me.

All three cinderblocks of men were our main instructors of final year, or Assessment Year—otherwise known as Ass Year, because it sucked ass. Beckett honed—or rather, punished—our bodies, Lockwood trained our minds, leaving Pearce to sharpen our weaponry skills. Rumour had it he could nail a headshot from two clicks away.

I called bullshit.

Beckett’s glare coated my skin like tar as I stood at attention in the pouring rain, waiting for our carefully selected hell—read: evaluation task—to be announced.

I refused to entertain his ire. I would not bend beneath the weight of it. Instead, I remained stalwart, staring straight ahead lest I face the consequences of showing him I was provokable. What was the point in ogling my superior’s slightly curling hair—so dark it looked black—as it funnelled drops of rainwater down the planes of his face? Or of noting how his solid midnight t-shirt was plastered across his obscenely ripped torso like a wet hug, leaving precisely nothing to the imagination?

Okay, fine—so my peripherals were ogling.

“Two laps of the field, then back to me for sparring assignments. Let’s go!” he ordered, receiving a collective groan in response. “Halt!” He grinned—which never boded well. “On second thought, you’re gonna run Devil’s Pass instead.”

I grimaced internally, unwilling to risk his wrath by letting my face broadcast my dread aloud.

Devil’s Pass was a hellforsaken obstacle course that might as well have been crafted by Lucifer himself. Consisting of a winding track up one mountain, a zipline across to a second mountain, then obstacles all the way down, it was a surefire way to lose your breakfast—luckily, there hadn’t been time for me to eat anything this morning.

“Blackwing does not suffer cowards or snowflakes!” Beckett bellowed. “We create only the hardiest, most unshakeable assassins. Let’s go, recruits!”

It was true. Blackwing Academy systematically ensured all the weak links in our cohort would be cut before graduation in six short months. Devil’s Pass was just one method of that. If the mountains didn’t come for you, Blackwing itself would.

It started with Shaila Weaving in first year, who’d left the grounds in a body bag after a failed interrogation. Then Rory Jameson left the same way a week later. I stopped paying attention to names after that. Out of an original class size of thirty-one recruits, seventeen remained—all vying for top spot and that one dream designation on Assignment Day.

And now sixteen of them were ahead of me on Devil’s Pass, while I was too busy not ogling.

I launched into a jog, ignoring the glares of my instructors and the chill of icy rainwater down my back.

Trekking two kilometres up Black Mountain was a mean feat on a regular day, let alone in this weather, at the back of a very competitive, very cutthroat pack of would-be assassins. Thankfully, running was one of my few emotional vices—and the only one I could access within Academy walls. I loved the feeling of being uncatchable; of outrunning the things I’d outlived.

I caught and passed three initiates on my way up to the first peak—Widow’s Drop—which, thankfully, meant I wasn’t dead-last anymore.

Last could get you dead around here.

The peak was supposedly named over a century ago—after a woman whose husband slipped and fell into another woman’s vagina. When this Victorian-era badass caught them both in the act, she proceeded to murder the lover, heinously and chaotically, making her bastard husband watch. Then, she took her knife, as well as her sweet time, and meticulously dispatched him—piece by treacherous piece—starting with his foreskin and ending with his heart. She finished by tossing every scrap of them both off the jagged cliff face, then joined them at the bottom.

Hard not to feel a little in awe of the woman after learning that.

My boots skidded on the wet gravel as I pulled up short in the small clearing a few metres from the edge of the Drop, with a handful of recruits who’d made it here before I had.

A chasm stretched out before us—a wide, yawning trench carved between Black Mountain and its closest neighbour, Sapphire Ridge.

Colourful names for haunted ridges. Kind of juxtaposing if you thought about it.

Rain pelted down in heavy sheets, so much colder and needle-like at this altitude than it had been at the mountain’s base. The worst of it was my feet. My socks were now thoroughly and uncomfortably saturated, my boots squelching with every step.

A certifiable sensory nightmare.