Page 26 of Hunting Ground

“Us doesn’t necessarily mean two,” Ansel retorts, back to being a cocky shit.

“But maybe we can save the rest of this until, I don’t know, we’re not at the sight of my nightmares?” Ronan interrupts with a quick roll of his eyes. As if he isn’t a culprit of doing the opposite of hustling right now.

“Oh please. If anyone has nightmares about this place, it’s me.” I reach up and rake my fingers through my hair, letting out a sigh as I do. “I don’t know what to do, though.” I hate admitting it, but no matter how much I try, I can’t figure out what to do. Not even where to start.

“I think there has to be a weak point in the fence,” Adrien suggests from my other side, still leaning on the railing. When I look back, he shifts so he’s almost posing, like he’s expecting some photographer to do a drive by for GQ.

So much of me wants to push him over that my retort freezes in my throat so I can admire the mental image of him tumbling through the air.

“Not this side,” Ansel says and folds his arms. Ronan goes to a large duffel bag beneath the Ferris wheel to rummage in it.

“I don’t want to run.” The words are soft, and as I say them, a flash of cold rage simmers in my chest. Nausea claws at my insides, and I find myself repeating it, even as they guys continue to bicker about what to do.

“No.” The word feels right, and I speak it just as there’s a break in their conversation. Ansel looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, and Ronan turns to me with a frown.

“I know you’re freaked out–” he begins, but my scoff of dry amusement cuts him off.

The look I give both him and Ansel is baleful, and I force myself to stand a little straighter with my back to the water and the pitch black sky.

“I don’t want to run,” I say carefully. Slowly, to make sure they hear every word and to feel the weight of them in my mouth.

“If I run, they kill everyone anyway. If I run, they do this again. I want–” Here I falter, because the idea is so much easier than saying it out loud and planning the execution.

“I want to hunt them back,” I murmur at last. “I want to turn their hunting ground into mine. Will you help me?” The words are out before I can stop them and I glance up at Ansel, Ronan, and Adrien.

The three of them look at me like they don’t know me, and in the case of Ansel and Ronan, it makes something in me falter.

If they say no–

Suddenly Adrien snorts, and he toys with his mask in his hands as his lips curl into a grin. “Oh, pretty princess,” he laughs. “That’s the the most exciting thing you’ve said all night.”

10

“You want to kill them.” Ansel’s voice is edged with disbelief, though not outright surprise. He glances at Adrien, then Ronan, like either of them might have an answer to my words. “You want to go back in there and–” He mimes stabbing people with a knife, pauses, then instead mimics me swinging the crowbar like a baseball bat.

“Well if we’re being honest, I’d like to trade this in. No offense, but I’d prefer something a bit more stabby, a bit less blunt.” At my words, Ronan reaches out to take the crowbar, examining the edge that’s still stained with the bride’s blood. Somehow, enough of it has stayed in the tiny grooves to give it a gross, rusty sheen in the light from the Ferris wheel, and he gently sets it down on the platform behind him.

“Yeah maybe we get you something a bit better. I’ll be back.” He turns and walks to the two large duffel bags, rummaging through them while Ansel makes a noncommittal noise in his throat.

“We came here to get you out, you know,” he informs me flatly. “Just wanna put that out there.”

I blink at him, slow and deliberate, my head tilting to the side. This kind of attitude doesn’t surprise me, when it comes from him. He’s always been the contrary one. Especially when I have the audacity to fuck up the plans he’s clearly oh so carefully crafted. He meets my gaze , scowling, and finally takes a step forward, suddenly tense.

“I missed you.” The words are out of his mouth quick, and he looks surprised, like he hadn’t meant to say them. But then his face darkens with resolution and he reaches out to brush his knuckles against my cheek. “I really fucking missed you.”

Ansel draws me closer, not minding that Adrien is watching everything like he’s on a binge-marathon of his favorite soap opera. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, not trying to hide his interest in what Ansel is doing.

“I just want–”

“Here you go.” Ronan holds a hunting knife between us, his smile sweet and oblivious. Even when Ansel turns to look at him, the movement slow and incredulous, he doesn’t notice. His eyes are on me, waiting for me to take the blade from him.

“Oh.” A smile curls over my lips and I take the knife in its sheath from him. It’s not long enough to be labeled as something so dramatic as a machete, but it’s big enough that I could probably disembowel someone with it sort of easily.

With some practice, of course.

Ansel gives a soft grumble and walks away, running his fingers through his hair while Ronan turns to look at him, confused, before glancing between Adrien and me.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, reminding me of an absolute puppy.