Page 34 of Hunting Ground

“I don’t feel bad,” I agree as I stare down at the men. “I’ve just never seen men look like packaged ground beef. You guys uh, did quite a number on their faces, you know?” I blink, head tilting as I study their faces that are still shiny with tacky, drying blood. “You curb stomped a lot of guys before?” I ask mildly. “Seems like you’ve had practice.”

My eyes find Adrien’s mask but I’m already walking around the side of the carousel, away from the bodies. He’s the first to follow me, cutting in front of Ansel to do so and getting a low noise of disapproval for the action. Though he ignores it, instead catching up to walk beside me until our shoulders brush.

“would it bother you if I said yes?” he murmurs, voice low enough I doubt the other two men hear. “would it bother you if I’ve had lots of practice killing men in so many ways?”

“Do you want it to bother me?” I reply, giving a shrewd, side-eyed look. “Is that why you sound so happy about it? Or why you’re so eager to tell me you’ve done it before?”

He doesn’t answer. Not at first, and not for a good minute as we walk. “I don’t know yet,” he says at last, drifting back to fall into the shadows without another word.

I don’t stop, though my steps do slow until Ansel and Ronan catch up to me on either side, their conversation never faltering. They easily draw me into it and I give both of them my attention, occasionally casting looks back at the masked semi-stranger who’s so similar to my boys and yet so different.

In a way, he reminds me of…me. But that’s probably not a very nice thing to say, since I’m not really a pillar of society. Still, his humor is darker than Ansel’s, even, and he’s more decisive, more quick to action, than Ronan from what I’ve seen.

I wonder how many times he’s found himself in situations like this, where he’s required to be the bad guy. Does it bother other people? I want to ask him as my eyes find the glimmer of his mask in the dark. Is that why you were expecting it to bother me so badly?

But of course, that isn’t a question for now, or any time in the foreseeable future of tonight. My curiosity about him will have to wait.

At least until I rescue Lily and find a way to get us out of here.

Then, maybe, I can finally sate the feral interest I have in him–and grill Ansel and Ronan about the last nine years of their lives.

I don’t expect the roller rink to be lit up like it is. Spotlights shine up from the base of it, like bat signals in the night sky. The music dies down the closer we get, though that doesn’t make me feel better when a long, keening wail of agony pierces the night.

“I hate it here,” I sigh, remembering every instance of cleaning up puke, of dealing with kids careening on skates, and worse–always so much worse–the drunks that liked to pretend they were more athletic than they were.

‘I could skate in college!’

‘I used to take my girl skating!’

‘Not my fault the rink is uneven! Go get your manager–’

Slurred voices and insults ring in my ears while I stand outside, feeling incredibly exposed and vulnerable in the light bathed on me by the spotlights that were never here before. If there were a red carpet, this would feel like some kind of premiere. Especially with the doors opening inward, beckoning.

Daring any participant of this game to come in, is the way it looks to me.

“Do you know how many hunters are in there?” I ask Adrien, moving out of the light and around to the back of the building instinctively. I know where both of the doors are, and the outside landing that we could only get to by the fire escape.

“Three, I think. Maybe four,” Adrien replies as he matches my pace. “What are you looking for?”

“That.” I stop in my tracks and point upward at the mostly intact ladder of the fire escape. “Boost me up?” My stomach flutters as I push back my fear of the whole thing rusting through and plummeting me to a tetanus-filled death.

“Let me go,” Ronan argues, striding over to stand beside me. When I give him a look, he adds, “You’d be shocked at how much of this I do back on the west coast. Part of my job.”

“What kind of jobs do you have?” I can’t help but scoff. But Ronan doesn’t answer. He takes a few steps back, then another, and lunges forward before springing neatly off the ground.

It’s certainly athletic. I’ve never before thought someone looked so much like a cat, but he somehow gets enough airtime to grab onto the ledge of the fire escape. He turns and walks carefully over the old metal, the bars creaking and trembling under him. A few times, iron flakes rain down, smelling of rust and decay, but it still manages to hold under his weight.

Carefully, with slow movements that are as quiet as they are controlled, Ronan reaches out for the fire escape window. He jerks it upward, and a creaking whine splits the air, causing all three of us on the ground to flinch and Adrien to snarl a curse under his breath.

“Sorry, sorry! Fuck.” Ronan jumps back down to the ground, using the top of a dumpster and then hitting the concrete in a crouch. “Maybe no one–”

“I’ll check out back!” The door at the end of the building bangs open, flooding the back of the roller rink with light across the pavement.

All four of us freeze. Even Adrien hesitates, though his hand goes to the knife at his waist.

“Don’t.” I grab him before the person comes out far enough to see us. “If you do, they might kill Lily.”

“Rather her than us,” Adrien snarls. “Look, we tried, okay?” He reaches out to grab for me and I jerk back, realization dawning on me.