The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1) (17 page)

I turn to leave, but McCoy halts me with a hand on my shoulder. “What are you doing?”

I shake my head. “It’s not him. You were right.”

“The least you can do is ask. Otherwise, you’re going to wonder for the rest of your life.”

I grunt because I know he’s right again. It will be something that nags at me. I’ll never be able to find peace or resolution if I don’t take care of this now. Besides, maybe he does like the thrill of a fight. Why else would Gavin still be here?

The bell on the shop door jingles. My breath hitches in my throat when I see Kurt and Squint, now obviously allies in the search for Gavin. Before I have a chance to ask McCoy what we should do, they’re striding with determination toward the counter, eyes focused, jaws set tight, hands on their weapons.

Squint points a greasy finger at Gavin, like he’s just eaten an entire slab of bacon. “Tell G we have business with him.”

The shop goes quiet. Everyone remains frozen where they stand. Kurt steps around to my left. Squint takes a stand on my right. McCoy is behind me. He gently eases me back, out of their way. Gavin holds steady, but I sense his fear. Each of them in a stare down. Me and McCoy look on while my mind spins, trying to calculate how this will go down so that we don’t lose Gavin. Before I know what’s happening, Gavin bolts toward the back door. He doesn’t get very far. Squint leaps over the counter like a bobcat pouncing on a cornered hare. Kurt attempts to toss his knife at Gavin, but he unintentionally elbows me in the head in the process, which makes his knife falter and go way off mark.

Kurt spins around, his mouth twisting angrily as he grabs my collar. “Get in my way again …”

A look of recognition materializes in the blacks of his eyes. I reach for my hunter’s knife but he’s faster. His hand moves from my collar to my arm, his grip like a vice. I kick him in the gut, catching him by surprise. The force of my strike sends him stumbling into the counter. The glass shatters, launching shards in every direction. I turn my head to protect my face, stealing a glance at Gavin. Squint has him pinned against the wall while Gavin struggles to break free with a knife at his throat. I need to get to him. I want him alive when I spit out every nasty thought I’ve had about him for the past three years.

Kurt lunges at me before I can slip my knife from its sleeve. McCoy intervenes, wrenching him to the ground, throwing punches, deflecting hits, each of them rolling over the glass crunching under their weight.

I take aim at Squint, Gavin meeting my eyes at the second I thrust my hunter’s knife. It sails through the air, scoring a hit between Squint’s shoulder blades. He arches and reaches toward his back. Gavin shoves him to the ground, but Squint catches Gavin’s leg and trips him before he gets away. I whirl to see Kurt scrambling to his feet, McCoy knocked out, or dead.

I drop to my knees beside his head. “McCoy!” I smack at his face. “Wake—”

Someone yanks my ponytail. I grunt and reach back to stop the pain, to stop from becoming someone’s ticket to freedom, but I’m forced to my feet. I reach for my shank. It’s knocked from my hand so I pivot and start kicking until the sharp point of a blade grazes my jugular.

My eyes lock on Kurt’s. He tips his head with a smirk. “King said he wants you alive, but he didn’t say we couldn’t take an arm or an ear. You best cooperate or that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

I swallow hard, lowering my head in compliance. I’ll have to wait for a better moment to make a run for it. I steal a glance at Gavin and see him under the control of Squint, although Squint doesn’t look like he’s going to make it very far. His breathing is labored. Blood soaks his shirt, falling in drips to the floor. My aim did enough damage that I don’t think he’ll recover. “You better lead us the fastest way out,” Squint says to Gavin with a knife at his throat.

Kurt drags me through the shop. Customers move out of the way, some whispering, some shouting for the sheriff, and I feel like that must be a joke in a city of criminals. I glance back at McCoy before we push through the swinging doors into the back of the shop. I catch a glimpse of him holding the side of his head at his temple. This is a good sign. At least he’s alive.

We make our way through a workroom. Tables full of tools and metals and materials for making knives of all types are scattered everywhere. Kurt stops to bind my hands with cord. Squint does the same with Gavin. We exit through a door and into the alley that separates the buildings from the wall that surrounds the town.

“We can’t go back through town,” Kurt hollers at Squint.

Squint halts and when we catch up, Kurt digs his fingers into Gavin’s neck. “You best take us the quickest way out of this city and back to the desert.”

Gavin just stands there, confused, like he doesn’t understand what’s going on. Kurt digs his fingernails in deeper. “Otherwise, you die right here.”

“Okay, okay,” says Gavin, rubbing his neck when Kurt releases him.

Gavin takes us down the alley, me continually looking over my shoulder, hoping to see McCoy. Gavin halts in front of the wall where several planks of wood are stacked. He nods at the wood with his head and holds up his hands to show that he can’t move them. Squint cuts his hands free. Gavin moves the planks while we look on, revealing what looks like cracked adobe, but it’s really a small door. Gavin yanks out a brick and pushes the door open. Squint and Gavin go through first.

Kurt and Squint force us to sprint across the desert toward the plateau. Running with my hands tied behind my back requires more effort, more concentration. I manage it by being grateful that I’ve still got eyes on Gavin. I glare at his back as we run, wishing I could take him out now. Realizing he’s one of those calm sociopaths, the kind that are so cunning you don’t know whether you’re coming or going until they’ve got you entangled in their web.

Squint coughs, pulling my thoughts from Gavin. It’s amazing that he’s able to keep up, pushing past his injury. I don’t think he understands that he might be on his death bed. Soon after I think this, his sprint slows to a jog. Halfway to the plateau, Squint has to stop completely. I steal a glance toward town, but so far no one is after us. Not even McCoy.

The bleeding is worse. Squint removes his shirt and ties it around his chest. I figure he only has hours to live, but he acts as though his injuries are nothing. I’m sure he’s in denial and when Squint dies, Kurt will be outnumbered. In fact, if I have anything to say about it, he’ll be dead too.

It isn’t until we’re at the foot of the cliff where the trail leads up that I pause and finally see someone crossing the desert after us. A flicker of hope stirs inside of me. It’s McCoy and he’s about halfway from Millers Creek. I can tell it’s him by the way he runs, with an awkward gait, like he has no idea how to coordinate his legs with his arms. No wonder he prefers walking.

Kurt shoves the small of my back. “Move it!” he yells.

Dusk is shadowing the path, making it more difficult to negotiate. I start up the trail, choosing my steps carefully since I’m unable to use my hands to steady myself. Ahead of me Squint is nearly doubled over, gulping for air. Unable to stand on his own, he commands Gavin to assist him up the path. But he never gets very far, maybe two or three steps and each time Squint stops, Kurt screeches at the top of his lungs to speed it up, aware that McCoy is on our tail.

Before we reach the top, Squint stops again, this time coughing up blood.

“I’m about to lose my patience with you, man!” says Kurt. “Rest when you get to the damn top. We got someone after our cargo!”

It’s funny how an allegiance only goes so far.

Squint pushes himself up with Gavin’s help and they continue to the top with us right on their heels. I glance down the trail, looking for McCoy as we crest the hill. He must be just below, around the bend because I don’t see him, but I have no doubt he’ll catch up to us within minutes. I’m so busy with thoughts of McCoy and looking for him that I run into Gavin, who has halted abruptly once again at the top. But this time, our stopping has nothing to do with Squint. It has everything to do with cannibals.

A line of cannibals bearing torches form an arc across the plateau. With the exception of Squint, who is groaning in pain, each of us holds fast, silent under the spell of shock. I’ve never seen a cannibal in person. I’ve only heard the stories from years ago when they used to ambush Water Junction, abducting handfuls of its citizens for their winter sustenance.

There must be twenty, armed with spears, knives, and some with oddly shaped weapons. Men and women. Even children. People of all different races bear symbols of their tribe—two hash marks, one longer, one shorter, tattooed on the outside of each brow.

My insides flare with panic when I hear McCoy’s footsteps coming up behind me on the trail. I want to warn him but I don’t want to give him away either. Squint collapses to the ground with a cry of agony, blood dripping from his mouth. A man with an unusual goatee that I can only describe as a rainbow of semi-circles scarred into his chin steps toward us, motioning with his spear for fellow tribe members to follow.

The man with the goatee, who I assume is the leader of the hunting party, slides the tip of his spear under Squint’s chin, lifting his head carefully. “This one needs to be tested and drying, if he’s clean, before the sun rises again.”

The weight of horror settles in the pit of my belly. My mind spins wildly for a way to escape. Kurt begins shifting from one foot to the other. Gavin’s face transforms to a shade of white. They are going to slice us up and dry us for eating. Just like Zita does with our rats sometimes.

Squint coughs, steadying himself with a hand on the dusty desert floor. “You a doc? You gonna fix me up?”

The leader withdraws his spear, kneels, and extends his face nearly even with Squint’s. “We don’t fix. We eat.”

Squint frantically crawls toward the edge of the cliff and while he’s making a run for it, Kurt reaches for his knife, but before he can get it unsheathed he stiffens unnaturally while grasping at his neck. And as if there isn’t enough for me to handle at this moment, I feel something too, on my throat. Like a sharp needle prick. At first I think it’s my collar tightening. But as I reach up to adjust it, I find that I can’t move. My arms will not raise, my legs don’t obey my command to run down the trail.

My head feels strange too, like I’m floating, like everything has slowed to a snail’s pace. The landscape tilts and rumbles and I’m trying to understand it all when I see McCoy, bathed in firelight, appear on the trail only feet from me. Our eyes meet. I think he says my name. He looks shocked. No … he looks angry.

Don’t come up here
, I think I say, but I don’t hear the words leave my lips.

I watch helplessly as he runs toward me, hands outstretched, hatred distorting his handsome face. He’s screaming when he reaches me. Too many voices, too much shouting keeps me from hearing what he says. Everything is happening so slowly, like a thousand things have time to occur within a span of seconds. I wonder if this is how it feels when you’re dying.

I must be dying.

McCoy grasps my face in his hands and I hear him say my name again. “Avene.” It sounds far away, as if I have already reached the edge of heaven and McCoy is still grounded on earth. I think he intends to kiss me. I want him to. I want his lips on mine, just once. He leans in. I feel his warm breath, but instead of our lips touching, his head falls next to mine, our eyes locking in tortured realization.

The cannibals lift McCoy onto a dark tan animal hide strapped to two poles and carry him off. They do the same with me and the others. A woman standing at the right of my head reaches over and closes my eyelids. “Sleep,” is all she says.

My mind tells me to fight but my body does not comply. Somehow we’ve been paralyzed. I’m not sure if I’ll ever regain movement of my limbs. This may be the end for McCoy. For the Greenies who are stuck in a cave without proof. For Zita and Boom. And for me.

The cannibals have control. They’ll take us to their village where they will clean, gut, and skin our bodies in preparation for their winter. The terrifying part is there isn’t anything any of us can do. I’m abandoning hope when I hear Verla’s voice nagging at me, just like when I was sent to Dead Man’s Pen.
You better fight, Avene, unless you have no breath left.
She’s prodding at me like she used to. Pricking and prodding and preaching with her words of wisdom. But I realize it’s not Verla prodding me now. It’s the cannibals, jarring my body nestled in this leather hide as they transport me across the desert.

I have breath. I will fight.

***

I’m awakened to the sun in my eyes and the chaos of several men yelling above and below me. A gasp catches in my throat when I realize the cocoon I’m a prisoner within is being hoisted up a cliff. I look up to see cannibals step and pull rhythmically as they climb the rock face with their fresh captives in tow. It’s then that I realize I’ve regained movement. I wiggle my fingers to be sure, flex and point my feet, squeeze my rear muscles. Everything works the way I tell it to. I still have a chance at freedom, and revenge.