Blood Kiss

“This is good.” He passed it back without looking—and as soon as Peyton grabbed the thing, Craeg kept going, inspecting more tops, weeding out the unsealed ones. Peyton was the one who divvied them among the group until everybody had water.

Craeg kept a bottle for himself, but didn’t drink much, tucking the thing into his belt. Then without any comment, he moved on to the energy bars, tossing out the ones that had rips in the wrappers, sharing those that were okay.

Paradise ate even though she wasn’t hungry, because she didn’t know when they would stop again or how much effort was going to be required for the next stage—and talk about food as fuel and that was it. The energy bar was a nasty mix of cardboard, fake sweet, and goo, but she didn’t care. She was going to need the calories.

If only to stay warm, she thought as a shiver went through her. November night and wet clothes. Not good for your core temperature if you were standing around.

Or stuck out in the elements for very long.

“What do we do now?” she asked everyone and nobody at the same time.

Behind them, the door to the facility slammed shut and locked.

The serial-killer guy, Axe, drawled, “That’s okay, I wasn’t looking for a reboot of that pool action anyway.”

“There’s a fence over there,” the other female said, pointing to the left.

“And over here,” the athlete chimed in.

“Bet it’s electrified,” Peyton muttered. “Everything else that’s metal has been.”

The question was solved when someone picked up a stick, threw it at the chain link—and the thing got toasted in a shower of sparks.

With some further exploration, they discovered they were in a chute of some kind, one that offered them a single outlet: straight ahead, into the dark woods.

“We go together,” she said, staring past the flickering orange light of the bonfire. “Again.”

“I hate teamwork,” Axe muttered.

“And I’m so excited to be doing this with you,” Peyton drawled back.

Without talking about it, the group fell into the lineup order from the tunnel. And then they were off, moving forward as a unit, mindful not to get too close to the chain link as the fence narrowed in on both sides.

Twigs cracked under their wet trainers. Someone sneezed. A breeze blew in from one side that turned Paradise’s arm to ice.

But all that barely registered. As she walked along, her body was a live wire, energy coursing through her veins, her instincts prickling and ready for input from somewhere, anywhere: She was on the razor-sharp lookout for anything that was wrong, a snap on the ground that was too loud, an awkward shift of Peyton’s body beside her, a creak from a tree branch over on the left … and that which she couldn’t immediately sort into the non-threatening category made her twitchy muscles and her bouncing brain want to freeze and assess. Or break out into a run to escape.

And yet they kept going. And going. And … going.

Time was passing, she thought, glancing up at the position of the stars.

And still they kept on, their ragtag group schlepping along, shuffling over the ground, limping, lurching, everyone injured in their own way and yet remaining on their feet.

Several miles later—or was it more like a hundred?—nothing had come at them.

But she wasn’t fooled.

The Brothers would be back. They had a plan for all of this.

She just needed to stay tight, keep with the group, and—

Up ahead, Craeg and Axe stopped.

“What is it?” she said as she grabbed for Peyton’s arm.

Why did she smell … fire?

“We’re back where we started,” Craeg replied quietly. “This is where we began.”

When he pointed to the ground, she saw footprints, their footprints, in the loose dirt. Except the table with the water and the food was gone … and the bonfire had been put out—which explained the scent … and the fence had been moved into a different position.

It had been closed off to form a loop or a track.

“They have us going in circles?” Peyton demanded. “What the fuck?”

“Why?” Paradise asked, looking over at Craeg as their de facto leader. “Why would they do that?”

Thanks to her eyes having adjusted to the darkness, she could make out his strong features as he frowned and glanced around. When he shook his head, her stomach became a pit.

“What?” she said.

That only other female spoke up. “They’re going to wear us out. That’s why—”

The popping sounds of gunfire came from the left, another round of chaos lighting up along with those flashing muzzles as the group banged into itself, bodies colliding and causing bolts of pain to flare in Paradise’s shoulder and lower leg.

“Walk!” Craeg yelled. “Just walk and it’ll stop!”

And he was right. The instant they began moving in the direction they’d been going, everything went still and silent again.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if they halted, they were going to be hit with more of those rubber bullets.

Paradise drew in a steadying breath. This was not so bad, she told herself. Their pace was slow and even, and she liked walking.

Better than being shot at, for sure.

This was going to be just fine.

Better than the pool. Better than being dragged over the floor while bound and head-bagged. Better than the explosions in the gym.

All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other.