Page 27 of Not Your Hero

I close my eyes, and at some point, I drift off to sleep, but that’s short-lived. The lights are on, not the ones that burn us, but regular lights overhead. Now, I’m able to see the line of girls tomy right and left clearly. I sit up and blink my eyes as I look both ways.

“What’s happening?” I ask the girls.

“I don’t know. These lights have never been on,” she says as we all sob. Is this it? Is this the end?

I watch the door for him, but it never opens. He never comes in, which is strange. Typically, he comes in and grabs one of us, but then again, these lights were never on.

I sit up, shoving my back against the rough rock wall, pull my knees up to my chest, and just watch.

It seems like I sit here for hours, and nothing happens. My eyes grow heavy, and I fall asleep once more. There are no dreams this time. Nothing notable about this sleep, but I am awakened by the sound of the door being slammed. Two men in masks with what appears to be some type of clothing walk in and look along the line of us.

“Each of you will have a pair of shorts and a shirt with your name on it. The name goes in the front. You will put them on, and you will do as you’re told.” He doesn’t say anything else as the two of them walk along the cells, shoving a pair of shorts and a shirt through the bars. They get to mine and shove them in, allowing them to drop to the floor before I move to pick them up. The shirt. Shit, I recognize the shirt. It’s the one that was sent to my house with my name on the front and the bullseye on the back. I furrow my brows as I hold it up and look at it. Was it him? Did he send it to my house?

None of this makes any kind of sense, but I’m still grateful for the clothing. I slip the shorts on and pull them up, wincing from the pain in my back. Then I pull the shirt over my head andnearly burst into tears as the fabric rubs against the damage to my back.

“When we open your cells, you will step out and stand in a line. You try to run, I’ll kill you. You try to fight, and I’ll kill you. You’ll receive more instructions when we get outside. This whole area is surrounded so don’t bother trying to take off. I’ll shoot you on the spot,” he announces. A chill wraps around my body as I cough and stand against the wall. The second man moves through the room, unlocking the cells and pulling the doors open.

When he’s finished, we all wearily step out of our cells and form a line, huddling closely together. He motions for us to follow him, and we start to walk on shaky legs. None of us have had any form of exercise since we’ve been here aside from moving around in the cells.

We’re lead outside and the fresh air hits me in the face. I take a deep breath, or as deep as I can, before coughing once more. The moon is high in the night sky and shining down on us, and I couldn’t be happier to see it in my life.

“This way,” the man at the front instructs, leading us down a small trail. The sticks rip into my feet, and I wince, but I don’t dare complain.

We make it to the bottom of the trail; some girls are full-on crying, others sobbing, most of us staying quiet. The man points to a spot on the ground, and we make our way over.

“Sit on your knees,” he demands. We drop to our knees, me wincing in pain once again from the already bruised and broken flesh on them. “Hands behind your backs,” he orders. My hands instantly go behind my back as I watch the second man walk upand down the line of us. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what they plan to do to us, but it can’t be good.

The two men talk to each other for a few minutes while we girls share looks at each other. My heart is thudding in my chest so hard I can hear it in my ears.

The only sounds you can hear besides my own are those of animals and insects. I glance around and it appears we’re in the woods somewhere. All I can see are trees and a small fire that blazes off to the right.

We wait until the men turn to face us. That’s when I hear someone else coming. The sound of sticks breaking under their feet alerts me, and my head snaps in that direction. This man isn’t wearing a mask. His face is dark, his eyes darker.

I should look away, but I can’t. The men in the masks finally pull them off and toss them to the side before the one announces with a smile on his face, “Welcome to the hunt.”

Chapter 17

Gannix

I make my way toward my brother and his friend, Jim, who turns to leave since this isn’t about him, glancing at the girls out of the corner of my eye when I see her. No. What the fuck is this? How is she here? How did he know?

My eyes lock onto Emerson, and I quickly pull them away so Gary doesn’t notice me staring her down. Now I take a better look at the other girls and my jaw ticks.

“Welcome to the hunt. As I told you before, all you ladies had one thing in common, and now you know what.” I see Emerson narrow her eyes because she has no fucking idea. I was never with her without having her drugged. The others? Yeah, I was with them when they were sober. They’ve all seen me. They all know, and they all cry.

“What’s going on? What is this?” I ask, waving my hand through the air in the girls’ direction.

“They all know, Nix. They all know what the fuck they did to us as kids. They’ve all seen it. And they all fucked you over in some way. What’s a better birthday surprise than this?” He grins as he motions toward them.

“You collected every girl I slept with that knows?” I ask just to be clear.

“Yeah. I figured the hunt should actually mean something this year. Not just random girls we found. I wanted it to mean more to you,” he explains as if this is the best gift he could have given me. In some sick way, I like the fact he thought aboutthis enough to do it for me. To collect all the women who used me and ran once they knew because they were nothing but little bitches to me. But another part of me feels sick because now Emerson, my little Emerson is here, and she is fucking clueless about all of this.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him as he passes me my bow and arrow. The girls cough, sounding sick, as I turn to look at them once more. They don’t look well. They’ve been tortured, and it looks like they’ve been put through the nine circles of hell. But it’s her. Emerson. My eyes linger a little longer on her. He hurt her. I should kill him for hurting her. I should end his life for touching what doesn’t belong to him, but he’s my brother, and he did this for me.

And yet, I can’t let it go. I can’t let it slide that he took Emerson for this. She isn’t to be hunted. She isn’t to be touched. So what the fuck do I do now? If he knows I have a soft spot for her, he will kill her first, no doubt.

I swallow hard as I look back at my brother before whipping around to see one of the girls fall to the ground.

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