Page 56 of Taunting Tarran
Shit.
The whooping laughter grows louder, the hunt closing in. ‘Get behind me,’ I order, crouching behind a boulder, as I steady my rifle to take aim. Through the scope, I spot him – a hulking masked figure moving with unnerving precision. I exhale slowly, finger brushing the trigger. But as I line him up for the shot, the night shatters. A piercing scream – agirl’s scream – splits through the darkness, sharp enough to stop my pulse.
The figure freezes, head snapping towards the sound. Then, like a pack of wolves catching the scent of fresh prey, he bolts, his whoops and cries joining the others as he bounds off into the distance.
Too fucking close.
I grab Tarran by the arm and haul her towards the Fox Den – another hidden bunker, this time carved into the hillside, its entrance concealed by thick underbrush.
‘Stay here,’ I order, shoving her inside. Her eyes meet mine, but she doesn’t argue.
They thought they were hunters. They are wrong.
I follow their trail – the three brothers. According to Sal, they work in a hierarchy of age, the smallest and youngest of the three being the easiest to isolate. Their camp is crude, almost primal – a circle of stones surrounding a long-dead fire, a half-burnt torch lying haphazardly, and decayed human skulls like remnants of a grim trophy hunt. I leave a single bullet casing in the centre of the fire pit, a message they won’t be able to ignore. The second brother is more cautious – older and wiser, harder to provoke. For him, I weave a trail of deceit – broken branches and deliberate footprints leading back to the camp. When they return, confusion will grip them, igniting a worry that someone is hunting them, and that fear will drive them straight to their leader, the eldest. He will be their only hope of control I’ve created. They will take me straight to him. As the hours stretch, I hear their panic; the smallest shouting accusations, the secondbegging to regroup. I can’t take either one out, not yet. It would give away my location. I need them altogether.
The static from the earpiece claws at my ears, a maddening buzz that causes a ringing long after he’s gone.
‘Sal? Hello?’ Nothing. Just silence.
The forest around me feels alive. The rustling isn’t random, it isn’t wind, and there aren’t any animals.
‘Boss?’ the radio cracks.
‘I’m here,’ I push on as Sal’s voice bursts through the earpiece.
‘You need to get the hell outta there, boss! The Trinity are scattered, seems they’re closing in on you from all directions. They aren’t clients, at least, not in the normal sense.’
I freeze, crouching into the hollow of a tree trunk. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means, there is no record of payment,’ Sal responds. ‘No transactions, nothing. But they’re there – listed in the game’s registry as late entries. Their GPS signals are locked. I can’t track them like I can the other players.’
I pause.
‘I’ve tried hacking it,’ he continues. ‘It lets me in intermittently, but then it throws me out again. It’s like something keeps blocking me.’
‘If they haven’t purchased anyone, then what the hell are they doing here?’
‘I don’t know, but it was Carlos that registered them.’
There’s a sudden rustle to my right thatsnaps my attention, and I swing my rifle towards the sound, catching nothing but a fleeting glimpse of a moving branch.
‘Sal? Where are they?’ the signal cuts out.
Shit.
I haven’t had the conversation with Carlos yet - the one that will peel back the layers of his scheme, the one he’s frantically trying to keep glued together. But it’s coming, although now, I wonder if that moment will ever come. The clock is ticking, and with every second, the questions stack higher and higher. Carlos doesn’t know it yet, but when they fall, they’ll bury him.
The thing about my uncle is, he always thinks he’s the spider, the one spinning the web. He would never consider himself the fly. Especially now, while he’s sitting pretty and I’m here waiting… Carlos doesn’t realise it yet, but he’s playing a dangerous game, and I don’t lose, ever. I recall the dynamic he had with my father – the little cracks in his demeanour whenever they were together. My father was the one who commanded attention – confident, charismatic, and magnetic in every way. But Carlos? He lingered in the background, my father’s shadow always trying to stand taller. Even now, I can see it in the way he stands, his shoulders back but not quite square, always trying, and failing, to stand taller than he can. He studied my father, mirrored him, wanted tobehim. But never in admiration – it was hunger, he craved the power my father held. And now, Carlos is in my sights, still chasing the legacy that was never his to claim. Power isn’t given – it’s taken. I guess my absence has allowed him to take power here, but he’s still a pretender in a kingdomthat doesn’t even acknowledge him. He’s a ghost chasing a crown that was never meant for his head. Had I worried about Carlos before? No, because he didn’t have the means, or the muscle, he was just a starving dog snapping at scraps. I guess that’s changed.
I never saw it coming. Crafty doesn’t even begin to cover it. He must have known, no, hedidknow I’d come back eventually, that our paths would cross again. It doesn’t seem he’s fumbling in the dark anymore. He’s taken steps I hadn’t expected, and I played right into his hands, and now, I’m on his turf – the only obstacle left standing between him and thelegacy he’s been chasing his entire life. Me – the rightful heir, but no matter how much of a head-start he’s given himself, the throne he’s reaching for isn’t empty, because I’m already sitting in it.
CHAPTER 27
THE BUTCHERBIRD
The bitter wind bites at my skin as I crawl out of the Fox Den. The thin scraps of clothing I wear offering no protection against the relentless cold. I tug Gabriel’s coat closed, the fabric carrying traces of him – warm cedarwood and a faint hint of leather, mingled with the clean, crisp bite of the fresh air. His scent wraps around me, grounding me in the moment, even as my breath mists and vanishes into the cold, consuming darkness.
I can’t stay here.
