Page 5 of Fifth
Locus took a single step forward. The men in front of him stalled. He filled the cameras’ frame, his voice carrying without effort. “You will stop.”
The leader tilted his head, amused. “You think you set the rules here?”
“I do not think. Istate a fact.” His gaze didn’t shift. “If you strip her, Iwill not run your trials. Your show ends. Your wagers end. Your profit dies. Then I will take both my price and my prize in other ways.”
Spit hit the ground. Voices cursed. Rage rose from men who had only ever hunted from behind walls and with chains between them and real danger. The nearest guard lifted his baton, uncertain but emboldened by the crowd.
Locus breathed once. The air tasted metallic. He could break the baton. The wrist. The neck. The platform. The yard. He saw each step. He also saw Hannah’s hand tighten on the scrap of cloth at her hip. He was here for one purpose, and no crowd would take it fromhim.
The leader’s eyes narrowed, scheming. Then he laughed. His teeth were rotten bone. “Leave their scraps of clothing. They won’t last. The creatures we have don’t eat cloth.”
The crowd howled. Cameras whirred. The baton lowered an inch, then two. Locus shifted his body so Hannah’s bare stomach and thigh vanished behind his frame. Her breath rushed out, then steadied. For an instant her shoulder pressed against him, not in surrender but in the fierce relief of not standing alone.
“Trial One,” a man read from a tablet. “Snare fields. Pit rings.”
A guard stepped forward, eager to explain. “Think of the pit as a carefully designed death trap. When two fall in, both cannot climb out together. The walls are slick, the snares twist and tangle, and the weight of one body drags the other down. The design forces sacrifice, making escape possible for only a single soul. That is why the expression is repeated so often: ‘one dies, one lives.’” He smirked at the cruelty, his eyes flicking over Hannah as if imagining the moment himself. The crowd laughed, clearly picturing the spectacle.
Locus remained silent, cataloguing each detail. The guard was a fool to lay bare the shape of the trial. Warnings were weapons in his hands. He memorized every piece of cruelty,storing it like ammunition. His mind already bent toward countermeasure, already preparing to twist their own game againstthem.
The leader spoke again. “Trial Two, predators. Not your typical Earth beasts—lions, wolves, tigers, bears—but creatures no one here has names for. Stolen from other worlds. Earth predators can definitely kill you, the alien ones will destroy you in ways you don’t want to know. So we chose them instead of other beasts.”
The crowd jeered. Someone shouted odds on whether Hannah would be torn first. Locus leaned closer, his words pitched only for her. “How did they get predators from off your world?”
“I doubt they walked into camp like you did.” Her knuckles whitened as they clutched her skirt. “Should we be worried? Can you fight off-world creatures?”
He tilted his head, already running possibilities. He catalogued strategies—bait, noise, fire—to push predator against predator. His mind measured terrain he had not yet seen, imagining traps within traps.
“It depends on what they were able to collect. They wouldn’t want these creatures to escape their confines, so that might work to our advantage.”
Her eyes flicked up, uncertain. “How?” Fear edged the question, but curiosity threaded through, aquiet admission she wanted to believe him. He heard her heart quicken, the rhythm betrayingher.
Before he could answer, the accounting continued. “Trial Three, hunters.” The announcer’s grin was thin. “Your new favorites won’t see noon on their first day, let alone the thirdday.” The crowd erupted, throwing out wagers, voices greedy with anticipation.
Hannah’s spine straightened. She looked at him, not at the headman. Her mouth opened and he shook his head. Not here. Not before men who fed on fear. Her lips pressed closed, but her eyes burned with questions she was forced to contain.
Guards closed in, jeering as they jostled them back toward the cage. Rough hands shoved at their shoulders, forcing them through the crowd while insults and wagers rained down. Acamera swung in close until one guard batted it aside with the back of his hand. Acoin clanged off the bars and spun to the ground before skittering away. Then the door slammed and the lock turned with a final metallicsnap.
Silence pooled in the aftermath, broken only by the hum of the floodlamps and the cough of a generator settling into its rhythm. Locus braced his hand over the latch until the vibrations eased, steadying both the cage and him. When he finally turned to her, his gaze lingered on the lines of her face and the faint tremor at her mouth she fought tohide.
“When you refused to allow them to strip us, you risked everything,” she whispered, confusion threading her voice. “Why?”
“I risked nothing that matters. The only thing of value here is your survival. Their jeers, their profit, their spectacle—none of it weighs against that. Iwould burn this yard before I allowed them to take what is mine to guard.” His eyes held hers, steady and unflinching. “You are mine to protect.”
“That isn’t protection.” She folded her arms tight. “It sounds too much like ownership. They’re not the same.”
“I know the difference. Protection is duty. Ownership is a lie the weak tell themselves when they want to believe they manipulate life.”
Her mouth curved, not quite a smile. Asoft sound escaped her, edged with respect before anger smothered it again. She bit back her reply and forced her gaze outward, clinging to anything that kept her from looking at him. Her eyes swept the yard, the guards, the crates stacked near the generator, the portable screen rising on metallegs.
Static flickered across it before the feed steadied—grainy images of the preserve: scrubland, broken fences, bait cages rattling when the wind cut through. In the farthest cage, something massive paced, shadows distorting its shape. The camera cut away before its form became clear, leaving the unease heavy betweenthem.
Hannah leaned unconsciously closer to him, her voice low. “What is that?”
He shook his head once. “Irrelevant until it stands before us.”
Two guards shoved a dented tray inside. More bread, another serving of greasy stew, and acracked cup of water. Hunger sharpened in Hannah’s scent. Locus slid the tray toward her, crouched, lifted the bowl into her hands.
“You eat first,” he reminded her. “I can go without.”
