Page 1 of Bleed the Shadows
1
MAEVE
I staredacross the room at Bram and silently dared him to make me leave. His face was covered in the bone mask, Remy and Poe in the same masks behind him, all of them shirtless over jeans, knives sheathed in leather cords tied around their waists.
The Blackwell Butchers.
Their masks were faded gold, like they’d been through many Hunts like this one. I still didn’t know if the animal skulls were real, but they looked real, the eyeholes black, the snouts elongated.
The masks ended there, the bottom third, where the mouths should have been, terrifyingly vacant, the Butchers’ mouths hidden in the shadow of the animals’ snouts.
It was horrifying and animalistic, conjuring images of ancient rituals and fire and bloody, violent death.
But I knew these men now. I knew the smooth, muscled expanse of Bram’s chest under my hands, knew Poe’s silky dark hair in my fingertips. I’d traced the thorny vines inked on Remy’s arms, covering his shoulders and leading to the skull andMemento Moritattoo on his back.
Bram’s shoulders tightened as his gaze met mine across the room, lit red by the bulb hanging from the ceiling and the red numbers on the digital clock that read 24:00:00.
I touched the gold metal collar around my neck instinctively. It was a mark of the Butchers’ ownership, one I hadn’t been able to get off after I’d left the loft, and I wondered what would happen to it now, if I’d have to wear it during tonight’s Hunt through the tunnels under Blackwell Falls, if it meant none of the other teams would hunt me.
That would be bad. To win, I needed to be hunted.
And I was determined to win.
The other teams were behind Bram, and I recognized the bird men who’d caught me first in the last Hunt, the threesome in skeleton masks, and the others in Scream masks and hockey masks.
There were other masks too: twisted clowns, demons, and wolves with spikes coming out of their heads. Seven teams in total, a fucked-up carnival where the tunnels were the funhouse and the danger was all too real.
Some of them wore shirts or tank tops, others were shirtless, but they all carried knives for the marking ritual.
Bram turned his back to consult with Remy and Poe. I wondered what they were saying. Were they discussing whether I would be allowed to stay?
Or maybe they weren’t thinking about me at all. Maybe I was just a stranger now, another girl in the Hunt that they’d already fucked. Maybe they were plotting which of the girls around me they’d chase this time.
Which one they’d take back to the loft.
Jealousy flared hot and bright in my chest and I looked around at the other six girls: three brunettes, two blondes, and a redhead.
None of them had been at the previous Hunt, which meant that first group of girls had either evaded capture for twenty-four hours or had suffered enough during the three months they’d been forced to live with the men who’d captured them that they weren’t willing to risk a repeat.
What did that say about me?
I shook off the small, far voice that said I wanted to see the Butchers again. This wasn’t about that, especially after what Bram had done to me.
My face still burned, my heart clenched tight when I remembered the way he’d pretended not to know me at Cassie’s, the way he’d refused to kiss me when we’d been fucking. The memory of that moment in the dark kitchen lived on in my humiliation.
But the memory of him inside me, invading me, filling every vacant space in my body lived on too.
Unfortunately.
I shook off the memory for the thousandth time. This wasn’t about Bram. It was about June. About making Ethan Todd pay for his part in radicalizing her boyfriend Chris.
The biker with the Barbarian tattoo who’d searched me at the door (I hadn’t even tried to bring my gun this time) entered the room from the stairwell that led to the Orpheum.
He crossed the room and said something to the Butchers. Their gazes slid to me.
I kept my chin up. If they wanted me to leave, they were going to have to force me out.
I exhaled my anxiety when the tattooed Barbarian crossed the room without a word and drew the old-fashioned wood bolt over the door.
