Page 19 of Beautiful Prey

Up close, he’s taller than he looked from the back of the crowd. The visor tilts downward, throwing my own face back at me.

“Twelve.” He taps me through the gap.

Behind me, the crowd erupts, voices piling over one another.

“Oh, come on! He came last! He wasn’t even in line, and he just—” The big man’s voice cuts through everything. I don’t understand it either, but my legs carry me forward anyway.

I put my thumb on the scanner. For one horrible second, I wait for amber. For that fucking alarm to scream again.

But it goes green, the tone confirming my place as the display flips to 12 of 12.

Capacity reached.

My knees almost give out.

Behind me, the shouting grows louder. The Adjudicator stands with his back to it, as if two hundred desperate people are nothing more than noise.

Then he chuckles.

A supply crate sits just inside the rope. He reaches into it, pulls out several wrapped loaves, and throws them over the barrier.

People lunge before the first one even touches the ground.

“There you go, something to eat. Or something to fight over. Let’s see which one wins.”

Three candidates hit the mud after the same loaf, and I turn away because I can’t take any more. The first day isn’t even over, yet I’ve already watched people beg, bleed, and die for the chance to make it through the night.

Inside the rope, a dispenser post produces soup, actual hot soup, with flatbread wrapped in paper. Another screen gives me a numbered sleeping space beneath one of the tarps.

I take the food and sit with my back against a post, knees pulled up and my pack between my feet. My hands are still shaking, so I hold the bowl with both of them and keep my head down while the shouting continues outside the rope.

I’m halfway through the bread when the dusk announcement begins. The same warm voice rolls over the checkpoint, thanking the eliminated candidates of the day one by one.

Chewing more slowly, I wonder whether Onyx kept his promise to sleep while I was gone.

After swallowing the last bite, I wonder if he ate anything.

I close my eyes and picture Onyx in that hospital bed, trying to ignore the shouting beyond the rope, the footsteps, and the voices still carrying through the trees. I make myself think of him instead. Sleeping. Eating. Waiting for me to come back.

When a branch snaps outside the light, I open my eyes.

An Adjudicator steps out from between the trees, and I recognize him immediately. He’s the tall one from the railing, the one who came down when my scanner screamed and cleared me anyway.

Rain runs off his cloak as he approaches the checkpoint. At the rope, the Adjudicator who let me through and then threw bread to the people outside turns his visor toward me. The tall one follows his gaze and locks onto me across the camp.

He steps over the rope without breaking stride and comes straight toward me. Candidates lean out of his path, eyes down, and I set the bread aside and get my feet under me because whatever he wants, my body has already decided I’m meeting him standing.

Running crosses my mind. So does elimination. Neither gets me beyond my next breath.

He stops within arm’s reach. The black visor tilts downward, my own face tiny in the glass as my heart pounds against my ribs and my eyes start to burn from refusing to look away.

The rasp arrives as if it never left my ears. “There you are, Onyx Mercer.”

4

ASHER

He stands to meet me, all blond hair, wide eyes, and a mouth clamped shut to keep from trembling. Fear covers his face, but he still gets to his feet.