Page 23 of Beautiful Prey

I’m heading deeper into the forest when my multi-slate buzzes against my wrist.

Candidate 431. Marek Voss. Elimination.

A location flashes beneath it.

“Fuck. Fine.”

I change direction.

He’s made camp two ridges over, the fire burning low, a pack that isn’t his tucked beneath his head. I wake him with the toe of my boot.

The moment he sees the visor, both hands come up. “Adjudicator... it was his knife first, sir. I only⁠—”

“I know, but unfortunately, that’s the game, isn’t it?” Crouching across from him, I hold my hands toward the fire. “Marek Voss. Düren. Debt relief, wasn’t it?”

He nods, hope creeping onto his face because I used his name.

I drag my thumb down his file on my multi-slate and read the details aloud. “Twelve thousand in arrears, average scores, and not a single House interested enough to mark your name.”

Turning my slate so he can see the empty sponsor field, I shrug. “Nobody was going to buy you, Marek. Not before the knife. Certainly not after.”

His face changes.

“Please, Adjudicator. I beg you. Please... my little girl...”

I move before he finishes. Catching his hair, I set the angle and draw the blade across his throat in one clean pull. Heat spills over my glove as he staggers back with a wet cry, both hands flying to his neck. Blood pours through his fingers onto the forest floor while I lower him beside the stolen fire and wait.

The flames crackle as his boots drum against the earth, then go still.

The knife he killed for is still on his belt. Wiping my blade, I sheath it and look down at the blood through the night-lens. There’s always more than people think, but most of it ended up on him instead of me.

This is what Dad built me for.

This is the only thing I’ve never had to think about.

The Hunt thanks Candidate Four Hundred and Thirty-One for his participation.

Back at the checkpoint, hundreds of candidates are sleeping through the announcements already.

I clean my glove on his sleeve and confirm the elimination on my multi-slate.

Candidate eliminated.

Then I leave him beside the fire.

The trail back to my cabin cuts through a part of the forest candidates aren’t supposed to find. I take it without hurrying, and after ten minutes the ridge opens around the entrance.

Granddad built these, like most comforts out here. One cabin per sector, buried on the sheltered side of a ridge and hidden from the candidate trails. Heated floor. Drying rack. A real bunk. A console with the whole sector spread across it. Proper food.

The candidates sleep in mud two ridges away and tell each other that we’re out there with them all night, tireless and watching every trail.

Half of that is true.

I strip down to shirtsleeves in the warmth, hang the storm cloak on the rack, and sit with a glass of wine and a plate of hot meat and vegetables before bringing the sector display up.

It’s good to be us. It has always been good to be us.

The console displays every camera in my sector. I eat while I flick through the feeds. A fire is being argued over near the southern ridge. A shelter is coming apart in the wind while its owner swears and tries to hold it down. Two candidates are keeping watch with their backs pressed together.