Page 4 of Beautiful Prey

“Nothing,” I say again.

But I don’t leave the rail. I watch him until the crowd swallows him.

1

JADE

Iwonder what would’ve happened if I’d kept saying no to my brother.

I mean, I did say no. The first time, standing in that kitchen with the word still on my lips, I watched his face fall. When I told him it was madness, because it was. Because it is. But he just looked at me with that look, and I couldn’t say no to it. Light, I couldn’t do it. Not after everything he’s been through.

So here I am, quite possibly walking toward my death.

I’m here regardless.

The invitation said seven days. Stay in the Hunt until the seventh sunrise, without another candidate or an Adjudicator eliminating you, and with a House sponsoring you. Finish among the highest scorers, and you earn the part printed in bold on the invitation. You stand before the Vultures, the men who own the Reach, and ask for the one thing that brought you here.

The one thing. That they cover his treatment. All of it, for as long as it takes.

That’s the whole reason I’m standing in this hall, wearing my brother’s name.

We were born eleven minutes apart. Six years in the shafts gave Onyx greylung and left me untouched. For two years, I’ve wished it had been me instead.

Onyx is across the valley right now, nine floors up in a city ward, in the white bed where I left him. Asleep, if he kept his promise. Awake, charming the nurses, if he hasn’t. I made him promise to stay in bed. He made me promise to come back. Neither of us said what happens if we both lie.

The intake hall swallows me the moment I step inside. There’s glass, three stories of it. Chandeliers. More light in one ceiling than our whole block gets in a year. Attendants press bottled water into every hand, and it takes me a second to realize it’s free.

On Calder, the only man who gives you anything for free is the casino owner, and he’s the richest man on the planet.

A black banner stitched in gold hangs across the far wall, bearing a single sentence.

THANK YOU FOR VOLUNTEERING TO IMPROVE YOUR FUTURE.

I read it twice, but it doesn’t improve on the second reading.

A metallic voice echoes through the hall. “Candidates, welcome. The gates open in an hour.”

One hour.

Something in my chest starts counting without asking me. Beneath it, the older count sits. Six months, the doctor said. Four of them are already gone.

There are so many of us. I didn’t expect this many. The invitation made it sound select, chosen, special, but instead the hall is packed wall to wall with people who left someone or something behind that mattered enough to make risking their lives here feel reasonable.

The Reach is seven settled planets spread across this part of space. We’ve all taken different shuttles from whichever planet we call home, and poverty is the one thing we all had in common.

Near the desks, a girl sits on the floor with her knees to her chest, a folded white cane beside her. Her water bottle stands unopened near one foot. A man in a green jacket picks it up as he passes by.

She doesn’t turn her head.

I look at the cane again.

How desperate do you have to be before this becomes your best option?

I join the queue as it inches forward. The man in front of me speaks without looking back.

“Don’t stare.”

I follow his gaze. One level up, along the railing above the intake desks, nine figures in black stand over us.