Page 36 of Hunting Ground

“No fucking way. He can’t be dead. What about Cletus?” the man demands. “They travel as a pack. No way one of them is dead.”

“Yeah, no, I agree.” If I’m going to get murdered like Miranda, I want to hold onto my attitude for as long as humanly possible.

…But if they start scooping out my insides like pumpkin guts, that won’t be very long. “They were together. Jonah thought I was just some stupid motel manager.” I glance at the man who’d said it when he’d dragged me in, then I look back at the girl in front of me. “They underestimated me. I stomped their faces against the carousel until they stopped moving.”

The words are braver than I feel, but I hold myself to the lie. They really are dead, and they really were stomped into the carousel platform, or beside it.

I’m just not the one who’d delivered the final blow.

The girl looks me over with an expression I can’t read, and something shifts uncomfortably in my chest. Unlike the men, she hasn’t gotten mad or violent. Somehow, I found that more unnerving, and I fight not to let myself get dragged into a false sense of security.

“What’s your name?” she asks at last. “I’m Elaine.” I don’t expect her to offer her own name first, and I blink owlishly at her for just a moment, digesting my surprise.

“Sable.” The word leaves me too quickly, making my own name echo in my ears. “It’s Sable.”

“That’s Jeff, and that’s Gideon.” She gestures at the two men who, for some reason, don’t seem to care that she’s not killing me. Gideon is too interested in his food, though, I realize as he stuffs half a slice of greasy ass pizza into his mouth.

On the other hand, Jeff is on the wood of the rink, staring up at Miranda as he circles her in slow, dragging steps.

“Were you scared?” The words draw my attention back to Elaine.

I could lie, I think to myself first. I could tell her that they were pathetic, that I wasn’t afraid of them as I kicked their faces in.

My lips part around the word no, but something changes in the last second. Something in me, maybe, or something in the tilt of Elaine’s head as she waits for the answer I intend to make up.

“Yeah,” I breathe. She narrows her eyes and I suck in another breath to replace the heavy exhale around my confession. “Yeah. I was terrified. Thought they were going to kill me.” I don’t know why I say it, even as the words keep coming. At no point do I have a plan for what I’m going to say next, now that I’m so far off the rails.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Silence falls between us, and I feel my body tensing, muscles trembling as if I’m going to get the chance to run. But when Elaine moves, it’s to brush past me, only to grab my arm at the last minute as she steers me over to the fucking buffet with her.

“I was scared my first time,” she admits, offering me a plate in the strangest display of graciousness that I’ve ever been part of. “Not because I did it, of course. Once they’re dead, who cares? No, I was convinced that the cops were going to catch me. That I was going away for the rest of my life.”

She doesn’t sit, she just strides down the middle of the line of booths, and when we pass Gideon’s booth, the man gets to his feet with a grumble and falls in behind me.

The hair at the back of my neck prickles and I can’t help looking back at him every few seconds. It’s obvious I’m meant to be following Elaine as she takes her plate of mini tacos and pre-cut strawberries on a walk that winds around the roller rink.

At first, I don’t understand. I don’t get why we’re taking what feels like the longest way imaginable, until we end up at the back of the building where the one private room for reserved parties sits.

Well, private, in the way that only those who made a reservation could go in and out. But to me, the medium-sized room had always looked like an aquarium exhibit, with the glass windows that lined the front. The fluorescent lights had always been so uniformly bright, casting such a spotlight on the people inside, that it felt impossible not to sneak glances to see what was going on in here.

I’d hated parties in the private room. They always seemed to be the worst kind of people who left messes that ranged from paper products to vomit on any given day, and had made my job so much harder.

When Elaine stops in front of the room and I’m forced to stop beside her, my first thought is that the curse of the private room hasn’t changed at all.

My second is the realization that Ben hadn’t died at the electric fence. His body stares back at me blankly through the glass, his hands driven into the table palm down with knives. My stomach churns, and I swallow back an influx of nausea caused by fear, rather than disgust.

More than anything, I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want to end up a display in an aquarium with my eyes gone and the rest of me not doing much better. I don’t want to die a slow, painful death, watching myself bleed out while pieces of me are taken away.

I need to get out of here.

“Not my best, but still creative. I wanted to bring in a cake and happy birthday banner but…” she shrugs like we’re discussing an art project she’d done in her spare time. “I worked with what I had.”

“What did he do to you?” the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, even though I’ve been reminding myself for the last few minutes that it is none of my business.

“Does it matter?”

Her own words catch me off guard and I glance over at her. “No,” I say at last. “It doesn’t. He’s dead either way.”