The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1) (24 page)

You will have your day, Avene.
This time when I hear it, I’m thinking I’m about to open my eyes and see Verla greeting me at the gates of either heaven or hell. Verla wasn’t always the epitome of a god-fearing woman. She did her share of cheating and fighting and maybe even killing. That’s not a woman of godliness. But I don’t get the sense that I’m going to regret what I’ve done to survive the past three years of my life. I especially don’t regret that I killed King.

I guess I’m content with accepting what fate God may deal down on me. At least I can say I helped someone in the end. I can only hope that McCoy recovered and got himself out of Water Junction before any of King’s thugs captured him and threw him back in prison. Or worse, killed him after I’d just gone and saved him.

“Avene,” I hear someone say, but now it doesn’t sound like Verla. It sounds like McCoy, only his voice is a bit hoarse. My heart sinks. I guess he died after all. I perk up though, because now we can be together. At least until judgment is administered on our souls. Without a doubt, McCoy is going to heaven. Not so sure that I am. Maybe I can get one more kiss though. A real kiss, without any interruptions.

“Avene,” says McCoy again.

Verla and McCoy. The two people I loved most in my life, with the exception of my mother. My mother. I wonder where she is? I’m sure she’ll be here soon. Won’t she? Or maybe that’ll be part of my punishment, not getting to see my mother one last time before I face the fiery furnace of hell. But that doesn’t matter now. Right now I get to see Verla and McCoy. I can’t believe I’m going to see them both. And I can’t wait so I open my eyes, but my lids flutter, shunning the bright light that forces its way into my irises. Although I’m not really sure I can say I have irises anymore.

“Avene?” Someone else says. Oh, no … It’s Zita. What have I done? How did
she
die? And then it comes to me—I let her down. She starved to death.

“She’s coming around,” says Boom.

A hand cups my forehead, someone checks my pulse, and fingers force my lid open. I squint aggressively against the bright light and the fingers poking at my eye, but not before I catch the faces of McCoy and Zita and Boom and someone else hovering overhead.

I gasp when I realize who the fourth person is.

Kurt.

We’re all dead together.

“Sit her up. We need to get her to drink something,” I hear Boom say.

As I’m being propped up, I’m wondering if you can drink or eat in heaven. It isn’t until someone accidently pinches my side in the process of getting me upright and I yelp in pain that I realize I’m not actually dead.

I’m back in Dead Man’s Pen.

Now I need answers. This time when I open my eyes, I will them to stay put. I see McCoy’s face first, right in front of me. Zita and Boom off to my left, and Kurt on my right. “What …” I try to speak, but my throat is sore and dry and pulses with a dull ache.

Zita touches my shoulder. “Don’t try to talk yet. You need to drink water and eat and then see how you feel afterwards.”

I nod. I don’t feel like talking but I do want to know what happened and how we ended up back in here. Boom hands me a cup of water. “Take small sips until you’re sure you can swallow it.”

Everyone suddenly goes quiet, staring at me to see if I’ll be able to swallow. I figure if I can breathe, I’ll be able to drink this down. I hope. They all look so tense though, worried. I hold the cup up to them. “Cheers,” I mouth the word.

I think that little gesture does the trick to settle their nerves, at least a little bit. I put the container to my lips and take a small taste. The water feels good on my tongue but it’s only enough to wet my mouth. I try a bigger sip and it’s even better going down, although it does hurt a bit, almost like a sore throat. Everyone cheers when I tip the cup and down the rest of it.

Grins of happiness erupt all around, and even though I’m back in prison, I’m on top of the world being with people that I know care about me. I turn to Kurt and force a little smile.
Well except for him
, I think. I’m not sure how he fits into this. “Somebody …” I pause for a second because it turns out it’s harder to talk than I thought. “Please … tell me … what happened.”

It’s McCoy and Kurt who look at each other, which I find odd, with Kurt giving a nod to McCoy as if to say
you
tell her.

McCoy exhales with a long, loud breath. For some reason it makes me nervous that he’s going to tell me something awful and before he gets started I do a quick check of my limbs and see to my relief, they’re all still attached to my body.

“First off, you’ve been asleep for about a day and a half.”

My eyes go wide at this. I had no idea it was possible to sleep that long unless you were in a coma.

“Second, you were barely saved in time.”

I knew I could count on McCoy to rescue me from the death collar. Especially after all he’s done for me. “Thank … you,” I manage to squeak out.

He shakes his head. “Oh, don’t thank me,” he says, thumping Kurt’s shoulder with a huge grin plastered across his face. “Thank Kurt. He deserves all the credit.”

I can’t control my wide-eyed expression. I look at them both questioningly. Then to Zita and Boom and when they just shrug and grin, it’s back to Kurt and McCoy. Why Kurt? Why not McCoy? I thought McCoy would be the one to unlock me. To save me from the death collar. I’m not sure I understand why he didn’t and a lot of mixed-up emotions are swirling through my head. Maybe McCoy doesn’t have feelings for me the way I thought he did.

“Kurt’s collar did just the opposite of Jake’s. It never went off at the end,” says McCoy, reaching for my hand, caressing it, and then he shocks me by squeezing three times. Does he know what that means to me? Does he remember how I taught it to Jake? Is he saying I love you? I don’t know, but he’s making it hard to think and I’m more confused than ever. “He arrived just as you passed out. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was crawling toward you when Kurt snatched the keys up and unlocked your collar. After he unlocked his own he picked you up, dragged me along, and we headed back to the mountains. But unfortunately, King’s men outnumbered us and that’s why we’re back in Dead Man’s Pen.”

Kurt’s nodding his head, a cautious smile playing across his lips, like he’s afraid to be too vainglorious about it. But he has every right to be. He tried to save us both. I pegged him wrong. I’m not the only prisoner that desperately wanted my freedom and it isn’t right to hold that against him. I face him with a smile to show my appreciation, and I can’t help it when the tears begin to swell like twin lakes in my eyes. “Thank you.” It comes out hoarse and crackly, but he acknowledges it with a nod.

“Third,” continues McCoy and I can’t believe there’s more. “Gavin, or G, rather, G is his actual name, was set up.”

Kurt interjects. “Yeah, when they brought us back to the prison, I saw Gavin hollering at a one-armed man at the platform, saying he was the one that cut him up in Millers Creek and scarred his hand.”

“I put two and two together and realized it was a set up,” says McCoy, “after seeing the one-armed man and hearing King’s tall tale at the beginning of the race.”

“We’re all still trying to figure out why King needed a decoy in the first place,” adds Boom.

Now this makes me wonder if that’s why Gavin, or G, I mean, was speechless for a minute when we said we were going to Water Junction. He probably knew the men that jumped him were from here. “What happened to G?” I ask and start coughing. Speaking may be too much for me right now, but I have too many questions not to.

Boom hands me another cup of water and I remember he’s my uncle. But I don’t want to waste my words on questioning him now. I’ll wait until my throat heals.

“G was sentenced to life in prison,” says Zita.

I’m not surprised. It does make sense that G was a set up because nothing about him seemed right. What bothers me though, is not knowing what happened to Gavin. Where is he? How will I ever find out the truth about my mother? Will I ever learn the truth?

McCoy squeezes my hand again, but just once this time. “There’s one more thing,” he says and I don’t like the way it comes out all guarded and everyone is completely hushed. “We heard rumors that King didn’t die. That he’s going to make it.”

I close my eyes, feeling like I’ve just been crushed by a slab of cement from the upper level and every piece of me is breaking into bits. I ran a death race to accomplish three things.

Kill King.

Kill Gavin.

Win my freedom.

It makes me wonder why I did it. Why did I put myself through it? Why did I leave Zita? I achieved none of my goals.

Not one.

Maybe I achieved something else.
You don’t always get what you want, Avene. Just means you’ve got to work harder at it next time.
I’m not sure I can ever let Verla go completely, but I think I can better manage her wisdom.

All at once a flurry of memories and thoughts and King’s last words slice at me like the blades of a thousand knives.

“I know … why King … has the decoy.” It’s hard to speak, but I’ve got to tell them what King said to me.

They all wait. Quiet. In suspense.

I gulp. It’s painful. I look at McCoy. “Did you hear King … when he said … when he said we weren’t supposed to make it back?”

“I did but I just thought he meant you.”

“He … did … mean me,” I say, holding my neck as if that will ease the pain and help me speak. “And every other prisoner.”

“I don’t get it,” says Zita.

“Me neither,” adds Kurt.

I swallow again. Take another drink of water. I’ve got to get this out because I know what this race is all about now. “King’s last words to me … after I sent my knife into his chest, were … we made a deal with the cannibals.”

I see Boom’s eyes light up when the weight of my words registers.

The annual Headhunters Race began three years ago, after the cannibal attacks stopped in Water Junction. It’s why townspeople are sentenced to a life in prison for petty infractions, or no reason at all. The race is the only chance we have to regain our freedom. It all makes sense. King saying we weren’t supposed to make it back. Telling me about the deal. Saying that he wished there were twenty more prisoners for the race, but fifty would do. Sending us through the nearest cannibal territory.

The race has nothing to do with Gavin. It never did. The race is all about the deal the Governor made with the cannibals.

There are many people to thank for helping me get to this point. Many critique friends and partners have provided feedback for me on this book since November of 2011. Some of you read a few chapters, some the entire thing, some the entire thing twice. It amazed me when a couple of you offered to read it again—it meant the world to me. Thank you all for your wise and helpful comments and your encouragement. Special thanks to these wonderful partners, Jess, Cathie, Tamara, Kathleen, and Dallas, my fabulous daughter. All of you had a hand in helping me shape it into the novel it is today. Thank you to my fabulous editor, Mandy. Your editing skills rock into the universe. I hope I don’t have any typo/grammar issues in these last three sentences (or any of the sentences I changed after you did your final proofread). Thank you to my cover designer, Lisa. I still can’t stop staring at it.

Special thanks to my family, Joe, Dallas, Nick, and Tank, who helped me brainstorm this entire book the summer of 2011 after a Zelda commercial inspired me to write an adventure. I’ve been writing and revising this novel ever since. Thank you for your support, for letting me have my time and space to work on it, for listening to me talk about it
all
the time, for allowing me to trick you into car rides so that I had a captive audience to bounce ideas off of or get you to help me work out a problem. You, my family, mean the world to me.

Thank you to my sister, Dana, who read it so fast I was in shock! Thank you for your enthusiasm and for cheering me on.

And to my sister, Debbie, who has always encouraged me throughout the years with her wise words and wisdom and support. Thank you for always reading my novels and for always believing in me.