The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1) (7 page)

I pump through the shrubs, slide on the rocks, disregard the thousand brambles pricking at my skin. I continue my course, veering off to the right to put plenty of distance between me and the typical route everyone else will take.

A shot rings out. I’m not sure why, but I don’t turn to look. I wouldn’t be able to see anything from this distance anyway. I just keep going. When I reach a rocky ledge I’m forced to make a decision: waste time looking for a better way up, or climb over it. I already know what I’ll do before I finish thinking about it. I find a foothold first, then reach for a place to pull myself up and repeat.

The going is slow and when I finally clear the boulders and I’m on steady ground, I see that I’m only halfway up. Before I continue, I allow myself a couple of breaths and promise myself a drink of water when I reach the top. Racing ahead, I stumble over a patch of deadfall, almost losing my footing when I hear shouts carry through the forest from my left. The prisoners are spreading out, keeping their distance from each other. It’s too close for me so I swing right another dozen yards or so before working my way up again. The hill is a steep hike, but the ground is easier to negotiate here than it was below. I keep my momentum and my focus.

A rabbit sprints toward me from my left. Someone spooked it and my heart goes berserk. I duck behind the nearest bush and wait, trying to control my breathing so I don’t give myself away. I don’t see anyone but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. I search the area the best I can from my position. Lots of trees and bushes block my view. All I see, other than foliage, is an old cowbell half buried in the ground next to me.

When I don’t hear anything for several minutes I move out from behind the bush. I’m cautious about it, just in case whoever it was is doing the same. But it’s clear from what I can see so I make a run for it, toward a thicket of trees that’ll help keep me under cover. Several times I have to stop when my legs cramp up. It aggravates me since there’s not a lot of time to be massaging the pain away. I’m used to running in place for hours at a time. I’m not used to running uphill.

I’m panting for breath by the time I reach the top of the ridge. The collar is already suffocating me and I can’t imagine it tightening more. I try to adjust it while I survey the valley. This side of the mountain is as rugged as the other; with rocky parts that look almost impossible to climb and sheer drop offs. The bottom meets with a forest of pine trees that goes on for miles.

I’m already thinking about water. I take cover behind another bush and inspect the contents in my pack, first pulling out the blanket so I can see everything. I’m pleasantly surprised to see two canteens full of water, but it’s definitely not four days’ worth. I only swallow down a couple of gulps, knowing water is critical and I’ll need to find more as soon as I can.

I’m looking at what other supplies I have; particularly I’m curious about the chow the goodie two shoes gifted us with, when I hear a rustling in the bushes somewhere below me. Birds flutter from the trees, flapping their wings with great force and squawking nervously. I cap the canteen, shove it and the blanket inside the pack, and hightail it out of there on tiptoe, down the other side of the mountain and cringing at every crunch my boots make in the underbrush.

I don’t know if it was another animal, a bird, or a headhunter with the same idea of spacing themselves across the mountain. It doesn’t matter though, because it was time for me to move on anyway. I work my way to what looks like the beginnings of a trail. Suddenly I recall what Zita said about Boom traveling back and forth multiple times while I make my way down it. For a second, there’s a little regret at not listening to what he had to tell me. Until Verla’s voice booms off in my head.
When you make a decision, you better love it.
It stuck with me, because she said when you make a decision, there’s no going back.

I come to a clearing where I quickly scan the mountain to see if I can detect any of the other prisoners. I look up and down, left and right. Everything appears normal. I’m already fairly tired. The mountain has taken a lot out of me. I can imagine the others, who aren’t in as good of shape, have slowed down too. I glance out over the valley again and try to judge how far another fifteen miles must be.

When I reach the base of the mountain, I pull out my water and take a couple more sips. I scrounge through the pack to see what kind of food I’ve got. I have a long haul ahead and I need energy to get through it. I find strips of dried meat, some kind of bars wrapped in cellophane—four of them, and nuts.

Everything goes back inside my pack except one of the bars. I spot a half-dead tree about five yards ahead past a small clearing, and give myself until then to walk and eat my meal. I scramble to get the wrapping off so I can meet my goal. I bite off a small corner and chew cautiously, just in case King ordered a mass poisoning. The texture is hard, but it tastes like peanut butter and dough. It’s fabulous. I scan the trees and bushes to see if there’s any easy prey I might catch, when a woman screams not too far from me. I shove the remainder of the bar in my mouth and close up my pack.

“There’s someone!” I hear a guy yell. I’m praying he’s not talking about me and bolt into a full run. I look in the direction the voices came from. Through the trees I get a glimpse of two guys standing over a woman, one of them rummaging through her supplies while she cowers. Each of the men is carrying several extra packs.

I barely make out the woman begging them not to take hers when I’m sideswiped and knocked off my feet. I hit the ground hard, the collar digging into my neck, the air knocked from my lungs. I’m gasping, unable to get a breath, while my pack is yanked from my shoulders. It takes a couple of seconds to gather my bearings and when I do, I see that the youngest of the prisoners, the ten-year-old kid, is racing off with my pack.

The kid is hollering at his bandit friends that he got another one. As much as I want to go after him, I decide against it, fearing worse harm might come to me. I scramble away as fast as I can without actually running. My lungs still burn and I need a few minutes to recover.

While I duck and move as quickly as possible, I realize I didn’t have as much of a head start as I’d hoped. More than that, I’m angry that I wasn’t more careful. If I hadn’t taken time to eat, if I’d just went on a little longer, I might still have my pack with the food and water, and my ninja knives. And Verla’s voice wouldn’t be hounding my head about patience not being a virtue, but a necessity.

Ten feet to my right is a thick copse of trees, so I head over there. My lungs work a little better by the time I do, and I’m ready to get going when it dawns on me that I have no compass.
It’s okay
, I tell myself. I didn’t have anything to begin with. I can still do this. I know the general direction.

I brush off the leaves and dirt and then I run. Straight ahead. It’s the only way I know to go. Through the trees, zigzagging around bushes, ducking under branches and hopping over rocks. I don’t think about anything but running, keeping a steady pace, controlling my breathing. Getting as far as I can. Surviving.

I have to win. If I don’t, I’m not confident King will unlock my collar. Unless I’m the one that returns with Gavin’s head, I’m not sure he’ll let me live. There may not be a second best for me. Maybe no leisure prison. I don’t really know, but I’m not taking that chance.

Without a watch it’s hard to know how far I’ve run. I estimate a couple of hours, covering maybe seven or eight miles. My legs, my body—they’re already suffering the effects of racing through a forested obstacle course. It’s one thing to run in circles or in place around a small prison room. It’s another to be dodging, hopping, and swerving around trees and foliage and deadfall. Not to mention my body feels like an open wound, raw and battered. My arms and legs and torso sting from the pricks of a billion brambles. An ache worms its way through my head and my abdomen is knotting up from dehydration. I need to find water, and now is as good a time as any. I slow to a walk and listen for the sound of gurgling, or a fall splashing onto exposed rock.

I hear nothing except for the breeze rustling through the leaves and birds trilling every now and then. I remember Verla giving me tips once on how to find water in the wild. Back when she was alive and we thought there was a chance I’d run the race. I use the information now, scanning the area for a section of land that looks greener. But everything looks the same. There are no valleys. No slopes or dips that give me a clue that water is nearby. Nothing.

There’s no time to keep searching. I break into a jog, scanning the forest for any signs along the way. Several minutes into the run, the back of my neck is on fire. The collar chafes my skin raw from the constant rubbing. I move it lower, then higher, but nothing works and my fingers come back bloodied.

I figure I’ve gone another hour when I can’t take the sting anymore, like someone is filing metal across my vertebrae, over and over and over again. The torture is affecting my concentration.

I stop and lean against a large pine tree. I use my shank to cut away a strip from the bottom hem of my flannel shirt and then wrap it around the back of the collar. The instant I get it on, it feels better. That’s the upside. The downside is that now the collar is a closer fit.

I take a minute for a breath. A minute to revive myself. The wind picks up and for some reason I think about Zita, wondering if she’s getting enough to eat for her and Boom. I hope King doesn’t do something crazy again, like reduce the number of slop drops. He did that last year when only about fifteen people signed up for the race. It hadn’t been enough runners for him. King made it clear that it was punishment for the cowards that chose not to enter.

The crash of footsteps against earth puts me on alert. There’s more than one person. Two, maybe three.

“Hey!” someone yells and I have flashbacks to the little raider.

The voice echoes somewhere in the distance, behind me I think, but I can’t be sure. I wince when I stand but I can’t think about the pain in every part of my body. I sprint ahead, not wanting to take any chances. Not wanting to lose the only thing I have left that could save my life—my shank knife.

I run until a cramp in my left calf forces me to stop. I pivot on my foot, stretch my calf, and massage the muscle to control the spasm. It takes a minute before it eases. I use the opportunity to rest again, sitting at the base of a tree. The flutter of wings flapping at the ground is music to my ears. I reach for my knife and inch toward the sound.

I find it behind a half dead tree. The bird is lame. It has an injured wing and hobbles, but even so I waste no time bringing it down with Verla’s urging.
“There is no room for sympathy,”
she would say.
“We have to eat.”

I find a spot behind a large tree. I know the best place to drain it is to make an incision in its neck. So that’s what I do. And then I hold it over my mouth. I’m gagging the blood all the way down, trying to ignore the fact that it’s still warm and tastes like liquid metal sliding down my throat. I tell myself I don’t have a choice if I want to remain in the race. If I want to live. My body attempts to convulse on me, but I force my throat closed. I swallow, hard, time after time until I’ve squeezed every drop I can get.

When I’m sure everything will stay put, I wipe the blood from my mouth and use vine to string the bird around my belt loop. There’s no time to cook it now and I don’t intend to waste it.

I get moving again. To maintain focus I start to count the trees until I get to twenty. Then I tell myself to count twenty more. This keeps me moving ahead, gives me a goal to reach. I’m making progress. The day passes. I’m up to two thousand and eighty-six when shadows begin to fall over the forest. The sun will set in about an hour. Part of me wants to stop and go to sleep now. The other part, the Verla part, is telling me not to waste the last hour of the day. Verla doesn’t think highly of the weak or the wasteful. I don’t want to be a waste and I’m not a weakling. So I keep going.

I think I’ve only covered another half a mile when my headache worsens. I’m exhausted and weak. Sticky threads of saliva form across my lips. I stumble and fall but I pick myself up. I can’t run anymore. I have to walk now. I keep counting the trees. I’m only on number two thousand, three hundred and seventy-six. I need to get to two thousand, four-hundred. I can’t quit until I count two thousand, four-hundred.

“Two thousand, three-hundred and seventy-seven,” I say aloud. Maybe if I speak up it’ll keep me awake. Keep me going until there’s no more daylight.

“Two thousand, three-hundred and seventy-eight.” It’s hard to keep my eyes open. I fall to the ground. I must have tripped. I’m tired. I rest my head in the dirt. Just for a moment. I just want to sleep.

“Two thou, three-dred and seventy …”

***

I hear voices as my mind establishes awareness again. My face is damp, my lips wet with moisture.

“Can’t you force her jaw open?” I hear someone say. “You want me to do it?”