The Headhunters Race (Headhunters #1) (9 page)

I notice how awkward he says it, like he’s uncomfortable. I nod and take my canteen to the stream to refill it. Jake and McCoy follow suit. I can’t help wondering why McCoy felt out of sorts. I glance at him, splashing cold water on his face while he lets the water flow into his canteen. Maybe he doesn’t like owing me.

When the silence is too long and stiff and uncomfortable, I decide it needs breaking. “How old are you, Jake?” I ask.

“Nine.”

“Nine! How does a nine-year-old end up in prison?”

“When you’re an orphan and they close the orphanage.”

What? King has lost his mind. How can you send a child to prison for being an orphan? My mother started the orphanage. She’d never approve of King closing it down. She’d never have let him. The thought of King getting away with sending kids to prison for no reason makes my face burn with anger. “They closed the orphanage?”

“Yep, whatever kids wasn’t adopted, they sent to prison. Mostly that was me and my sister, Joselle, since nobody wanted two kids.”

“Where’s your sister?” asks McCoy. He throws his pack over his shoulder and starts walking.

“She ran the race last year. She told me to run it this year if she didn’t come back. She said it meant good news.”

I smile, but I know the chances that his sister is still alive are slim. This race isn’t easy. Any number of things could have happened to her along the way. “Did she really think you could win? I mean, being so young and out here in the wilderness by yourselves?” I ask.

Jake shakes his head. “No, we ain’t in it to win. She said only do what I needed to do to get to the leisure prison. She said it’d be better there than starving to death in the pit of hell.”

Joselle is right about that. It is a pit of hell. King doesn’t care if we kill each other. He’d like that. There’d be fewer people to feed. Fewer prisoners to worry about. Fewer prisoners to spill his dirty secrets.

McCoy pats Jake on the shoulder. “You’re a brave kid, you know that? A little raider, as Avene calls you,” he says, looking back at me. “But brave.”

I don’t know why, but this makes me smile. Maybe it’s the way McCoy looked at me when he said it, grinning and raising his brows.

Jake smiles too and looks up at McCoy with admiration. “Are you gonna win it?” Jake asks.

“Yes I am,” says McCoy, nodding his head. “Yes I am.”

My smile disappears instantly. This changes everything. I will not follow McCoy and let him control what I do so he can win the Headhunters Race. I’ve been planning this for three years. He’s only been in prison a few months.

Don’t let anyone hold you back.
This is what comes to me now—Verla’s voice, always grounding me, always reminding me, keeping me on track. I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Verla. Even after her death, Verla’s wisdom keeps me safe.

“Look, I need to move faster.” I say, using the best excuse I can think of to break out on my own. “I’ve got to run, walking isn’t fast enough and we’ve got these ticking time bombs clamped around our necks.”

McCoy halts, whirling on me. “You’re way better off with us. We’ve got a nice little alliance going on. And don’t worry, I promise we’ll make it back in time.”

“Yeah, don’t leave,” says Jake.

Of course we have a nice little alliance. McCoy’s going to use me and Jake for whatever he can get out of us to win. Jake may not care, but I do. “Sorry to mess up the alliance, but I have to move on.”

I think I see desperation in McCoy’s eyes. “You’re crazy, Avene. You’re not going to last out there by yourself. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Do you know how to avoid cannibal territory? Other prisoners that want to take your life? How about bears? Do you know what to do if you see a bear?”

McCoy sounds like the tall guy back in prison that grins like the devil, the one who thinks I can’t handle myself. It annoys me. And no, I hadn’t thought too much about the cannibals, except to avoid them. Prisoners can be taken out by a knife to the neck or heart. Easy. Bears I’m not worried about either. Not in the least. “I think I can outrun a bear,” I say.

“Nooooo!” McCoy and Jake both scream at once.

“You never run when there’s a bear! Never!” McCoy yells at me like I’m some little kid.

Jake nods his head in agreement. “Yer supposed to play dead.”

Oh, crap. That’s not what I would’ve expected. Bears are big and lumbering animals. Who’d expect them to be able to run very fast? “Well that’s not hard to do,” I say. “I think I can play dead.” Now I want to ask about the cannibals because I’m not sure I do know everything, but I don’t want to show McCoy how stupid I am, not twice.

“So,” says Jake. “You change your mind?”

“No. I’m moving on.” McCoy isn’t going to scare me with stories about cannibals and bears. Besides, I do know that cannibals stake out the desert part of the territory. Why, I don’t know, but maybe that’s what McCoy was wondering if I knew. I can’t avoid the desert if I want to make it back to Water Junction in time. But at least I’ll know where to be more alert.

“Good luck,” I say.

Jake slips his hands in his pockets. “You don’t have to go.”

“I do,” I say. “With any luck, I’ll see you back in Water Junction.”

McCoy looks like he wants to say something more. He doesn’t though.

So I run.

McCoy doesn’t understand my need to win the race. That I need to remove King from the face of the earth and the only way I’ll get my chance is when King is distracted by the gifting of Gavin’s head. It’s the only way and the only time I’ll get close enough. I can’t do it if his guards lock me up in the leisure prison.

The sun is high overhead, partially obscured by clouds. I figure I’ve got five hours of daylight, give or take, and if the ground remains level and meadow-like, I’ll make good time. But it’s as if I jinx myself because after about thirty minutes of running, I come to a fork where the stream splits off in two different directions and I don’t know which way to go. McCoy said we’d follow the stream—he never mentioned it diverging.

When I reach the fork, I kneel down and pull out my compass. I need to go southeast and the compass tells me to take the fork on the left. For some reason, my gut tells me to take the one on the right. I don’t listen to my instincts though, not when the compass is what I need to pay attention to.

I keep my pace steady. My breaths in and out retain a rhythm that keeps me focused. Two short breaths in. Two short breaths out. All I think about is running, setting a goal in the distance, obtaining the goal, and setting a new one. I can’t think about anything else and when my mind attempts to wander, I center on my breathing. In. In. Out. Out. In. In. Out. Out.

Hours go by. The sun falls across the sky. It’s dusk when the stream suddenly ends and a mountain range looms in front of me. A mountain of bare rock. Hardly a bush grazes its face. Certain that I’ve covered at least twenty miles and dreading another mountain hike, I make camp near the stream.

I gather dry wood, moss, and bark from a few trees for kindling and clear out a space for a fire. The air has chilled by several degrees and I’m already shivering. The temperature is unusually cold for this time of year. Just my luck.

I dig around my pack for the matches. I’m almost on the verge of panic when I don’t find them. Did I leave them strewn across the ground when I reorganized our packs?

I’m relieved when I find them at the bottom. Once the flames are burning hot and under control I fill up my canteens. I realize I should boil the water. There’s no telling what’s in the stream and even though I have an iron stomach, I shouldn’t risk it.
Luck only takes you so far
, that’s what Verla used to say. But sometimes it’s just not possible to take all the precautions. I find a big rock and position it on the fire, on the edge where it’ll burn hot enough to heat my canteen to a boil on top. I learned how to sterilize water from Lyle Roscher, my father’s best friend, before he was taken by the cannibals a few months before my mother married King.

I let the water sit there for at least half an hour before I switch it out with the other. I fill my belly with water, nuts, and some of the dried meat. It isn’t until I’m ready to sleep that I remember I’m not the only prisoner running the race. I glance around, but it’s so dark I can’t see beyond the fire’s glow. Anyone could spot me for miles if they’re high enough, or coming up the stream through the meadow, or from the edge of the forest on either side of me. Even though I’m freezing, I’m wondering if I should put out the fire.

It doesn’t take an Einstein to weigh the options. Essentially, I can put out the fire and freeze. Or I can keep the fire and not wake up in the morning after someone has put a knife through my heart. When I think about it in the context of my life, it’s not a hard decision. I put out the fire. I douse it with handfuls of water from the stream and stomp out the last of the flames.

The night turns out to be like a nightmare. Chilling temperatures, howling wolves, noises I can’t explain. I toss and turn, trying to find a way to keep myself warm. The blanket the goodie two shoes club provided doesn’t do much to help. I’ve lost feeling in my toes. I think about the desert. I think about McCoy and Jake huddled together and quickly push thoughts of them away. I’m so desperate to be warm that I finally scoot myself over to the fire and half lay my back across the coals. I don’t care if I’m covered in ash. I don’t even care if I catch on fire, but it turns out there’s barely any heat left.

Soon after I’ve found a new section where the coals are still warm and I’m finally drifting off to sleep, I hear shouts—a man and a woman. My eyes fly open. At first I’m not sure I really heard anything, or if I was in that conscious awareness sleep, where you don’t know if you dreamed something or actually heard it.

My heart beats with fear when I hear the cries again. The voices are frantic, but I can’t see a thing. All I know is that something is horribly wrong. I listen, first turning my head one way and then the other, to see if I can locate them. The yelling grows louder, more desperate, somewhere behind me. I start gathering my things together, unsure if the voices belong to other prisoners, or cannibals, or someone else altogether.

I shove the blanket inside my pack. I’m still deciding whether it’s best to stay put or run when I hear the pounding of feet so close it’s like I’m in the path of a racehorse. Someone trips over me. A woman screams, her legs fumbling all over me while I try to push her off. A man leans down to help her up. It’s the Greenies! They’re disheveled. Haggard. Martha’s top is ripped, exposing her abdomen.

“Avene,” Jim gasps, leaning his face toward mine. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” I say, seeing torches bobbing up and down several yards behind us. “What’s going on?”

“Run!” Jim and Martha are already on their feet, running when he answers.

I don’t have to be told twice. I’m on my feet, pack in hand, sprinting to my left, in the opposite direction of the Greenies, toward the forest, knowing it’ll give me cover. I duck behind a bush and throw my pack on my back, ready for a quick escape, but I wait because I don’t want anyone to hear me scrambling through the forest. I watch as a group of people rush toward the Greenies. I count four torches, but there are definitely more than four people involved in the chase. They’re prisoners. I see their collars in the firelight, red spots and splatters all over their clothing—blood.

“I get the woman,” a man yells and the echo of his voice sends a chill down my spine.

“I get the man,” shouts someone else, a man with a deep, scratchy voice.

I’m holding my breath, my hand covering my mouth in horror as I watch the Greenies bolt toward the mountain. The people chasing them are clumsy, falling over themselves. The Greenies disappear from my view, but I keep watching and holding my breath and praying they get away.

A twig snaps behind me. My eyes go wide with terror. A zap of dread shoots through my body when a glow of light reflects off the bush I’m hiding behind. I whirl around to see what I’m facing, fearing the worst.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the murdering mother killer.”

I’m right to be terrified. The prisoner’s face is illuminated by his torch. I recognize him. He’s the bald, tattooed man Victor had the guard whisper something to during the ceremony. I reach for my knife. He drops his torch when he slams his hand into my face, shoving my head into the ground.