I took a tentative step back toward the weed-choked road. He must have been lying in wait somewhere, belly to the ground like a snake. I slipped the bag from my shoulder and drew out my dad’s machete. Now I was a match for him. So long as I discounted things like height, weight, slabs of muscle, and killing experience. I stepped onto the broken asphalt. The last of the fog had burned away but the landscape still had a desolate feel.
“This is what I get for trying to keep you from becoming meat,” a voice said. My heart jerked. His voice seemed to rise from the ground itself. “Man, my head hurts!”
I crept forward, watching the thigh-high scrub for movement.
“You might want to watch your step.”
I froze in place. Just ahead of me, half-hidden within a thatch of weeds, was a hole. Not a round manhole, but a long jagged gap where the asphalt had recently caved in. Probably under Rafe’s weight, since pebbles were still spilling in. With my feet planted so firmly they could have grown roots, I leaned forward and spotted him in the darkness below. His eyes had the shine of a wild animal cornered in its den … a situation in which only an idiot extended her hand.
“Sure took you long enough to come over for a look.” I heard the faint disdain in his tone, as if I was stupid for being cautious. Well, I wasn’t nervous now. Not with him stuck twenty feet underground. Even an Olympic high jumper wouldn’t be able to pull himself out. I tested the ground and then knelt for a better look. Rafe was standing in the middle of some sort of underground cavern. The only light came from the crevice that he’d fallen through, but as far as I could tell, the walls were dirt — impossible to scale. Releasing my breath, I sat back on my heels.
“I could use a little help here,” he said without bothering to hide his irritation.
I got to my feet. “You can rot down there. Call it karma.”
“You think you’re scared now? Of me? Wait till that thing comes back.”
I peered back into the crevice. “He’s not a thing!”
“What do you call a beast that tears out people’s hearts?”
My mouth dropped open. “Hearts?”
“He probably eats them, but who knows? Maybe he’s got a collection going.”
His words had me scanning the tree line and breathing so hard, I couldn’t hear anything else. No. I couldn’t let this scam artist get to me. I gritted my teeth until the muscles in my jaw crackled. If the tiger-man — Chorda — had wanted to hurt me, he could have. Instead, he’d thanked me politely and introduced himself. The only feral thing around here was down in that hole.
“The rogue just got started in Moline,” Rafe went on, “which is why no one will be using this road anytime soon. Except you. And you sure caught its attention. You should know that once a feral has your scent, it can track you anywhere.”
“Will you please be quiet?”
His smile was a flash of white in the darkness below. “That was the most polite ‘shut up’ I’ve ever heard.”
I was tempted to kick dirt down on him. “I’m glad the tiger-man got himself free. You were going to murder him.”
“I was going to put him down. You can’t murder an animal. Now how ’bout you get me out of here?”
I stalked away from the fissure.
“Oh, that’s good. You’ll help a slobbering beast but not another human. Hypocrite!” he shouted after me.
Hypocrite I could live with. But helping him out of that hole would make me a fool. I didn’t get far, though, before I tripped over something and went sprawling face-first into the scrub. It was his stupid knapsack. He’d probably left it there on purpose to trip me up. His shotgun lay a few feet away. Good to know it wasn’t with him.
Getting to my knees, I shoved my machete into my messenger bag. Let’s see who you really are, thief. The pack frame was loaded with a rolled army blanket and the weatherproof knapsack, which I unzipped without a single pang of guilt. The medicine that he’d stolen from the infirmary sat on top of the jumble along with vacuum-packed food pouches bearing the line patrol logo. The nonedibles included a crank flashlight, a water bottle, balled-up shirts, and a bunch of weapons. Okay, technically the ax wasn’t a weapon, but after what I’d just witnessed, it counted.
I sat back, thirsty and uncomfortably damp in my dew-soaked pants. After sniffing the water bottle, I risked a sip. It was time to start walking again. I had to get to Moline and find my father. It was okay to leave the thief in the pit. He was dangerous. And I had a cut to prove it.
“Get me out of here and I’ll take you to Moline like you wanted,” Rafe called up, making me spill water on my shirt. “There’s a rope in my bag.”
He was trying out a new tone. Friendlier. Just how stupid did he think I was? Still, I shoved aside his clothes and silver food pouches until I found a long, coiled rope made of some kind of high-tech fiber. Lightweight and strong. Great. Now there’d be no telling myself later that I couldn’t have helped him even if I’d wanted to.
Rope in hand, I returned to the gap. Rafe sat on the dirt floor below, eating blackberries off a branch. Where had that come from?
He glanced up. “We both knew you weren’t going to leave me down here.”
He made it sound as if being a Good Samaritan was a flaw. I dropped the rope by my feet, which at least got him to stand up again. “Why do you have so many weapons?”
“I’m a hunter.”
“Killing sick people, that’s your job?” I asked acidly. “Who pays for that?”
“Any town with a feral problem. Right now, it’s Moline.”
“A feral problem?”
“All ferals are dangerous. Unless you’re looking to get bitten, you steer clear of them and mostly they’ll steer clear of you. But sometimes a feral goes rogue, the way bears and mountain lions do. Meaning, it starts hunting humans.”
“Why?” I glanced over my shoulder at the woods.
“It could be old or hurt and we’re easy prey. Or maybe it’s got a grudge against people. Or sometimes, a feral just gets a taste for human meat.”
His eyes glinted in the shadows. He’d savored that last part — a taste for human meat — like a storyteller warming to his task. At ten, I would have shrieked at that line, pulled my blanket over my head, and then begged my dad to say it again. Now, I just stretched and cracked my spine. “So, how will the good people of Moline pay you?”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Does anyone ever?”
His eyes narrowed. “Fine. It’s your heart.” He tossed aside the blackberry branch. “The mayor of Moline is offering one hundred meals to the hunter who bags the feral. Cooked fresh or in bulk. I get that squared away and I’m good for the whole winter.”
“And you just kill these rogue ferals in cold blood? You don’t even try to relocate them?”
His brows shot up, his expression incredulous. “Even I won’t sell a lie that stupid, not even to save my own skin.” He headed for an opening in the wall that I hadn’t noticed. It looked like a tunnel carved into the dirt. If there was a way out, why had he waited until now to use it?
I knelt to see him step over something lying on the cavern floor and then caught a gleam of open eyes. “Is that an animal?”
“Lynx,” he said without looking back. “Paralyzed. Want to relocate it?”
“Did it get hurt when it fell?”
He paused by the tunnel opening, which came up to his shoulder. “It didn’t drop in with me. It was already here, like them.” He gestured toward the far wall.
I had to lean in farther, precariously so, to see the pile of fur. More animals — raccoons, rabbits, and even a wolf — some twitching, some still as death, but all with open eyes. “What’s wrong with them?”