He looked like he was about to pass out from the sheer horror of my statement. “The Hunt? Cass… you can’t…” He laughed and I was pretty sure it was the only time I’d ever heard the bald giant, a hacker who I was pretty sure did work for Bram, be nervous. “You can’t go to theHunt. Come on now.”
My face flared with anger. This was how it was in Blackwell Falls: everyone treating me like a baby, like I had a million and one big brothers instead of one incredibly annoying and stubborn overprotective one.
“I’m an adult. I can do whatever I want.”
He laughed a little, glancing around like he expected Bram to appear out of nowhere and rip his heart out of his chest. “I mean, sure… yeah, I know you’re an adult and everything. But why would you want to go to theHunt?”
Because I want justice. And because while I’m at it, I want to feel alive for once in my fucking life.
I tried to channel Bram by making my voice hard and cold. “That’s none of your business. Are you going to tell me where to go or am I going to have to ask someone else?”
He ran a hand over his face before lifting a finger toward the dark hall to the right of the concession stand. “That way. But Cass…”
“Thanks.”
I turned around before he could say more. There was no point.
I’d already made up my mind.
2
CASSIE
This sideof the Orpheum was quieter.
And darker.
Empty theaters lurked on either side of the hallway, desolate until I came to a door with two familiar figures standing outside.
They glanced lazily at me, then suddenly stood straighter, looking flustered.
“Hey Titus,” I said to the bigger one. His black hair was long and his biceps bulged under a black T-shirt, a Barbarians tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve. I looked at the tall skinny guy with the Blades tattoo standing next to Titus. “Goose.”
I didn’t know either of them well, but I’d run into almost everyone who worked for Bram at one point or another, mostly when Daisy, Sarai, and I ventured into Southside for one of the Grady’s famous subs or a milkshake from Junior’s.
“Uh… hey Cassie.” Goose looked away, like he was afraid to be struck down just for speaking to me.
“What’s up, Cass?” Titus’ demeanor was cool, almost professional. He didn’t even glance at my tits, on display in a fairly low-cut lavender T-shirt.
Typical.
And it wasn’t like I had the hots for Titus. But I was twenty-three years old, and while I was no great beauty, I was passably attractive, attractive enough that at least one man in Blackwell Falls should have wanted to fuck me.
But they didn’t. Because they were all terrified of Bram.
See my aforementioned cumbersome virginity.
“Here for the Hunt,” I said, as casually as I could muster.
Titus looked at me like I had two heads and six arms. “Cass… no. I can’t let you in there.”
“Why?”
“Because Bram would fucking pull my limbs off — slowly — and then he’d knock every tooth out of my mouth with a hammer and feed them to me one at a time like fucking Tic Tacs.”
“I’m an adult. It’s not Bram’s decision.”
It was a refrain I heard in my fucking sleep.