Page 3 of Harmless
“No, it’s not anymore.” The Hunter came around to stand in front of me, blocking me from retrieving my knives from the targets. The bleeding on his neck had barely slowed and it continued in a rivulet down his neck and chest. “Listen, I talked to a guy, a guest. Well, he was posing undercover as a guest, but he was here to gather information.” The Hunter leaned in close to me. “He and the woman he came with. They’re getting this place shut down and all of us out.”
I closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see me rolling them, willing myself to have patience with this child of a man. “I’m sorry, but he was lying to you.”
The Hunter jerked back as if I’d struck him. “What makes you say that?”
“Because everyone lies. You think I haven’t heard it before? Every once in a while, a guest gets a savior complex and wants to feel good about themselves. So they pony up the cash to bring a hot young thing home.” I poked him in the chest as I said that. Yeah, the Hunter was hot, but naivety was such a turn-off for me. “If they happen to choose you, congratulations. You’re now enslaved in a fancy house instead of a gladiator pit. And eventually, the novelty will wear off, and they’ll get bored of you. Next thing you know, you’re starving to death in a dungeon because they don’t care to feed you.”
He paled but blew out a determined huff. Damn, this kid was stubborn.
“That’s not what this is. They’re from Four Corners, not this upper class crowd.”
I frowned. All I’d ever heard of Four Corners was that it was a pipe dream. A mythical, promised land where everyone had rights. Not dripping in riches, but no slavery either. A place where you could live a normal life, have a normal job, and generally go do whatever you wanted. After what my life had been for the last six years, anything resemblingnormalsounded like a fantasy.
And from what I knew about the guests that came through here, they were allergic to anything simple and normal. Everything had to be extravagant, from their possessions to the stories they told other people. It was that old expression of keeping up with the Joneses, but on steroids. There was nothing in these people’s worlds that wasn’t a one-up contest.
So, if someone had been wanting to take the Hunter home as a pet, they wouldn’t dream of claiming to be from somewhere as mundane as Four Corners.
“Which guest was it?” I found myself asking.
“Uh, dark hair. Good-looking fucker and, like, naturally so. You know how a lot of them look plastic and fake? He didn’t look like that. And I saw him with a woman, also naturally really pretty. She was tall for a girl, short blonde hair. You remember Marilyn Monroe from way back when? Hair and face kinda like that.”
“Fuck.” I tipped my head back to the sky, even though I knew in my gut who they would be.
“What, ‘fuck’?”
“That woman. The Butcher had seen her for…personal appointments.”
“Oh, so they hooked up? Lucky dude. That guy, Torrance, he said she wasn’t actually his wife.”
“He’s notluckyto be rented out like a blow-up doll,” I hissed, even though I had an inkling that wasn’t entirely the case with this particular woman.
I remembered when Santos first pointed them out to me, coming down the elevator into the canyon when they first arrived. He kept insisting there was something odd about the couple, although I wrote it off at the time. Tezca had told us to prepare for something, and he seemed convinced it was them.
Santos had been all googly-eyed about that woman, to the point where I’d bet my knives he’d sleep with her for free. He’d been twitchy, nervous, before he left to see her for the first time, and grinning like a cat that ate the canary when he got back. I didn’t ask for details, and he didn’t give them, but it was a hell of a change from the somber, hollow-eyed look he’d have coming back from other sessions.
He’d gone to see her at least two more times, all eager and excited like a kid going on dates. And now he had fucking disappeared.
“I don’t care what this guy claimed.” I shoved past the Hunter, walking up to pull my knives out of the targets with rough yanks on the handles. “The Butcher went to see that woman, and now he’s vanished. I don’t trust her or that guy she came with.”
You can trust the Light and the Guard.
The words hit me gently, like someone running their hand over my head, but it was so unexpected that I tripped over air, stumbling over my feet as I whipped around, blades out. When my gaze landed on Tezca, the black jaguar lounging calmly in the shade, that was when my pulse kicked into overdrive.
The Hunter can be trusted as well,Tezca added.But do not trust the false messenger.
“The what?” I whispered in disbelief. “Who is that?”
“Hey, Ghost? You alright?”
My head jerked to the side, realizing only then that the Hunter had been speaking to me the entire time I’d been listening to Tezca. “What’d you say?”
“That couple has disappeared too. I’ve been asking around, and no one’s seen them. There was some commotion a couple days ago and someone said they saw those two getting kicked out.”
I refocused on the jaguar, who blinked slowly at me with those sharp, lantern-yellow eyes.I’m supposed to trust him? And them?The questions were both wondering thoughts as well as seeking confirmation from the deity within the animal.
The answer I received was not in words but as a feeling so strong, it was almost a physical sensation on my skin. A pair of hands on my shoulders, urging me forward. An overwhelming sense of affirmation that I was on the right path.
I turned to The Hunter, clarity honing my instincts. “We need to talk to the gladiators.”
