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"Yes, that's Clayton," I said. "Looking pretty good for a dead guy, eh?"
As Winsloe struggled to stand, Clay strode over, grabbed him by the neck, slammed him against the wall, and patted him down.
"Unarmed," he said, dropping Winsloe.
"What?" I said. "No grenade? No nail gun? And you call yourself a hunter."
"How much do you want?" Winsloe said. His voice was steady, edged more with anger than fear. "What's a life worth these days? One million? Two?"
"Money?" I laughed. "We don't need money, Tyrone. Jeremy has plenty and he's more than willing to share."
"A combined net worth of maybe two million bucks?" Winsloe snorted. "That's nothing. Here's the deal. You caught me fair and square. I'm willing to pay a forfeit. Ten million."
Clay frowned. "What's this? You never said nothin' about a deal, darling. You promised me a hunt."
"I'm sorry, Ty," I said. "Clay's right. I promised him a hunt, and if I don't deliver, he'll sulk for days."
"Hunt?" Trepidation flashed through Winsloe's eyes, but he quickly doused it. "You want a hunt? Okay. That's fair. Like I said, you caught me. Here's the deal, then. Let me get my equipment and we'll have a real hunt. If I kill both of you, I win. You corner me and you'll get fifteen million."
"The man has balls, darling," Clay said. "Gotta give him that." He hauled Winsloe up by the shirtfront. "You wanna deal? Here's the deal. We let you go. You run for your fucking life. You make it off the game field and we let you go. We catch you first, we kill you. Okay?"
"That's not fair," Winsloe sputtered.
Clay threw back his head and laughed. "Hear that, darling? It's not fair. Weren't those your rules? The rules you planned to use if you hunted Elena. She'd be released and hunted by a team of trained professionals. If she escaped the game field, she'd live. Otherwise, she'd die. Am I missing something?"
"It's not the same," Winsloe said, glaring. "I'm not a werewolf. A human can't fight without weapons."
"What about those equipment lockers you have out there?" I said.
"They're locked."
"Fine," I sighed. "Let's make it 'fair,' then. We wouldn't want it too easy. No challenge, no fun."
I walked into the adjoining cage and picked up the gun. Upon examining it, I figured out how to open the chamber and dumped the bullets onto the floor. Then I returned to Winsloe and handed him the empty gun.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" he said.
Clay shook his head. "I thought this guy was supposed to be bright. Let's think about this. We need to Change forms to hunt you. That means we'll be occupied for a while. We're not going to leave you with a loaded gun so you can shoot us while we're Changing."
"You could find us and beat us over the head with the empty pistol," I said. "But I wouldn't recommend it. We'll take turns Changing. If you come near us, we'll kill you. While we're busy, you'll have time to do something. How much time? Well, I'm not going to tell you that. What I will tell you is that you have time to do something. You can run for your life. Or you can go back into the compound and find ammo for that gun. Or you can race to the nearest equipment locker and try to spring the lock. Or you can head for the garage and see if you can get one of the disabled vehicles running."
"There," Clay said. "We spelled it out for you. Fair enough?"
Winsloe stood eye to eye with Clay. "Twenty million."
"Twenty seconds," Clay said.
"Twenty-five mil--"
"Nineteen seconds."
Winsloe set his jaw, looked from Clay to me, then stalked from the kennel.
"He's taking this remarkably well," I said when Winsloe was gone.
"Disappointed?" Clay asked.
"I must admit, I had hoped he'd piss his pants. But this isn't so bad. At least he'll try. More challenge."
