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He’s still wearing that fucking gas mask, too.

“You know how to fight,” he says.

His voice is deep and raspy, muffled a little by the mask. A rock star kind of voice, I think stupidly.

No. No. I will not let myself be even a smidge attracted to this man. I am neither Chloe nor Abi, both of whom are tremendously lucky they didn’t wind up dead. I know exactly what this man is, which means I more or less know what he wants.

Attraction isn’t part of that picture.

I shift against the wall. Sharp, electric pain shoots up my spine, but at least I managed to hold on to my knife when he threw me. I squeeze the handle tightly and suck down a shuddery breath as he hangs the lantern from some unseen-to-me hook in the wall. Then he watches me, the glass eyes of the gas mask catching the light from the lantern and making them gleam.

“My mother taught me,” I finally say, bracing myself against the wall to push myself up to standing. “Alice Noble.”

My mother’s name hangs in the air, and if he recognizes it, he doesn’t give any sign. Granted, she’s had a lot of names over the many years she’s been alive, but right now, my entire body aching, I can’t think of a single one. “So did my sister,” I pant out, finally pushing myself all the way up. Now that I’ve torn through the initial burst of pain, it doesn’t hurt so much. “Callie Noble.”

The gas mask stares at me.

“They’re like you,” I rasp out, squeezing the knife a little tighter. “And if you hurt me, they’ll keep killing you until you run out of revivals.”

That gets a response from him. Not a big one, granted, but he does tilt his head a little, pushing the mask’s eyes out of the light so that he seems to melt back into the shadows. It probably surprises him, a human woman knowing about a Hunter’s revival.

Well, there’s a lot more I know about Hunter shit, too. And right now, it’s my one advantage.

I breathe heavily, waiting for him to make the next move. Attacking him would be stupid.

“I’ve already hurt you,” he finally says.

I breathe out, annoyed by the response. “I’m standing, aren’t I?”

He moves on me then at full Hunter’s speed. I catch a blur of light, and then he’s got his hand around my throat, his fingers long and rough and calloused, like he’s a logger and not a killer. I scream and swing the knife out, but he jerks away, throwing me on the bed in the process.

“You fight well,” he says as I roll over to look up at him through the tangle of my hair. “Even though you’re not like them. Your mother or your sister.”

Or you. But he doesn’t acknowledge it, him being a Hunter. Doesn’t matter. His quick movements are proof enough.

“Attack me,” he says.

I laugh, feeling hysterical. I hate that fucking gas mask, hate that I can’t see his face. I’m sure he’s mocking me, though. He has to be. Why else would he ask me to attack him?

“Why?” I ease myself off the edge of the bed, still holding the knife. “So when my mother comes for you, you can say it was self-defense?”

“Would she believe that?”

“No!” I can not believe I’m having this conversation. “I’m fucking human!”

“You want to fight me,” he says. “I can feel it, pounding in your blood.”

My body tenses. Heat floods into my cheeks.

“You want to kill me,” I say.

“Yes.”

Fear grips me, hearing him say it out loud. Real, icy fear. The kind of fear that’s actually panic. The kind of fear that gets a human killed.

“But I would like to fight first,” he says. “I’ve never done it that way before, not with a Mary.”

“A wha⁠—”