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He launches himself at me again, although this time, he moves slowly enough that I can see him, the way I would an ordinary man. Instinct wins out over my fear and confusion, and I duck away from him, spin around, slice the knife through the air. It flashes in the dim light. Sings right past him.

“Almost,” he says, and I swear I can hear the smile in his voice.

I shriek in frustration and take another swing at him. A sloppy one, and I hear my mother’s voice, chiding me during my lessons. Keep your movements small, she’d say, demonstrating with her own knife, which might as well have been part of her body for how well she used it. Big movements attract attention.

This time, when the Hunter swings around on me, I do like I was trained, and I keep the knife by my side until he’s close enough that I can slam it upward.

I don’t feel it, the resistance of his flesh. But he laughs and jerks sideways and says, “Another cut. That’s twice today.”

It’s too dark for me to see where I cut him. Not that it matters.

“You’re letting me.” I try to keep the tremor out of my voice. “You’re toying with me.”

“If I didn’t toy with you,” he says, “you would be dead.”

On that last word, he flings himself at me again, heaving me around until he slams me up against the wall. The pain jars down my back, but it also spurs me into action, and I try to drive the knife up into his chest. Try being the operative word, because he’s so far ahead of me, the way Callie always was when we would spar together, and he grabs my wrist before I can make contact.

“Let me go,” I snarl, straining against him. And he does, laughing a little. I swing my arm at him, knife singing through the air, and he just steps back casually, dodging my blows. I feel like a child fighting a boxer.

“Stop fucking with me!” I shriek, then jump at him out of frustration more than anything else. He catches me by the waist, swings me around, presses me up against the wall again.

It almost feels like dancing.

He stops, his hands squeezing tight just above my hips, his firm body squeezing me into the wall. The gas mask leers down at me, and even up close, I can’t see any of his face behind the big glass eyes.

You want to.

I don’t know where the thought comes from. It doesn’t feel like it’s mine, not really, and it fills me with a sudden, shameful heat. I am not enjoying this. I am not sparring with my sister. This Hunter, whoever he is, is toying with me like a cat does a mouse, and if I don’t find a way out of this cabin, I’m going to die.

I wrench out of his grasp—or rather, he lets me wrench out of his grasp. When I swing the knife at him, he grabs my arms and tackles me to the smooth, cool floor, straddling me at my waist to pin me down. He slams both of my wrists against the floor and leans his weight into me.

I think, just for a second, that I feel an erection digging into my belly, and my body responds in a way it absolutely, positively should not.

“Get off me!” I snarl, squirming against him. He hasn’t tried to take the knife from me, and I squeeze it as tight as I can.

“You’re enjoying this,” he says in his raspy voice.

I freeze, glaring up at him. “No, I’m not.” I try to jolt myself up, although it doesn’t work. He slams me back down.

“You are.” The mask looms overhead. “I’m enjoying it, too. You’re a good Mary.” A pause, and when he speaks again, his voice sounds different. Softer. “You almost—almost feel like her.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. I scream and buck my hips up with every force of my strength, and somehow, I manage to flip him onto his side, just enough for me to scramble away, the knife clicking against the floor. He grabs me, though, and drags me up to him, pressing my back into his chest. The smooth rubber of his mask presses against my cheek, but he keeps his hands squeezing tight around my wrist. I am very aware, suddenly, of the position of my ass, how I could squirm suggestively against him until I⁠—

Until you feel his cock again.

There it is. That voice that’s not my voice. It almost sounds like--

No, it can’t be. I’m not a Hunter, and that religion was never mine. Those gods were never mine.

No, this is just me being panicked. My blood is up from fighting. That’s why heat is flooding into my stupid, traitorous clit. And I hate it, because I know he’ll feel it, that he’ll sense it the way Hunters sense things like that.

“Just kill me,” I say.

His breath is raspy through the mask, and I stare at the door. Chains. I heard chains when he came in, but he never redid them. And there’s no inside lock that I can see.

“Why aren’t you like me?” he says.

The question is the last thing I expect him to say. I try to pull away from him, but he only tightens his grip until I can’t even move at all. A reminder that he really was playing with me earlier. Now, I’m trapped.