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Penelope

Perhaps it’s not her name. Penelope is an old-fashioned name these days. But I also know that’s a lie I’m telling myself. When I conjure up her face in my head—eyes closed, peaceful from the ether, blood wiped away—my first thought is Penelope, not Mary.

I tilt the blade until it catches the light and the name washes out.

“Mary,” I whisper.

But a special one, there’s no doubt about that. I think about the exhilaration of this blade slicing through my skin. Killing humans is what I’m made to do. After a hundred and fifty years, it’s almost an afterthought. I could walk into the cabin now and plunge this knife into her heart, and that would be the end of it.

I don’t want to, though. I want the excitement. I want the thrill of her attack. My wildcat, my mountain lioness, swinging her claws at my face. I think of the first Mary, how much joy she got from arguing with men. Most of them were too stupid for her. She said I wasn’t, and that was the reason she liked me.

I stand up. The knife seems to burn into my palms.

Yes, this one is more of a challenge than usual. But Marys always have to die. It’s their nature, after all.

And this one will be no different.

4

PENELOPE

Iwake up with a pounding headache and a mouth that tastes like minty gasoline.

Everything’s dark. Nighttime? Where the fuck am I? I try to work back through my memories. A blue sky veined with black tree branches. An explosion of pain in my forehead. Texting on my phone—Adrian. I called Adrian, didn’t I? There was something wrong with my car, one of the tires blew out, or⁠—

I sit straight up with a surge of panicked adrenaline as everything comes flooding back to me. The man in the gas mask. He stepped out of the woods like a fucking cryptid and⁠—

My head throbs. Things get fuzzy here. I have a memory of the woods, of heavy footsteps.

He carried me, I think. I roll around experimentally, listening to the creak of a mattress. I’m in a bed. I’m not chained up.

I slump down and fight through the headache to take stock of my situation. It’s bad, that much is clear. Adrian is expecting me, but I never actually told him where I am. Just said I’d meet him in Avens. That’s close, at least. If he doesn’t hear from me, he’ll keep driving east. Probably land on that gas station eventually.

And then what? If I’m lucky, my car will still be on the side of the road, but Adrian will talk to the gas station attendant before he calls the cops. And that honestly certainly means talking to the man in the gas mask.

At least I’m pretty sure he’s just a man. Pretty sure he’s not like my mom or my sister Callie.

My mom. God, I threatened to send my mom after him, didn’t I? But she doesn’t know where I am. Callie knows I was driving to Clifwell but not much more than that. And I keep Adrian far away from both of them, of course. He’s not going to know to reach out to them.

Abi and Chloe might, though. They’re my two best friends, and I’m supposed to have a Zoom call with them when I got into Clifwell, our little biweekly ritual. If I miss it, if I don’t answer their texts, they’ll know something’s wrong. And unlike Adrian, they know what my mom and sister are. Chloe even has Callie’s phone number.

I suck down a deep breath. Focus, I tell myself. I’m not dead yet— another reason I don’t think my kidnapper is like my mom and sister. They’re Hunters, inhuman killers that do nothing but kill. This guy locked me in a room with no chains, which means he’s probably got something else in mind.

There’s no way I can take down a Hunter, even with my mother’s training. But some redneck human rapist? I might still be able to get out of this.

I’m prey, but I was raised by predators. And that, I know, gives me a big advantage.

First things first, though: where the hell am I? A room, that much is clear. It’s small and smells like cedar. A single window in the wall. Everything is dark, so night must have fallen, but there’s light coming in from that window, thin and watery. I’m currently sitting on a tiny, metal-framed bed. There’s a bedside table beside it, weirdly enough, although the top is empty.

There’s also the fact that my kidnapper didn’t tie me down. It could mean that he doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing. His attack on me was so quick, I didn’t get a real feel for how well he could fight. Just that he was stronger than me—but not necessarily Hunter-strong. Another point in my favor.

Regardless of the reason, the freedom undeniably gives me an advantage. I check the window first, kneeling on the bed to reach it. Sealed shut, the glass thick and distorted. When I peer outside, I can see the dark columns of tree trunks. There’s definitely a light fixed to the outside of the cabin, although it’s not bright. But I can’t see anything that could give me some hint as to the identity of my kidnapper.

I swallow down the lump of my fear and check the door next. It’s locked, which both is and isn’t surprising; there was always the chance that he likes the chase, that he would dangle a bit of hope in front of me only to run me down in the woods.

Which means that whatever he had planned, he’ll have to come back here to do it.

I sweep my gaze around the room, looking for anything else I can use. Memories of my mother’s old drills flash vaguely through my head; she used to do this, lock me up in a shed deep on the edge of our property in Mississippi and time me to see how long it would take me to escape. Then, once I mastered that, she’d see how far I would make it before Callie chased me down, pinning me to the dirt with a dulled knife at my throat. You’re dead, she’d laugh, although of course neither of them would ever kill me.