"So, um, where did your house go?"
"That's a fantastic question."
I glance down the row of hedges, all of them as tall as the townhouses on the street I used to live on. "Does it have an equally fantastic answer?"
Rafferty scowls at me then at the patch of grass his tent is normally perched on. "This is ridiculous," he says, as if any of our current situation makes sense.
He runs a hand through his chocolate brown hair. And it's as if I can smell chocolate. The sweetness of it as it melts. The hint of it that always hung on my father's clothes, and on mine when I helped him in his shop. But I shake my head, dismissing the thought. Memories make for bad companions here. "Sun's going down," I say, reaching out of habit for the knife strapped to my side. "Better decide quick what you're going to do."
Rafferty spits on the ground and studies the tight rows of hedges around us, flinging an angry glare at them so intense it's a wonder they don't bow before him and create a path out of this madness. He's been here for seven months.
I think I've been in love with him for six.
"Do you think it was Bryson?" I ask, and even our captor's name has me shuddering and makes dread pool in my stomach like melted chocolate in a mold.
Rafferty shakes his head. "The game doesn't start until tomorrow. Why take my tent tonight?"
It's a good question. Bryson's never denied anyone of supplies this whole time. My scrap of canvas is perched two lefts, a right, then three lefts from the row we're on. I scuff my boot on the dry ground beneath me. Are even still in Hartswell? How wise a strip of land separates me from my family?
"Tessa, are you even listening?"
I snap my head to Rafferty. Sun glistens off his eyes, making him look teary, though I've never seen him cry. Despite the fact that I sob into his shirt front nearly every week when the games are over.
"Sorry," I tell him. "I was thinking of how best to avoid getting blood in my eyes like last week."
He scowls again. "Don't say that," he scolds.
I shrug my shoulders. "Humor is how I cope." A fact he knows. We're trapped here, there's no way out - because we've tried finding one, all of us. A cement wall runs along the perimeter of the twelve-acre labyrinth of hedges. I give Raff my biggest smile. "I tell sick jokes to make the situation better. So kill me."
He finally locks eyes with me. "That's not funny."
And it's not. But I can't deal with the truth. That tomorrow when the sun tips over the tall hedges boxing us in, our captor will ring his bell and unleash us.
Thirty-six captives. All of us stolen from our families. All of us armed with one knife. And all of us handed a strip of paper with who to kill.
Bryson commits no murder. He just likes to set it up and watch it happen.
I glance at the number branded onto my forearm and trace its outline. Thirty-six captives. Children of parents not native to Hartswell. Children taken from their beds to satisfy the blood list of a noble who hates 'immigrant foulness' as he calls us and who has us take his vengeance out on each other. Kill and avoid your killer. Those are the only rules. Those who don't follow them see their families murdered in front of them.
I trace the outline of the number one on my arm.
The first stolen. The first person handed a strip of paper. The first to kill. I'm the only Ayillian that's been trapped in these hedges that spring from the ground soaked in the blood of immigrants. I wonder if that fact would make my father proud. I choke on the memory of him and turn and face Raff.
His eyes are teary this time. And my sobs choke my breath as I swallow them down.
I've been here thirty-five weeks. And I've never gotten Raff's name.
And tomorrow I'll hate myself.
Because I'll have to kill him next.
And I know he'll let me. Because he loves me, too.
