Read Online Run (The Hunted) by Patti Larsen - Free Book Online Page B

moment to shout, “Rich!” and raise his own rifle before his left leg is severed in one slice. His mouth gapes wide, the scar on his cheek pure white against his skin from the pressure of his fallen jaw as he looks down at his missing limb, nothing below his knee but air. The cut is so clean he is in perfect balance for a long moment, as though suspended by fine wire, a marionette gushing blood onto the ground. He topples in slow motion, gun swinging around. He fires one shot, another, but they go off into the forest, harmless. A hunter appears at his side, oozing close as he hits the dirt. Scar is rolled over onto his back in one smooth motion. The hunter’s hand rises over the fallen man’s abdomen.
    Reid’s sanity begs him to run, to get away and not watch, but he can’t help himself or them. The first hunter bends over Mustache and together they slice downward, gutting both of the men in synch.
    This is enough at last. Reid’s feet are working again, his blood pumping. He turns and dashes into the forest, back on his original path, a new image there to replace the one of the dead boy.
    Mustache gapes at Reid in his mind, the severed head his memory’s new companion as he runs for his life.
     
    ***
     
    Chapter Nine
     
    This time when Reid runs, he sobs brokenly over the loss of his hope. He feels nothing for Mustache and Scar, not sure why his compassion has left him. He can only think of his own grief and, when the tears subside, the absence of the weapons the two men carried. Despite knowing the rifles were no help in the end, Reid still mourns leaving the guns behind. Not to mention the backpacks both men carried. The thought of what might have been in them is enough to drive Reid to distraction.
    He can’t afford distraction, not now. Who knows how long it will be before the hunters are on his trail again? And yet, he is starving and desperate and now knows just how deadly his pursuers are, able to take down trained soldiers, ex-military if Scar is to be believed. And Reid has no reason to doubt that is true.
    He has to correct himself as he stumbles through the woods. Was. Was true. Scar won’t be saying anything, true or otherwise, ever again.
    In a moment of insanity, Reid finds himself giggling. Perhaps this is some funhouse, a joke, the gag on him. An elaborate carnival of terrors designed to bring the contestants to the brink, only to discover in the end it is a hoax. All the people he believes to be dead are really fine, hiding somewhere, laughing at him, in on it while he is desperately afraid.
    The moment passes and the giggles dry up. Reid doesn’t have time to create fictions around what is happening to him. He can’t afford to slow down, to think in any way but for his own survival. This is no joke, not a hoax or a reality show gone wrong. It is real and his life is at risk.
    He will die eventually. Reid has no doubt, especially now. How can he expect to survive when Mustache and Scar fell so easily, without even a fight, only two lonely gunshots to mark their passing? Reid has no illusions, not any more. But he’ll be damned if they’ll take him until the time comes he can’t run any further.
    He pulls himself to a halt at last, hoping the hunters stayed busy with the two men. That is enough to keep them occupied, it seems. They aren’t following him, as far as he can tell.
    It’s all he has to cling to.
    Reid catches his breath, shaking his head over and over as the image of Mustache’s head tries to return and taunt him—the amazed look on his face, that this could possibly have happened to him, the staring eyes full of shock that he is dead. Accusing Reid of getting him killed in the first place. Reid looks down, sees the red stains on his jeans and sneakers. That and the replay of the arc of spraying blood is enough to twist his stomach into a fury of rejection.
    Reid bends over, dry heaving, his insides trying their best to leave him, but only a little bile makes it to freedom.