Page 106 of Hunt for You

ME: I’m fine. Its not what you think. You’d like the priest I talked to today. He sounds a lot like you. I’ll be there next week.

My phone buzzed as I put it back in my pocket, but I didn’t look at it. I couldn’t deal with Gerald’scareful wisdomtonight.

I had to figure out what I was going to do. Because talking to Sam had been a bit of a wake up call. He hadn’t said anything I hadn’t heard before. But it had helped me clarify what I was feeling. And that wave of frustration that washed over me when Cain wouldn’t evenlistento what I wanted to change…

I sighed and twisted the top on the wine bottle and opened it to take a swig, wincing at the terrible, overly sweet flavor. But that immediate, warm rush of the alcohol was a balm. I took another swallow, then two more, and my head gave a tiny little lurch.

Good.

I didn’t want to do this sober.

Gerald had been telling me for years that I processed by talking. And that if I was trying to make a decision, I should say everything I was thinking out loud. To an empty room.

I figured an empty park was just as useful. Except it made me feel a little nuts to just talk to nothing, so I stared at the ground and pretended my mom was sitting there, listening.

I could still remember what she looked like.

I didn’t know how she’d feel about all this, because obviously she’d been attracted to dangerous men, too. Themostdangerous.

But she’d been weak, too. Weaker than me. I thought.

Was I fooling myself?

There was no way to know.

I took a deep breath and another swig of the wine, but this wasn’t going to stop being stupid, so I needed to just do it.

I cleared my throat and imagined that she was sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up and her arms around them, looking at me.

“I don’t want to live anymore,” I murmured quietly so there was no chance I’d be overheard by a suburban kid whose life hadn’t been ruined already. “But I also don’t want to die.” It was true. And I hadn’t admitted that to Sam because I knew he wouldn’t let it go if I admitted he was right about that part. Plus, I wasn’t really clear on how I could feel both of those things at the same time. Which was why I was sitting here, drinking wine, and talking to a blade of grass like a crazy person. “I’m afraid allthe time. And I’m lonely. And… I feel like the only people who like me are the ones who are even more fucked up than me.”Like Cain.“They’re the only ones I can really be myself with. But they scare me.”

I pretended they didn’t. Gerald had called me on that once, telling me he knew I wasn’t quite as “unperturbed” by the dark people I surrounded myself with as I pretended.

I’d asked him if the snooty attitude was genetic, or something he’d cultivated.

We’d moved on.

“I want Cain to hunt me,” I murmured. “But… maybe I don’t want him to kill me. Except, what’s left if—”

“Sounds like it’s your lucky night.”

I dropped the bottle of wine so that it clunked on the seat under my feet and bounced, spraying cheap sticky red liquid all over my sweats, but I didn’t even care.

I started to whirl, to look, because that voice wasrightnext to my ear, but I was already being pulled backwards off the picnic table by those thick, steel arms.

Cain was here, and he was snarling.

Maybe there really was a God.

36. Change the Game

SOUNDTRACK:Chokeholdby Allistair

~ CAIN ~

Wrong. It was all wrong.

She gasped and startled like she should.