I stood up, my pulse racing. There was a pounding in my ears, and I suddenly just wanted to get away from this woman who thought so little of me, who seemed to think I was nothing more than a beast.
I carelessly tossed my bowl of half-eaten food on the table, having no interest in the stew any longer. I was too upset to eat. I stalked toward the door of my hut, needing fresh air to clear my head.
“I… I’m sorry,” she called.
I whipped my head around to glower at her, noting the sheepish expression on her face. It gave me a perverse sense of satisfaction, but not enough to appease my temper.
“Should I go?” she asked.
“No,” I snapped back. “You are my prisoner. You will always remain in this hut, whether I am here or not. If you try to escape, know that I will come for you. I will hunt you down, and I will do to you what I did to the other hunters. Do not cross me.”
A flash of fear flickered in her eyes, and it was enough to bring me a sense of remorse. I wasn’t going to let her see that, however. Instead, I turned around, storming out of the hut.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes for the regret to fully sink in. Though I felt justified in my righteous indignation, seeing that look on her face made my anger fade away. Now I just felt… bad.
I didn’t want to scare her. And I shouldn’t have threatened her like that. None of it was my finest moment, and I already felt a sense of shame for speaking like that.
I had brought her to my hut to offer my assistance. To help her. Not to bully her. But she had rankled my pride and made me feel like a pest to be controlled. Though I could explain my reaction to myself, that didn’t make it right.
I sighed deeply, my temper gone in a flash. I hated myself for speaking to her like that, and wished that someday I would learn to control these outbursts. My emotions, good and bad, tended to come upon me like a wave, sinking me in their depth. It made the enjoyable moments that much more profound, but I was getting too advanced in years to be so erratic. Flying off the handle at an off-handed comment was beneath me, I knew.
Perhaps what she said had stabbed particularly deep because of the guilt that I felt. I was sorry that I’d had to kill those men. It wasn’t something I’d enjoyed, or ever wanted to do again.
In a logical sense, I knew that they had given me no choice. They were going to capture me, and then what? It was the only way to keep my freedom, and possibly my life.
But it irked me, somehow, that they could force me to react with violence, and then seem to use it as justification. They proved I was a danger by coaxing it out of me. Whoever, or whatever, this IMRA was, they were setting me up to be perceived as a threat.
The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me. I’d lived here for five years without incident. And in one afternoon, they’d tricked me into proving them right.
The real question was… why? What did they want with me, and why were they making up excuses that I was a hazard to humans to justify it? They surely must’ve known they were lying, so why did they spread these falsehoods?
These thoughts bounced viciously around in my head, never reaching a satisfactory conclusion. But I had plenty of time to think on them as I walked back to where I’d nearly been ambushed.
And as I dug two shallow graves, I still wondered.Why?
Chapter Three
Claire
I could hear him moving around outside the hut. There wasn’t enough separation between us to even think about making an escape. He had already made it clear that if I tried, he would kill me. And I wasn’t about to call his bluff.
I didn’t have anything to use as a weapon, anyway. I had lost my backpack and all my items out in the woods. With nothing to defend myself, there was no chance of success.
I clung, instead, to the knowledge that Finn had escaped. My memory was hazy, but I remembered him vanishing into the woods before the centaur found me. It was only a matter of time before he reported back to IMRA.
Hopefully, they’d send more hunters and find me. Finn was the one who had spotted the hut, and he would be able to send them in my direction.
Until that happened, I planned to just hold tight. The centaur didn’t seem especially dangerous if I complied. In fact, the idea of being seen as a threat had been rather upsetting to him. If he wasn’t play-acting – and I suspected that he wasn’t – that meant that, deep down, he didn’t want to harm anyone. I was going to be fine if I didn’t do anything reckless.
I was feeling much better after getting some food and rest. I decided that now, while he was outside, I should check out the hut. Not only would it give me some exercise, but it was a good chance to take in my surroundings. I wanted to know if there was anything to watch out for. Anything that would make the centaur more of a threat than I realized. Or, if worse came to worse, anything I could use to defend myself.
I was too well-trained to let this opportunity slip by and knew that he could be back any time. I lifted myself off the floor, noticing how stiff the muscles in my legs were. I took a moment to stretch out, and it felt good after sitting for so long.
But I didn’t take long, wanting to give the hut a thorough search. Since it was a circular room, I started at the wall by my makeshift bed and began to work my way around.
It was relatively easy to go through everything, since the hut was rather sparsely decorated. There wasn’t much clutter to sort through.
The first thing I noticed was the armor in a corner. The spear that I’d seen him use earlier was nowhere to be found. I wondered if he stored it somewhere else, or if he had taken it with him.