The Prey (The Hunt Trilogy)

She seems me within the eye. “He was once a great guy. I’d do something he requested. ” after which she’s out the door, into the evening, sprinting alongside the fort wall. 35 THEY locate ME coming down the spiral staircase, a couple of elders, faces pink from both drunkenness or exertion. Or either. they've got no phrases for me, purely arms that attempt to seize my fingers. I shake them off and once they notice I’m now not attempting to run off, they just stick with heavily at the back of me. now not a unmarried note is handed among us. And no quicker are we again at the cobblestone direction than they all at once disappear. One second they’re correct beside me, the subsequent they’re long gone. bizarre that they wouldn’t escort me again to my cottage. I test to not imagine an excessive amount of of it. yet an uneasiness grows in me. I cease, hear for the sound in their fading footsteps. yet there’s merely the skinny whistle of wind. A raindrop falls on my face. It’s fats and pregnant with chilly, not anything tentative approximately it. inside seconds, one other drop, then one other, splatters on my cheeks and brow, until eventually the rain falls heavy and entire throughout me. yet that's not why I’m unexpectedly chilly. i glance approximately. The rain curtains down a cascading rainy darkness, complete and thick. A television static of flickering rainy black and darkish grey. Rain pitter-patters challenging at the cobblestone, the sound of 1000 marbles clattering down. I commence relocating. again to my cottage. quick, with worry riding my ft ahead on cobblestones which are slick and icy. on the village sq., I cease and hear. Silence and stillness, in simple terms my middle thumping away. whatever snaps in me, a conviction that drives my ft ahead. In my brain, I see myself storming into the bed room, jostling all of them wakeful. Epap, David, Ben, Jacob, Sissy. Telling them that we needs to depart this very moment, not just simply because I now comprehend that the genuine Land of Milk and Honey, Fruit and Sunshine lies east folks, not just simply because i do know that my father lives and breathes and awaits me there, yet simply because I feel our time within the venture has run out. That the final grains of sand have poured via, leaving in basic terms swimming pools of lousy vacancy and acid blackness. I already see us grabbing our luggage, stealing into the darkish woods as I pound my legs more durable, attempting to forget about the sensation that it really is already too overdue. I barge throughout the entrance door. i'm approximately to dash up the steps— —when whatever catches my eye. within the eating room. Firelight dances at the wall, small and flickering. however it isn't the gentle that catches my realization. It’s David. other than he's not dealing with me. He’s status within the nook dealing with the wall, palms cupped at the back of his again. as though status at recognition. other than he's trembling. “David? ” I stroll towards him, into the eating room. “David? ” the sunshine is flickering from a candle set at the eating desk. Sitting without delay in the back of the desk, his face floodlit with gentle, is Epap. He’s routinely stuffing soup into his mouth, so speedy and approximately that it truly is spilled everywhere in the desk and down front of his blouse. He seems to be up and his eyes are purple and uncooked. He shows no shock at my surprising presence, yet his eyes emote desperation.