It would take a lot of searching to find me.
To stay ahead of a hunter you have to know where the hunter is. I listened for the sound of pursuit. Beyond the sound of my ragged breath and my pounding heart was the sound of the river. A river ran along the backside of the Quarterz, ran just behind the library. I only had to make my way to the river and then follow it back to the library. They" d never think to look for me in the place I was fleeing. I was willing to bet that was where they" d go to pass information to each other.
I crawled out of the cellar, smearing my skirt and suit jacket. I scanned the first street I came to and darted across, headed toward the sound of the river. I ran past a Dumpster, nothing, and hands snatched me from the street. He wasn" t one of the guys I was running from.
“Well fuck me if it ain" t the lucky librarian. Who you playing with, girl?” I struggled. “Let me go. I don" t have time to talk.” He shrugged and flipped open his cell phone. “Suit yourself. I" ll broadcast rather than call direct.” I ran but hadn" t gone far when he connected. I knew this because the message blasted from speakers across the Quarterz. One on a lamppost above my head. It looked like part of an emergency warning system-a pre-apocalyptic relic.
“Got your librarian here, boys. She" s on the corner of east Muskine and Third.” I turned and shouted back. “Hey. That" s not fair.” He laughed. “Who told you it" d be fair?”
Urit appeared at the end of the street. I dodged through a back door and into what turned out to be an old grocery, ravaged by looters. I stepped over broken jars and smashed cans, the contents of which had long since rotted and hardened into a brittle black crud that coated the floor. Glass crunched behind me. I slipped through a door that said employees only and hid in the men" s room.
Moments later I heard them circling. “I cover the back,” Romero said. “Urit, you watch she don" t slip under the front.”
“You mean through the front.”
“Whatever.”
I wondered where Hunt was. Then I heard the stealthy shuffle of feet just outside the door. “I got her, boys,” he shouted, popping open the door and snatching me out.
“Her panties are mine.” He reached under my skirt and rubbed his fingers over the dampest part of the silk. I stared up at him, thought this is how it feels to be prey caught in a hunter" s predatory stare.
One finger slipped under the edge, just at the crotch, twirled the soft curls there, the way he" d twirled my hair earlier. I couldn" t breathe. For a moment I thought he might abandon the game and have me right there against the wall. He did in a way-fucking me with his finger while I pressed my palms flat against the tile wall, dug my fingers into crumbling grout. I was pinned by his stare and one talented finger, so lost in the hypnotic power of the moment I heard the ripping more than felt it. He waved the panties like a trophy. “The guy who gets the panties gets you first.” I couldn" t think of anything to say to that. I was teetering just short of what I thought would be a refreshing release. Something to take the edge off. He confirmed my suspicion that he wasn" t going to take me the rest of the way. “Don" t just stand there looking all big eyed and sugar sweet. Run.”
I did.
Again an announcement blasted across the Quarterz. “She" s pantiless. Hunt claims the first fuck.” Whoops and whistles, while embarrassing, were clues as to where I shouldn" t go. I hadn" t thought I" d be so outnumbered. I hadn" t thought this would be a public stripping. I ran on unsteady legs, the effects of my brush with Hunt still singing in my blood.
I had wondered once or twice why I never saw other women in the Quarterz. I supposed they had to stay hidden but thought surely I" d run into one today with all the ground I was covering. Naturally when I saw the first, she was in a Hunter" s hands, draped over the same red couch I" d seen that first day. He was too busy to call in my position.
I was looking over my shoulder at them when I rounded a corner and slammed into Urit. I wasn" t sorry to lose my pink suit jacket. He tossed it in a Dumpster and backed me against a wall. He held my hands against the bricks, over my head. His hot mouth closed over one nipple and then the next-his tongue dampened the cotton blouse, teased the lace bra, and his teeth clamped down with enough pressure to make me squirm but not enough to hurt. His fingers found my slick pussy. His thumb flicked back and forth over my clit with that same steady beat he" d used on my nipple in the library. It made me think of a thumb flicking the button on a lighter-raising the flame and then letting it go out. Repeating and repeating again. He played with me just like that. But not long enough.
“Run,” he said when he was done.
I did, but not as fast as before.
Chapter Four
We were down to the last five minutes. I still had my bra.
I was in the library basement, under a shelf, behind a crate. I knew the time because hunters were reporting in across the speaker system as the time ticked down.
Someone unaware, who" d walked in and discovered me curled up in that corner of the basement, might have mistaken me for an addict undergoing withdrawal. I had all the symptoms-agitation, tremors, confusion. Tingling. I tingled from the roots of my hair to my toenails. I tingled as if a million buzzing bees were trapped in the marrow of my bones.
Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, smell, taste, touch. I had that too. I think it would have taken no more than the soft sigh of a hunter" s breath against the lips of my pussy to unleash an orgasm that would go on, and on, and on.
And on.
Three minutes was called. Then two. I was going to beat them. I didn" t want to.
I wanted the drug they" d spent the past hour addicting me to. I wanted sex, hard, hot fucking. When one of them was done, I wanted another. And another after that.
We were supposed to be playing catch, strip, release. The game they played was catch, strip, mind-melting foreplay, release. It had started with manageable teasing.
Fingers and tongues teased, probed, taunted, promised. It deepened as the game went on. That was why they" d given me so much to wear, because every item stripped was another round of sensual torture. I couldn" t remember anyone mentioning that when they explained the game to me. I couldn" t remember my name. I couldn" t remember theirs.
I could remember the promises that it would be worth the wait. The warnings when they held me down. It had taken two together the last time. One held me while the other licked me right up to the edge and no further.
“You" ll need this when the game ends,” he said after. As if he were giving me a gift.
“Hold on to it, save it up. “
“It" s all about you, sugar,” the golden-haired hunter had insisted. He" d held me on his lap in a bear hug while he talked me down. “We talk a hard line, but we want to give you a fantasy, a mind-blowing good time you" ll never forget.” They always knew when to stop. It drove me mad. It drove me to try finishing what they started with my own hands. But they held me, talked me down, and when I could stand they told me to run off the frustration.
Had it really been only an hour? My concept of time was lost. It felt like a month.
I leaned against the cool stone wall, closed my eyes and savored the cold seeping from concrete into my fevered skin. I needed to come so bad my teeth were chattering.
Yet stubborn pride wouldn" t let me surrender and go beg for what I craved. It wouldn" t let me pleasure myself. I was strong enough to win. I was strong enough to wait.
I heard in stereo, through the speakers and from a rough-edged male voice a few feet away, “I spy the lucky librarian" s toes.”
His fingers shackled my ankle and hauled me out of hiding. Romero grinned down at me. He cut away the bra with thirty seconds to spare. I" d lost. I thought I might cry. I didn" t know if it was from disappointment or relief.