there can be only one. You will know what to do. Correct?”
Neither Ashley June nor I answer.
And he starts scratching again, long, slow strokes. “I see. I see. I see that I have not made myself clear. That I have not ful y conveyed to you just how vested I am in the success of this Hunt. That I have not made clear how important this is to me, how one of you— and only one— must win the Hunt.”
He places the tips of his forefi ngers on each eyebrow, runs them down their thin, soft arches. “Many people think I have a dream job here at the Institute. To be able to work in such proximity to the hepers. Those people are ignorant fools.
This place is hell .”
His face turns graven, darkness shadowing over him. “A successful Hunt would give me a chance to leave this place,” he whispers.
“This purgatory where heaven is only a glass wal away; but that glass is as thick as a thousand universes laid side by side. You can only take it for so long, to be tantalized with the sight and smel of hepers, yet to be deprived of it at every turn. It is its own type of hell, to be so teasingly close yet so impossibly far. To get away from this faux heaven . . . and be promoted to work where heaven is real— the Ruler's Palace. To fi nal y be promoted to Minister of Science.”
Another long pause pregnant with angst. “Have you ever . . .
no, of course you haven't. But I was there for a day. The Ruler's Palace. When I was offi cial y appointed to this position. There, in all its glory and grandeur. The reality surpassed even the loftiest of my expectations. Towering sphinxes of hyenas and jackals, slippery-smooth marble edifi ces, the endless, elegant retinue of cupbearers, scribes, harpists, pages, message runners, court soothers, guards-men, the silky- robed harem of virgins. But that was not even the best of it. Have you any idea what that might be?”
I do not say anything.
“You might think it is the elegant pools lined with waterfal s, or the grottoes, or the symphonic hal with the petal- cupped mercuric chandelier. But no, you would be wrong. Or the aquarium fi l ed with oysters and clams and squid and octopus that you can simply pluck out like a dandelion and devour. But you would be wrong again. Or the paintings, or the royal stable with rows of regal stal ions as far as the naked eye can take you. But again, you would be wrong.”
He lifts his index fi nger weighed down by a heavy emerald- cut inset ring. Immediately, the staffers and sentries about- turn and walk out.
When the front doors close, he wets his lips and continues.
“It's the food. The most exotic yet fattiest of meats, the choicest and bloodiest parts to sink your teeth into even as the animal's heart pumps. Pump- pump, pump- pump, just like that, as you chew on its liver and kidney and brain. Of dogs, of cats. And that's just the appetizer. After that, the main course.” Out of the dark, I hear his lips quiver wetly. “Heper meat,” he hisses.
I stare blankly, a horror dawning on me. Don't widen your eyes, my father's voice bel ows, don't widen your eyes!
“Suppose I tel you there's a secret stash,” he whispers.
“That somewhere on the Palace grounds is a top- secret heper farm. Just supposing, of course. Because everyone knows that the last hepers on the face of the planet are in that Dome outside. But now, suppose that heper farm is underground, kept from view, spanning the whole length and width of the Palace grounds. Just supposing, of course. How many hepers? you might be asking. Who can say? But during the one night I stayed there, I could hear their howls and cries at night. Sounded like there were dozens, possibly hundreds.”
He strokes his cheek. “Perhaps— just supposing— enough to provide the Ruler a heper meal for the rest of his life. Just supposing, of course.”
He looks at us in turn. “So now you know, yes? I am fi rmly committed to this Hunt's success. Meaning one of you— and only one!— will come out the winner. You do not want to know the consequences of failure.” He stands up. “Trust me on this one. So you will give me this. One of you will win. That is all . I have made myself clear.” He brushes by me and exits the room. The door closes behind him.
I let out my breath, and it's a long time before I inhale again.
Afterward, Ashley June and I are sent to our respective rooms to be mea sured. A team of tailors— somber with hangdog faces— takes mea sure ments for my tuxedo, their voices hushed in the airy library. It's a stressful experience for me, especial y when the tailors 140 ANDREW FUKUDA lean in a little too close for comfort. I see their nostrils fl aring; one of them even shoots me a curious look. I shoot him down quickly enough, but he gives me another odd look as the team packs up and leaves.
I head outside, wanting to be in open space. The last few hours have been intensely stressful. And it's a beautiful night, perfect for calming my nerves. The sky is sprinkled with pretty sparkles of starlight; the crescent moon hovers high, layering the snow- capped eastern mountains with a fi lm of crusted silver. Soft gusts of air sigh across the plains, lifting the tension from my shoulders.
I hear footsteps behind me, the soft kick of sand.
It's Ashley June, walking toward me, her eyes tentatively on mine. When our eyes meet, her eyes fal shyly. She's wearing a new outfi t: a black satin camisole, hung low and tight. Her long pale arms glide down her sides, shimmering under the moonlight, slippery marble columns. The sand shifts and swirls under me, dizzying me, disorienting me.
“I walk all the way back here, the least you can do is say hi,”
she says. She stands in front of me. “Oh, I see, you're not even talking to me now.”
“No, it's not that. I'm sorry.”
A breeze bil ows her hair with soft undulations, exposing the skin of her neck. “Look, I'm not your enemy here. Yet.” She scratches her wrist. “I guess we're supposed to wait until the Hunt for that.”
And I fi nd myself scratching my wrist in return. “Do me a favor,” I say. “If it comes down to only you and me in the Hunt, just shoot me in the pinkie toe, okay? No need to take me out with a shot through my eye.”
“Right pinkie or left?”
I scratch my wrist. “I'l take the left. Just aim careful y, okay?
It's a smal toe.”
“Deal,” she says.
High above us, the shape of a large bird sails across the night sky. Its wings span disproportionately large, unwieldy, and stiff. It circles around us, then dissolves in the distance.
“I came here to ask you something,” she says.
“No, you can't have my FLUN.”
She doesn't say anything. I turn to look at her, and she's waiting with those emerald green eyes of hers, quietly, hopeful y. As if she's been waiting for this moment for a long time: when I'm really alone with her, not distracted, our eyes fi nal y meeting and merging.
“Take me to the Gala.” Her voice is soft and even.
I start lifting my wrist to scratch it. But her arms dangle by her side, stationary. “For real?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I don't even know if it's . . . it's not like a school prom, you know. It's the Gala. A splashy government affair. It's a whole other thing.”
“I know,” she says. “It won't be like a prom at all . It will be a thousand times more special.”
“I don't . . . I don't know.”
“It'l mean a lot to me.”
I glance over her shoulder, scan the horizon. “Look, I don't know how to say this. I know the Gala will be special and classy because of the music, the media, the red carpet, the dancing, the food—”
“It will be special because of you. Because you've asked me to be with you.”
I look away. “I don't know.”
And she moves suddenly toward me, swiftly closing the distance between us. She takes my elbow in her hand. The touch of her skin on mine jolts me. “Is it so hard to like me?”
she asks, whispering, her eyes searching mine. “Is it real y that hard?”
I don't say anything.
“Can you just pretend, can you just put on a mask, then?”
And something about those words— or maybe it's the way she says them— makes me look into her eyes, longer than I ever have with anyone but my father. “Because you're real y ripping me apart inside.”
“It's not you—”
“Just pretend,” she whispers, “that you're really into me.
That you like the shape of my lips, the softness of my skin, the scent of my breath, the color of my eyes. And pretend that you can even see past all that, the surface, that you know me deeper than that. The hidden beneath. And that you are still drawn to me, except even more so. Imagine there is nothing else right now but me standing before you, that no one else in the world exists. Not the other hunters, not the staffers, not the hepers. Not even the moon or the stars or the mountains. And that you have longed for me for a long time, and I am here now, right before you. Pretend al that, just for one night.” Her free hand reaches to my back and pul s me closer to her. We're only inches away now. A gust blows; strands of my hair fal into my eyes.
And she reaches up and brushes aside my bangs, her fi ngers trailing slowly along the side of my head, above my ear, and down the side of my neck.
Years of resolve to freeze my heart and cauterize my feelings for her, and this one act is the fi rst personable and genuine touch I have felt in years of living alone and living lonely. It triggers something in me. A seismic shifting within, an eruption of what has lain only frail y dormant. Her eyes lock on mine, their touch as tangible as the feel of her hand on my elbow, but deeper, more probing. I feel the yearning of emotions I thought were long dead. An unraveling in me.
“Please?” she pleads. “Take me?”
And I surprise myself by nodding my head. She shakes with delight as she grips my elbow harder, her long, thin bicep fl exing, dissolving, fl exing, dissolving. I take her elbow in my hand now, the etiquette of an invitation accepted. She tilts her head backward and closes her eyes slightly, eyelids fl uttering, lips parted. But then her upper lip quivers into a shaky snarl, and two fangs jut out, wetly white and razor- sharp. Fangs that would, in fi ve seconds fl at, rip into my chest, pummel through my rib cage, and tear out my still - beating heart.