The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,7

you heard anything about a girl named Cora? She has long blond hair and—”

“They said you’re good with animals too,” Pika interrupted. She grabbed his hand and led him along the wall of cages toward a warren of back rooms that smelled like unwashed feet. There was a medical room, a feed storage room, and a shower room with drains in the floor—which, judging by Pika’s smell, didn’t get nearly enough use. He’d never imagined he’d think this, but he almost missed the cage. At least it hadn’t reeked.

Pika went to the end of the corridor and cautiously pushed open a bright red door. “Take a peek,” she whispered. “But don’t let them see you.”

The sound of music came from the door. Jazz? Well, after the collection of wild animals, nothing surprised him. He glanced through the crack to find a safari lodge straight out of the British Empire, with a bar and lounge furniture and—was that a giraffe? Before he could take it all in, Pika shut the door.

“That’s the lodge,” she said. “That’s where Dane and Makayla and the others work, the important ones. You and me, we stay backstage with the animals. Don’t ever go through this door. Got it?”

“I guess—”

“Come on.” She tugged him back down the hallway into the main room of cells. The lioness had woken and was flicking her tail. “What animals have you worked with before?”

“I lived on a ranch,” he said, blinking. His granddad’s farm felt so distant. He could barely picture the barn where his motorcycle had taken up the first stall on the right. “Chickens, horses, dogs. A stray cat.”

“We don’t have those here,” Pika said, climbing up a short flight of metal stairs to the upper row of cages, where she went to the lioness’s cell and threw in a pellet of something that smelled like rotting bread. “I’ve heard there’s a farm menagerie somewhere, or maybe it was a rodeo. Anyway, here it’s about hunting.” She swung down from the upper story, landing with a thud on her feet.

“You mean the Kindred hunt these animals?”

Pika giggled. “Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? We’re in the Hunt. Each menagerie specializes in something that helps the Kindred release their emotions. Fighting, or drinking, or racing cars . . . Here, they hunt.”

Lucky gripped the bars of the closest cage to steady himself. “I thought they were supposed to protect lesser species. That’s their whole moral code.”

“They don’t actually kill the animals,” Pika explained, as though he were slow. “Their rifles look like ones from Earth, but they aren’t. They use these instead of bullets.”

She dug around in her dirty safari clothes and came back up with what looked like a used fireworks casing. “It knocks the animals out. Makes them go numb. Bleeds a little where they’re hit, but that’s it. They drag them back to the lodge, make a big show of the hunt up onstage, everyone’s supposed to clap, and then they dump them back here for you and me to patch up so they’re ready to be hunted again.” She blinked at him like it was all supposed to make sense. “See? It’s humane. They don’t kill them. If they hurt them, we just make them better.”

Lucky’s fingers curled tighter around the bars, squeezing until his knuckles were white. He thought again of his granddad’s farm, and this time the memories were clearer. He remembered his granddad hobbling out to throw kitchen scraps to the chickens and collect any eggs. When hens got too old to lay, his granddad would slaughter them and they’d freeze the meat for winter. All that death had bothered Lucky. But somehow, that seemed more humane than this.

A thump sounded from the long corridor. The faint sound of jazz trickled from the hallway.

Pika grinned. “Take a look!”

She hurried back down the corridor, where the red door was propped open. Two humans, a boy and a girl in safari clothes, dragged in a heavy burlap sack. They eyed Lucky with interest.

“They actually found somebody to help you back here?” the boy teased Pika. He had an Australian accent, and hollow cheeks that spoke of malnutrition.

“And he’s cute,” the girl said in a matching accent, appraising Lucky, scratching a sore on her neck. “Has all his fingers and toes and everything. Prime stock, not like us rejects. What, did you fail out of an enclosure?”

Lucky cracked his knuckles. “Something like that.”

“I’m Jenny. This is my brother, Christopher. And this”—she nudged the burlap