Neesha paced like an enraged cat in a small cage. With her hands clinched at her side, she roamed the small cell where she and two other boys had been tossed. She so wanted to hit someone, and as she came within reach of one of the boys, she kicked him hard in the leg. “Get out of my way!” she snapped.
The youth—he had introduced himself as Silver or Silly or something like that—yelped and scurried out of her way. She felt better for it and looked around for another victim. The other youth sat against the back wall with half-lidded eyes. He hadn’t said a word since being dumped in here with her and that other pathetic fool, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to take out her rage on him.
She stormed over and loomed over the youth, kicking an ankle to get his attention. “What are you looking at, Baby Face?”
The youth slowly lifted his chin and regarded the blond girl with an unreadable expression. “Leave me be, harlot, or I shall kill you.”
Such a blunt response set Neesha back some. “Yeah? Is that why you’re here, ‘cus you killed someone? Who’d you kill?”
Without warning, the young man’s foot snapped out into Neesha’s knee. It buckled and she collapsed into a kneeling position in front of the sitting man. He then grabbed her by the hand and twisted it painfully. She gasped as waves of pain shot into her skull from that hand. She held perfectly still. “One more time, whore. Leave me be or suffer a worse fate.”
She nodded once and he let go. She shuffled back from the dangerous man, her pain giving way to yet more anger. She rose, glared at the man who studiously ignored her and then spun and delivered another punishing kick to the other young man, who yelped and flinched from her.
“Hey! What did I do?”
“That’s for being an idiot!” She stormed off and resumed her pacing, rubbing her hand and trying to ignore her aching knee. Truth to tell, she was scared. Very scared. The man who had captured her had been in on occasion to check on them, but he said little and revealed less than that on his face. She hated those sunglasses with an almost homicidal rage.
Her only consolation, she supposed, was that both of the other young men was just as scared of John as she was. But it wasn’t that. It was that she had been sentenced to die…die for something she had only thought of doing, not something she had actually done. She didn’t want to die. One or two of her classmates had witnessed her arrest, but outside of that, no one knew what had happened to her. Not that anyone cared.
She turned suddenly and slammed her fist into the heavy metal door. She winced as her knuckles scrapped bloodily along the unforgiving metal. She cursed, swore, and threw in a few insults for good measure.
The other young man—the one she had kicked—stood up and took a few steps closer. “When do you think they’ll come?”
“How the blazes would I know?” She shot him a disgusted look.
He flinched, but didn’t draw away. “I know why they’re going to kill me. They can’t afford to allow me or my beliefs get out. What about you?”
“Me?” She spun to face the lanky man. “I ain’t done nothing.’ They have no right to hold me or—” she raised her voice as loud as she could “—murder me! That’s what this is! Murder!”
Silly or whatever his name was looked confused. “You ain’t done anything?”
“Look, Silly—”
“Sylvester. Call me Sty.”
“Whatever. I just wasn’t getting along with that witch I call a mother. She ain’t even my real mom anyway. I had these thoughts of doing her in, see? And these Marines jump all over me.”
“You wouldn’t have done it?”
“How in blazes do I know? I don’t think so.”
Sty frowned. “I tried to blow up a bunch of people. I would have done it too if they hadn’t stopped me.”
“You one of them anarchists?”
“What of it?”
“Knew you were an idiot. Should have kicked you harder.”
He wrapped himself in his long arms. “Do you know anything about this island they are taking us to?”
“Nope.”
“That man with the sunglasses said I was the first hunter. He said if I completed some objective, they would let me go.”
“Fat chance,” Neesha retorted. “We’re all convicted of death. It don’t matter how they do it.” She glared over at the third member of their sordid group. “And what about you? What did you think about doing?”
The man ignored him. Neesha judged him to be the oldest in the room by a year or two. His complexion made her think of India or somewhere, but he had no accent, so she figured he had been born and raised in the States.
“Augh! I hate this!” she cried, swinging back to the door. She wanted to hit it again, but her bloody knuckles dissuaded her. Sty had backed away at her outburst of rage, and she had no intention of chasing the idiot around the room. She stomped hard with one foot and then flung herself in the corner.
Time passed slowly as she imagined all sorts of horrors she would face on this island. Tears sprung to her eyes and she angrily wiped them away. This wasn’t fair. None of it was. She buried her head in her arms, sobbing quietly. Neither of the other two moved to offer her solace.
Finally, the sound of someone throwing back the iron bolt on the other side of the door roused her. She stood to her feet, as did her companions. The door creaked open and John entered to stand in the center of the room. The lighting from the overhead florescent lights flickered and dimmed, but he didn’t remove his sunglasses as he looked over his three prisoners.
Another man, shorter, fit, but obviously well-fed walked in behind John. He tapped his lips with one long finger as he looked around the cell. “So these are the condemned?”
John said nothing, but Neesha had no compulsion to remain quiet. “And who are you? The trash we have to take out so we can leave this joint?”
The man grinned. “Oh, I like you.”
“Go suck—”
John shifted slightly and that was all it took to cause Neesha to snap her lips shut. She wasn’t terrified of the man, but she did have a healthy respect for what he might do. It is always the quiet ones you had to worry about, she decided.
The newcomer rubbed his hands together. “Good. My name is Manari. I am, for a lack of a better term, the master of ceremonies for the Hunt. I will be the one giving you instructions as well as furnishing you with what you need for the Hunt. In short, I am your best chance at survival. Ignore me at your peril. Now, John, introduce me to the contestants.”
John shifted his head slightly and nodded towards Neesha. “The mouthy one there is Neesha Rhymes—”
“Just Neesha,” she interjected.
John hardly reacted to the interruption. “She is guilty of the attempted murder of her mother. The Pakistani is Ali Khaild. He is guilty of plotting to set up terror cells in the U.S.” He then turned to Sty. “Sylvester Stiles is guilty of attempting mass murder and belonging to one of the many anarchists groups. All are condemned to death.”
Manari grinned. “Condemned doesn’t mean you must die. One of you will live. The island we are taking you to is called Celebes by the local natives there. It looks like a paradise, but in fact the place is overrun with Komodo Dragons. It has become one of the last places on the planet to harbor these monsters, and hunting them is illegal by decree of the ruling body there—a powerful consortium known as the Triad. The local chief’s son—the petty ruler of the few natives on the island—recently had his son killed by one of these beasts. The beast was observed to have an unusual red stripe running along its back. If you kill it, you will go free. The other two will be fed to the Dragons as compensation for killing one of their numbers. You cannot kill any other creature on the island except that one Dragon. Kill it and you go free.”