It's going to be ugly, so I'm going to run, and run, until there's nothing left.
I race through the underbrush, my feet skidding on slippery mud, and I look for the next place to run, to hide. The trees here are taller and far more difficult to climb. I need to find a creek, or a river, or something to disguise my scent, my trail--
"Huuuuuumaaaaaan," a voice calls from somewhere behind me, full of mocking laughter and cruelty. "I can smell your fear."
Gooseflesh breaks out over my skin. My lead is gone. I'm about to die. Frantic, I look around for a weapon of some kind, but there's nothing. I thought the jungle would be teeming with life, but it's only mud and bugs and ferns. I'm fucked.
"Huuuuuumaaaaan," he calls again, and this time it's coming from my right.
I turn, heart racing, looking for a hiding space. A rock. A club. Something.
The bushes to my right rustle, and I nearly swallow my tongue in fear. I grab a fistful of mud, trembling, and stand straight and tall. If I'm going down, I'm going to do it with dignity, then. Maybe if I get mud in his eyes, it'll piss him off so much that he kills me quickly. "Come and get me, motherfucker."
The bushes quake violently, the fronds shivering, and I fight the urge to vomit. Save the puke for when he touches you, Mina, I tell myself. Weaponize it. Make that fucker miserable.
Frozen but defiant, I stand tall even as the bushes give one final shake. There's a snarl, and then silence.
A looming figure steps out from the shadows. Big. Heavy. Strong. His shoulders are impossibly broad, the outline of his body thick and bulging with muscle. He takes a step forward, and then another.
Another step, and then I can see his face.
I'm…hallucinating.
I stare in stunned surprise as the gladiator moves forward with…Crulden's face. Is this a trick? He's deeper gray than my Crulden, and he's got no mane, just a shock of short, buzzed black hair atop his big head. No tusks, either, but the eyes and the big, brutish, almost feline nose are the same. He's got the heavy, ugly features that I find so fucking dear…
And he moves like Crulden.
His eyes are red like Crulden's.
I remain frozen as he approaches, his tattered clothing hanging from his body in strips. He's spattered in mud and blood, and his nostrils flare as if he's drinking in my scent.
He stalks toward me, and I hold the mud in my hand higher, trembling.
The stranger wearing Crulden's face looks down at the mud in my hand. "What's that going to do?"
He…sounds like Crulden. My resolve crumbles and I burst into tears.
"Mina," he murmurs. "My Mina…"
He takes a step forward—and someone leaps onto his back from overhead.
37
CRULDEN
I've trained for this.
As I hunt through the jungle, searching for Mina, it feels almost too easy. Her trail is impossible for me to miss. I can tell she's trying to mask it, but I'd know her scent in a city full of a thousand people, a thousand scents. Once I have it, I can't lose it—or her.
There are others on her trail, but I dispatch them quickly as I come upon them. A broken neck for one, a quick drowning for another. They fight me—they all fight me—but I'm made of a monster's genetic material. They're no match for me. I take out four before I ever get close enough to find her footprints. If they had used this time to run into the jungle and race away to freedom, I wouldn't care.
But since they're hunting Mina, they have to die.
I find Mina moments before I find the gladiator mocking her. Stalking her. She's stopped running, and her scent is so full of fear and weariness that it makes my spikes sprout anew, and fresh red bleeds into my eyes. The gladiator is in the bushes, waiting to spring on her, and I tear him apart before he gets a chance.
When I emerge and get a good look at Mina, she doesn't believe it's me. I can tell that on her face, on the hope and yearning and sorrow etched into her expressive eyes.
Then, I'm attacked again. I immediately fling him off of my back and pounce onto him. Again, it's too easy. I take him out quickly—a toss to the ground, a foot stomped on his spine, and then I bend him backward until everything snaps and he goes limp. I am a monster, after all.
Once he's dispatched, I turn toward Mina reluctantly. I didn't want her to see that. I didn't want her to see me in my element, acting like the Crulden clone that I am. I don't want her to be afraid of me, to hate me.
Mina sobs and runs forward. Before I can process this, she flings herself into my arms, weeping.