Chapter 17 · The Dead Man's Voice

The broadcast cut through the trees like a blade.

"Ivy Gray. Three hundred credits. Core Zone priority housing. Hunt begins now."

That voice. Cold. Hollow. The exact tone Cain used the night he killed me.

I didn't stop running. Branches whipped my face and my boots slid on wet leaves but I kept moving because stopping meant dying and I'd already done that once.

Behind me, voices. At least four of them.

"She went left—"

"No, the tracker says—"

"Forget the tracker, I saw her jacket—"

My lungs burned. The forest here was denser than I remembered and the ground dropped off in places I didn't expect. Wrong. This was all wrong. Last time I'd run east toward the cliffs. This time I'd gone north toward the old training grounds but somehow the terrain felt the same.

Like the map was rewriting itself under my feet.

I ducked under a fallen tree and pressed my back against the trunk. My phone was still in my pocket. I pulled it out with shaking hands.

No signal. Of course.

But the screen lit up with a push notification.

**HUNT STATUS: ACTIVE** **TARGET: IVY GRAY** **CLAIMED BY: UNCLAIMED** **TIME REMAINING: 11:47:22**

Unclaimed.