Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott [28]
She registered the words. She knew all of it was true, and it would really happen to her. She would be hunted like an animal, and she would die in pain, and there was no hope for her.
“Why?” she asked.
On his face she saw a flicker of surprise, and she knew that none of the others had thought of asking that particular question.
He was silent for a moment. Perhaps he would not answer. Then she realized that he was gathering his thoughts, like a conscientious teacher composing the clearest possible reply.
“Because this is life,” he said simply. “Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. All our most powerful emotions are reducible to the instinctive responses of animals in the fight for life. Anger pumps us up for battle. Fear sharpens our reflexes and perceptions. Have you noticed how preternaturally alert you are right now? And love, the poets’ favorite, is only an expression of the need to find safety in communal ties. Burrowing animals—that’s all most of us are. And then there are a few who do not choose to burrow and hide. It’s one or the other, predator or prey.”
“There’s more to life than that.”
“Really? Has there been more to your life for these past twelve years? Haven’t you been running, hiding? Doesn’t your heart beat faster when a siren goes off or there’s a knock at your door? No wonder you like that silly book, Watership Down. What are you, if not a timid rabbit in her hutch?”
“Do you talk to all of them like this?”
“No. Never. You’re the first. I thought you might understand.”
“You were wrong.”
“Evidently.” Cray frowned, and though it was crazy, for a moment Elizabeth felt certain she had disappointed him somehow. “Well, let’s get started.”
He unlocked her door with the power button on his console, then left the car and walked around to the passenger side. She watched as he passed through the high beams, every detail of his features and form jumping into sudden clarity, then melting into a blur of shadow once more. He was careful to avert his face from the light, and she knew why, of course.
He was protecting his night vision. He would need it for the hunt.
She looked down at her purse, tantalizingly near. The clasp was still secure. Cray must not have looked inside.
He wouldn’t know about the gun. The gun that was so close ...
Again she tugged at the sleeves, but her efforts only pulled the knot tighter.
Then her door swung open, and Cray leaned in, his face inches from her own.
Reflexively she drew back. She could see flecks of amber in his gray-green eyes, his nostrils flaring with an intake of breath. He was clean-shaven, but a ghost of beard stubble was materializing on his lean cheeks and narrow, angular chin.
The gun was in his hand again. She studied it—a large, black, dangerous thing, unpredictable as a snake. The gun he would hunt her with.
Shoot to wound, he had said, not kill.
She had never been wounded by a bullet. Distantly she wondered how it would feel.
“It’s a nine-millimeter Glock,” Cray said, “if that means anything to you.”
“Not a lot.”
“I’m going to hold this gun to your head, Elizabeth, or Kaylie, or whoever you think you are.”
The muzzle touched her forehead. She had expected it to be cold, but Cray must have worn it close to his body, and his own heat had warmed it.
“My finger is on the trigger. All I need to do is squeeze.”
She drew a tight breath. “So do it, then.”
“Oh, no. That’s not the game I play. I simply want you to understand that you have no options here. No freedom of choice. Not that you ever did. Free will is only another illusion.”
She wanted no more philosophy from him. She waited.
“In a moment I’ll release your hands. Then you’ll climb out.”
“All right.”
“Any deviation from my instructions, and—bang—you’re dead.”
“You’ll kill me anyway. This would be faster.”
“Indeed it would. Quick and perhaps