The Hunt

Chapter 63: Hanna

At last, I am finally standing in front of her. I am finally face to face with Naya; she was my target, my mission, and the thing that eventually drove me crazy. She was the ghost that I could never catch, the shadow I could never see. And yet here she stands, two feet away from me.

She looks so similar to me at first, my breath catches in my throat. For a moment, all the chaos and adrenaline from holding off the soldiers earlier vanishes. When they said she was stealing my identity, I knew she had to look like me, but this is heart-stopping. In the white t-shirt and pants, with her hair brushed, she could almost be me. But then there's the scar, running across her face like a canvas that's been ripped and haphazardly stitched back together. It gapes at me in between two eyes that are hardened and shadowed, like there's a dark film stretched over her pupils. Her impassive stare blinks at me, studying my face methodically. Despite all of this though, behind the scar and the shaded eyes, she is soft and young. The only reason I could tell she's an exile, is the slight hunch of her shoulders, like they've been carrying weights on them her whole life. And her legs, she stands on her toes with her knees slightly bent, as if she has to be prepared to run at any instant.

Only then do I notice the blood, lightly speckled on her hands and disrupting the white of her outfit. She's killed someone recently. Then I remind myself, so have I. I squeeze the stone in my pocket.

"Well this is creepy," Javaar wipes away blood from his nose with the back of his hand.

I tear my eyes away from the girl, and instead look to Jonas. He is staring at her just as fiercely as I was, but he seems to be in more shock. I realize that it's the same look he gave to me when I told him I had enjoyed killing that exile.

"Let's move somewhere else, so they can't find us as quickly," Karter breaks into the silence.

"Right," Jonas shakes his head a little. "If we go back to the storage building, it's far away from all the others and has few entrances. That will buy us time."

We're sprinting again, but everyone's minds seem to be somewhere else. Mikael has gone back to brooding in the back, but this time he has Naya to match his silent intensity. Javaar, in spite of having just been attacked by soldiers and punched in the face by Naya, is livid with energy and fire. Viktoria and Trent are moving at a safe distance from all the other exiles around us. However, Karter seems the most shaken out of everyone, and I don't know why.

When we reach the storage building, Jonas stops. We all stop too, waiting for the Prince to speak. His eyes dart from door to door, and he begins to pace. I see his mind whirl.

"Our safest way is out the same door we came in, but we have to get through this door first. It must have locked behind us. We could try to use a code, but I think we need a certain key card to unlock it...."

"Like this one?"

This is the first time I've heard Naya speak, and it startles me. Maybe I didn't expect her to sound so much like me.

Naya holds up a key card from her pocket.

Jonas takes it from her, a glint of suspicion in his eyes, but uses it to unlock the door. It clicks, and swings open.

We all step through, but before continuing, Jonas stops.

"It worked," Jonas looks down at the card in bewilderment. "Usually heads of branches can't even open these."

"That's because I'm not just the Head of Criminal Management anymore. I'm Commander in Chief," Naya says blatantly.

Jonas recoils, "Since when?"

"Since I killed all the officials, and Garik."

Jonas spins around to Mikael, "You said the rumor was that she killed a few officials. Not all of them! Not the Commander in Chief!"