Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 41: Unknown in the Dark

ALEC

He knew he would most likely be going to jail on a life sentence once this was over. Because he was about to commit murder.

Ryker, Rysler—or whatever his name was—was dead. So very dead.

As soon as he found a way to get out of these ropes, the steel-eyes bastard was dead.

It had been over ten minutes since the man and his dog left, and since then Alec had been trying everything he could to untie to ropes around his wrists, knowing he wouldn't be able to get out with his hands bound like that. But it was difficult. Damn near impossible, he would say, with how thick the ropes were.

The only good thing he could see in this situation was the fact that they hadn't been bound behind his back. Doing so in a net like this one might have caused his shoulder to accidentally pop out of itself socket were he to thrash around too much.

Fucking fantastic, he thought to himself.

He needed a plan. Unfortunately, he had never really been the type to stop and come up with one. Instead, he always did the first logical thing that came to mind; he judged the distance between himself and the ground, determined whether or not he would survive the fall, and then found his gun and aimed to shoot out the main rope that held the net suspended.

Only to realize that he had emptied the last of his round when he had been showing off his target skills.

Alec swore to himself. So much for that plan.

Of course, he hadn't expected to be knocked out and trapped in a tree immediately before he could reload his chamber.

That Riley guy was going to pay.

He groaned in aggravation and looked around for another method of getting free. Then he threw his head back against the uncomfortable ropes and tried to think. Did he anything sharp on him? For the first time, he found himself wishing he was like Maize and carried a pair of knives seemingly everywhere he went. All he had now was an empty gun. Pretty useless in the situation.

He turned his head to the side and look at the base of the tree.

Or maybe not...

For the first time since he woke up here, he took the time to actually study the contraception he was in. The thought occurred to him that he didn't just appear there, Riley had have gotten him up there somehow.

He took Ryker for a hunter of sorts, so, this had to be a hunter's trap. Hunter traps relied on mechanisms, even simple ones, which meant there had to be some sort of release lever or something...

The entire trap seemed to be suspended from two main ropes that threaded through a few higher branches, one holding each half of the net up, but then Alec realized that one of them actually went down, behind the tree, finding its end was tied to a trunk further away. And look what was there; a lever.

Alec immediately cursed to himself; just how long had that steel-eyes bastard taken to set this up? Just because he was pissed? The guy was clearly in a messed up mental state.

He judged the distance between himself and the lever. About 50 ft. If he managed to hit the level down, one of the ropes holding it should release. At least that what he hoped.