Days slipped by, turning into weeks. Melanie and her group were experiencing a run of good luck; since Melanie had arrived none of them had been taken by hunters. More than once they'd had to flee from a party, and once Nadine had had a close call, she'd been nicked by an arrow, but that minor wound had been treated by the doctor without comment. During this time Jill and Melanie became close friends; Jill had taken it upon herself to "show her the ropes," to teach her what she needed to know to survive.

She also taught her what to do if she were to be taken.

"If you're taken like that blond girl was," Jill explained, "then you don't really have any choices. But that's not always the way it goes. Some of the hunters kill a girl as soon as they have a chance to, and in that situation you don't have many choices, either. But sometimes things don't go that way."

"What do you mean?" Melanie asked.

"It isn't rare," Jill told her, "for a girl to be wounded. You've already been told about that, back at the induction center, where they said it was better for you to kill yourself than allow yourself to be taken captive." She paused and giggled. "Of course, they didn't tell you how you were supposed to commit suicide. Drown yourself with the water from your canteen, I guess." Melanie smiled as well. "But there are times that girls are taken captive. Sometimes wounded, sometimes not. I'd like to tell you that it's rare, but I won't lie, it isn't rare."

"What happens to those girls, Jill?"

"They're killed," she said bluntly. "Pretty much always. Some of them get captured by assholes or idiots, like the ones I told you about that caught Penny. Sometimes they die horribly. I hope that never happens to you, and frankly I hope it never happens to me." Melanie shuddered; Jill didn't miss it, and she touched her new friend's hand gently. "But not every man who comes in here is an asshole or an idiot. You've learned that early, from John and his friends. Yes, they've come here to kill us, that's their sexual fantasy."

"Makes them assholes in my book," Melanie grumped.

"Oh, it does not. I saw how you were with John. You were the first one of the troop to go down to help out in that situation. The man wasn't an asshole and you know it."

Melanie gave ground grudgingly. "Well, maybe he's just--unusual."

"Not as unusual as you think. He came here with a fantasy. He ran into reality, real people, and he reacted to us as real people, not as the manikins of his fantasies. Not every man who comes here does that. But some do. Enough do that's it's always worth taking it into account."

"What do you mean?"

"What I'm going to say is going to sound strange at first," Jill went on. "But I want you to listen, and think about it."

"Okay."

"There's an instinct," Jill continued, "if you're taken, to beg and plead for the hunters to let you go. Don't bother. It won't happen, they've paid entirely too much money for the privilege." She paused and touched her lower lip with a graceful finger. "Well, I guess it doesn't hurt to ask!" she added with a laugh. Then, swiftly, she became serious again. "Anyway, begging and weeping and all that isn't going to make them let you go. You should certainly keep alert to any possible chance to escape--especially if you haven't been injured--but you should accept that, barring a miracle, you're about to die. Those miracles don't happen very often, either."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"So. What do you think you should do? Assuming you have choices, assuming they let you talk and all that?"

"I dunno. Be passive. Don't give them anything you can avoid giving them."

"Exactly the opposite, Melanie."

"Huh?"

She nodded vigorously. "Exactly the opposite. You want to give them everything you can possibly give them. Offer to fuck them, offer to suck their cocks, act like you're eager to have sex with them. They'll almost always accept; when they do, do it as well as you can. Act like you're excited about the idea of being killed. Who knows, you may really find it exciting, and then it won't be an--"

"Fat chance!" Melanie snorted.

"You're new. You don't know yet. I know how you feel right now. Take my word for it, later--or when you're at that point--things might be different." Melanie didn't argue; Jill went on: "If they've got something horrific planned--burning, or live impaling, or something like that--you might be able to talk them out of it, you might be able to talk them into a stabbing or a hanging or a strangulation."

"Doesn't seem that different to me."

"You'd change your mind if you saw a live burning, Melanie. Take my word for that." She paused again; her huge dark eyes were intense. "Anyway, if they're already focused on stabbing you, or shooting arrows into you, or strangling you--then you want to encourage that."

"Encourage it?"

Jill nodded vigorously. "Encourage it. Tell them you don't want a quick death. Tell them you want to give them your pain. Tell them over and over that you want them to get everything they can out of the experience. Encourage them to push blades into you slowly, tell them to do a short-drop hanging so you strangle rather than having your neck broken. Tell them you want to suffer for them."

Melanie laughed. "You're right, Jill. That does sound damn strange!"

Jill smiled. "I know. And it may be something you regret once things are underway. But you have to remember, we've seen lots of girls die in lots of different ways, and we know what we're talking about here; it isn't as bad as you think. Maybe it's shock, maybe something else... who knows. But that isn't the real point."

"What is the real point?"

Jill waved a finger at her. "The point," she said, "is that we survive here by cooperation. Most men don't hunt alone, they come in parties of three or more. Chances are good, anytime a girl is taken, that they still have two--or more--to go before they've reached their bag limit. What you want to do--what you want to keep focused on--is that at some point you want to ask them not to kill any other girls while they're here. If you can do that with a blade sticking in you or a rope around your neck, nine times out of ten they'll agree. And most of the time when they agree, they keep their word. Which means there's less chance of someone else getting killed."

"I see..."

"There's something else, too."

"What's that?"

"We don't get very many repeats here. It's too expensive, I guess. But we do get some. And repeat hunters are more dangerous because they know the terrain already, they know the game better. Those that have killed a captive who acts the way I said, they never come back. No one knows of a single time anyone like that has come back. We're not sure why not, whether they feel bad or they just had enough or what. But we don't ever see 'em again."

Melanie considered what she'd said for a moment. It wouldn't be easy, she was sure, to urge someone who was about to kill her to do it slowly and painfully. It wouldn't be easy to act as if it were exciting, either.

But what Jill said made sense. She considered John's group. Four men, their daily bag limit was one each. She also remembered John saying he "didn't want to hurt anyone" after he'd had an orgasm. Doing what Jill said had the potential of saving three girls in the troop, three girls who'd have a chance to go on, have a chance to make the ten years. There wasn't a question she was right; screaming and begging and pleading for a quick merciful death weren't apt to gain the captured girl anything at all, and neither was defiance or attempts to fight--attempts which had almost no chance of success, and would get a girl declared "rogue" and quickly killed if successful.

"I was wrong," she said finally.

"About what?" Jill asked.

"When I said that sounded strange. It doesn't, it makes perfect sense. One girl suffers a little more pain--she dies either way--and a bunch of others are probably saved. If I'm ever taken like that I'll do my damndest to do it that way."

Jill grinned and hugged her spontaneously. "You're a good one, Melanie. Not many newcomers accept that idea that quickly, although most come around eventually. I have a feeling you're going to be around for a while."

"Damn, I hope so," Melanie muttered under her breath.