More days passed. Gradually, Melanie became accustomed to the routine of life in the Preserve, almost constantly running and hiding from the hunters. After Allison's death, none of them were taken for a while; in part this was, Melanie was very aware, due to the skills some of the veterans here had acquired--Jane, Sunni, and Jill, in particular. Each played a subtly different role. Sunni seemed to have almost a sixth sense about where the hunters would be at any given time, and Jane always knew how to keep the troop out of their path. More than once, though, Jill's daring and her athletic ability had bailed them out; twice in the span of a week she'd shown herself to the hunters and had drawn them off the track of the main troop, only to lose them in the forest and return unharmed. One of those times, as Melanie later learned, Jill had scaled a tree and had been forced to crouch on a low branch in plain sight while the hunting party passed beneath her. They did not, however, look up, and again she managed to escape.

There finally came a day, though--much too soon for Melanie, who was becoming closer and closer to Jill all the time--when her almost legendary agility was of no use to her.

As it began, neither Melanie nor any of the other girls were even aware of it. There were hunters in the woods, a party of three; at that moment the girls pretty much knew where they were, and they were neither close enough to be an immediate threat nor far enough away to be ignored. At a fast pace but not at a run, Jane led the party up over a hillside, retracing terrain they'd covered earlier in the day, and where they had been briefly spotted by those hunters. There was an old path here through the woods, and at the moment there didn't seem to be a reason not to make better time by using it; the hunters, they knew, were tracking them but were still well behind them. On the other side of the ridge was a small stream overgrown with vegetation, and Jane planned to use it to break their trail.

She was right at the top of the ridge when, abruptly, Jill yelled at her to stop. She did, instantly, and Jill came running toward her at top speed, rushing past Sunni. Melanie saw it happen. Jill was running perhaps a hair too fast, and when she tried to stop her feet slid, carrying her on a few more yards.

Too far. As she passed Jane, there was a sudden loud snap, and before anyone could move or react in any way, Jill found herself dangling upside-down from a small sapling, both feet caught in loop of brown manila rope. Melanie and the others stared; it only took a few seconds for them to realize that Jill had triggered a simple rope snare.

Hanging perhaps six feet above the ground and still turning from side to side, Jill shook her head. "Well, damn," she muttered. "That sure was stupid."

"It wasn't stupid, that's what you were trying to warn me about!" Jane cried. "Come on, come on!" she yelled at the troop. "We've got to get her down!" She pointed at Nadine. "Go back down the trail, keep a lookout!"

As Nadine sprinted back down the trail, the other girls gathered around Jill quickly. "How?" Sunni demanded. "We don't have anything to cut the rope with!"

"The tree isn't that large," Jane said. "Quick, put your weight on it, bend it back over!" The girls rushed to comply, but pushing the tree over from the base, against leverage, proved much less than an easy task--especially since not all of them could get a hand on it at one time.

Jill looked over toward them. "That ain't gonna happen," she said. She flexed her knees and flipped herself upward. Grabbing the rope, she climbed up it toward the treetop, then reached down and fumbled with the slipnoose around her ankles. "Pi! she cried. "Come on, shinny up the tree and help me untie my ankles! I can't do it one-handed, and that's the only way I'm getting out of this!" Without a word, Pi jumped three feet up the tree and started scaling it.

But, before she got six feet up, Nadine came running back up the trail. "The hunters are coming! They'll be here in just a minute or two!"

Jill sighed deeply. "God damn it," she muttered. "I just hope they aren't firebugs or something." She looked over at Pi. "Get down, give it up. There's no time." Pi just stared at her; Jill grabbed her own ankles and let herself back down, hanging upside-down once again.

Jane, her body rigid and her face a mask, stared back down the trail. "She's right," she said. "There's no time. Everyone take cover. Now!"

"No, we can't leave her!" Melanie cried. "We can't leave her for the hunters!"

Jane turned on her, and for a moment Melanie thought she was about to slap her. "I said now!" she repeated.

"Do it, Mel," Jill said.

Someone--Melanie wasn't sure who--grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the deep woods. Pi jumped down from the tree; the girls scattered in all directions. Just seconds later, Melanie looked back toward the trail and saw the hunters round a bend and, grinning, walk to the dangling girl.

"Hi, guys," Jill said as they came close. She flashed her engaging smile. "Nice day, isn't it? Not too hot... 'Course I have to say I'm getting a little tired of hanging around here, you know?"

The men laughed. "Well," one of them, a tall blond man, said, "let's get you down, then." He grinned. "But a step at a time, okay?"

"Oh sure. I don't want you to just cut the damn rope, I'll fall on my head."

A thin wiry man, evidently skilled with a lasso, tossed a rope around the treetop. He and the third hunter, a large man with a full dark beard, began bending the sapling back down. When Jill's hair was brushing the ground, they stopped and tied it off.

"Okay," the blond man said. "Hands on your butt, wrists crossed."

"Hey, I'm not much into bondage..." she protested jokingly. But, without further prompting, she obeyed, and they tied her wrists securely. Her ankles were tied next, and after that they carefully lowered her to the ground and cut the rope, letting the sapling spring upright again. The blond man then picked her up and slung her almost casually over his shoulder.

"Now this is what I call service," she said as the men carried her away.

Not giving up, Melanie and the others followed them. They already knew the men had more than a one-day pass, and they already knew that they'd set up a camp perhaps a mile and a half away. They also had every reason to believe that Jill, as sensual and lovely as she was, wouldn't be killed immediately.

They weren't wrong. By the time they got into position to see what was going on in the camp, the blond man had his cock buried in Jill's cunt, and she was enthusiastically sucking the thin man's cock. The third hunter, the bearded man, contented himself with teasing her small delicate breasts until the thin man erupted into her mouth. Once she'd licked the come away from her lips, the bearded man offered his cock to her, and she readily turned her head to take it in. There wasn't a question that she was going all-out to please the men, and from all appearances she wasn't having a bad time herself. Her strong shapely legs were wrapped tightly around the blond man's midsection, her delicate-looking ankles crossed over his back. She was moving her hips actively, and while she was doing this she had the bearded man's cock deep in her mouth, teasing it expertly with her tongue. The girls took advantage of the distraction to slip in even closer; once in position they waited patiently until all three men had had their orgasms. When they were finished, they tied Jill securely to a post they'd set up in the middle of their camp.

Melanie and the others were hoping they'd all sleep afterwards, which might have given them an opportunity to free Jill. It didn't happen. For the next couple of hours, the men relaxed and chatted--they even chatted with Jill, and laughed at her jokes--but they did not sleep. From their discussions it was apparent that they were waiting until their sexual desires crested again, waiting until they could make the most of what they were about to do.

"Well?" the bearded man asked at last. "Everybody ready? I know I am!" The other two nodded agreement. "So now, " he went on, "we gotta decide who gets to go first, who's second, and who's last."

"Let's draw straws for it," the thin man said. "Longest wins. Shortest is last." He collected three from the ground nearby and held them in his fist.

"Hey!" Jill cried. "You need four! I get to draw too, don't I?"

The bearded man laughed. "Only if you'll agree to do yourself if you win, honey," he said.

She gave them a wide-eyed stare of mock surprise. "No, I get to walk if I win. C'mon, guys, it's only fair..."

"Sorry, that ain't quite the way it works," the thin man said. "Let's draw." They did; the blond man won, the bearded man was second, and the thin man, to his irritation, was left holding the shortest one. "You guys better not kill her before I get a turn," he grumbled.

"We won't," the blond man assured him. He got to his feet and stood looking at Jill for a moment. "It's time now, sweetheart," he said, smiling at her and tousling her hair with apparent affection. He drew a small slender double-edged knife from a scabbard at his belt.

Jill arched her eyebrows. "Can't we talk about this? I mean, wouldn't you rather untie me and let me give you backrubs so you can take some nice naps? Huh? Don'tcha think that's a good idea? Don'tcha, huh?"

The man laughed. ''Fraid not, sweetie. This was a hunt, see? We're the hunters and you're the game. We gotta kill you."

"No you don't!" she cried, using a disparaging tone. "You caught me, right? That proves what great hunters you are. You can throw me back, catch me again another time." Her eyebrows bounced. "We sure did have fun when you caught me the first time, didn't we?"

Momentarily stopped, the blond man looked around at his companions. "She does have a point," the bearded man said. He looked at Jill and shook his head. "You were the best, honey. The absolute best."

"Yeah, she was," the blond man agreed. "But our pass is up tomorrow. We won't be back, not for a damn long time, anyway. Besides, even if we came back next week, we can't be sure somebody else won't get her before we get back here."

"That's true," the thin man put in.

"We do still have twelve hours here," the bearded man argued.

"Yeah," the blond man shot back. "Time to have a couple more fucks. I agree she's good, but so are some of the girls in the government brothel back in Norfolk." He glanced at Jill. "Okay, okay, not nearly as good as she is. But good." He squared his shoulders. "We came here," he reminded them, "to experience the kill. To kill a sexy young girl, like one of the ones they had pictured in the brochure. We paid a fortune for it, but things couldn't have turned out better for us. We caught this girl, she's ours, we can do whatever we want to her, and she's terrific, better than any in the brochure, better than we imagined she might be. That's what we dreamed about. Right?"

"Right..." the bearded man agreed doubtfully.

"We gotta do it," the thin man said doggedly. "We gotta, we gotta go through with it. We'll never forgive ourselves if we don't. We'll never have another opportunity like this, guys!"

"That's the way I see it too," the blond man said. "And besides... even if we were to get the money together to come back, there's no guarantee she won't already have been taken."

"That is a point," the bearded man noted. He gazed at Jill and stroked his beard. "Most of you do get taken, sooner or later, isn't that right?"

Jill pouted. "Putting me on the spot, huh? You know I could lie and say no, most of us just go on, year after year." She shook her head. "But I won't lie to you, guys," she continued. "Most of us are taken, yes. Practically all of us, in fact." She paused. "But on the whole I'm pretty good, and that's not bragging. I'd say that if you got back here there's a good chance I'd still be here." She gave them a brilliant smile. "And besides, you can keep me until your pass is up. Right?"

"You heard her," the thin man persisted. "She ain't gonna make it out of here alive. Either we kill her now, or somebody else will later. We have to do it."

"I can't argue," the blond man said. He waited for the bearded man to speak, but he remained silent. With a shrug, the blond turned back to Jill. "It looks like," he said, "it's a vote of two to one at most." His hand trembling slightly, he stroked her flat belly. "You are so fucking sexy, I just can't stand it, I've just gotta put a blade into this body..."

Jill stuck out her lower lip. "You realize," she replied, pouting, "that that's going to ruin my whole day."

"Sorry about that. It's sure as hell going to make mine, though!" He moved in closer to her and tucked the point of the knife gently into her deep navel.

She looked down at it. "And to think," she murmured, "that I used to be glad I had an innie and not an outie. Oh, well. What'd I know, huh?"

Again, the man laughed. "That's the way it goes, I guess." He paused, grinned at her, and shook his head. "You have been a damn good sport about all this so far, sweetie. I gotta give you that."

"No reason not to be." Her expression turned serious. "I don't think you're bad guys, you know, even if you do kill me. I know how exciting all this is. It is from this side, too, you know. All the running and ducking, knowing if you make a mistake it'll cost you your life..." She hesitated. "And hoping that if you do, if you get taken, it'll be by guys who'll treat you like a human being... guys like you guys..."

The blond man laid his hand on her cheek. The point of the knife was still resting lightly inside her navel. "You are something," he told her. "So this is exciting for you too, then..."

"Yeah. I already said I won't lie. It is." She glanced at the knife. "The idea that you're gonna stick that in me... yeah, it's exciting. Scary, but exciting."

The blond man stared at her for a few seconds, then, to the amazement of the onlookers--and, judging from her expression, to Jill's amazement as well--he took the knife away. "I suppose," he said softly, "we should have realized that." He stroked her cheek gently, and she pushed her head against his hand. "Let me ask you--how would you like us to do this? You want it quick and clean?"

Jill rolled her eyes and grinned broadly. "You can't give it to me quick and clean," she said. "There are three of you. You all want part of the action. That means you can't stick that blade in my heart, your friends wouldn't get a turn."

He stroked her hair. "I would," he said slowly, "give up my turn. Then there'd only be two--"

"I would too," the bearded man said quickly.

Jill smiled softly. "That," she said, "is very sweet of you guys." She pursed her lips and pouted. "Not quite as sweet as letting me go would be, but sweet, still." She paused, then shook her head. "But let's not do it like that. If I'm going to go like this, we should all get everything we can out of it. Do it slow, make it hurt." She paused and puckered her lips. "There is one thing I'd like to ask you guys to do while you're killing me, though."

"What's that?" the blond man asked.

"My name," she told him, "is Jill. Don't tell me your names, they won't matter because I'm not going to be alive much longer. But I'm Jill. I want you to call me by name while you're killing me, I want to hear my name. I'm game for you but that's not all I am. I'm a person, a person named Jill. Call me Jill."

"That," the blond man said softly, "we can do, Jill."

She smiled, glanced at the knife, then looked down at her belly. "Put the point back in my navel," she told him. His left hand on her cheek, he did. Jill stared at the knife for a moment, then looked back up at his face. Her eyes were huge and luminous. She grinned brightly. "Go for it, boss."

The man laughed once more, and he was still smiling--and still touching her cheek--as he began to push on the knife, leaning his weight against it. Jill gasped loudly as it breached the delicate tissues at the bottom of her navel and slid a little ways into her belly. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was slightly open, her lips forming an "O."

The hunter paused. "You want some more of it, Jill?" he asked.

Jill bit her lip and looked down at it. A little blood trickled down out of her navel over the soft curve of her lower belly. "I'd just bet," she murmured, "that I'm gonna get more of it whether I want it or not!" She glanced up. "But what the hell, huh? Yeah, I want some more of it, gimme some more of it. But as long as that blade is, you better not keep shoving it straight in, 'cause if you do I'm gonna die on you quick. Then your buddies won't get a turn, and that was the idea, wasn't it?"

The man smiled. "You sure are being a good sport about this," he said. His manner was even more tender now. "Thanks for the advice." He lifted the back of the knife's handle; Jill gasped as the point moved inside her. When it was standing almost vertically he put pressure on it again, and it started slipping on in, deeper and deeper. Suddenly blood erupted from around it, streaming down Jill's belly and legs.

Jill, her body quivering, looked down again and watched the knife go on in until it was fully buried. "Ah damn, I knew it," she gritted. "This is sure turning into a bad day, all right..." She grunted again and made a choking sound; more blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. Leaving the knife sticking in her belly, the blond man kissed her and stepped away. Immediately the man with the beard took his place.

Jill looked up at him. She swallowed and licked some of the blood off her lips. "Hi, again," she said. She forced a smile. "You gonna take this knife out of me?"

He touched her face lightly. "No, Jill," he said. "I think it looks really cool sticking in your bellybutton like that."

She looked down at it again. "Well, actually, I gotta agree with you, it kinda does."

He touched the knife's handle, moving it slightly from side to side and making her groan. "Feels nice, too," he commented.

"From your side," she gritted. "Remember, it's down in my guts! From this side it hurts like hell!"

"I'll bet it does," he said, letting go of it.

Jill blinked a couple of times, then gazed at his face. "Look," she said, "I want to thank you for pleading my case."

"It didn't help."

"I know. But you tried. And, believe it or not, I do have an idea of where you and your buddies are coming from. Anyway, it's all been settled now, so you need to go ahead and take your turn. There's no reason to hold back now, it sure ain't gonna help me any." She cocked her eyebrow again. "That's assuming there was any chance of you holding back..." she added.

He smiled at her rather uncertainly, but then, without answering, he drew his own dagger from a sheath at his belt. "I gotta say," he told her, "that this will be the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life..."

"Well, I hope so," she answered promptly. She looked at his knife. "Where you gonna stick it in?"

He pressed the point of the knife against her side, just under her left breast, between two ribs. "How's about right here?"

"That looks like a great spot to me," she answered, looking down at it. "Better angle it back, though, or you'll hit my heart and I'll be gone." She looked back up at him. "Go for it, dude!" He continued to hesitate. "Come on," she purred in a sexy voice. She licked blood from her lips. "You want to, we both know that. You want to feel it sliding in, going in deep... c'mon, do it..." He shook his head, held her right breast with his left hand, and pushed his knife hard against her side. They both watched her skin give way and the blade start to enter her.

"Ah, shit..." Jill muttered, her sense of humor finally failing her. "Oh, shit, damn that hurts.."

"You want me to stop, Jill?" the bearded man asked. "Or do it quickly?"

She look up at him and gave him a sour look. "Stopping," she told him, "makes no sense at all. I'm dead already." The man looked confused. "No, don't stop," she told him, making herself clear. "And don't do it quick, either. Just slide it on in there... it hurts like hell but that's what turns you on, I know that, let me show you how much it hurts..." The man touched her face, then pushed again, and the blade slid in a couple more inches. She went suddenly rigid. "Ahh... oh, my god..." The bearded man, more confidently now, kept right on pushing, stopping only when the fingerguards were resting against her skin. He let go of it and leaned his head forward to kiss her; she kissed him back with apparent enthusiasm.

Then she broke the kiss and pulled her head back a little. "Could I..." she muttered, struggling to speak, "ask you guys for a favor now?"

"Depends, Jill," the blond man said. "You gotta know we're not gonna let you go."

She laughed--very briefly. "Look, friend, I already got two blades sticking in me here, and I'm leaking like all hell. Where am I gonna go even if you do let me go?"

"So what's the favor?"

"Shoot an arrow into me," she said, surprising them. "I've watched a lot of my friends get them, and I always wondered what it'd feel like. Now I'm dying, and I'm never gonna know..."

"That," the blond man said, "we can grant." He glanced at the thin man. "You wanna do it? It's your turn..."

"Sure, that's fine," the other answered. He picked up his bow, drew an arrow from his quiver, and nocked it to the string. "Where do you want it?"

She looked down at herself, at the knife still sticking in her navel. "In my belly," she told them. "Shoot it into my belly. Not right in the center, you might hit the aorta and I'd die really quick, I wouldn't even have a chance to experience it. A little to one side or the other."

"You got it, Jill." The thin man stood close to her, drew his bow partially back, and took careful aim. Jill managed to offer him a little grin and pushed her belly out a little. He let the arrow fly, and it struck with a solid whump! a couple of inches to the left of the knife sticking in her navel, burying itself deeply in her body.

Jill's eyes flew wide open, she gasped loudly; then she looked down at the deeply-set arrow. "Oh... wow.." she murmured. "That's kinda... cool. It didn't even hurt, it just..." She raised her head. "Oh, man, I feel really weird..." She blinked several times. "Can you guys untie me now? I'd like to have my hands free..."

The bearded man nodded. "We sure can, Jill," he replied. He went to her quickly and cut the ropes holding her wrists. She sagged against him; he held her up, being careful to avoid the arrow and the two knives set in her body. She put her arms around his neck and gazed up into his eyes. He bent his neck and kissed her; again, she returned it passionately.

After she broke the kiss, she laid her head on his chest. "I'm fading fast here," she said. "I won't be here much longer. But I want to ask you for something else..."

"What's that?"

She raised her head. "Don't hunt any more of the girls here," she pleaded. "Don't hurt any of my friends. There are three of you, you have a bag limit of three per day, it's legal for you to take at least two more of us. Don't do it, don't take any more, don't kill any more of us. Please?"

The bearded man pursed his lips. "We won't," he assured her. "You have my word."

She managed another little smile. "Thanks..." She rolled her eyes. "I'd like to die now, I don't feel so very good..." She gazed up at him and tried to focus her eyes. "Do it now, finish me off, kill me..." She glanced at the others. "You guys don't mind if he does it, do you?"

Both the other men came close. "No," the blond man said. "No, it's fine." He laid his hand on her shoulder. "You're a hell of a woman, Jill."

She nodded. "I know," she said, causing the men to grin. The bearded man reached for his knife, which was still standing between her ribs, and, with a quick movement, snatched it out. She arched backward, gasping, and blood squirted out. After waiting for her to relax a little, he tucked the point up under her breastbone. Jill held onto him tightly. "Slow and easy," she said. "Everybody put their hands on me..." The other two men did as she asked; she gazed steadily into the bearded man's eyes. "Now," she whispered.

He pushed on the knife, angling it upward and slightly to her left. Quickly it broke through her hard-muscled belly, freeing a new trickle of blood. He pushed on; it slipped in deeper. Jill's face twitched and she bit her lip as the blade passed into her. Her legs stiffened and quivered.

The blade moved on, deeper yet, the bright steel vanishing into her.

Then, suddenly, her face contorted and her eyes flew wide open. At the same time a flood of bright red blood rushed out around the knife's blade. Knowing he'd pierced her heart, the bearded man pushed on quickly, burying the blade. She went utterly rigid, staring at him fixedly; then, as if a switch had been thrown, she fell limp in his arms.

The bearded man laid her body down and stood staring at it. "I told her," he said, "that that would be the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life. It was. I wish I had a video of it. I know I'll lie in bed and whack off to the memory a thousand and one times before I die." He shook his head. "The trouble is, I feel like absolute shit right now."

Hearing that didn't help Melanie any. Dazed, broken-hearted, she passively allowed herself to be led around the forest by Jane and Sunni, and, that evening, led back to the village. She did not eat; she could not stop crying. The loss of her first close friend here left her stunned, disheartened, and depressed. Beyond the fact that she'd been close to Jill, there was another thing: Jill, as far as Melanie was concerned, was the best. They didn't come better; she was the fastest, the most agile, the best athlete among them, and among the smartest. If she couldn't make it, what chance did anyone else have? It seemed useless to Melanie, an exercise in futility.