A little over a month after Jill's death, the inmates got a first hand look at something many of them had heard talked about, but few had as yet seen; a "setup scene," as Jane told Melanie Harry called them. These, Jane explained, were not common. They were expensive in the extreme; only Jane had seen one previously. Hearing the sound of a truck on the road--in the middle of the day, when there normally shouldn't be trucks on the road--the troop of girls moved in close to have a look. Staying under cover up on a ridge, they watched the truck, which was identical to the one that had brought Melanie here originally, roll to a halt alongside a moderately open area. Two rangers climbed out of the cab, went around back, and half-pushed, half-helped a naked woman out. Watching, Melanie assumed initially that she was simply another inmate, and she wondered why Harry or one of the other rangers hadn't just let her out at the gate, as seemed to be the normal procedure.

But she realized, just a moment later, that this woman did not look like just another inmate. The woman, whose hands were cuffed behind her back, was a classic raven-haired beauty, someone who might've stepped off the Hollywood screen or out of Playboy magazine. She did not look particularly athletic; her breasts were quite large, her whole body voluptuous. In short, a Class A, not a Class B. Unlike the inmates of the Preserve, she had no little waistpack and waterbottle, and the rangers did not hand her moccasins. Instead, she was wearing ludicrously inappropriate high-heeled shoes. She also was wearing an additional item, a leather collar fastened around her neck. As the girls watched from cover, the rangers attached a length of chain to that collar, then led her off across the clearing. The girls shifted positions to keep watching. The raven-haired girl, almost staggering along in the high heels, seemed to be pleading with the rangers, and periodically she resisted them a little--but they were ignoring her other than to tug, gently but persistently, on the chain when she tried to resist. They led her on, to a tree on the far edge of the little clearing, and, after fastening the end of the chain to the tree, they left her there.

For a long time, nothing else happened. After the truck left, Sunni and Jane had a spirited but quiet argument about the advisability of trying to free the woman, but, as Jane pointed out, that wasn't going to be easy. Her collar was padlocked to the chain and the chain was padlocked to the tree, as well. Before they'd come to a decision, the choice was taken from them as Harry and another man--a hunter, certainly--came walking through the forest. This hunter wasn't anything like the others Melanie had seen. He was grossly fat, puffing from the exertion of walking along on level ground.

At the edge of the clearing Harry stopped him. "There she is!" he told the hunter in a hoarse whisper. The hunter, with a sickly grin, raised his bow. The raven-haired woman, seeing them, screamed a protest, but he fired at her anyway.

He missed. Not only did he miss, the arrow didn't even reach her.

Patiently, with a look of undisguised contempt on his face, Harry showed the man what he was doing wrong. The so-called hunter waddled forward a few steps, then aimed another arrow at the screaming girl. Again he missed. Trying again, he moved even closer, and this time his arrow struck the side of her chest--although it was so poorly drawn the head didn't even bury itself. The woman, screaming louder, ripped it out and held it as a weapon while a little blood trickled down her side.

The fat man regarded her for a few seconds, He didn't look as if there was a chance he'd approach her, not while she was holding that arrow. "Shit," he muttered. He handed the bow and an arrow to the ranger. "Bring 'er down for me, willya?"

Harry didn't answer for several long seconds, not until the fat man looked around at him. "As you wish, sir," Harry said, his voice flat and his face a mask. He unslung his bow, fitted an arrow to the string, and drew it. The girl again shrieked a protest and turned as if to run, although she could not. The bow twanged, and the hapless girl went stiff as the arrow buried itself in her bare back. Dropping the arrow she was holding, she went down to her knees, then fell full-length on the ground, her fingers clawing at the earth.

Drawing a knife from his belt, the fat man hurried up to her and knelt beside her. He raised it, then stabbed it into the girl's back; he was so weak it barely penetrated an inch, but she screamed again and squirmed with the pain.

"Haw, look at 'er wiggle," the fat man chuckled. While Harry stood watching with a look of utter disgust on his face, the "hunter" jerked the blade out and stabbed her again, just as ineffectually. For at least ten minutes this went on. The girl's back became covered with shallow stab wounds and blood. But she was nowhere near dead, she continued to shriek and struggle, and she was suffering horribly.

"Ain't gettin' the job done," Harry said after the fat man had stabbed her again. "Maybe you ought to turn her over. Cut her throat."

"Shit," the fat man said. He giggled almost girlishly. "Lookit all this blood. She'll die sooner or later. I'm gettin' a real kick outta this." He stuck the knife in the girl's back again, and she shrieked yet again.

Looking more and more disgusted by the minute, Harry watched as the man kept stabbing the girl, never getting the blade in more than an inch or so. At last he looked up, to where the others were hiding and watching, and he gave some sort of a signal--clearly, to them. Melanie jumped; she hadn't realized he'd known they were there all along.

"It's worth it to me," Jane said.

"Worth what?" Melanie asked.

Sunni laid her hand on Jane's arm. "Honey, are you sure?" she asked. ignoring Melanie's question.

Jane nodded. "I've been here too long anyway."

"No, Jane... you've been here six years, you've only got four to go..."

Jane laughed harshly under her breath. "Four years. An eternity, Sunni. Jill's gone, I couldn't save Allison... No, I'm gonna do it."

"Jane, what're you going to do?" Melanie demanded, her voice rising.

The auburn-haired girl didn't reply. Instead, she rose, and, as Melanie watched open-mouthed, she walked boldly down into the clearing, where the fat "hunter" was still stabbing the raven-haired girl. Harry reacted to her appearance with a nod, and the fat man didn't even realize she was there until she was quite close.

Finally, sensing movement, the hunter looked up. A look of fear crossed his features. "Who?" he croaked. "What?"

"Bad news for you, asshole," Jane said as she picked up the arrow the dark-haired girl had dropped. "Really bad."

The fat man held out his knife defensively. "No, no, wait..." he glanced back at the ranger. "Help me!" he cried. "Shoot her!"

Harry did nothing at all. Jane lunged forward; the tip of the hunting arrow went under the fat man's multiple chins and sank into his throat. He struck at her with his knife and she deigned to dodge the blow; it hit her ribs and glanced off, inflicting a small scratch and nothing more. After that he dropped the knife and fell back onto the ground, clutching at the arrow, blood gushing, his life flowing away quickly. Reaching down, Jane picked up the man's knife, clutched it tightly in her hand, and stabbed it into his chest. Leaving it there, she rose and looked around at Harry.

"Thanks, Harry," she said quietly. "It was worth it..."

"Believe me, it was a pleasure to watch, Janie," he replied. His face was absolutely expressionless. "I'm sorry it's you, though. I'd hoped to see you walk out of here one day. I was betting on you."

"Can't win all your bets, Harry."

He shook his head. "I suppose not. You want a few minutes?"

"The others are hiding up there," she said, gesturing. "I'd like to say good-bye."

"Take as long as you need, Janie."

Jane called to the others; with Sunni and Melanie in the lead, they came running down. Several of them were crying, and they all gave Jane long hugs. "I don't understand," Melanie said as Jane turned toward her.

"Harry has to kill me now," Jane said calmly. "I killed a customer, I have to be taken. You know the rules: I'm a rogue, a renegade. They'll know it was me, my fingerprints are all over the knife and arrow. If Harry lets me go they'd have teams of trackers out here looking for me as soon as he reports in, and he can't not report it. I wouldn't make it through the night. Worse, some of the trackers shoot first and make a positive ID later. It's the only way."

Melanie stared wide-eyed. "You knew..."

"Yes. Like I said, I've been running too long." She turned to Harry. "I'd like you to shoot me in the back," she said. "That's the safest thing for you anyhow. Is that okay?"

"However you want it, Janie."

"That's how I want it." She turned back to the assembled girls. "Hold my hands," she asked. "Hold my hands, stay with me 'till it's over." Tears streaming from her eyes, Melanie grabbed her left hand. The girls crowded together, each of them getting a hand on the woman who'd been their leader and teacher for such a long time.

Jane smiled at them. "I love you all," she said. "Take care of yourselves. Survive. Walk out of here. Just because I didn't make it doesn't mean you can't."

"I don't know what we're going to do without you!" Melanie cried.

"Sunni will be here to help you," Jane said. "You'll do fine." She gritted her teeth. "God, I'm scared!" Then she threw her shoulders back. "Now, Harry," she called. "Let's do it, let's get it over with."

"I'm gonna miss you, Janie," Harry said sadly. He drew his bow and took careful aim; Jane's lips trembled a little, but she didn't move or flinch at all. Finally he released the string.

Melanie was watching Jane's face as the arrow struck her. As she'd expected, Harry's aim was perfect, he'd pierced her heart with it. They all felt the impact; Jane's body jerked violently as it buried itself in her back. She looked shocked. Not pained, just shocked. Slowly, her knees started buckling.

She blinked. "Not so bad..." she croaked.

Then she collapsed, sliding from their grasp. Once down, her hands and feet twitched a few times, and then she became still.

Harry walked over. "I gotta get some guys out here to drag these bodies back," he told the weeping girls. "You shouldn't be here when they get here."

"What about me?" the raven-haired girl cried. "Let me go, please, let me go...!"

Harry looked over at her. "Leslie, you don't really want me to do that," he said. His tone was sympathetic. "You've taken an arrow in your back and you've been stuck probably fifty times. At least some of those are gonna get infected. There's nothing you can do about it; if I let you go you're gonna die slow, in a lot of pain. You got two choices: first, I can haul you back alive; that's what I'm really supposed to do. They'll take you to the infirmary and fix you up, and if we have a request for a setup scene, a 'captured maiden' bit, or whatever, you'll be it. Now I'll grant you we don't get very many of those. But if we do, you'll be out here again, with some moron who can't even kill a fly right hacking at you. If we don't--and they won't keep you in holding for more than three or four months--they'll do a 'feature spectacular' with you, which they'll then sell to the movie studios or TV. That won't be any fun for you either, those are long drawn-out affairs."

Leslie's beautiful eyes were large and round. "And my other choice?"

Harry's lips were tight. "I can kill you right now."

Her eyes filled up with tears. "I don't want to die...!"

"About that," Harry told her, "you have no choice. You're a Class A. There's no way out for you."

She sobbed for several seconds, burying her face in her hands. "Please..." she begged through her fingers.

"Just do it for her, Harry," Sunni urged. Her voice was lifeless. "You know it's the best thing."

He nodded and drew his hunting knife. "Yeah." Kneeling beside the weeping girl, he laid his left hand gently on the back of her neck. At his touch, she took her hands off her face and turned toward him.

"Would you take this chain off me first, please?" she asked, her voice suddenly calm.

"Of course," Harry answered. He fitted a key to the lock, released it, then took the collar off of her neck.

Wincing from the pain of the arrow that was still standing in her back, she reached for him and put her arms around his neck. She gazed at his face. "Make it quick," she said softly.

"I will," he assured her. "Keep looking at my eyes." She did. Her legs were folded to the side, she seemed very relaxed; both her posture and the expression on her face suggested total surrender. Harry gazed into her eyes for a moment.

Then he plunged his knife in, up under her left breast, burying it deep in her chest.

Her eyes and mouth flew open. "Oh... oh, god..."

"It's the best way, honey," Harry said. She didn't answer, but she didn't struggle either, she just clutched at his neck while he shoved the hilt up against her, moving the blade inside her. A huge gush of blood erupted, covering his hand. Leslie, her heart pierced, leaned forward slowly, her eyes glazing quickly. Harry pulled the knife free and let her body fall. As he rose, he glanced back at the other girls. "Go now," he said. "Go quick, go far."

"Take care, Harry," Sunni said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "And thanks." She turned to go; Melanie seemed paralyzed, but Sunni dragged her off, and soon enough they and the others were again deep in the forest, as safe as they could ever be.