Months continued to pass; Melanie continued to survive. Her troop continued to flourish, as well. Occasionally a girl was taken by the hunters, but, at one point, Melanie managed to steer them through a full three months of the rainy season without losing a single one. With new arrivals coming in, the troop had grown, too; there were now twenty-six of them, the largest the troop had been since Melanie's arrival. At one point, though, their very success almost turned into a major crisis for them. Harry brought word one night from the warden that there were complaints from the hunters that the hunt was too difficult, that too many of them were coming out empty-handed after paying large sums of money to be there--and that discussions about changing the rules to make things more favorable to the hunters were underway. In response, Melanie asked for a meeting with the warden. She didn't get that, but she was able to negotiate the matter nevertheless, using Harry as an intermediary. To get her point across she had to make a daring offer, one she first had to make sure would be respected by her Deer; an offer to voluntarily allow the hunters a kill periodically, but if and only if he could show that revenues from the Preserve were dropping as a result of the girls' elusiveness. In her discussions with Harry she tried to offer herself as such a volunteer--even though she now had only a little more than a year to go--but her girls would not even consider that; as always they were protective of their leader. In the end, the warden was either impressed with the girls' sincerity or he could not in fact show such a loss in revenue; in any event Harry returned one night with the good news that the plans for changing the rules of the hunt had been dropped and that the sacrifices Melanie had offered would not be necessary.

But some old friends were lost, too. Marcie had only been granted a temporary reprieve. Six months after the night she'd been captured, she went down to an arrow that pierced her heart and killed her instantly. Julie, the ex-actress who'd joined the troop at the time when Audra was leading it, lasted four years--before she, like Marcie long before, tripped during a run, badly sprained an ankle, and was captured by a trio of hunters. Playing her final role, she followed the protocols for captives flawlessly, first seducing the men, then actively entering into the discussions about exactly how she was to killed. These men had brought a supply of liquor in with them, and did not mind sharing it with their captive. By the time they were ready to kill her, she herself was quite thoroughly drunk--which probably helped her cope as she almost casually walked from one to another, allowing them to thrust small knives into her belly, sides, and breasts while she kissed them and played with their erections. She was drunk enough to actually laugh when, weakened by blood loss, she finally fell. But she was not so drunk that she neglected to extract a promise from them that they would hunt no more, and, like most hunters, they kept their word.

As always, Harry and his family visited frequently, and there were no more incidents. If there had been any problems of any sort among them because of Rachel's actions the night she'd been taken captive, they were not visible to Melanie; they seemed as close as ever. Remembering Eileen's desire to see the dances, Melanie arranged to hold one on a night when there weren't any hunters in the village; after watching for a while, Rachel and Eileen, to Harry's obvious pleasure, joined in. After that, the dances became a regular part of the village social life, whether or not there were hunters staying overnight. The bond among the women grew closer, tighter; they were more like a tribe than ever.

More time passed. Melanie became acutely aware of it now; she had only a month to go, then a week to go, then two days, then one day. This was the most anxious time for her, and for the friends she'd made there, and for Harry and his family, who came frequently at this time. To be taken with so little time left--that, it seemed to them all, would be a real tragedy.

But it didn't happen. As that last day ended, as Melanie ran to the safety of the gates after having herded her troop back to the village for the night, an enormous celebration erupted. It only got larger, louder, and more boisterous when Harry, Rachel, and Eileen arrived an hour later.

She'd made it. She'd actually made it. For the first time since Harry had been there, at least--fifteen years--someone had managed to survive the entire ten years. After the party had died down, after Harry and his family had left, Melanie lay awake most of the night, wondering about how it would feel to be hunted no longer, to go back to civilization, to be free. It had been such a long time, she'd built so much of her life here, in the Preserve; she'd arrived here a raw and inexperienced girl of twenty-three, and now at thirty-three she'd be leaving--smart, hard, physically in the best shape of her life.

In a way it scared her. It was, she admitted to herself, an enormous life change for her now.

And, beyond that, it didn't seem real to her until the next morning, well before the sounding of the siren, when a Jeep with a couple of rangers arrived to take her back to the induction center. She said tearful good-byes to her girls; in ways it was eerily similar to the way they said their good-byes when some girl was about to sacrifice herself to the hunters. The obvious selection for the leader to replace her was Michelle, a tall black-haired woman with incredibly long legs, who'd been a graduate student in anthropology before her arrest for drug possession, and who was now a four-year survivor herself. Leaving her in charge, Melanie got into the Jeep and was driven back out through the gates and back to the induction center.

Once there, she was taken to a "holding room" that, to her, seemed like a prison cell. She was asked to shower, and they offered her one of the orange prison jumpsuits to wear. That she adamantly refused to put on, and, as if they'd expected that, she was then offered a T-shirt, shorts, and slip-on sneakers. She complied, washing up and then donning the clothes, the first time she'd put on clothing in ten years. They felt more than strange to her; they were intensely uncomfortable, especially the shorts, which seemed to bind her legs intolerably.

Then a prison guard--a guard, not a ranger--came in to take her to see the warden. Before they removed her from the holding room, though, they insisted on putting handcuffs on her; when she protested, the guard told her it was "just procedure," and reminded her that she was still a prisoner under a death sentence at the moment. Not wanting to create problems, not now, she complied; her hand were cuffed in front of her, and the guard left them fairly loose. They then led her out. Nervously, feeling totally out of place and ill at ease, she followed them, and soon enough she found herself seated in a stiff-backed chair in the warden's spacious office. The guards remained at the door; the warden, a portly balding man in his late fifties or early sixties, sat behind his desk watching her though squinted eyes.

"Well, let me be the first to congratulate you," he said in a gruff but somewhat shaky voice. "Ten years, that's a long time."

"Yes, sir," she agreed. "It is." He didn't say anything else for a moment, and Melanie, uncomfortable with the silence, could not hold back. "Could you tell me," she asked, "how I'm going to be released? We weren't told anything about it" She giggled. "I guess maybe they didn't expect it to come up, huh? I mean, will I be taken back to New Orleans and released there? That's where I was arrested and tried--or just put outside the gates here? And if that happens, how am I supposed to--"

"You have to understand some things, Miss Abbot," he said, cutting her off and leaving her wondering for an instant who "Miss Abbot" was--it had been so long since she'd been called anything but "Melanie" she'd almost forgotten her own last name. "This Preserve exists for the purpose of raising revenue for the United States government. All those girls who have died out there--and I know that you've seen a lot of them die--have died as they have in the service of their country."

Melanie decided it wasn't politic to challenge this, at least not right now. "Yes, sir," she answered. "I do understand that."

"Good, good. That's very good." He was perspiring heavily, even though it wasn't at all hot in his office; he mopped his brow with a handkerchief. He glanced at her cuffed hands. "Then maybe you'll understand what I'm going to tell you a little better."

Melanie said nothing, she just listened. But there was nothing she could find reassuring in those words.

"You know that the Bureau of Prisons works in conjunction with the IRS on the administration of the Preserve," the warden went on. "The IRS has been very pleased with the program, it's brought in quite substantial revenues over the years. But there's always a shortfall, Miss Abbot. The government remains in debt, and the IRS and the Congress are always looking for new ways to create sources of funding."

"I'm sure," Melanie said when he paused. "But what does that have to do with me?"

"A few years ago," he answered, "a very wealthy man who lives in Montana offered the IRS and the Bureau of Prisons very substantial funds for some of the girls from this Preserve. He meant to set up private hunts for the entertainment of business guests from Europe and Asia. Under the law this wasn't possible. This man--James Gallagher, you might have heard of him, the international software magnate--then made an offer of thirty million dollars if the custody of any girl who survived her sentence was turned over to him. He was truly excited about having such exceptional specimens for his private hunts." The warden stopped and shook his head. "Well. Even today that's a great deal of money, Miss Abbot. New law had to be passed, of course, but thanks to friends we have in the Republican Party in Congress, that was done."

Melanie stared at him blankly, not believing what she was hearing. "Are you trying to tell me that--"

The warden waved a sheaf of papers he'd picked up from his desk. "Your custody," he told her, as already been assigned to The Gallagher Corporation. They have been notified, and as soon as their private plane arrives here from Butte, you will be turned over to them. Your situation there will not be as it was here. You will have a home to live in, a comfortable life, and you will be subject only to periodic hunts; Gallagher told me privately he plans to hold three or four a year, one or two day affairs. Assuming you survive them, you--"

Melanie waved her hands, rattling the chain on the handcuffs. "Wait a minute, wait a minute," she said, interrupting him. "Are you telling me--yes, you are. You're telling me I'm not going to be released after all. I'm going to remain a prisoner, a hunted animal. I'm just going to a different place to be hunted! Have I got that right?"

"Miss Abbot, you are much more fortunate than most--"

"Than most what?" she demanded, raising her voice now.

"Most of the condemned," the warden said sternly. "Mr. Gallagher long ago registered as a private prison operator and a private executioner. Four to six Class-A's are sold to the Gallagher Corporation each year, where they are put to death for the entertainment of his clients. It's a very lucrative source of income for the IRS, Miss Abbot. We--"

"No, no, no, wait," Melanie interrupted again, again waving her hands. "No. This wasn't the deal. The deal was, when I started out--ten years and I go free. You can't change the rules in the middle of the game!"

The warden laughed, a sickly sound. "Of course we can, Miss Abbot. The idea of a grandfather clause was debated on the House and Senate floors. It was voted down; if it hadn't been, it would have been ten more years after the passage of the necessary legislation before any girls would be available to Mr. Gallagher--an unacceptable delay."

"And this was passed when?" Melanie cried, raising her voice now and leaning forward in her chair.

"About--uhm--six years ago."

"And you didn't tell us? You let us go on, trying to stay alive, when those God damned vultures in Congress had voted away our right to freedom?"

"Hysterics," the warden said coldly, "will not change anything. In fact, the recommendation of the IRS and the Bureau of Prisons both was that the inmates not be informed of the change. To do so would undermine their motivation to stay alive for ten years. That would damage the hunt, Miss Abbot; we'd probably have some suicides out there, and certainly we'd have more problems with rogues than we do now. We might even run out of girls for the hunters to hunt!"

Melanie threw herself back in her chair as the weight of these pronouncements washed over like a tidal wave. She wasn't going to be freed. She was being moved to a different preserve, to be hunted once again. Alone, as far as she knew. Away from here. Away from the friends she'd made, like Michelle, Harry, Rachel, Jackie. No troop for support. She had no idea where Gallagher's hunting preserve might be, but she envisioned herself naked and staggering through knee-deep snow while parka-clad hunters trailed her. She almost spasmed with the intensity of her shock. She jerked her hands and screamed; it cost her some skin on her wrist, but her left hand came free from the cuffs as she did.

The warden, leaning back in his chair now, didn't notice. "That won't help either," he advised. "This room is quite soundproof, and I am not affected by histrionics, as I've said." He grinned at her.

The grin was the final straw, the last trigger. Melanie exploded from her chair like an attacking panther, springing up on his desk in one swift movement and, using the free end of the handcuffs like a mace, smashed the steel into the side of his head. He yelled and fell to the floor.

As he went down, she was aware that the two guards, the men who'd escorted her here, were rushing toward her. Seeing only a rather small and presumably defenseless girl standing on the warden's desk, they didn't bother to draw the sidearms they were carrying. Melanie had learned, in her ten years as prey, to think quickly. They did not want to shoot her; Gallagher would not pay a dime for a dead girl. Standing still, her posture suggesting she was afraid of them, she waited until they drew close.

Then she struck, at the one on her right, taking him down with one shattering blow from the cuffs, a blow that ripped open his whole face. The other lunged at her; she kicked him solidly in the groin, and while he reeled back gasping for breath and holding himself, she rolled over the other man, who was by then trying to get up.

He didn't succeed, not before she'd unsnapped his holster and pulled out the 9mm automatic inside. Without a moments hesitation she pressed it against his head and pulled the trigger; blood and brains spattered the carpet. The other man fumbled for his own weapon, but it was far too late. Not experienced with guns and not wanting to take a chance on missing, Melanie sprang at him and from point-blank range put three slugs into his chest. Then, hardly missing a beat, she was over the desk again and on top of the warden, who had almost managed to regain his feet.

She shoved the muzzle of the automatic into his ample belly. "I don't think," she purred, looking down at the warden's terror-stricken face, "that you really understand how quick and strong ten years of being hunted makes a person. You get good, warden. You learn to think fast and act fast."

"Don't shoot," the warden begged. "It won't help. We can work out--"

She laughed. "We can't work out shit. I've already killed your two guards. I'm a murderer now. Well, friend, it's just what you and the government you work for has made me." She pulled the trigger and sent a slug into his abdomen, to the left of his spine.

He made an odd gurgling sound. "NO!" he screamed . "Don't do it, you don't have a chance of escaping, there's nowhere for you to go!"

Coldly, she shot him again, to the right of his spine this time. "Oh, I know that," she agreed. "You'll get me, you'll kill me. But this time it's different. This time it's going to cost you, it's going to cost you like all hell!" She fired again, putting another bullet into the warden's gut. After letting him beg and blubber for a few seconds, she fired a fourth into his chest, and he went limp under her. She rose and glanced at the other two dead men. Her face was a mask; she knew they'd kill her for what she'd just done, but first she had a mission, and she intended to accomplish it.

First, she stripped off the T-shirt, shorts, and shoes, which she felt had hampered her during the brief fight. Naked again, she took one of the guards' belts, attached the other man's holster to it, and, after fastening it around her waist, searched the bodies until she was sure she'd found all the ammunition they had. She took just a moment to study the automatic, figuring out where the safety was and how one ejected and reloaded a clip. She also found and took their keys, and took one more moment to locate the one that opened her handcuffs. Then she walked to the door and, one of the guns in her hand, opened it.

No one was in the outside office except a secretary, a middle-aged woman whose eyes flew wide open when she saw Melanie. Melanie pointed the automatic at her and she threw up her hands.

"Please," the woman begged. "Don't shoot me."

I won't unless you force me, Melanie said silently. She gestured toward the warden's office. "In there," she said harshly. The woman obeyed immediately, although she gave a little squeak of horror when she saw the corpses. She did not scream, though, and did not protest when Melanie used the handcuffs to fasten her to the rod in the warden's coat-closet, well away from the phones. Leaving her there, and closing the door so that her cries could not be heard, she left the warden's office complex and started down the hallway. There was no one else in the hall, and she encountered no resistance as she headed for a door that looked as if it might lead outside. For a moment she wondered about this, but then she realized that this was the administrative wing of the facility, there were no prisoners here and therefore it was not secured.

Outside was another matter. Slipping out the door, she found herself in an open parking lot. Now, she cursed herself for having discarded the T-shirt and shorts; her nudity made her more than conspicuous. Crouching close to some bushes near the door, she scanned the lot. There was a row of open Jeeps like the one that had brought her here parked to her left; perhaps, she told herself, one of them might have keys in it, or alternatively, one of the keys on the rings she'd taken from the dead guards might fit one. At the end of the lot was trouble, a lift-gate and a guardhouse, obviously occupied. Deciding to worry about the guard later, she crept over to the line of Jeeps.

None had keys in them. Carefully, keeping out of sight as much as possible, she began trying the keys on the rings; it took a few minutes and she had to try several of them, but finally she found one that fitted. Just as she jumped into the Jeep and started the engine, a siren went off inside the building. The warden and his guards, she assumed, had been discovered. Not feeling that she could spare any more time, she slammed the Jeep into gear and headed for the gate. As she approached it, the gate guard, an older man, stepped out and held up his hand.

In response, she whipped out one of the automatics and fired off several shots in his general direction, trying not to hit him. She did not, but she got the desired result; he dived for cover in his guardhouse. Speeding up, she crashed through the gate and was well on down the road before the guard could even get outside again with his shotgun. Driving on, pushing hard, she passed the other, much more heavily guarded, gate where she'd been brought in. The road, she told herself with a nod of satisfaction, was the right one. A mile or two on down was the entrance to the Preserve. Driving as fast as she dared--she was very rusty behind the wheel, having not been in a car for ten years--she pushed on toward the gate.

Reaching it, she stopped and jumped out. It was, she was sure, too heavily-built to crash it with the Jeep. All she could do was hope she could find the right key in time; it was on one of these rings, she was sure of it.

She did find it, she did get the gate open. Jumping back into the Jeep, she roared back into the Preserve just as pursuing guards appeared on the road behind her. She drove on, bouncing along the road, until she was fairly close to North Village. Then she swerved the Jeep into the woods, plowing though tall grass and shrubs until it high-centered on a log and the rear wheels spun. Not even knowing immediately how to put it in four-wheel drive, she switched off the engine, abandoned it, and raced on foot into the familiar cover of the forest.

It took her nearly an hour to find the girls in her troop. When she did, they were stunned to see her, and even more stunned to see the pistols at her side. When she told them her story there was shocked silence--and then there were tears, from almost everyone. Although several of the girls protested that they "couldn't believe it," none really doubted her. The dream, the dream of survival and freedom, had come to an end.

For quite a while, they just sat on a hillside above the road, talking. The alarm, they knew, had recalled all the hunters, they weren't much of a threat at the moment--and most of whatever threat might remain from someone who didn't heed the evacuation call was nullified by the pistols, one of which Melanie kept in her hand. None of them could doubt that the rangers would be coming for Melanie--now a rogue--but when they came, they'd come along the road, in a truck, and the girls would have ample warning of their approach.

They were just asking Melanie what she thought they should do now when something--some slight sound, perhaps even a smell--caused her to instinctively turn and raise her pistol. When she did, her eyes widened. Harry stood there, not fifteen yards away, an arrow on his bowstring, the bow drawn, and the point of the lethal four-blade aimed at Melanie's chest.

She'd told the warden that being here had taught her to think fast. She did; chains of thought flew through her mind. As she'd fled the prison she'd been furious at Harry; believing that he'd known all about this all along, and that his "helping" was merely a ploy to keep the girls' motivation to survive intact, she'd been close to hating him.

But now, as she stared him down, there were other considerations. He could have already killed her; procedure dictated that he certainly should have when she turned to face him with gun in hand.

But he hadn't. And that meant, almost certainly, that he didn't know.

She lowered her hand to her side, letting the gun point at the ground. "I'm not going to shoot you, Harry," she said. "Not you. Not for any reason. If you feel you have to kill me, go ahead."

His face twisted. He let the bow go slack, took the arrow off the string; then he threw the bow down and bent the arrow double over his knee. Throwing it aside as well, he walked toward Melanie with a long fast stride. Reaching her; he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he screamed, right in her face. "Have you lost your fucking mind? You were free, Goddamn it! Free! You'd made it! And now you've thrown it all away, and for what? Nothing will change, another warden's on his way here right now!"

"Harry..." she whispered.

"You are, you're fucking mad!" He shook her again, then stared at her. "What?"

Tears welled up in her eyes. "They weren't going to let me go, Harry. They sold me, to a private preserve owner in Montana. They passed new laws. All ten-year survivors are going to be sold. To private hunters..."

His face was utterly blank. "What?"

Crying openly now, she explained it again. Harry listened; she felt she could see him aging right in front of her face. "It's all a fraud," she concluded. "Our lives mean nothing, except for what they're worth to the IRS."

"I have to check on this," Harry said woodenly. "I have to. I don't doubt you. I just have to check. I have to see the transfer papers. I have to do that. Nothing will happen right away. No hunters. No rangers. I'm in charge of the Preserve until the new warden arrives." Quickly, spontaneously, he gave her a sudden hard hug; then he turned on his heel and started to walk away. As he neared the treeline, he took off his quiver, which was filled with hunting arrows, and threw it down. Leaving both it and the Browning compound he used lying on the ground, he disappeared. After he'd gone, the other girls looked at Melanie for a moment; she gave a slight nod and the girls gathered up the bow and the arrows.

Things were going to be different in the Preserve now, she told herself. Very different.