Hunted Read Free Page A

the sign.
    Mom pulls up slowly to the curb. A window in the dreary motel blinks VACANCY.
    “We have to go where they won’t expect us to be,” Mom says. “They know our pattern. Safe houses, underground hideouts . . . they’ve found them all.” I swallow the lump of guilt in my throat. They found me . “It’s easier to hide in a big city.” 21
    Cheryl Rainfield
    “Exactly,” Mom says, looking at me with her lips pressed softly together, like she knows how hard it’ll be for me with all that mind-noise.
    I swallow again. I don’t think she can drive much farther, not tonight. And wherever we go, there will be ParaTroopers and Government Paras—unless we cross the border. But we can’t cross it, not now. Not with Government Paras on every exit.
    “Let’s do it,” I say.
    We get out of the car together and stagger to the office, our legs cramped from the long ride.
    e
    The motel room the owner ushers us into is dingy and small, the walls a dirty green, the TV so old it doesn’t even have a remote. The double bed looks hard and lumpy, and the room smells moldy, like there’s been a major water leak.
    Mom wrinkles her nose, and I know she doesn’t want to be here any more than I do. “Do you have another room?
    Perhaps a bigger one?”
    The motel owner tightens her bathrobe around her scrawny body, glaring at Mom. “I told you, this is all we got. You want it, or not?”
    . . . Not going to give them nothin’, wakin’ me up like this . . .
    Her stringy hair falls in clumps around her face. She shoves it out of the way.
    Mom turns to me.
    I listen in on the woman.
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    HUNTED
    . . . Shoulda asked for more. They can afford it. Look at them, too snooty for the likes of us. What are they doing out in the middle of the night, anyway? . . . Her eyes narrow as her gaze darts back and forth between us. . . . I bet they’re Paras. I could make a buck off them . . .
    I look past her, to Mom. “I can’t believe the hotel double-booked us like that. Or that the manager was so rude.”
    “Yeah?” The woman squints at me.
    . . . Shoulda worn my glasses. Knew it wasn’t Henry; he never rings the bell. . .
    “Well, what didja come here for?”
    . . . Gotcha now. Nobody comes here for a good time.
    They come to repent, or to visit their loved ones in Para-jail, or to find others who wanna bring back the lynchings
    . . . but nobody ever comes here for a holiday—’cept for the Para Cleansing, but that’s days away . . . “You here for Para Cleansing Day?”
    I don’t look at Mom. I can barely stop myself from shuddering. How can anyone let the day Paras were massacred just slip off their tongue so easily? But most Normals do, I know that. To them, it’s a holiday, even though it was the beginning of all the riots. “That’s a great day, no matter where we are,” I manage to say. “But we came because we heard you have a good Para-capture record.”
    “The best in the country!” the woman says proudly.
    “This is one safe city. But why’d you come here ? You look like you could afford something better, if you don’t mind my saying.”
    “I’m afraid that was my fault,” Mom says. “I made a wrong turn and got us hopelessly lost. We were relieved to see your place.”
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    Cheryl Rainfield
    “Huh. So, do you want the room or not?”
    . . . Shoulda never been so proud with Henry. Shoulda told him I wanted him to come by . . .
    I wait, but she doesn’t go back to suspecting we’re Paras. I nod at Mom.
    “We’ll take it,” she says.
    “Sixty bucks a night, two nights minimum,” the woman says, holding out her roughened hand.
    Mom pulls the bills reluctantly out of her wallet, her hands trembling slightly. We might look middle class, but we’ve been depending on the generosity of people in the Underground for a year or two now, since our savings ran out. Mom always finds a job, but it’s never enough with the kind of work she can get, and paying first and last every few months hasn’t helped.