5. No More Masks

The black SUV turned onto the private road leading to Ashworth Estate, the gates swinging open without challenge. Leo sat in the back, his wrists now cuffed to a metal ring bolted to the floor. Cross had produced the cuffs from a compartment under the seat, his movements unhurried, as if he had done this many times before.

“You’re not FBI,” Leo said. It was not a question.

“No. I’m a consultant. Mr. Ashworth values my particular skill set.” Cross glanced at him with something like admiration. “You caused quite a disruption. No Subject has ever made it to the highway before. He’s impressed. That’s why you’re still breathing.”

“He wants to study me.”

“He wants to understand you. There’s a difference.” The SUV pulled up to the mansion’s rear entrance. Miller killed the engine. Cross opened Leo’s door and unhooked the cuff from the floor, but kept one wrist secured to his own hand. “Walk slowly. Don’t run. If you run, Miller will shoot your kneecaps. Not to kill — just to remind you of your mortality.”

Leo walked.

The mudroom, the kitchen, the back staircase. The same guest room where he had slept — but now the window was barred, the lock reinforced. A new collar sat on the pillow, black leather, the GPS tracker already blinking.

“Put it on,” Cross said.

Leo picked it up. The leather was cold. He fastened it around his neck, feeling the tracker settle against his throat like a second heartbeat. Cross checked the fit, nodded, and unlocked the handcuff.

“Now you wait. Mr. Ashworth will see you after breakfast.”

Cross left. The door locked behind him. Leo stood alone in the room, listening to the rain begin again. He touched the collar. It was tight enough to feel, loose enough to breathe. He tried to work his fingers under it — no gap. The tracker was seamless.

He sat on the bed and closed his eyes.

Two hours later, Julian Ashworth entered the room alone. The bandage on his temple was white and neat, a small stain of brownish iodine showing through. He moved carefully, as if the blow had reminded him of his own fragility. But his smile was the same — warm, paternal, absolute.

“You hit very hard for a boy your size,” Julian said, closing the door. “I had three stitches. The doctor asked what happened. I told him I walked into a door.”

“You should have walked into a truck.”

Julian laughed — a genuine, surprised sound. “I like you, Leo. I really do. That’s why I’m not going to put you in the clearing today. Not yet. First, I want to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know. But you will.” Julian sat on the edge of the bed, keeping a careful distance. “I’ve been doing this for eight years. Seventeen Subjects before you. Thirteen died. Four survived — including you, technically, though you haven’t completed the course. Do you know what separates the survivors from the others?”

“Luck.”

“Partly. But mostly curiosity. The ones who die are the ones who stop asking questions. They accept their situation as inevitable. They run, but they run blindly. The survivors — the ones who make it to the highway — they watch. They learn. They adapt. You found the bunker. You found the basement. You found Maria’s room. No one has ever done that before.”

“Maria knows what you are.”

“Maria knows what I made her. There’s a difference.” Julian’s eyes grew distant. “After Clara died, I was hollow. I had money, power, influence — all of it meaningless. Maria was a broken thing, like me. I gave her a purpose. I gave her a story. The wheelchair was real; the accident was real. But the rest — the foundation, the rescues, the galas — that was theater. And Maria is the best actress I’ve ever known.”

Leo felt something cold settle in his chest. “She knows about the hunting.”

“She knows everything. She helped me choose the first three Subjects. She has good instincts.” Julian tilted his head. “Does that shock you?”

“No,” Leo said. “Nothing about you shocks me anymore.”

“Good. Then you’re ready for the offer.”

Julian stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the rain-soaked woods. “I’m sixty-one years old. My health is failing — not immediately, but eventually. I have no heir. No one to continue the work. The foundation will die with me, and the hunting will die with it. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless I find someone to take my place. Someone young, intelligent, resilient. Someone who has been hunted and survived.” Julian turned to face him. “I’m offering you everything, Leo. The estate, the fortune, the foundation. You would never be a Subject again. You would be the hunter.”

Leo stared at him. The offer was so absurd, so grotesque, that for a moment he couldn’t speak. Then he laughed — a short, bitter sound.

“You want me to become you.”

“I want you to become better than me. I made mistakes. I was too sentimental with Subject 13, too cruel with Subject 7. You could refine the process. Make it more efficient, more humane. These children — these runaways — they’re going to die anyway. On the streets, in the foster system, overdosing in abandoned buildings. We offer them a chance. A clean death or a new life. Either way, they matter.”

Leo stood up. The collar felt heavier now. “You’re insane.”

“I’m practical. The world is full of predators. I’m just one of them. The difference is, I admit it.” Julian walked to the door and knocked twice. The lock clicked open from the outside. “Think about my offer. You have until sunset. Then the hunt begins, whether you accept or not.”

He left. The door locked again.

Leo sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. The offer was a trap — not because Julian would honor it, but because accepting it would mean becoming a monster. And refusing it meant running again, through the same woods, with the same collar, against the same dogs.

But he had something he didn’t have the first time: knowledge.

He knew where the cameras were. He knew the layout of the bunker. He knew the weakness in the fence near the quarry. And he knew that Julian Ashworth, for all his confidence, was an old man with a fresh wound on his head.

The rain stopped at noon. Leo spent the afternoon doing calisthenics — push-ups, sit-ups, stretches — warming his muscles, preparing his body. He drank water from the bathroom tap, ate the sandwich left on the nightstand, and hid the butter knife from the tray in the waistband of his sweatpants.

At 4:47 PM, the door opened. Vance Croft stood in the hallway, the crossbow slung over his shoulder, a pistol on his hip.

“Time to go,” Vance said.

Leo walked out without resistance. They went down the back staircase, through the kitchen, out the mudroom door. The forest waited, gray and dripping. Julian stood at the edge of the tree line, holding a remote control.

“Last chance,” Julian said.

“Go to hell.”

Julian pressed the button. The collar beeped once — the tracker activated. “The rules are simple. The fence is electrified. The gate requires a code that changes every thirty minutes. The drones will track your heat signature. You have until sunrise tomorrow to reach the highway. If you succeed, you’re free. If you fail—” He shrugged. “Vance will find you.”

Leo didn’t wait for the countdown. He turned and ran into the woods, not toward the creek or the quarry, but straight into the densest part of the forest, where the trees grew so close that the drones would struggle to follow.

Behind him, Julian spoke into his radio. “Release the first drone.”

The whine began immediately, high-pitched, searching. Leo dropped to the ground and crawled under a fallen log, pressing his body into the mud. The drone passed overhead, its thermal sensor sweeping. He held his breath. The drone circled twice, then moved on.

He crawled out and ran again.

The forest was darker now, the rain returning as a cold mist. Leo navigated by memory, heading for the ravine where the old cars were. The metal bodies would confuse the thermal sensors, buy him time. He reached the ravine at dusk, his feet bleeding through the cardboard wrappings, and slipped into the Cadillac’s back seat.

The drone found him an hour later. It hovered above the ravine, its spotlight cutting through the darkness. Leo stayed motionless, hidden under a rusted floor mat. The spotlight swept past. The drone moved on.

He waited until the whine faded, then crawled out and continued toward the quarry. The fence was beyond it, and beyond the fence, the highway. But the fence was electrified — Julian had said so. He needed another way.

The bunker. The second exit that led to the basement. If he could reach the bunker, he could disable the fence from the inside. The monitors showed the entire security system. There had to be a control panel.

He changed direction, heading downhill toward the creek. The steel door was where he remembered, hidden under the overhang. He pressed his ear against it. Silence. He turned the wheel — it opened.

The tunnel was dark, the LED Christmas lights dead. Leo felt his way along the wall, his fingers brushing cold concrete. He reached the bunker and found the monitors dark, the laptops gone. Julian had cleaned it out. But the second door — the one leading to the basement — was still there.

He opened it and crawled through the narrow passage. The basement was dark too, the toys gone, the crib gone. The drawings of Maria still hung on the walls, but someone had slashed them with a knife.

He climbed the stairs to the frosted glass door. The hallway beyond was empty. He stepped into the mansion, his bare feet silent on the carpet.

The study was lit. Julian sat at his desk, his back to the door, speaking on the phone. “—yes, the boy is in the woods. He’ll be found by morning. No, I don’t anticipate any problems.”

Leo crept closer. The butter knife was in his hand. He didn’t know what he planned to do — stab Julian? Threaten him? The knife was too small, too dull.

But Julian heard him. The old man turned, saw Leo, and smiled.

“Back so soon? I thought you’d last longer.”

“I want to see the control panel for the fence.”

Julian raised an eyebrow. “You want to turn off the electricity. Clever. But the control panel is in my private office, which is locked, and the code is in my head.” He tapped his temple. “You can’t force it out of me.”

“I don’t need to.” Leo pointed past Julian, toward the window. “Look.”

Julian turned. Through the window, he saw flashing blue lights — a convoy of police cruisers, unmarked SUVs, and a white van with the letters “FBI” on the side. They were streaming up the driveway, past the gate that had somehow been opened.

“What did you do?” Julian breathed.

“I didn’t do anything.” Leo’s heart pounded. “Trooper Vaccaro did. She didn’t believe your fake FBI agents. She tracked my phone call to the diner. She notified the real FBI.”

Julian stood up, his face pale. “Vance!”

But Vance Croft was already in the hallway, his hands raised. Behind him, two state troopers had their weapons drawn.

“It’s over, Mr. Ashworth,” one of them said.

Julian looked at Leo, then at the window, then back at Leo. His expression shifted — from fear to something else, something almost like relief.

“You’re better than Subject 13,” Julian said quietly. “You’re better than all of them.”

The troopers handcuffed him and led him away. Leo stood in the study, alone, the butter knife still in his hand. He heard voices in the hallway — Trooper Vaccaro, Special Agent Cross (the real one), someone from the district attorney’s office.

Then a woman in a white coat pushed past them, carrying a black medical bag. She was tall, with sharp features and gray-streaked hair pulled back in a bun. She didn’t look at Leo. She walked to Julian’s desk, opened her bag, and removed a scalpel.

“Dr. Elena Voss,” she said, without introduction. “Forensic pathologist. I’ve been digging up your master’s garden for the past three months. The bones in the quarry — the ones he thought were hidden — they told me everything. The microchips embedded in the femurs. The fracture patterns consistent with blunt-force trauma from a crossbow bolt. The GPS collars buried with the bodies.”

She picked up a framed photograph from the desk — Clara, Julian’s daughter — and turned it over. On the back, written in Julian’s neat handwriting: “Subject 0. 2008. She ran. She didn’t survive.”

“He started with his own daughter,” Dr. Voss said softly. “Clara wasn’t killed by a drunk driver. She was the first hunt. Maria was the second — but she didn’t run. She submitted. That’s why she’s in a wheelchair. He broke her spine himself.”

Leo’s knees gave way. He sat down on the carpet, the butter knife falling from his hand. The room spun.

Dr. Voss knelt beside him. Her hands were cool and steady as she examined the collar around his neck.

“This is a standard GPS tracker,” she said. “Easily removed. But I want you to keep it for now — as evidence.” She looked at his face, his cuts, his bare feet. “You’re the first one who made it out alive without surrendering. Do you understand what that means?”

Leo shook his head.

“It means the truth has a voice now. Your voice.” She stood up and offered him her hand. “Come on. Let’s get you out of this house.”

Leo took her hand. She pulled him to his feet. Together, they walked out of the study, down the hallway, past the photographs of Julian shaking hands with governors and senators. At the front door, Leo stopped and looked back.

The mansion was quiet now, the only sound the ticking of a grandfather clock. Somewhere upstairs, Maria was being taken into custody. Somewhere in the woods, the drones were landing, their hunt over.

Leo stepped outside. The rain had stopped. The sky was clearing, a few stars visible between the clouds. He walked down the driveway toward the waiting ambulance, the FBI vehicles, the reporters already gathering behind a police line.

Trooper Vaccaro was there. She put a blanket around his shoulders and handed him a cup of hot chocolate — real this time, from the diner.

“You did good, kid,” she said.

Leo took a sip. The chocolate was warm, sweet, nothing like the one Julian had given him. He closed his eyes and let the heat spread through his chest.

But when he opened them again, he saw something that made his blood run cold.

At the edge of the tree line, barely visible in the darkness, a figure stood watching. Not Vance — he was in handcuffs. Not Julian — he was in a cruiser.

The figure was smaller, hunched, sitting in a wheelchair.

Maria.

She raised her hand, not in farewell, but in a slow, deliberate wave. Then she turned the wheelchair and rolled back into the woods, disappearing into the shadows.

Leo opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came out. The collar was still around his neck, its tracker blinking red.

Some hunts, he realized, never end.