3
H U N T E D
ADVANCE READING COPY
criterion Mom had drilled into my
dna
. The food must be
a murderer.
Rex hadn’t been my first choice this month. At the start
of this feeding cycle, I’d been tracking a man named Timothy
Huxton and had fully intended to dine on him the previous
Thursday. But the day before feeding day, he’d made the
ninety-ninth call to KISW and won a two-week vacation
to Mazatlán. My mouth watered as I thought of how much
better he’d taste with a tan.
So I’d rushed to uncover Jordan Rex’s lethal back-
story, flipping through archived newspapers in the glass
monstrosity known as the Seattle Public Library (my library-
science classes were coming in handy). I discovered him in
the transcripts of a ten-year-old murder trial. Two wives dead
in less than two years. Both judged as death by misadventure.
I knew better.
We were getting closer to the docks. Waves crashed,
and the occasional mournful foghorn moaned. Rex came to
a dead end. He ambled right up to the wire fence blocking
the alley—some sort of storage space. He stumbled against it,
and the chain links rattled.
I took my first step into the open, and he turned and
looked directly at me. “It’s about time you showed up,”
he said. He didn’t slur a single word.
I hesitated in midcrouch. He knew I was following him?
I could question him, but Mom’s voice came into my head:
Never play with your food.
I leaped forward with more speed
than any human was capable of and reached out to grab Rex’s
