The Pine Barrens

The drive to the trailer park was a descent into a different world.

Maya navigated the winding roads through the Pine Barrens, the headlights of her sedan cutting through the swirling snow. The trees here were scrub pine, twisted and dark.

The trailer park was silent. It was a collection of aluminum boxes slowly losing the war against the elements. Maya parked in front of hers. The skirting was loose, flapping in the wind.

Inside, it was freezing. She kept the heat at fifty-eight to save oil. She grabbed the bottle of Amoxicillin from the bathroom cabinet. She grabbed a loaf of bread and some cans of soup from the pantry.

She stood in the center of the cramped kitchen. She looked at the peeling linoleum. She looked at the stain on the ceiling from the leak she couldn't afford to fix.

Two million dollars.

She could leave this. She could leave the cold. She could leave the ghost of her mother in the back bedroom.

She grabbed her coat and ran out the door.

She needed gas. The needle was hovering on empty.

The only station open was a wa-wa on the edge of the highway, five miles out. Maya pulled in under the flickering fluorescent canopy. The wind was howling, rattling the metal signs.

She was pumping gas, her face buried in her scarf, when a black Escalade pulled up to the pump opposite her.

Maya froze.

The windows were tinted pitch black. The engine idled with a deep, menacing rumble. It had New York plates.

The driver’s window rolled down. A man looked out. He was thick-necked, wearing a gold chain over a black turtleneck. He held up a phone.

"Excuse me, Miss," he shouted over the wind.

Maya didn't look up. She kept her eyes on the nozzle. "Pump's broken," she muttered.

"Looking for a guy," the man said. He turned the phone screen toward her. It was a picture of Dario. Taken recently. He was laughing in a restaurant. "Seen him?"

Maya’s heart stopped. She pulled the nozzle out, gas splashing onto her boots. "No. Don't know him."

"You sure? He might be hurt. We're his cousins. Just want to help him out."

"I said I don't know him," Maya said, forcing her voice to be flat, bored. The voice of a local who hated tourists. "Nobody comes here in winter."

She got in her car. She didn't look back. She pulled out onto the road, driving sedately until she rounded the curve. Then she floored it.

They were here. They were hunting.