Rafe seemed like a different person—like a child desperate to reclaim a stolen toy. After a full night’s sleep, I opened the door and was met with his haggard face, eyes bloodshot as if he’d come to take back a stolen life. Before I could even say hello, he hissed, “I’ll be your damn boyfriend. Satisfied now?” and shoved two yellowed A5 sheets right under my nose.

  Fifty percent of thirty million. According to Rafe, “a price tempting anywhere in the world.” Once the job at the oil field was done, he’d borrow a private jet from the Ainsworth family to fly me home—before the deal went public—and pretend to be my scheming, duplicitous boyfriend long enough for me to finish what I needed to do.

  “Until all this—crap—is over, I won’t stray too far from you. Which means you’re free to rip my head off any time. Is that enough for you to trust me?”

  He said this while booking our flights, sitting himself down right beside me as if shoving his neck into my hand would earn him points.

  “You don’t need to bring much. We won’t be there more than three days.”

  “Why?”

  Rafe hesitated. After a long silence, he finally spoke, carefully choosing his words.

  Anyone who knows anything about Hunters—including Hunters themselves—tries not to stay near them too long. Especially the “strong” ones. That’s where Skill, Path, and Nowhere come in—connections never scientifically proven, but never fully debunked either.

  Nowhere affects a Hunter’s Skill and Path.

  Rafe was saying this when Tuesday lightly hopped in through the balcony, grinning at me through the glass and pulling a face.

  The longer a Hunter spends in Nowhere, the easier their Path is to open—and the stronger their Skill becomes.

  “But the cost? Why don’t Hunters just live in Nowhere full-time?”

  Rafe waved a hand in front of my face. “This part’s important—are you listening?”

  I feigned interest, shifting my gaze from the sunlit balcony and the lush trees beyond, then looked at him with wide-eyed sincerity and nodded.

  “Nowhere messes with a Hunter’s mind. Ever heard of Hollowing? That’s what the early Hunters called it. As though their inner selves had been scooped out and replaced by silence or something else. Common symptoms included emotional detachment, loss of identity, dissociative behavior, and murmuring in unknown languages.”

  Rafe launched into lecture mode, like a teacher trying to engrave every word directly into my brain.

  “They call it Subjective-Objective Rift Disorder now. SORD. And the first sign is always hallucinations. Got it?”

  It was strange—but also strangely simple. I nodded again and watched as Rafe scribbled the agreed terms onto paper in crisp, clear legalese. He copied every word to a second sheet, then signed both.

  The paper? “Contract-use sheets,” printed with a graffiti-like logo in the corner—premium Collection stock from Nowhere, steady in yield and power.

  It was ELLC’s best-selling product—Ehren Legal for Hunters.

  And it was my first time seriously researching my own Collection.

  All I had to do was focus on the Collection with all five senses, and the descriptions would suddenly flood my mind in various forms.

  In this case, a woman’s soft voice began speaking Mandarin directly into my thoughts.

  [Contract-Use Paper]

  Ehren Legal for Hunters, committed to offering services as close to legal representation as possible—whether for Residents or Hunters—launched this product in year 16723. Since release, it has remained a top choice among the Hunter community.

  As the standard edition of the series, any breach of contract will trigger visible bruising or scarring at the relevant clause on the sheet, with severity proportional to the violation.

  For further assistance, enforcement services, or legal advice, please call 73528904619452532572578 from within Nowhere, or visit any Ehren Group-affiliated office.

  Remaining duration: 3698 hours, 17 minutes, 20 seconds.

  Both sheets were made from the same person’s skin. Hoffmann’s Skill still recognized them as “human body,” which made my stomach lurch enough to skip dinner. The over-tanned leather felt just like thick paper, smooth and disturbingly warm. I folded the A5s and slipped them into my notebook’s side pocket before I began packing.

  Half an hour later, I was in the car to the airport.

  The driver was a middle-aged woman with dark skin and a thick braid, her face flat and stony. She didn’t speak a word the entire ride, just kept glancing at me through the rearview mirror. As soon as we pulled up to the curb, and I reached for my suitcase, the car bolted off like a spooked animal. The trunk—still slightly open—bounced behind like a dog’s wagging tail.

  “Seriously?” I sighed. “If I’m that terrifying, could you at least be scared enough to tell me the truth?”

  Rafe pulled me aside into the quietest part of the terminal, leaned in like a lover, and whispered, “That’s normal. Hunters just back from Nowhere always bring things with them. Especially when we’re headed to Blue Vulture in Sydney. It’ll get better after seventy-two hours.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh—short, bitter—and gave his back a small squeeze.

  “Lucky we’re in a country with less competition. Hunters here are kinder. They help each other out.”

  Rafe handed me a boarding pass from the kiosk—and for fuck’s sake, it was business class.

  This wasn’t about the money.

  I had no idea airports even had security-free access points—let alone that all Rafe had to do was wave a Rubik’s Cube at a camera. A fully armed officer watched us push open what should’ve been a solid airport wall, barely lifting an eyebrow before letting out a vaguely curious grunt.

  “She’s with me,” Rafe said, nodding at the towering, gray-haired man. “Good day.”

  “Use your guns more. Less of that weird shit. Don’t bring any trouble back here, understood?” The officer’s voice was gruff, like gravel rolling in a barrel. His eyes never left Rafe—not even when we turned the corner toward the main boarding corridor. I could still feel his stare burning into my back.

  “Cops know about Nowhere?”

  “A bit. To them, anything a gun can’t solve is Hunter business.” Rafe kept his voice low. “Don’t talk about it in public.”

  Everything after that felt just like a normal flight—until I finished my juice and stood to grab a pillow from the overhead bin. That was when the first real shock hit.

  “Darling, the in-flight meal was made just for you. Don’t mind the chocolate sauce.”

  A woman’s head rolled inside the luggage compartment—golden hair tangled and sweeping across the bags. Her severed neck was tied off like a sausage casing.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “We were supposed to meet in Heisen, but I just couldn’t wait. We have so much to do together—”

  I didn’t reach for the pillow. I shut the compartment and sat back down next to Rafe, using his shoulder as my pillow instead.

  He stiffened like I’d just scalded him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re about to be my boyfriend, right? Lending me a shoulder isn’t going to kill you.”

  I glanced at the flight attendant nearby, then made a spontaneous decision to eat Rafe’s in-flight meal too—comfort food, if nothing else. The man who brought me onto this goddamn cursed flight didn’t get to eat. That felt… fair.

  Rafe hesitated but said nothing—not even when I finished his last drop of coffee.

  Then came the sound. Faint. Rolling. Something bumping against the overhead bin right above me. And I saw it—in my mind, as vivid as if it were real: a golden-haired head, old and leathery, tumbling through the shadows, forcing itself through mismatched suitcases, crawling toward the top of my seat—

  I pointed upward, poked Rafe’s arm.

  “What’s up?” he asked, turning to look.

  He didn’t hear it?

  Hallucinations. That was part of it, right? Rafe had mentioned Hollowing—said it multiple times. Said hallucinations were always the first symptom...

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  I hadn’t even noticed when the flight attendant crouched beside me.

  “Do you need something from the overhead? I can—”

  “No! I’m not getting anything. Don’t touch it!”

  I realized too late my voice was too loud.

  Rafe sighed and rubbed his temples, looking like he’d rather jump out the emergency exit than deal with this.

  The middle-aged woman smiled gently, her wrinkles folding in comforting ways like she’d been trained to reassure frightened children. She poured me a glass of ice water.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. The sky is completely safe. So far, no organization in Nowhere has managed to function above 3,000 meters. No Residents capable of flight either. Whatever you see or hear—they can’t hurt you.”

  Wait—what?

  “Airlines are actually one of the top retirement choices for Hunters. Relax. You’ve got me.”

  Rafe’s face looked like he wanted to carve the word reluctant into his own forehead.

  “The plane lands in half an hour. You’ll be fine.”

  Several piercing screams echoed from the rear of the cabin, indistinguishable in gender, followed by the dull thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

  So someone else was having a worse day. I ignored Rafe and his stream of bullshit, pulled open the curtain separating the two compartments, and saw passengers shrinking away in terror from a body in a floral dress—headless, its arms flailing blindly in the air.

  What the hell.

  I followed Rafe’s gaze, his expression shifting from shock to horror, and saw strands of straw-colored hair poking through the overhead bin, groping for the latch.

  "Safe in the air, with you here?" I laughed coldly. "Then this thing’s all yours."

  “I’ll go check on the pilot.” The flight attendant's tone turned severe, completely different from before. She moved quickly, knocking hard on the cockpit door—though the banging was soon drowned out by rising shrieks and commotion in the cabin. The air marshal stood closest to the headless woman, hand on his holstered weapon, but hadn’t drawn it.

  “Save the sarcasm. Dead passengers won’t do you any favors—once someone dies, they become part of that thing. Imagine dozens of those…” Rafe pointed at the tangle of hair spreading through the bins. “First lesson of Hunter school: What do you do now?”

  I had already pulled out my notebook but didn’t know what to write—something that wouldn’t kill me in my sleep but could still change what was happening. “Open the emergency exit and jump.”

  “Zero points. You think you’re Superman? Or is splattering on the ground better than using your brain?” Rafe glared. “Give me some fire.”

  Resisting the urge to snap back, I drew a cartoon Molotov cocktail on the page and scribbled “FIRE!!!” on its label before crumpling the paper and handing it over.

  “Same effect as a real one. Just don’t throw it somewhere stupid.”

  Rafe’s eyes locked on the head making its way toward our bin. He twirled the paper ball between his fingers, wrist flexing, ready to throw. “She wasn’t lying. Airborne’s a thousand times safer than ground level. Collections don’t work as well up here—it’s like Tyson fighting a first-grader. It just looks scary.”

  I still didn’t trust him. But when he flung the ball at the crawling mass of hair, the flames that erupted along the strands silenced the rampaging head almost immediately. It all happened so fast, the fire alarms didn’t even go off. Rafe, moving like some avenging god, yanked open the bin and—braver than I’d ever be—grabbed the head by the eyes and nostrils like a bowling ball and hurled it into economy.

  I’ll never forget that sight: a scorched, elderly head bouncing along the cabin floor, swearing, dodging panicked feet, before slamming into the flight crew's rest area with a final thud.

  “Like I said—just looks scary. Easier to deal with than your average grandma. Hair burns. People die.”

  “Even if you’re right, I still don’t see why I should help you.”

  Rafe was silent for a moment, then sighed like he was forcing the air from his lungs.

  “Monsters that weak don’t need me. You weirdos should be more than enough. And besides—” I glanced at my watch. “The plane’s landing in one hour and seventeen minutes. This is someone else’s problem, not mine.”

  “This plane won’t land until the situation’s dealt with—unless it crashes.” Rafe’s tone turned deadly serious. “People exposed for short periods can still be saved. But only if we act fast. We need to find the Collection that started all this. It’s in the cargo hold.”

  We’re really about to crash? Great. Two choices in front of me: Option one, do what Rafe says and maybe save the whole plane. Option two, sit back and experience a real-life Final Destination, see how many creative ways people can die.

  I’d always wondered what a plane crash felt like. It might not even kill me. In fact, it might make everything feel more like a proper horror film. With that settled, I reclined my seat and decided to enjoy the very real screaming coming from the back of the cabin.

  Rafe’s expression turned uglier than the rolling head. His fist smashed into the pillow beside my ear with such force it made my head ring.

  Clearly, this man had never learned to understand people. If my explanation had been perfectly reasonable, then why was Rafe still unwilling to accept it?

  Like a T-Rex who just watched porn only to realize he couldn’t masturbate, Rafe let out a few deep, furious breaths, then reached into a zippered pocket inside his coat and pulled out a gold ring inlaid with a massive emerald. He held it out to me.

  “Uh… are you proposing a murder-suicide pact?”

  This moment—more absurd than everything that had come before—pushed my fear to its peak. And with that fear came a rush of pleasure so intense it made my entire body tremble.