It wasn’t actually a wedding ring—it was part of the most reliable currency system the hunters before us had ever devised: precious metals and gemstones recognized by global markets. After venting his emotions through a brief outburst of violence, Rafe went on to change my mind in the most peaceful way possible.

  The key to Rafe’s bright future in the hunter world now sat on the ring finger of my left hand. That probably meant he wouldn’t let me die here too easily. A commercial airplane carries just enough fuel to go slightly beyond its scheduled route—they never fill the tank to the brim. Even if they plan for delays, the fuel won’t last long. Civilian aircraft aren’t equipped with mid-air refueling systems. There’s no such thing as a plane that can stay in the sky forever.

  I’m not giving up a job that pays me by the hour in gold and diamonds—especially when the boss is easy to deal with and the work itself is interesting enough.

  Right now, just like Rafe said, I’m sitting by the narrow exit hatch of the baggage compartment, ready at any moment to fend off whatever might attack him—human or otherwise. Rafe’s tall, muscular frame squirmed between the mound of luggage cases, occasionally freezing beside one and becoming, in the dim light of my phone’s flashlight, an eerie human statue.

  “Bro?”

  “Don’t bother me—I’m fine!”

  The impatient reply echoed through the burial ground of suitcases. I had the distinct illusion that something was pressing against my back—maybe the flashlight would reveal a long, inhuman shadow stretching behind me…

  “I’m too scared. Take it back—I don’t want to stay here!” I was almost driven mad by my own imagination, too terrified to turn around.

  “Come here. Get closer to me.” Rafe let out a heavy sigh and tapped the luggage beneath him with frustration, though he still tried to keep his tone gentle. “You’re not alone. I’m right here.”

  “Don’t say that. I can’t be sure whether you even count as human—or which of you is more dangerous.” Even as I said it, I crawled toward the mountain of luggage, trembling. As soon as I lifted my head, it bumped against the ceiling of the cargo hold.

  The phone in my hand shook as I moved, and the beam from its flashlight cast warped and shifting shadows of the unevenly shaped suitcases around me. Beneath me was a patchwork of hard and soft bags—any one of them could be hiding something that used severed heads for sausage meat. My skull and spine scraped against the top of the compartment now and then, leaving small bruises behind. And there was always the possibility of something unknown appearing from God knows where—

  I didn’t have the mental space to keep guarding myself against a potentially dangerous travel companion—I just grabbed Rafe’s arm tightly, and for the first time in my life, I realized how comforting human body heat could be.

  “You... what are you even doing? How do you find Collections like this? Just going by instinct?”

  I was only trying to distract myself from spiraling thoughts by talking, but Rafe’s answer genuinely startled me.

  “Yes. It’s instinct. Same as when I pick up a Collection—only fainter. The closer I get, the clearer it feels. That’s why I have to get close to every single suitcase like this. I can’t waste energy chatting with you.”

  His tall frame had to be more cramped than mine in this tiny space. At the moment, he was curled up like a koala, clutching a golf bag that jutted out from the pile of tombstone-like luggage, eyes half-shut like he was listening for something.

  The sooner we found it, the sooner we could leave this place. I pulled out the parchment contract—my only current Collection—and, despite Rafe’s annoyed shushing, tried once again to confirm what it felt like to make contact with a Collection.

  It was a completely new kind of sense. Just like I don’t know how to describe a color I’ve never seen, I didn’t know how to explain this feeling either. The closest I could come to imagining it was heat—like sitting in a cool enough kitchen, eyes closed, trying to sense where the hot pan is.

  My job was to keep Rafe safe. I couldn’t even shut my eyes. All I could do was awkwardly apologize and shove the paper back into my pocket, keeping watch over the eerily terrifying surroundings.

  I didn’t know how much time had passed when a sudden, overwhelming sensation swept through me like a jolt of electricity. I sprang up in shock and slammed my head hard against some unknown protrusion on the ceiling of the cargo hold.

  “Shit—sorry! It’s human. I just spotted a fast-moving piece of human body!”

  Which brings us to Hoffman’s rather bizarre ability. I was starting to suspect he had suicidal tendencies—or maybe he never intended to kill me quickly in the first place. Otherwise, I should’ve been splattered across the stairwell in chunks small enough to stuff into a dumpling.

  When his Skill was active, people would appear clearly in my “vision”—yet another entirely new sense, and I had no idea what words could even describe it. In this Skill, I was the center of that vision, radiating a soft, steady light like the moon. Rafe, in contrast, looked like a bonfire flickering in the wilderness—fluctuating, sometimes dimming, but never going out.

  Just now, something had sparked across the ten o’clock direction from me—like someone suddenly appeared and flicked still-warm ashes at me. It startled me so much I instinctively flinched, which in turn startled Rafe.

  “Good. That means I’m getting close to the Collection. It’s already making a move to stop us. This ‘human body’ you mentioned—can you be more specific? Where is it now?”

  From his tone, it sounded like Rafe had fully classified me as a child—or maybe as a mentally unstable adult? That thought flashed through my head, and then that thing appeared again.

  A writhing ball of flesh stopped just inches in front of me, radiating sticky, sweat-drenched heat that fogged up my glasses. It took me several seconds to even process what had happened. Then I scrambled backward in panic, away from the shoulder blades that were somehow knotted at both ends.

  “Normal human bodies and hunter bodies look different to me. This one’s closer to a hunter—it’s fighting back. What do you want me to do with it?” I pinned the flesh blob down onto a suitcase using my Skill and hurried back to Rafe. “Hurry. More body parts are getting close. I can’t control that many at once.”

  As I was speaking, Rafe had already emptied out a suitcase and pointed to the now-empty space inside.

  Poor unlucky passenger, whoever they were. That’s what I was thinking as I shoved the shoulder blades—reeking of armpit sweat—deep into the bottom of the suitcase.

  The case locked shut, but Rafe’s expression didn’t improve. In fact, he immediately began opening the nearest unlocked luggage, tossing out whatever was inside.

  “What are you doing?” A bad feeling started creeping up on me.

  “Before the head shows up, the rest of the body parts will try to stop us. Time to get to work.” Rafe shone his flashlight in a particular direction. “I heard something over there.”

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  Something long and narrow lay quietly in the crevice between two travel bags. It had a joint that could bend—maybe a chubby arm, or maybe the leg of a short person.

  I should’ve paid more attention when I saw the headless woman’s body earlier. At least then I’d be able to tell whether this piece belonged to her—or someone else entirely.

  “Should I lock it up in a suitcase before the rest of the body shows up?”

  Rafe looked at me like I’d just said something ridiculous—but in the end, he let me try. He said I could stop immediately if anything went wrong.

  What could possibly go wrong with something this simple? I refused to entertain that question—no point triggering a spiral of failure-based psychological sabotage. I focused, dragged the piece of flesh toward us, and tossed it into the suitcase.

  Not much different from playing fetch with Otto. My Skill worked like a newly grown hand—so smooth and reliable.

  “Around you! Three directions!”

  It was actually four. Honestly, the fact that Rafe could detect three with just his senses in this environment was seriously impressive. I concentrated, pinning all four chunks of flesh to the farthest possible corners of the space around us.

  This time, Rafe didn’t need me to say anything. He went ahead and packed the still-moving limbs into separate suitcases one by one. After locking them shut, he even used zip ties to bind the one with the violently thrashing right leg, securing it tight. It was a perfect bit of teamwork—so much so that, for a moment, I found myself thinking of Rafe as the most in-sync partner I’d ever had.

  “That leaves the head and lower torso. Then what?”

  “This thing moves using the natural structure of a human body. Neither of those parts has the ability to move. They’re not a threat. Just stay cautious like before—I should be able to locate the source soon.”

  I’d nearly forgotten that some unknown Collection was the true origin of all this. After what we just went through, it felt like Hoffman’s Skill had undergone some kind of shift inside me. My perception grew steadier, sharper. Even without deliberately activating the Skill, I could clearly sense both myself and Rafe—and faintly, I could even perceive the passengers above us in the cabin. Most of them were scattered beyond the space directly above us, flickering like candle flames in a storm.

  I could fully empathize with the panicked reactions of those passengers overhead—hearing loud banging and thudding from beneath your feet while you’re still midair must be genuinely terrifying. But that understandable fear had now created a real problem for me.

  “The remaining parts are no longer in the baggage hold. I can’t pinpoint two lumps of flesh out of more than a hundred people—my Skill isn’t accurate enough for that. Sorry.” I let out a yawn and decided I wouldn’t push the Skill to its limits again for the rest of the trip—no matter which one it was.

  Surprisingly, Rafe didn’t insist I keep trying. After nearly half an hour of silence, he finally emerged from the far end of the cargo hold with a metal urn in hand and started making his way back.

  “This is the Collection? It looks like an urn,” I blurted, unable to stop myself from rambling when nervous. Even though the threat of flying body parts was gone, the dark, confined space remained one of the things I feared most.

  “It is an urn,” Rafe said, shining his flashlight onto the bottom of the metal container. The sudden glare made me shield my eyes reflexively, but thanks to my ridiculously fast reading speed, I still managed to catch the name and date etched on the underside.

  “It’s haunted or something?”

  I had never crawled so fast in my life. Like a desert lizard, I shot down from the luggage pile, putting distance between myself and Rafe—and the urn he was holding. The fact that I didn’t kick the suitcase out of sheer panic was a miracle of self-restraint.

  “I’m not sure if it’s the urn or what’s inside it that’s the problem. We’ll have to open it and see.” Rafe pulled a plastic bag from who knows where, poured the ashes into it, and stood silently for a moment, holding the empty urn—then casually tossed it aside. “It’s what’s inside.”

  I must’ve been out of my mind, because I reached out and took the heavy, snow-white bag of ashes from Rafe without hesitation, plunged my hand into it, and began sifting through carefully. The icy remnants of a once-living human flowed through my fingers—cold, fine white grains, evenly crushed, like the softest beach sand.

  I ran my hand through every last bit of it, trying to pat any residue from my skin back into the ashes. I’d probably never enjoy playing in sand again.

  What kind of thing can endure three hours in a thousand-degree flame, then go through grinding, and still twist someone’s remains into something like that?

  I turned to Rafe and asked, “I touched it for so long—if this pile of ash is the Collection, why didn’t I see anything?”

  “Because that’s not a Collection. That’s human ash,” Rafe replied, taking the bag from my hands. “To be precise, it’s the ashes of a hunter.”

  Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!

  I screamed silently in my mind as I frantically scrubbed the ash from under my fingernails. “You knew? You knew from the start? Why the hell didn’t you stop me?!”

  “I had to confirm it this way too. So actually, thanks for doing it for me.” Rafe carefully poured the ashes back into the urn, flashing me a smile that—at least to me—felt deeply sarcastic. “This kind of situation’s rare. I’ll teach you how to investigate it next time.”

  I sifted through human ashes with my bare hands!!!

  I didn’t even register that Rafe had dragged me back up into the cabin until he shoved my hands under a running faucet. The shock of the freezing water finally snapped me out of it. As I scrubbed my hands raw, I strained to catch what he was saying to the flight attendant.

  Apparently, they’d exchanged some intel while I was spacing out. Rafe pulled me out of the bathroom, dried my hands for me, and told me to “pay attention to anyone coming over who seems off.”

  “I feel like everyone on this plane is off—so unlucky it’s unnatural. Can you just explain things properly for once?” My stomach twisted. “You’re not seriously expecting me to be useful in a situation like this, are you?”

  Rafe ruffled my hair—exactly the same way he did with Otto. “You really underestimate yourself. Don’t you remember? You already played a huge role earlier. Without your Skill, I would’ve lost half my life down there.”

  “That’s different—you told me exactly what to do just now. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to—”

  “Would the relatives of Ohara Yor please report to the flight crew immediately. I repeat, would the relatives of Ohara Yor please report to the flight crew—this is an emergency.”

  “Anything related to Nowhere doesn’t come with a handbook. No hunter ever knows exactly what they’re doing—not even me.” Rafe gave a small laugh. “Sounds terrifying, I know. But for the sake of gold, could you maybe push through anyway?”