Warcross

Marie Lu is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling series The Young Elites, as well as the blockbuster bestselling Legend series. She graduated from the University of Southern California and jumped into the video game industry as an artist. Now a full-time writer, she spends her spare time reading, drawing, playing games, and getting stuck in traffic. She lives in Los Angeles with her illustrator/author husband, Primo Gallanosa, and their dogs.

Chapter 1

It s too damn cold of a day to be out on a hunt.

I shiver, tug my scarf up higher over my mouth, and wipe a few snowflakes from my lashes. Then I slam my boot down on my electric skateboard. The board is old and used, like everything else I own, its blue paint almost entirely scraped off to reveal cheap silver plastic underneath but it s not dead yet, and when I push my heel down harder, it finally responds, jerking me forward as I squeeze between two rows of cars. My bright, rainbow-dyed hair whips across my face.

Hey! a driver yells as I maneuver past his car. I glance over my shoulder to see him waving a fist at me through his open window. You almost clipped me!

I just turn back around and ignore him. Usually, I m a nicer person than this or, at least, I would have shouted an apology back. But this morning, I d woken up to a yellow paper taped to the door of my apartment, its words printed in the largest font you can imagine.

72 HOURS TO PAY OR VACATE

Translation: I m almost three months behind on my rent. So, unless I can get my hands on $3,450, I ll be homeless and in the streets by the end of the week.

That d put a damper on anyone s day.

My cheeks sting from the wind. The sky beyond the cut of skyscrapers is gray, turning grayer, and in a few hours this flurry of snow will become a steady fall. Cars jam the streets, a nonstop trail of brake lights and honking from here all the way to Times Square. The occasional scream of a traffic controller s whistle cuts above the chaos. The air is thick with the smell of exhaust, and steam billows from an open vent nearby. People swarm up and down the sidewalks. Students coming home from school are easy to spot, their backpacks and fat headphones dotting the crowds.

Technically, I should be one of them. This should have been my first year of college. But I started skipping classes after Dad died and dropped out entirely several years ago. (Okay, fine technically, I was expelled. But I swear I would ve quit anyway. More on that later.)

I look down at my phone again, my mind returning to the hunt. Two days ago, I had gotten the following text message:

New York Police Department ALERT!
Arrest warrant out for Martin Hamer.
Payment $5,000.

The police are so busy these days with the increasing crime in the streets that they don t have time to hunt for petty criminals on their own petty criminals like Martin Hamer, who s wanted for gambling on Warcross, stealing money, and allegedly selling drugs to fund his bets. So, about once a week, the cops send out a message like this, a promise to pay anyone who can catch the criminal in question.

That s where I come in. I m a bounty hunter, one of many in Manhattan, and I m fighting to capture Martin Hamer before another hunter can.

Anyone who s ever fallen on hard times will understand the nearly constant stream of numbers that run through my mind. A month s rent in the worst apartment in New York: $1,150. A month s food: $180. Electricity and internet: $150. Boxes of macaroni, ramen, and Spam left in my pantry: 4. And so on. On top of that, I owe $3,450 in unpaid rent, and $6,000 in credit card debt.

The number of dollars left in my bank account: $13.

Not the normal things a girl my age worries about. I should be freaking out over exams. Turning in papers. Waking up on time.

But I haven t exactly had a normal adolescence.

Five thousand dollars is easily the largest bounty in months. For me, it might as well be all the money in the world. So, for the last two days, I ve done