The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

“That’s Maria.” Coin held her face between both hands, drool dripping from her lips, and vomited stomach acid onto the jungle floor. She wiped her mouth. “She was one of the Builders. Worked with me in the Village.”

  “She’s alive,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I’d said it. We both knew she was alive—torturously so. I simply didn’t know what to do.

  Coin burst through the bush with one hand over her mouth, and Maria’s tortured eyes met hers.

  “Hel…help…” Maria tried.

  “Shhh.” Coin grabbed her hand and stroked strands of clumpy, bloody hair behind her ear.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why wasn’t she dead? Who had done such an awful thing to her? How long had she been suffering? I stayed behind, not wanting to aggravate the situation. Coin knew her—it was better she look up at a familiar face.

  “Who did this?” Coin asked.

  “N-n-n…”

  “A Norther?” Coin said.

  She tried to nod, but instead coughed up globs of black blood and bared her teeth when her organs moved. I hoped for her sake she would die, but her eyes kept rolling in the back of her head and up at Coin.

  Coin shot me a look through the bushes as if to say, “We have to do something.”

  What were we supposed to do? Put her out of her misery like a rabid dog? She was a human being and one of our own.

  But as I stared at her pleading eyes, I couldn’t even begin to imagine the tremendous pain she must have been enduring—and for how long? How long had she been suffering out here?

  I quickly drew back on my arrow, its head aimed straight at her heart, and released it without any further thought.

  Coin lunged back in a panic. “What the fuck!”

  Maria’s features hardened before her head collapsed onto the jungle floor and a long, heavy breath came out through her loosely open mouth.

  As I stared at Maria’s restful face, my bow still in position, my mind began racing in every direction imaginable.

  What had I done?

  I killed her—murdered her.

  No.

  I saved her.

  Saved her from what?

  From unfathomable pain.

  But who was I to play God?

  Who was I to decide who lived or died?

  Coin closed Maria’s eyelids and gently kissed her forehead. Her glossy eyes met mine, and she nodded slowly, a gesture of gratitude.

  I stared at the pile of pink, blood-coated guts on the ground and clenched my jaw.

  This wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t the one who’d slit her open like a pig. The Northers were to blame. They were nothing but a bunch of soulless monsters. What kind of a human being did this to another? What kind of a beast was capable of torturing someone so horrifically all because they were taught to hate their enemy?

  Every muscle in my body stiffened as I stood straight, my hateful stare fixated into the jungle’s intertwined branches and dense vegetation.

  I’d kill them—every last one of them.

  EPISODE 6

  PROLOGUE

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “Brone!”

  Rocket ran straight toward me, her piercing green eyes blending with the jungle’s surrounding vegetation. She had the same hair she did when I’d last seen her a few weeks ago—chestnut dreadlocks tied back at the base of her skull.

  She lunged over a fallen tree and whisked through the jungle with a grin on her face. Her speed hadn’t changed one bit.

  “Rocket!” I shouted, beaming with joy.

  Were the rest of the Hunters nearby? I shot an anxious glance behind her, but colors began twirling together like mixed paint on a palette.

  “Brone!” Her voice warped and dropped an entire octave.

  “Roc—” I tried, but her figure began melting away into the twirling greens and browns of the jungle.

  Where was I? What was happening? Where was Rocket?

  There was a blow to my ribs, and I was suddenly propelled into the air.

  A soft prickle brushed up against my elbow, and then another, until I realized I was lying directly atop a bed of hairy-legged spiders and dry, yellow-skinned snakes. They crawled and slithered across my chest, and I flailed my arms in a panic.

  I screamed and kicked, praying for the nightmare to end.

  I slapped myself repeatedly until I found myself lying in an open field. There were no spiders, no snakes—only absolute silence.

  I slowly stood and gazed out toward the horizon. The sun was coming up, creating a cotton candy-like look.

  In the distance, dark figures formed a straight line of black silhouettes. I took a step forward, the tips of my fingers brushing against the tall, sharp-tipped grass on either side of my legs. But then, as if by magic or being dragged through the air at an incredible speed, I was standing right in front of these figures—only, they weren’t figures at all.

  In a perfectly straight row were five bloody pikes pointing upward in different directions. Atop them were pale, lifeless heads—the heads of my friends, the heads of the Hunters.

  My eyes shot open and I was now lying on banana leaves amid the melodic sound of the jungle’s nightlife—frogs, insects, owls, and other creatures I knew I’d probably never lay eyes on.

  It wasn’t real. None of it had been real. I shivered, my body drenched in cold sweat.

  “Yo. You okay?”

  I stretched my neck back and looked at up Coin. She was sitting against the base of a tree with her hunting spear resting on her crossed legs.

  No, I wasn’t okay.

  CHAPTER 1

  “You have nightmares often?” Coin asked, carving a small marking into the nearest tree.

  I wasn’t in a talkative mood.

  “It’s normal, you know—”

  “Can we please keep moving?” I asked.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she regripped her hunting spear and slapped her way through a curtain of hanging leaves.

  “Maybe Maria wasn’t traveling alone,” she said. “Maybe she had others with her. Maybe they know where Navi is. Or, where the Hunters are.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes.”

  “You got any better ideas?” she snapped.

  I sighed. No doubt, Coin was as stressed out as I was, if not more. She’d found one of her friends lying in the dirt like a slaughtered pig.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, realizing how harsh I sounded. She was grieving—she didn’t need my attitude on top of it.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she wiped her sweaty forehead with her forearm and pointed at a river up ahead.

  “Let’s walk downstream,” I said. “Should lead us to some survivors.”

  Coin nodded and we made our way along the edge of the river. There were small river stones along the water lying around the edges of grass, bushes, and tall palm trees that extended higher than any regular palm tree I’d ever seen. Some of the trees were slanted over the river, casting shadows along the edges of the water. It was slow-moving and a dark muddy brown—almost green—which made me think of crocodiles, and ultimately, of Fisher. The whole purpose of our journey was to find our Medic, Navi, to tend to Fisher’s wounds. Her pain and the fear she must have experienced while a crocodile thrashed her around in the water were unfathomable.

  I shivered at the thought.

  “Watch the other side,” I said, sticking my nose out in the direction of the river.

  It was difficult to see beyond the trees, which put me on high alert. The last thing we needed was to be followed by a camouflaged enemy. If we were successful in finding other survivors, we’d be leading our enemy right to them.

  “Jesus,” Coin said, staring into the water a few feet below her. “Look at those.”

  I gazed into the water. Although barely visible, you could see a massive shoal of medium-sized fish swimming with the current. I would have recognized these silver-backed red-bellied fish anywhere—piranhas.

  “Are those—” Coin tried.
<
br />   “Piranhas? Yeah.”

  She looked terrified.

  “They’re not as dangerous as you’d think,” I said.

  Biggie had once hung me inches away from a river full of piranhas. She’d thought it hilarious. I, on the other hand, ended up jumping her for having scared me half to death.

  After the tension had diminished, Biggie explained to me that piranhas get a bad reputation because of Hollywood movies—that most of their prey consists of dead or dying animals.

  That revelation was a relief, especially since I’d always believed piranhas possessed the ability to strip one’s skin and muscles from their bodies in only a few minutes.

  But now I knew this was extremely far-fetched.

  “Still wouldn’t swim in there,” Coin said.

  I smirked. “Me neither.”

  The silence returned, and we walked for what seemed like hours. The morning cotton candy sky above us turned a bright yellow, and then finally, a clear blue as the afternoon crept in. If there was one thing I hated most about Kormace Island, it was sleeping in the jungle at night. It was cool, damp, and noisier than daytime—or at least, it seemed like it.

  After some time, whether due to boredom or curiosity, Coin cleared her throat.

  “Can I ask what you did? You know, to get here?”

  I side-glanced at her and hesitated. Why was everyone so nosy? It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked how I landed myself on Kormace Island, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last time. Did it matter what I’d done? I was here, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I’ll go first,” she said, almost inquisitively.

  I nodded.

  “Got into a fight by one of the clubs in downtown San Francisco. I wasn’t the type to cause trouble or anythin’. I was out with some friends, goin’ through the Castro District, when some pricks started harassing a lesbian couple. There were two of them—one was a tall, scrawny white boy, and the other, some Latino around my height. They were sayin’ stuff like ‘Fucking dykes’ and ‘Disgusting pieces of shit,’ so I told ’em to back off. So then, they started givin’ me shit.” She swung her hands back and forth as if trying to paint an invisible image in the air. “We got yellin’, until finally, the short one came after me. Said if I wanted to act like a man, I’d have to fight like one. He punched me in the face before bringin’ me down to the ground. I had a knife on me at the time.” She paused, her eyebrows slanting in a guilty way. “I was from a bad neighborhood. Never knowin’ whether or not someone would bust into our house when we were sleepin’. So, I used it. I lost my mind and I used it.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. How was I supposed to respond to that? I’m sorry? This wasn’t the first time someone explained to me how they took another person’s life, and every time it happened, I was left speechless.

  “Thirteen times in the chest,” she said. “There was blood everywhere. You ever have the feelin’ where you can see what you’re doing, but you can’t actually feel it? Almost like you’re not even in your own body?”

  I looked at her. I knew the feeling.

  “That’s what it was like. Took me years to remember what even happened. Only remembered after comin’ to Kormace Island. After hearin’ other stories like mine. I know there’s a bunch of crazies on this island… Women who aren’t ashamed of what they’ve done. Women who are proud of their kill count. I don’t get it, man. I ain’t proud of what I did. I think a lot of women regret what they’ve done. Those who don’t are a different breed, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say those are the kinds of women who go lookin’ for Rainer… That wanna be part of the Northers.”

  I pondered this for a moment. I’d never thought of it that way. Was Rainer recruiting women and brainwashing them, or were the crazy, sociopathic women ending up on her side because they wanted to?

  “Your turn,” she said, revealing her gold tooth.

  “My story’s not impressive or anything,” I said.

  “Weren’t you listenin’ to anything I said? Ain’t no pride in murder.”

  I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but I didn’t regret it, either. Did that make me a bad person? Had I finally become the woman I hoped I’d never be?

  “Come on,” she pressed. “Deal’s a deal.”

  “My mom had an abusive boyfriend. He had her by the throat one night, and I swung a cast iron pan at the back of his head.”

  Coin grimaced. “Youch.”

  I shrugged. “He could have killed her. What else was I supposed to do? The man was three times her size.”

  Coin patted a firm hand on my shoulder, and unusually enough, I was comforted.

  “I’d a done the same thing.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for sharing with me,” I said, and for the first time, I viewed Coin as a friend.

  She stared at me, her dark, sweaty face glistening under the sunlight and a smirk on her thick lips. “You too.” She stopped walking all of a sudden. “Check it out.” She pointed at our feet. Right at the edge of the river was a messy footprint smudged into the mud, almost as if someone had slipped while walking in this direction.

  My gaze shifted downstream. “Looks like they were going this way.”

  “Question is,” Coin said, “are they one of ours?”

  CHAPTER 2

  It was hard to make out the footprints now that we were walking on the grass. But every few hundred feet, we found a partial print pressed into the mud.

  “Must be one of ours,” Coin said.

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “Only seems to be one person. Ain’t no way a Norther would travel on their own. Goddamn pussies.”

  Although this was mostly true, the Norther I’d killed with my bow had been traveling alone. Anything was possible. On the bright side, if we were in fact following a Norther, they were outnumbered two to one.

  We followed the river around its bend, keeping a lookout for more prints. The river’s smooth flow almost masked the sound of our feet crunching river stones and flattening grass. Every few seconds, there was a gentle splash, and if my eyes were quick enough, I’d see shiny scales disappear into the water.

  That’s when I noticed something.

  “Wait,” I said. “Look.”

  There was another print, but it wasn’t going straight—it wasn’t following the river. Instead, it turned off the path and disappeared into the jungle.

  “Should we follow it?” Coin asked.

  I hesitated. What did we have to gain from following someone’s footprints? What if we were walking straight toward an enemy? What if it was an Ogre? A knot formed in my stomach. Were Coin and I truly cut out for this? I’d always traveled with the Hunters—women who specialized in tracking, camouflaging, and killing. But Coin and me? Sure, I was good with my bow and Coin had astounding auditory senses. But what good would that do us if someone attacked us from behind? If we were cornered or forced into melee combat?

  Thoughts of Franklin and how she’d attacked me with her bare hands came to mind. I’d taken quite the beating, which meant I was pretty useless when it came to fighting.

  Oh God, what were we doing?

  Coin smacked me on the arm, the sound of impact bouncing off nearby trees.

  “This is time sensitive, Brone.”

  “I know, I know,” I said impatiently. I needed to think.

  “I know what you’re thinkin’,” she said. “But I have a hunch it’s one of ours.”

  I wanted to believe her, but in the end, we wouldn’t know unless we followed the prints. And if it was one of ours, maybe they needed help. Or, better yet, maybe we could team up with them and increase our odds of surviving this hellhole.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” she repeated, and without discussing it any further, she walked into the jungle. The prints were staggered and short in distance. They were of average size, which didn’t help whatsoever in trying to determine who they belonged to.

&n
bsp; “This way,” Coin said, pointing her spear into each print she found.

  We went around an oval-shaped boulder covered in moss, and I crashed into Coin’s muscular back.

  “What’re you—” I started, but she raised a stiff hand.

  I peered over her shoulder. At first, it looked like the dead carcass of a gorilla or a bear. A big ball of black and gray fur was curled up in a pile of leaves, its long hairs wiggling with every gentle gust of wind. Was it alive?

  Coin looked back at me, her eyes big and her lips curved downward like a bad circus clown with too much makeup. She wasn’t cut out for this.

  I yanked her hunting spear out of her hands and used the end of the shaft to poke the creature. I jumped back when it shuffled away from us and vanished behind the rock.

  What the hell was that thing? And why was I provoking it? Maybe it was dangerous. But I needed to know because the prints we’d followed were human.

  I gave Coin her spear back and she grimaced, almost as if wanting nothing to do with this. But it had been her idea to follow the prints, so she’d have to suck it up. I pulled an arrow from my quiver and set it in place, then moved away from the rock to create space between the creature and me. My back hard and my arms stiff, I sidestepped through dry leaves until I had the creature in sight.

  But it wasn’t a creature at all.

  It was a young woman, maybe in her early twenties, curled up with her legs pressed against her chest. She wore a big piece of fur over her shoulders, assumedly gorilla skin, and a necklace made of what appeared to be human teeth. She glanced up at me, her dark eyes tired and her face drained of life, then curled her lips over her bloody front teeth like a rabid dog.

  She made a sound I’d never heard before—a bubbly growl originating somewhere deep inside her stomach. The fur around her neck was soaked in blood. That’s when I noticed it—a deep gash underneath her right ear and down the side of her neck. From the looks of her chalky white skin, she’d already lost a lot of blood.

  I slowly lowered my arrow, and Coin, who was still hiding behind the rock, looked at me with her big eyes and shook her head as if to say, ‘Don’t do it.’