by Shade Owens
Impatiently, she waved a wrinkled hand without looking at us when she realized we weren’t coming in.
I took a step forward and looked around. A bed sat at the very center of the shack. It was more of a wooden plank elevated by uneven posts. There were no cushions, no hay… only a solid bed that lay on an angle, probably to allow her a better look inside one’s mouth. It looked wet, too, or water damaged, probably because there was no roof.
Sunlight came blasting in, creating a white patch at the top of the woman’s head. She finally turned around on her stool, eyed us both up and down, and said, “What’d ya need?”
Her upper lip curled over her teeth, revealing black holes everywhere.
I suddenly wished I was back at 99 Dental.
This place looked like a nightmare. And what tools did she use? I peered over her shoulder, where a tray made of bone held a few metallic tools. They looked like pliers and knives.
I swallowed hard, relieved that I wasn’t the one who needed dental work.
“Uh… M’tooth,” Hammer said, slapping a hand over her cheek again.
“C’mere, then. Lemme look at ya.”
Hammer reluctantly stepped forward looking like a shy kid on the verge of giving a classroom presentation.
“On the bed,” the woman said.
Hammer pulled herself up—something she’d probably been unable to do when she’d had the extra fat around her waistline—and lay on her back.
The woman slid her stool closer and leaned forward, the hump between her shoulders making her look crippled. She stuck her fingers inside Hammer’s mouth and pulled her cheeks apart.
“Ahhhh, right there, then?” she asked, and Hammer kicked the air and let out a long moan.
“S’all swollen and ’fected,” the woman said, her eyeball almost in Hammer’s mouth. “Looks like an abscess.”
She pulled her fingers out and slapped her knees. “Gotta take ’er out.”
Hammer’s eyes shot at me and at the dentist woman. “Like… pull?”
“Er, yeah!” the woman said. She reached over Hammer, let out a short grunt, and plucked a pair of metal-looking pliers from her bone tray.
“W-What about t-the pain?” Hammer asked in a panic.
The woman didn’t say anything. Instead, she smiled—or at least, I think she did—and pulled from her pocket what appeared to be a pouch made of either animal skin or liver. It was sealed tight with dozens of stitches at the top.
She poked her nails at the string until the bag finally opened up. Then, she licked her finger, stuck it into the pouch, and pulled it back out. It was covered with white powder over the spot she’d licked.
“W-what is that?”
“Don’t ya worry,” she said. “It’ll numb ya right up.” She shoved her finger inside Hammer’s mouth, and as Hammer kicked the air, I turned away. I couldn’t stand around and watch this crazy woman pull a tooth out of her mouth.
“I’ll be at our station…” I said, feeling queasy.
Hammer moaned loudly, and although it had made no sense, it had probably been something along the lines of, “No, don’t leave me!”
Hammer was tougher than she gave herself credit for.
She’d be fine.
I walked out just in time. The next thing I heard was Hammer yelling. I should have been a good friend and stayed with her, but when it came to teeth… I couldn’t do it. It was my weakness. I’d grown accustomed to watching people heal stab wounds and infected cuts, but I wouldn’t stand there and watch someone rip out a tooth.
“Yo, Brone,” I heard, followed by heavy footsteps.
I turned around to find Coin jogging toward me. “Headin’ to the Food Station?”
I nodded.
She parted her lips to say something else, but a loud trumpet sound resonated throughout the city.
CHAPTER 10
“Out of the way!” Zsasz spat, stomping her way through the city grounds.
Rebel, her ugly, choppy-haired sidekick, followed close behind almost as if being dragged by a leash. Then, a dozen more Norther-looking women came blasting out of the wooden gates. They wore masks on their faces—half skulls that hung below their eyes—but there was something off about them.
They didn’t look like Orphans or Originals—they looked much frailer and less armored. And, unlike the Orphans and Originals, they didn’t have padded fur on their shoulders or metallic weapons. They carried wooden sticks, bows, and hammer-like weapons built of stone and rope.
Zsasz whistled, and the dozen armed women marched forward, staring straight ahead as if they’d been programmed to obey any order given to them. They were so rigid they almost looked like robots covered in flesh.
“What’s going on?” Coin mumbled, leaning in toward me.
Hammer came out of the Dentist’s shack with one hand pressing hard into her cheek. She scowled at me but didn’t say anything.
“I’m not the one who told you to go see…” But I fell short, uncertain of the dentist’s name.
“Rip… Ripper,” Hammer said.
My jaw hung open, and though mortified, I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re kidding me,” I said. “I thought that was just a joke that Quinn’s girl told you.”
Hammer shook her head, her hateful glare still fixated on me.
I was about to point out that again, this wasn’t my decision. I hadn’t given her an abscess, and I sure as hell hadn’t forced her to walk in there.
“Wh-what’s this?” Hammer asked, staring straight ahead at the crowd that had now formed around the women dressed in primitive armor.
I shrugged. “No idea.”
“Argalis!” Zsasz shouted, jabbing a spear into the air.
Her figure, which was much larger than everyone else’s, made her look like a monster. Her shoulders were drawn back, dark fur standing out in every direction, and her skull mask hung under her chin, held by what I could only assume was a string around her neck.
“That Russian?” Coin asked.
“Doesn’t sound like it,” I said.
“It’s not Russian,” I heard, and I swung around to find Sumi standing beside me.
Today, I could see the beautiful half of her face from underneath her hood. She’d pulled her black hair over the pink burn scars. Her dark eye narrowed in the shadow of her hood.
“I don’t know what it is,” she continued. “It’s like they have their own language for only certain words. I don’t think they’ve developed an entire language, but whatever it is, they can use it to communicate.”
Coin planted two hands on her waist and scoffed. “Are you shittin’ me? You’re sayin’ these crazy bitches found a way to communicate without anyone else bein’ able to understand?”
“Exactly,” Sumi said.
“Well th-that sucks,” Hammer said.
“What’s goin’ on, chicas?” came Arenas’s voice. She craned her neck, her eyes reaching over my right shoulder, and stared at the crowd of women. “Oh, shit…”
“Yeah,” I said. “Doesn’t look good.”
“You think they’re goin’ out to fight?” Arenas asked.
Coin and I exchanged a glance, but she spoke first. “Looks that way.”
“Yeah,” Arenas said, “and who’re they goin’ after this time?”
Then, Johnson popped up beside me, her frizzy hair looking yellow underneath the morning sun and her freckles making her face look brown. “What’s going on?”
“They’re goin’ out to fight, we’re guessin’,” Coin said.
“Fight who?” Johnson asked.
“Get your asses to work!”
I turned around to find Alice Number Two standing with her legs at shoulder’s width, her eyes bulging out of her skull, and her bony arms crossed over her flat chest. It looked like she’d lost even more weight these last few weeks—so much so that her wrist bones were popping out.
“We’re goin’, we’re goin’,” Coin said, but she didn’t budge.
“You
think they’re going after our people?” Johnson asked. She cast her eyes down and bit her lips. “Well, what’s left of them…”
“You think they know about the Co—” Coin started, but she cut herself short when she caught my glare.
The Cove was the only thing keeping the Hunters and a few survivors safe. How could the Northers possibly know about that? They couldn’t, could they? How on Earth could they have gotten that information? The only people who knew about the Cove were us—the ones standing right here, and…
Then my stomach sank.
As the crowd moved forward and the army marched, Zsasz shot me her usual hateful, scarred smile. The stripes stretched into wide cuts, revealing a darker shade of pink inside each scar.
But she wasn’t the one who scared me—not this time.
What caught my attention was the first woman standing at the front of the line. She wore padded armor that appeared to be made of turtle shells glued together, tall boots made of leather, and a half-skull mask that was chipped at its jawline, revealing her skin underneath. Her thin, tattooed arms were bare and covered in dirt and bruises, but she swung them back and forth as if they were the strongest set of arms on Earth.
And although she looked dangerous, that wasn’t what frightened me. It was those eyes… I swallowed hard as they rolled my way above her skull mask. I’d have recognized them anywhere.
Franklin.
But she wasn’t looking at me like an old friend. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at me—she was looking through me like she’d never seen me before.
CHAPTER 11
“We need to leave tonight,” I said, staring at the sand at my feet. So many thoughts rushed through my mind that all I wanted to do was get up right then and run—I’d take my chances with the guards around the city’s perimeter.
Hammer tossed a coconut shell onto the pile beside her, scanned her surroundings, then said, “You’re sure?”
I nodded. If I was right… If God forbid the Northers had managed to pull information out of Franklin, then they were on their way to the Cove, probably being led by Franklin. Though she didn’t know where it was specifically, she knew the general direction. And it wouldn’t be hard to find a Cove off a shoreline. All they had to do was walk toward the beach.
I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get to the Hunters, to my friends, before they were attacked… Before they were killed.
“Brone?”
I’d been staring at the ground, probably looking like a serial killer with wide eyes and a clenched jaw.
“You guys remember what Tegan said?” I suddenly realized Tegan wasn’t even with us. “Where is she, anyway?”
Arenas shrugged. “Girl’s been throwin’ up all morning.”
“Better than out the other way,” Hammer said. Her cheek was swollen on one side, but it looked like she was getting used to the pain. In fact, it kind of looked like she was high. She suddenly let out a broken laugh, and a goblet of blood spat out in front of us. “You guys remember the Cliff?”
Who didn’t remember the Cliff? How could anyone forget that foul-smelling place? Besides, I didn’t like to think about that place. All it did was remind of me of when Hammer, whose identity I didn’t know at the time, had forced me to give her some of my pearls on a weekly basis.
It was my money, but I’d been forced to go bury some of it at the Cliff for her to collect.
So yes, I remembered the Cliff.
She must not have noticed my irritation, because she kept laughing and said, “One time, it got so bad that when I was done, some woman slipped right in it.”
“Fuck, Ham,” Coin said, smacking her on the shoulder. “We didn’t need to know that.”
Hammer threw her head back and kept laughing.
It wasn’t that funny. At least not to me and not now.
“Tegan,” I said, trying to bring everyone back to our conversation.
Everyone but Hammer, who was now wiping tears from her eyes, nodded.
“About running,” I added, but I could tell they knew what I was talking about. “I think we should go tonight when it gets dark.”
“Why tonight?” Coin asked.
“They’ll be distracted. Some of the Northers have already left with their trained Fighters.”
“You guys saw her too… Right?” Johnson asked.
I side-glanced her but didn’t answer.
Everyone had seen Franklin, but no one had said anything. Besides, she was as good as dead now. She’d said it herself—she’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer before coming to the island. It was only a matter of time before she died.
The sick part in all of it was that for a moment, I hoped she’d die before reaching the Cove. I didn’t want any harm to come to her, but if it was a matter of choosing between someone who was already dying and my friends’ lives, I’d pick my friends.
I looked up at the others, wondering if any of them were having the same morbid thought as me. I wouldn’t voice it, though. I didn’t want them to see me as heartless. But that’s exactly how I felt—heartless. As my mind processed these thoughts, I had no guilt. Why didn’t I? Was it because I’d learned to think with my head and not my heart?
The reality was… Franklin was already gone.
Did it make me a bad person for wanting her gone sooner? Maybe. But I didn’t have time to start self-reflecting and I especially didn’t have the energy to start dwelling on my feelings.
Johnson leaned forward and dug her elbows into her thighs. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Yeah,” Arenas said. “I mean, you gonna leave some good women behind? I get that they ain’t all wearing these bracelets, but that doesn’t mean that given the chance, they wouldn’t run, too.”
I stared at Arenas.
“What?” she said, making her dark eyes go big.
“Nothing,” I said. “You’re completely right.”
“Maybe,” Coin said, “but we can’t trust all these bitches to pack up and leave with us.”
“They’re not bitches,” Hammer said, the smile on her face suddenly gone. “These women are human beings. Have some respect, man.”
Coin almost burst out laughing, but when she realized Hammer wasn’t joking, she straightened her posture and rolled her shoulders back. “Just a sayin’,” she said.
“I agree with Arenas,” Hammer said. “We can’t leave them behind. God knows what’ll happen to them when the Beasts realize we’ve all left.”
I tapped my fingers on my knees, bit my lip, and looked around. How the hell were we going to do this? I didn’t want to leave anyone behind, but the truth was, we couldn’t trust them. The whole point in having our bracelets was to identify which women stood with us—which ones we could trust to be on our side.
“If they don’t have a bracelet, they’re not coming,” I said coldly.
Everyone drew back.
“I’m not trying to be coldhearted,” I said, “but the whole reason we’re doing this right now is to get to the Cove before they do. We can come back for the others when we’re ready to fight. I get it, guys. I wish I could convince everyone to grab their things and run. But the truth is, a lot of these women are comfortable here. As sick as it sounds, it’s all they know. They’re not gonna run. And they sure as hell won’t let us run if they find out about it. Look at Snow Face, for example.”
Hammer scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t you mean the almighty Storm?”
“That’s not the point,” I said, not in the mood for Hammer’s jokes. “You guys heard her. She already warned us not to ruin things for her. So we have one shot at this, and we have to get it right.”
“All right,” Coin said, slapping her hands together. “So when’re we leavin’?”
“After supper,” I said. “As soon as the sun starts to set.”
“What?” Johnson blurted. “Why wouldn’t we leave when it’s dark?”
I glanced sideways at her. “Because I have a plan.”
CHAPT
ER 12
When the sunlight hits the pointed tip of Rainer’s front gates, we run east.
I watched as several women throughout the city leaned into each other, whispering and pointing toward the tall wooden gates. The one receiving the message always nodded and then went on to find someone else wearing a bracelet.
Of course, those not wearing the bracelet kept looking back, most likely wondering what they’d missed.
“I still don’t get it, Brone,” Quinn said, shoving a piece of bright red meat into her mouth. It smelled salty and sweet, and the fat dripping from the corners of her mouth was enough to make my stomach growl, even though I’d already eaten.
A handful of women had gone out hunting that day. They’d brought back wooden crates of fish and a dead boar. Those women—the ones who did the hunting—never spoke to anyone. It was a shame, really, since they carried weapons. If there was a group of women I wanted on our side, it was them. But they reminded me of Smith—the blacksmith chained at the ankle all day long. She had one job and one job only: she was responsible for providing weapons to the Northers.
These hunters looked like they’d been trained, or brainwashed, into existing solely to provide protein to the Northers. Most of the time, no one even shared the meat with us. We were left with fruits, vegetables, nuts, eggs, and fish, while the Northers sat in the comfort of their ten-foot gates, filling the air with laughter. And it wasn’t a pleasant laugh, either—it wasn’t the kind of laugh that makes you want to laugh along. It was almost sinister, and if I had to guess, they were being entertained by women fighting each other.
Quinn swallowed her last bite of meat. “Why not go when the sun’s completely set?”
“Because these women aren’t trained to survive in the jungle at night. They’ll trip all over themselves.”
“So, what?” Quinn said. “We cross the village in broad daylight and—”
“It won’t be broad daylight,” I said. “See that?” I pointed straight toward the Northers’ base. “I’ve been in there. On my way out, the sun was setting. The nice thing about the sun”—I smirked up at her—“is that it can be blinding if you don’t have sunglasses.”
