by Shade Owens
Still standing, she reached down and picked up what looked like a giant paddle, while the rest of us sat still, knees pressed against our chests. I watched as the other women stayed behind, eyeing us like a bunch of curious monkeys—necks craned, eyes wide, and mouths partially open.
Rocket soaked her paddle in the water and swept sideways. She did this over and over again, at times switching sides. Every few seconds, she’d rush over to the other side as if trying to see fish, when in reality, she was trying to keep us from going off course.
“Watch out,” she said when Johnson’s leg got in the way, and Johnson, without so much as a peep, pulled her leg back and kept on looking forward. She must have had a lot on her mind. Any other time, she’d have probably let out a snarky remark like, “You have legs, use them.”
Slowly, we disappeared around the cliff and all the other women disappeared from sight.
“They’ll catch up soon,” Rocket said. “We’re a bit limited on the rafts right now. Some women decided to take them to the other side of the Cove, and they refuse to bring them back.”
“Refuse?” Johnson said. “Who’s in charge?”
But instead of answering, Rocket threw her chin out, her jaw muscles tense, and we followed her stare.
Up ahead, hundreds of women gathered across the shore, tending to different tasks as they’d done in the Village—some tore apart carcasses and fish while others worked at building platforms or houses out of old wood. It didn’t look like they were getting far with it, but they were trying. The Cove, or the open shore, was surrounded by giant cliffs that hid everyone from the remainder of the island. It was like a secret enclosure accessible by water—and only accessible from the ocean.
The late afternoon sun came down hard on the sand, making it look almost like cream. A handful of palm trees decorated the shoreline. Aside from that, there wasn’t much greenery.
But the lack of greenery was easily made up by the shore’s striking beauty. It reminded me of the Working Grounds’ waterfall though brighter and cleaner. The water, a transparent pool, was filled with minimal algae and instead, multicolored fish created an underwater rainbow.
The sand beneath the water looked like butter—like something I’d step into simply to relieve the pain in my feet and legs.
Arching my neck backward, I spotted an abundance of greenery overhead, which almost made the cliffs look like they’d sprouted hair.
The walls at the far back of the Cove and along its sides were steep—a flat wall, even—that looked like thousands of long yellow-brown stones flattened over top one another. The lower part of the walls was dull gray, and large stain lines ran horizontally across the stone, making me wonder if this was the result of high tide.
Was this truly the safest place to be?
“Welcome to the Cove,” Rocket said, and although I should have been happy at the prospect of a new home, I couldn’t help but notice that Rocket wasn’t smiling.
CHAPTER 11
At first, it seemed she thought she was high. She turned sideways to grimace at Proxy, who stood like a statue as she’d always done—completely emotionless.
She grabbed Proxy’s stick-for-an-arm and pulled herself up, limped on one leg, then grabbed something handed to her by Proxy—a staff of some kind—that she used to support the weight of her body.
I couldn’t sit on the raft and wait for it to reach shore.
She raised a hand over her brows, probably thinking that the sun was causing her to hallucinate. But she wasn’t hallucinating, and neither was I.
I was staring right at her, and although I’d heard she’d survived, it was hard to believe what I was seeing.
“Fisher!” I shouted, and without thinking, I dived headfirst into the ocean water.
It was smooth against my skin—neither warm nor cold—and the taste of salt entered my mouth. When I resurfaced, I caught a glimpse of her limping faster and faster toward the shoreline.
Countless heads turned to look at us, but I didn’t care. They could stare all they wanted. I was reuniting with a friend, with Fisher, who I thought for sure wouldn’t survive.
The moment I reached shallow water, I pressed my feet into the ocean sand and started running, my knees nearly touching my chest as I hopped over the water.
“Fisher!” I repeated.
She came splashing in, and as soon as I was at arm’s length, I threw both arms around her neck. She patted me hard on the back and squeezed me tight, but within seconds, her grip loosened as if she’d realized things had gotten too emotional, and she needed to take a step back.
That was Fisher being Fisher.
She cleared her throat and slapped water off her arms. “Man, you’re all wet.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said.
She smirked, and I was about to force her into another hug when a few voices started shouting. I followed the noise and nearly collapsed to my knees.
Biggie and Flander ran through the sand, arms flailing in the air, and behind them came the most beautiful sight I’d seen in a long time—Ellie. She wore a white cotton dress, and her long dark hair was tied, hanging gently over her shoulder. In her arms, she held what appeared to be a basket constructed of bamboo, resting on her hip. She pulled a thick strand of hair out of her face and winced like someone does when they aren’t wearing their glasses.
I wasn’t sure what her eyesight was like, but it was apparent she didn’t know it was me.
Biggie’s feet came down so hard in the sand that the rolls on her body jiggled. She clapped hard over her head, a wide white smile on her face and big bright eyes to match it.
“Broooooooooone,” she shouted, and Ellie perked up, dropping the basket at her feet.
Colorful fruit rolled out into the sand, but she didn’t seem to care. With both hands, she raised her dress and started running behind Biggie and Flander.
“Holy mother of Joseph!” Flander said, getting closer. “It’s really you, kiddo!”
Her hair had grown quite a bit, now reaching the sides of her face. It was wavy and split right down the middle of her overly tanned head. Although her short hair had suited her well before, this doo gave her a softer, more bohemian look. It was the same gray it had been before but rougher looking, assumedly because of the salt water and sand around here.
I grinned from ear to ear when they got closer, but I didn’t even have the time to say anything. In one swift motion, Biggie scooped me up into her arms and squeezed me so tight, my spine cracked. I almost told her off, but I’d missed her too much, and the crack felt surprisingly good.
“Oh, Brone!” she shouted, her mouth so close to my ear that I flinched. She shook me from back and forth, and I felt like a helpless cat in a five-year-old’s arms.
“Okay,” I mumbled. “Let me go, Big—”
I fell flat on my side, into the water. When I reemerged, Ellie was almost with us. I looked at Flander, who was smiling at me like she was my long-lost grandmother.
She jerked her head sideways as if to say, Go get ’er, tiger.
I lunged straight toward Ellie and threw my arms around her, pulling her tight against me. She wrapped her hand around the back of my head and pulled me into her neck. Although I had so much to say, nothing came out. I wanted to tell her how much I’d missed her and how stupid I’d been for pulling away emotionally before all of this happened, but I couldn’t. I wanted to apologize for pushing her into the river, but at the same time, I didn’t feel like that mattered anymore. All I cared about was that she was alive.
She kissed my neck, and it was the warmest sensation I’d had in as long as I could remember.
Pressing my cheek against hers, it felt like I’d taken Ecstasy even though I’d never experienced that particular type of rebelliousness in the real world. I wanted to touch her everywhere, confirm that she was actually standing there. I pulled away enough to stare her square in the face.
I looked at her perfectly arched eyebrows; the two freckles on her right ch
eek; her chocolate brown eyes that made me feel like my insides were melting; her plush lips that always looked like they were coated in lipstick; and then, without thinking, I pressed mine against hers.
Warm air blew from her nostrils and onto my face, smelling like perfume, and I held her tight, refusing to let go. I kissed her again and again until my lips parted, and the warm tip of her tongue tickled mine. I was about to kiss her hard again when I lost my footing and we both fell into the sand with her underneath me.
She let out a cute laugh, and I couldn’t help but join in.
“Yo, chicas,” came Arenas’s voice. “Get a damn room.”
“Oh, shut up,” Hammer said. “Can’t you see they’re having a cheesy beach moment?”
Biggie let out a laugh so loud I flinched again.
“Hey,” Fisher said, now standing beside me. I stretched my neck to look at her, and as soon as we made eye contact, my fleeting moment of happiness was stripped away and replaced with reality. She leaned the weight of her body on her good leg, while the other leg reminded me of Sumi’s face—pink and bubbly. “When you’re done making out, come see me over there.” She pointed to where she’d been sitting before, right beside Proxy. “We have a lot to talk about.”
CHAPTER 12
My fairy-tale moment didn’t last long. It crumbled almost instantly.
Across the shore, curious eyes turned my way—some women looked intrigued, others bitter, and some even downright vicious. For a moment, it seemed as though I was back on Norther territory. What caught my attention most of all were the segregated groups dispersed around the Cove. In the middle of the Cove, sprawled unevenly in the sand, were women with dark skin. A bit farther down, a group of Asian women had gathered beneath a palm tree, carving away at either weapons or fishing gear. Then, there were the Latinas, the Native Americans, the Caucasians, and the Middle Eastern women all separated from each other.
Fisher sat in the sand where I was headed, her back pressed against the cliff wall and her face shadowed beneath a rock overhang. It was apparent that her group, or clique, continued to honor Murk’s interracial approach.
What was going on? Was this what Rocket had meant when she said there was no order? This was never an issue under Murk’s reign. We were all equal regardless of ethnicity or belief. Aside from a few rogue groups like Snow Face’s women, this wasn’t even an issue when enslaved by the Northers.
“Hey, stranger,” Fisher said, smirking up at me. She was sitting in the sand, one leg crossed in front of her and her damaged leg lying straight out.
“Fisher, I have to tell you something,” I said, unable to stop thinking about Trim. Then, all I kept hearing in my head were Rocket’s words: “Be delicate about it when you tell Fisher. I don’t know how she’s gonna handle it.”
I had no idea how to tell her—all I knew was that I needed to get it out into the open as soon as possible. As I parted my lips to continue talking, she waved a hand in the air.
“If this is about Trim, I don’t want to hear it.”
A lump formed in my throat. Did she already know what had happened? Or, like Rocket, had she already concluded that Trim was dead considering she wasn’t with us? Maybe all she was asking was for me to spare her the gory details.
But I needed to be sure—I needed her to know and not learn it from someone else.
“You know?” I asked.
She swallowed hard, looked away, then drew an odd shape in the sand by her thigh. “Trim would be here if she were still alive.”
Her dark eyes rolled up at me, almost pleadingly—almost as if she were waiting for me to argue and to say something along the lines of, “Trim’s still alive, but she didn’t make it out. We have to go back to her.”
I wished I could say that. I wanted nothing more than to have Trim with us by our sides during all of this. She was a far better leader than I’d ever be, and she deserved to be the one standing here, breathing in the crisp ocean air.
Fisher patted the sand beside her, breaking the awkward silence. “Have a seat.”
I was already covered in wet sand from having fallen over with Ellie and didn’t mind her invitation. I carefully slid against the cliff wall, grimacing as my leg muscles tightened to lower me. I was so sore I didn’t know what to do with myself. At long last, I could breathe again and relax without worrying about Alice Number Two threatening us or Zsasz beating me to a pulp.
Zsasz, I suddenly remembered.
Where was she? Had she returned to Rainer? Was she coming back? Was it truly possible that Zsasz and her army had missed the Cove, even though they’d walked right by it? Then, I thought of Franklin, and how she lay there in the tall grass, looking like nothing more than a porcelain doll.
How much had they tortured her to break her? I didn’t want to think about it.
“Hey,” Fisher said, and I was pulled back into reality. “Whatever happened there… It’s over.”
I couldn’t even look at her. She had no idea what had happened to me, to us, because if she did, she wouldn’t be telling me that it was over.
It would never be over.
Not until the Northers were dead and Murk was safely returned.
“Watch out!” someone shouted.
I glared out toward shore. Mackenzie, the woman with the purple heart tattoo and the shiner, was now bringing her fourth round of women. She jabbed her paddle in the sand and pulled the raft closer to the shore—so close that it got stuck.
“Come on,” someone shouted, and then the boar came into view.
Three women struggled to pull it off the raft, and when it landed in the sand, the three of them tripped backward but caught their footing.
“You brought food?” Fisher asked.
This time, I glanced sideways at her. She’d lost so much weight since I’d last seen her. Her cheekbones looked even higher than usual, though, in reality, her sunken-in cheeks had more to do with it. Dark bags sat below her eyes, and her lips were pale and flaky. She still wore that same tight ponytail on her head, but it had grown quite a bit longer, sitting on top of her right shoulder.
I turned my attention toward the boar. “Yeah, I did. Well, I can’t take all the credit. Elektra took a shot at it, too.” I smirked, realizing how coincidental it was that we’d found each other—it was all because of this boar. “She’s good.”
Fisher smiled, though her lips barely moved. She stared out toward the horizon, and I followed her gaze, the setting sun making it easier to see the entire shore now. The water behind the raft darkened, and above it, the sky turned a fire orange with streaks of purple overtop. The palm trees nearest to the shoreline began to lose color, slowly transforming into nothing more than a dark silhouette.
Women gathered around the boar, but with the setting sun, it was impossible to see their features.
“Those survivors from the Village?” I asked.
From what I could tell, they wore the same suede clothing I’d seen through the Village and the Working Grounds.
Fisher shrugged. “Most of them.”
“Most?” I asked.
Without looking at me, she stretched her neck and scratched at her scarred leg. “We found some new drops here and there. Couldn’t let them die.”
“So you brought them here?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, but I’m starting to think it was a mistake.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
At last, she looked at me, her eyes resembling black gumballs. “Rocket didn’t tell you?”
“She said there’s no order,” I said. “I assumed that meant things aren’t going well, but I still have no idea what’s going on here.”
Fisher scoffed. “No order,” she repeated. “It’s more than that, Brone. These women are acting like they would in prison. It’s like they’ve reverted back to being their criminal selves. I don’t know how Murk did it, but she made us forget we were convicts. She made us feel like a big family. Sure, there were fights every now and then, but not
hing like it is now. It’s like everyone’s fighting to be top dog. I’m so fucking sick of it.” She dropped her head against the rocky surface behind her. “It’s exhausting, you know?”
“Hey!” someone shouted.
“Fuck off, that’s ours!”
I followed the shouts to find Elektra’s silhouette pulling at the vines wrapped around the boar’s leg. Then, a woman—much taller than Elektra—shoved her into the sand and with the aid of a few others, started pulling the boar to the other side of the beach.
I couldn’t tell who they were, but it was apparent by the sharp objects they held in their hands that they were willing to fight to steal what we’d caught.
I picked up my bow and lunged forward, but Fisher grabbed me by the back of my shirt, pulling me down.
“Don’t bother,” she said.
“Did you see that?” I growled. “They shoved Elektra. She’s a kid!”
Fisher’s eyelids went flat, making her look sleep deprived. “Yeah, I know. But that’s Hawkins. Most women here call her Hawk. She was dropped on the island last month.”
“So? Who is she?” I asked.
She let out a defeated breath through her nostrils. “Someone trying to be the leader. She has a lot of followers, and she’s not scared to fight anyone. She’s already killed two women here.”
I clenched my teeth. “How’re you letting her get away with that?”
Fisher turned to me, giving me that feisty look I’d forgotten—the one that said, Are you an idiot? “Look around, Brone. We’re safe here. At least from the Northers. If we leave, we’re as good as dead. You know how bad Rainer wants us dead.”
I scoffed—not because I found any of this funny, but because I was infuriated. I’d run away from imprisonment only to end up alongside someone else who was hungry for power—so much so that they were willing to shed blood for it.
“So what?” I said. “We catch food and they take it from us?”
Fisher shrugged again. “Yeah, if they feel like it.”
