by Shade Owens
“Hawk, no, please,” she begged.
Hawkins.
I should have known.
Hawkins knelt on one knee and pressed a delicate hand against Sofia’s face. She offered a consoling smile, though from where I was standing, it didn’t look sincere at all. It was as though her cheeks were being forced apart by invisible strings.
“You know it’s better we help her before she wakes up,” Hawkins said.
Sofia started babbling, saliva spilling from her slobbery lips. “P-p-please, don’t do it. Maybe… Maybe she can survive this.”
A woman behind Sofia crossed her flabby arms over her bare chest, pressing her sagging breasts flat against her belly. “Ain’t no way, Sof. Look at all the blood she’s lost.”
“Please,” Sofia begged, but then Hawkins looked up behind her and gave a quick nod.
At once, two women grabbed Sofia underneath her arms and dragged her away from Jovana’s body.
“Let me go!” Sofia shrieked.
She kicked the air, pieces of sand and seashells making their way toward Hawkins and the crowd of women.
“Don’t do it, please!” she cried.
Although I felt terrible for Sofia and knew I was supposed to hate Hawkins without even knowing her, she was doing what was necessary. That was something I admired. Had I been in her shoes, I wouldn’t have been able to do the same.
In one quick motion, and without even blinking, she sliced her shiv along Jovana’s throat. Blood came spilling out, but not as aggressively as I’d have imagined. It happened so smoothly I blinked only a few times and Jovana was dead.
Hawkins wiped her shiv against Jovana’s shirt and laid a hand over her face to close her eyelids. She bowed her head, offering a respectful moment of silence, then stood up and clicked her fingers.
“Get this cleaned up.”
CHAPTER 2
“I don’t get it,” I said, “she doesn’t seem all that bad.”
Fisher scoffed. “All that bad? She killed one of her own. Isn’t that what you told me?”
Fisher hadn’t followed me to the bloody scene, but I’d told her everything.
“She didn’t kill,” I said, “she ended her misery.”
Why was I defending Hawkins, anyways? I was supposed to hate her. Wasn’t that what Fisher taught me? That Hawkins was the reason the Cove was falling apart?
Fisher’s mouth dropped open, and she averted her gaze to Biggie, Flander, and Rocket, then back to me as if trying to put puzzle pieces together.
“I think Brone’s right,” Johnson said.
Fisher glowered at her as though ready to flatten her nose. “Nobody asked you.”
Apparently, she didn’t care what my women’s opinions were since they hadn’t spent the last few months alongside Hawkins.
Johnson looked at me as if to say, Are you going to tolerate Fisher’s attitude?
After everything Johnson had seen me accomplish over the last few months, no doubt she felt it unfathomable for anyone to talk to me so rudely. But Fisher hadn’t been part of any of that, and truthfully, Fisher would always be Fisher—she was fierce, bold, and unapologetic, and I loved her for it.
So, yes, I would tolerate her attitude.
“Bring it in!” someone shouted.
I looked up toward the shouter.
Around her, a crowd of women had gathered, their curious heads swaying back and forth. Clad in seaweed clothing and pieces of wood fastened around their wrists, shins, and on some, their chests, they appeared to be Hawkins’s women. What were they doing? Jovana’s dead body had been lying there only minutes ago.
Then, out of the water came two women pulling a giant mesh net. At first, it looked like they were dragging it through the sand by holding ropes over their shoulders, but it quickly became apparent that they’d caught something.
And it wasn’t something small, either.
“What is that?” Rocket asked, glaring out toward shore.
Fisher shrugged. “Does it matter? Not like they’re gonna share it.”
Then, I caught a glimpse of its fin. It was gray and more massive than anything I’d seen on a sea creature before. Hawkins’s women rolled it into the sand, and its white belly went faceup.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Is that a shark? Is that the shark?”
Though women circled it like a bunch of hungry pigeons, blocking my view, I caught a glimpse of it every few seconds. It was huge—at least ten or fifteen feet long. It wasn’t a great white by any means, but it was big enough to grab someone and pull them back into the water; it was big enough to tear someone’s leg off.
In its side were two long spears, wiggling from side to side as the women continued to drag the dead creature up onshore. Had they attacked it as it was attacking Jovana? They must have.
“That thing’s huge.” I angled my head toward it. “Why wouldn’t they share some of it?” I asked. “What happens if you ask? We need to eat, too. Why are they being so selfish about it?”
This time, Johnson laughed. “Wow, Brone, you’ve never been in a real prison, have you?”
I averted my gaze.
How was I supposed to answer that? Wasn’t this technically prison? Or was she referring to being behind bars?
No, I’d never been held prisoner in an actual prison, aside from the few nights I’d spent waiting to be transported here.
“Ain’t nothin’ like here,” Biggie said, plopping herself down in the sand.
It felt like the ground shook, but it most likely was a gust of wind that swept out from underneath her.
“Yeah, well,” Flander said, coming out from the cliff’s cavern. She rubbed her entire face with her forearm as if she’d recently woken up. “Call me crazy, but I’d pick this island over prison any damn day.”
“Ditto,” Johnson said.
“What’re you getting at?” I asked. “You made it sound like prison’s worse, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that the women on this island would behave better?”
Fisher let out a forced snicker. “You don’t get it, Brone. You act like you live on some paradise of an island—”
I stuck a stiff finger in her face. How dare she say that? After everything I’d seen, everything I’d done, and everything I’d suffered through. “I don’t fucking think—”
“Relax,” she breathed, patting me on the thigh. “I get it, okay? This place is a shithole. All I’m saying is you expect peace too often. We, everyone… We’re all murderers. We’re all criminals. We’re not good people, Brone. There’ll never be peace on this island. Ever. You have to stop chasing it.”
“There was when Murk was in power,” I muttered.
Everyone looked at me—half of them because they knew Murk was alive, and the others, because the sound of Murk’s name seemed to dishearten them.
They didn’t know.
Flander sat down and rested her head on Biggie’s shoulder. “Murk made things better, yeah, but she din’t get rid ’o all the hate, Brone. Women still fought. Only difference is, they didn’t get caught.”
I clenched my teeth. It didn’t make sense to me. Weren’t we all after the same thing? Survival?
Fisher let out a slow breath and ran both hands over her tightly tied hair. “People wanna be in charge. There’s always someone who needs to prove they’re bigger and badder than the next person.”
“And that’s Hawkins?” I asked, gazing out in her direction.
She was sitting on something, though it was impossible to tell what it was with all the women around her. She looked arrogant, too—legs spread wide apart, elbows on knees, and back hunched. She made jabbing motions toward the ground, and her lips kept flapping open and closed.
From here, it seemed like she was devising a plan of attack.
“What’s she doing?” I asked.
“Who knows,” Rocket said. “Probably planning to kill us.”
Fisher swung an open hand at Rocket’s shin, but Rocket jumped back and let out a chuckle.
/> “Look, guys,” I said. “We have to head back out. There are other women out there waiting for me. Quinn took them—”
“Who’s Quinn?” Fisher asked.
“A friend,” I said. My answer seemed enough for her and she didn’t interrogate me on it. “She has a lot of women… A lot of people who ran away from the Northers like we did. If we can get them here—”
“And what?” Fisher interrupted. “Stand up to Hawkins? Is that your plan? What? You want to be the top dog, Brone? You want to take over the Cove and make everything better? Create your little paradise?”
“Jesus, Fisher, relax,” I said. I wasn’t sure where all this anger was coming from, but she had no right getting upset with me—not after what I’d done. Not after I’d basically saved her life.
She clenched her fist so tight that some of her knuckles cracked.
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she growled, but I didn’t stop staring at her, and she let out a sharp sigh. “I’m sick of people dying, okay? Sick of all of this shit.”
No one spoke, and a heavy silence filled the air. As the sun came up, more and more of my women started waking from sleep. I wasn’t sure how long they’d slept, but I was certain it was longer than what they were used to. Finally, they were free; they were no longer prisoners to the Northers, which meant they didn’t have to wake up to someone yelling at them.
“Hey,” someone moaned with one eye open.
A few hellos were shared, and slowly, more and more women came out, yawning and stretching under the glow of the morning sun that crept its way up from behind the cliff. It reflected across the ocean water, creating a deep orange color across fluffy pink clouds. The ocean water turned a light purple, creating a scene that looked like cotton candy and making me want to dive right in. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the sunrise.
It was hard to imagine that only moments ago, someone’s life had been taken here.
She couldn’t see this sunrise, nor would she ever see any sunrise again, all because she’d wanted a few brief moments of privacy and pleasure with her partner. I understood now why Murk had enforced so many rules in her Village—why she’d forbidden anyone other than us, the Hunters, from venturing too far out into the jungle.
All she’d ever wanted was to protect us… to maintain a functional society with one goal in mind—our survival. Without her, women became primal, undoubtedly even more so than they’d been in the real world. There were no correctional officers, no laws, no basic human rights. In a sense, this island was a dreamland for anyone looking to commit more crime, making it dangerous without adequate order.
When Murk had been in charge, she’d made us feel like our crimes didn’t define us. The past was the past, and what mattered above all else was how willing we were to contribute to a society looking to live a peaceful life—one that was as comfortable as possible given the circumstances.
I missed those days more than anything.
Sure, maybe they weren’t perfect. I had, after all, been threatened at knifepoint and insulted time and time again by women across the Village and the Working Grounds. But at the end of the day, we had all been safe, warm, and fed.
We needed Murk.
“You ready, Brone?” came Jack’s voice.
Why was she talking to me like we were best friends? I still didn’t know how to feel about her. Had I not been so exhausted the night before, I’d probably have tried to sleep with my eyes open in fear of waking up with a knife pressed into my throat.
She was unpredictable, and it was only a matter of time before she killed someone.
For a moment, I entertained fantasies of sending her after Hawkins, but if I did that, I’d get her killed. When those thoughts didn’t sit well with me, I realized I still had a conscience. What a relief.
“Ready for what?” Fisher growled. She glared at me, then back up at Jack as if we’d spent all night conspiring against her.
“The plan,” Jack said proudly. Had she been wearing overalls, she’d likely have snapped them with her thumbs.
“What plan?” Fisher said. “Is this about that Quinn girl?”
When she clenched her fists again, I laid a gentle hand on her forearm. I knew why she was angry—she was scared. If I left again, there was no guarantee I was coming back. Here was the Fisher I’d known since I’d met her. She reacted with anger when hurt emotionally, and her personality hadn’t changed one bit since I’d last seen her.
I looked at her narrowed dark eyes, pasty white lips, high cheekbones, and defined jawline that looked even more defined now that she’d lost an unhealthy amount of weight. I couldn’t help but smile—she seemed as pissed off as she was the first day I met her. When Rocket had introduced her, she’d given me a cursory look, opened her mouth, and said, “I don’t like fishing.”
“What’s so funny?” she hissed.
Shaking my head, I said, “Nothing’s funny, Fisher. I missed you.”
Her furrowed eyebrows slowly spread apart a bit and she looked away.
“I’m coming back,” I said. “I have to. After that, I’m going after the Northers.”
The scowl on her face reappeared in one blink. “Are you fucking insane?”
“Hey,” Jack said sternly the way a father would when scolding his disobedient child. She slapped two arms over her chest and took a step toward Fisher. “Watch how you talk to her!”
It was nice to know I had someone watching my back, but at the same time, Jack’s words made me swallow harder than usual. Fisher wasn’t the type to back down from confrontation. Any moment now, things would get heated.
But instead of shouting or pointing a finger at Jack, Fisher threw her head back and let out a laugh so loud I thought maybe she’d lost her mind. Why wasn’t she flipping out? Name-calling? Telling Jack to go fuck herself?
Then, her cold glare turned on me.
“What? You’re some big shot all of a sudden, Brone? You come back here with your fucking followers… Your puppets”—she gave Jack the most hateful up-and-down look I’d ever seen—“and you think you can change this place? You think you being here is gonna make any difference whatsoever about the way Hawkins is running shit? Idiota…”
Everyone circled us as if our argument was staged for their enjoyment. Was that what they wanted? A show? Although it pissed me off that no one was minding their own business, I wouldn’t let it stop me from speaking my mind.
“It’s not like that,” I growled on the verge of yelling, but I kept my cool and told myself that Fisher was afraid and simply reacting in anger. “This isn’t a life, Fisher. I spent the last God knows how long being held against my will and forced to work every single day no matter how I was feeling. I’ve been beaten, yelled at, starved, and sleep deprived.” I waved my injured hand in front of her face, and although it was no longer broken, the skin was still discolored and I needed her to see it. “Had a bunch of my fingers broken, which was really fucking great. So no, I’m not some big shot. I only happened to have had enough of it all and managed to save some people from a shitty life. The reason I’m going to find Quinn is so we can build an army like Murk wanted—like she’d planned before all of this happened. I don’t give a shit about Hawkins, okay? If she gets in my way, she’ll be taken down.”
Her eyes grew larger as I spoke, and I didn’t blame her. Even I couldn’t recognize myself as the words came out, but I couldn’t hold them in.
“The Northers are never going to stop,” I continued. “You’re right, Fisher, we’re not good people. We’re a bunch of low-life criminals like you said. I’m not a good person. If I were, perhaps I’d have surrendered or submitted to Rainer and her people to avoid more death. To avoid all the lives that were taken when we tried to run the first time. Maybe I wouldn’t fight. I wouldn’t want violence. That’s what a good person would do, right? I’m sorry, but fuck that.” I wiped my lips when saliva came spraying out. “This is the only life we have, and no mat
ter how crappy it is, it’s still a life. I sure as hell am not going to sit around and let some monsters ruin it for all of us.”
Fisher’s lips trembled. Arching a brow, she said, “Maybe they won’t find us—”
I cut her off before giving her the chance to embarrass herself. “Are you kidding me? They’ll never stop. They burned our goddamn Village to the ground, Fisher. You know that. You know how the Northers are.”
The women behind me cheered, and although they couldn’t have known what I was talking about, given most had been imprisoned by the Northers far longer than I was, they clearly wanted revenge as much as I did.
“It’s easy,” I said, jabbing my finger in the sand at my feet. “We get more numbers, we train, and we attack.”
“So more blood,” Fisher said plainly.
“Some blood now to prevent more blood later, yeah.”
She shook her head and scratched hard at her eyebrow, evidently agreeing with everything I’d said but not wanting to admit it. “What happened to you?”
“Do you want Murk back, or not?”
“Murk?” she breathed.
“Yeah, she’s alive. They have her tied up at the back of their city, and they let her hang there by her wrists. There are other women, too… some of our own. They’re caged like a bunch of animals, Fisher. I can’t sit around here and let—”
“I’m coming with you,” Fisher said, and I shut my mouth.
It was as if I’d traveled back in time to when Fisher was filled with rage and an incessant desire to knock someone’s teeth in. With shoulders drawn back, she leaned forward and balled a fist in the air as if to say, You’re right, let’s do this.
I nearly smiled, but then Aisha appeared, brows furrowed and lips forming a flat line above her small pointed chin.
The woman looked to be in her early twenties with muscles so lean it made her skin seem as soft as silk. I wasn’t sure how she’d managed to maintain such a physique, being enslaved by the Beasts and all, but she’d succeeded in staying in shape. She could have been one of the women who jogged around the city every morning. They did it before anyone woke up and ran so often that they’d flattened the earth down to form a track around the tents.
