by Shade Owens
“A raft?”
Sticking my head out over the ledge, I noticed Ellie hadn’t plunged herself into the water. Instead, she stood on a solid-looking raft with a paddle in her grip.
“You coming, or what?”
I nearly started ranting about how ridiculous this was, and how I had no interest in being taken down a poorly lit cave over dark water that looked like oil spilling through the cracks of her raft. But then, instead of looking at the water and instead of focusing on my fear of it, I stared at Ellie.
There was something so calming about her chocolate-colored eyes. She looked back at me, and without saying a word, tilted her head sideways as if to say, Come on, Brone. I want to share something special with you. I wouldn’t put you in harm’s way.
Swallowing my childish fear, I sat down and slid my butt close to the edge. She reached a firm arm out to help me down, and I instinctively let out a grunt when my bare toes touched the water.
“You’re okay,” she said, planting a firm kiss on my neck. “I’ve got you.”
Despite the cool air around me, I immediately felt warm. How was it that I, fearless Hunter and savior to hundreds of women, cowered in the darkness? I felt stupid not only for being so anxious but also for having Ellie comfort me. I was supposed to be the one who protected her, wasn’t I?
I let out a long breath, safe in her arms.
“You don’t have to be so badass all the time,” she said as if having entered my mind. “Remember when you first landed here? You were such a helpless little girl.”
“I wasn’t a little girl,” I said, but I let out a soft laugh. She was right, though I didn’t want to admit it.
I’d been terrified beyond belief, weak, and vulnerable in every sense of the word. Although I wasn’t Lydia anymore, I was still human—having doubts and fears were part of the package.
When her warm fingers came slipping through the cracks of mine, I softened even. She offered one last smile, and said, “Hang on,” before grabbing the paddle and dipping it into the water.
It disappeared entirely from sight, and she pulled back, causing the raft to shift and float away from the safety of the platform I’d been standing on only seconds ago. The thought of jumping back to the platform became appealing, but instead, I focused on the hot skin of my fingers where she’d held on, and my nerves relaxed.
I could do this.
It wasn’t that big of a deal.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
I did the exact opposite and bulged them out at her. Was she insane?
She chuckled. “Close your eyes.”
Inhaling a lungful of air, I carefully knelt on the platform, wetting my knees and shins, but I didn’t care. I preferred not to be standing if I was going to become temporarily blind.
“Okay,” I said, sealing them shut and planting both hands on the raft’s wood for additional support.
She continued to paddle through the cave’s water, one gentle stride at a time. Though it may have lasted all of two minutes, it seemed like an hour thanks to my overly imaginative brain picturing crocodiles circling the raft, the lumps on their heads and backs blending with the black water beneath us.
But then, behind closed eyelids, I saw light. At first, the skin of my lids appeared blue, then yellow, until I couldn’t contain my curiosity. I shot my eyes open and stopped breathing.
The water, a rich turquoise-colored pool, took on the shape of a giant egg through the open space. Above us sat a large opening through which hundreds of vines decorated the hole’s border and descended down its walls. They reached so far down that most of the limestone remained hidden behind thick greenery. I craned my neck even farther, spotting the bright blue sky. The sunlight beamed down through the opening, creating a yellow cylinder of brightness. It poured through the inside of the cave and all the way into the bottom of the water.
I stared, mesmerized by the sun’s effect at the center of the pool; the water, a vivid green color, was like a sheet of crystal—blue and turquoise lines waved the surface, making me want to plunge right in.
“You can open your eyes,” she said, staring at me with a grin on her face.
I parted my lips, but nothing came out.
For the first time in a long time, I was at peace. It was as if nothing beyond this miracle of a cave mattered—not the Northers, not Hawkins, nothing.
Then, without saying a word, Ellie slipped off her top, revealing perfectly shaped breasts and a flat stomach, across which ran a straight line between her abdominal muscles.
When she caught me staring, I averted my gaze, embarrassed for having looked in the first place.
“It’s just skin,” she said, slipping her bottoms off.
I cleared my throat and continued to stare at the water.
Suddenly, the raft shifted and water splashed on my face. I swung both arms in the air to maintain my balance before Ellie resurfaced, her dark wavy hair sticking to her bare shoulders. She blinked, spat out a mouthful of water, and smacked her lips together.
“You coming, or what?”
Without giving it too much though, I took off my clothes and dived in headfirst, the water so smooth it felt like therapeutic oil sliding on my skin. She spat out another mouthful, this time, directly at me.
“Hey!” I said.
“Hey, yourself.”
I’d been about to scoop up water in my mouth to give her a taste of her own medicine when she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward her. The water between us parted as if by magic, and she pressed her body against mine.
She felt like silk—warm, freshly cleaned silk so soft I stopped treading water.
“Whoa,” she said, catching me before my head dipped underwater.
She kicked harder to keep us both afloat until I started treading again, my thighs gliding against hers as we moved almost choreographically.
“Thanks for saving my life,” she said, her breath perfume inside my nostrils.
“No problem, but you owe me,” I said, and before she had the time to laugh at my response, I pulled her in even tighter against my body and kissed her hard.
CHAPTER 5
“Get the fuck up!” someone shouted from the other end of the Cove, making me wish I’d stayed a bit longer inside the sea cave with Ellie.
After the moment I’d shared with Ellie, all I wanted to do was sit by her side and bask in the warmth of the afternoon sun like a lustful character out of a cheesy romance story.
Women scrambled from left to right as two from Hawkins’s group came marching through a crowd. It was easy to tell they were her people: shoulders drawn back with pride, hunting spears strapped to their backs, and wooden plates worn around their wrists and shins. The sight was enough to make me roll my eyes.
These two, unlike Hawkins, weren’t wearing a chest plate. Assumedly, those were reserved for Hawkins and a few of her elites only.
“What’re you doing?” someone shouted.
“Lacy here lost her necklace,” said the thicker of the two, sticking a thumb out at her sidekick. She leaned forward and glowered at the woman who’d confronted her. “That means one of you bitches stole it.”
Were these bullies Murk’s women? If so, how’d they turn out so awful? Murk had always encouraged peace and collaboration. I supposed it was like a teenager turning to drugs and cigarettes despite their parents being overly kind, honest, religious folk.
The two bullies towered over their victims—three young Caucasian women sitting in a circle, sewing cotton or hemp together to form clothing and blankets. They kicked sand into the air and raised threatening fists, while the three women lifted their arms above their heads, trying to dodge any physical violence.
“We didn’t take anything!” the youngest looking of the three shouted. She raised her hands even higher, prepared to take a blow for having talked back to Hawkins’s women.
The thicker and more aggressive of the two bullies didn’t seem to care what this woman had to say. She ignored her and s
tarted rummaging through crates made of thin wood and piles of freshly sewn blankets.
A loud cracking noise filled the air when she kicked two crates, sending them flying through the air and against the hard surface of the cliff’s rocky wall.
“Hey!”
“Stop it!”
When the bullies realized they weren’t finding what they were looking for, they went on to the next group of nearby women—six Asian women of different ages gathered in a circle, heads bowed, backs rounded, and brows furrowed in concentration. At first glance, it appeared they were playing with their own fingers, but then one of them reached into a wooden crate beside her thigh, extracted dry leaves, then opened a small sachet. Were they making tea bags?
The thick bully came in without warning and kicked her booted foot straight at the crate full of loose tea. It rolled several times, and dry leaves flew everywhere, landing sporadically in the sand.
“The fuck!” said one of the Asian women. She hopped to her feet, her stick legs looking like nothing more than toothpicks under her waist. Though she was incredibly small, she didn’t seem intimidated by the bully.
The women sitting directly next to her, however, continued sprinkling tea leaves into a sachet, clearly wanting nothing to do with the altercation. She appeared older than the rest of them, perhaps in her late sixties, and it appeared she was the one teaching everyone else how to bag tea.
“Sit down,” snarled the bully. She shoved the confrontational Asian woman so hard she fell back onto her friends and onto the elderly woman who squinted so hard in pain, her eyes seemed to disappear from her face.
I couldn’t sit around and watch this. Why wasn’t anyone else doing something? Dozens upon dozens of women stared silently from their posts like a bunch of spineless cowards.
Fisher placed a firm hand on my knee. Most likely she’d felt me tense up. “Don’t. It isn’t your business.”
“You’re gonna let them do whatever they want?” I asked. “They’re bullies.”
Biggie leaned back against the cliff wall and several pieces of rebel rolled off her shoulder. “Yeah, Brone. Better get used to it. They’re always like that.”
Was I in some sort of twilight zone? The idea that people could go around hurting others without any form of consequence was absurd. Weren’t the women of the Cove growing tired of being treated like second-class citizens? No one deserved to be treated like an inferior being—not even these criminals.
They were always like that, I repeated in my mind. That wasn’t a reason to allow it to continue. Could I be the one to put an end to it, or was I delusional? Probably delusional.
Escaping the Northers was likely getting to my head. I’d done something no one had managed to do in years, if at all.
Did that make me special? In a sense it did, though at the same time, it didn’t. I wasn’t invincible; it was only a matter of time before my luck ran out.
But I realized something else: had I been complacent when enslaved by the Northers, I wouldn’t have ended up here at the Cove. Despite everything telling me to shut my mouth and keep my head low, I hadn’t been able to sit around and do nothing.
Though I fought with myself to dismiss the subtle arrogance growing within me, I couldn’t help but feel stronger and more capable than several of these women combined.
I talked back to Zsasz even though I knew it could have gotten me killed.
I didn’t bow when Rainer stepped out into the city.
I somehow got out of a death battle more than once.
I was stronger than I gave myself credit for, and if I didn’t use this strength, then I was no better than all these women staring mindlessly at the altercation before them.
As I glared toward the Hawkins women, I wanted nothing more than to launch two arrows into their chests. It was nothing more than a hateful fantasy. In reality, I’d never do that. I wasn’t like Hawkins, a cold-blooded murderer. I’d do what I had to protect myself and my friends, but I wouldn’t take someone’s life simply because of interpersonal conflict.
Shoving Fisher’s hand off my knee, I jumped up, my toes sliding in the cool sand.
“Brone?” came Ellie’s voice. She was emerging from the sea cave, a crate of freshly cut fruit in her arms.
I glanced back at her as sweetly as possible. She hated it when I put myself in danger, but I’d be fine. I bent down and plucked my bow and quiver full of arrows out from underneath Johnson’s legs. She tried to say something along the lines of “What’re you doing?” but I didn’t stick around long enough to hear the full sentence.
Voices erupted around me—from the shoreline, by the cliff wall, and from the center of the Cove, where handfuls of women continued to sit in the sand, working with building material and attempting to crack nuts.
The two bullies went on to make their way to the next group—eight black women, most with hair as poufy as their heads and bodies of different shapes, sizes, and skin tones. One of them was nearly as large as Biggie, and the smallest of them even shorter than Rocket. It looked like they were carving fishing spears, though I couldn’t be sure. The moment they saw Hawkins’s women approach, they tapped each other’s shoulders and pointed in their direction.
“Look who’s comin’,” one of them said.
All at once, the eight women got up so slowly they looked irritated at being forced to stand their ground. Shoulders drawn back, they faced their bullies.
“What’s this bullshit about Lacy losin’ somethin’?” asked the woman standing in the middle. Her skin was as black as night, and it glistened under the sun like dark-stained wood coated with a high-gloss finish.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” said the smaller of Hawkins’s women. She hadn’t said a word up until then, and it was apparent that she was at least as feisty as her thicker counterpart. She reminded me of a neo-Nazi: her head was shaved, and though I couldn’t know for sure, something about her arrogant stance and condescending scowl made her look racist. She stared at the group of black women as if they were nothing more than fish carcasses left to rot on the shore.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, finally reaching the crowd.
The black woman at the farthest right of the group—the one I was now standing directly beside—examined me closely and sucked on her upper teeth. “What you want, white girl?”
“White girl?” I said, fighting the urge to get defensive. “I’m on your side.”
“Yo, fuck off,” said another woman.
What was going on? I was trying to help, and now, they were turning against me.
“Think you can come here with all your white bitches and take over? That it?” asked the tallest of the group. She stomped toward me, and I suddenly wished I had Biggie by my side.
Why was there so much racism at the Cove? How had this happened? How had all these women turned on each other because of something like skin color? It was so archaic, and there was no need for it. God, I missed Murk. She hadn’t tolerated racial segregation.
“Look,” I said, sticking to open palms on either side of my face. “I thought you guys were in trouble, and I was coming to help. That’s it.”
One of them made her eyes go huge and swayed her head from side to side. “Does it look like we need your help?”
“I’m not saying you do—” I tried.
“So mind your own fuckin’ business,” growled another.
What the hell was this? They were all turning on me, and Hawkins’s women stood behind them, smirking smugly.
“All right,” I said, and although I should have turned around and walked away without saying a word, I was too angry to keep my mouth shut. “Be a bunch of fucking animals for all I care. People like you are the reason this place is so goddamn miserable. We’ll never survive like this.”
I swung around and started marching back, fuming inside.
Who did they think they were? God, I hated women like that. Why couldn’t they be civilized?
“People
like you?” came a slow, calculated voice—I couldn’t see who’d spoken, but if I’d had to guess what sort of face she was making, it would have been one with a forehead full of frown rolls, narrow eyes, and lips curled up as if preparing to let out a snarl.
Shit.
I hadn’t meant it as a racist comment, but I realized then how it could be perceived. Before I could turn around to apologize and explain myself, something hard knocked me in the side of the head. I fell to the sand, my ears ringing, and when I looked up, a dark foot came straight at my face.
Something cracked, and my vision went blurry. Fortunately, the sand provided some cushion to the back of my head, but my face hadn’t been so lucky.
“Hey!” someone shouted in the distance.
Someone kicked me in the stomach, knocking the wind right out of me.
“Hey!” the voice shouted again.
This time, several voices joined in, and the sound of footsteps began storming across the shore. I rolled to my side, away from my attacker, and the first face I saw was Jack’s. She came running at full speed with a huge rock in her right hand. Her short, gray-striped hair went flat on her head as she ran through the wind, and her rotten teeth were like century-old river stones covered in moss.
“Fucking bitches!” she shouted, sand kicking up higher than her scabby knees.
Behind her, dozens of women came stampeding along with her like Romans in an ancient war, but they weren’t the ones who scared me; Jack was. Her lumpy brows and demonic features made it seem as though she was ready to smash in as many heads as necessary to protect me.
CHAPTER 6
Bone colliding with bone—a sound I’d become all too familiar with—resonated around me. I couldn’t tell where the blows were coming from. Closed fists flew and neither side was backing down.
“You motherfucker!” came Jack’s voice.
I rolled sideways once more, grains of sand sticking to the inside of my bottom lip, and got up with a grunt. The taste of blood lingered in my mouth, though I couldn’t determine the source of it. I licked the smooth inside of my cheeks, my teeth, and even the roof of my mouth. The pain followed with every movement I made, which meant I’d bitten my tongue on my way down.
