by Shade Owens
Then, something remarkable happened.
Hawkins’s women, the ones wearing wooden plates and seaweed accessories, and with no hair on their heads, turned toward my people and expressed something I’d have never expected from them—empathy. Saddened grimaces and confused frowns scattered throughout the crowd.
Had they not been told about the prisoners? Or, had they chosen to ignore it?
“These women have been held captive by our enemies for weeks, months, and for some, even years,” I said.
The prisoners, including Jack, bowed their heads and stared into the frothy water.
I let out a long sigh. “And they’re still here, standing stronger together as a people despite the torture they’ve endured.”
It was all sinking in—I could see it in their eyes. Women began embracing one another, shaking hands, and introducing themselves to those they didn’t know. Like thick morning fog gradually lifting, all of the hatred that had once lingered over the Cove washed away.
“I’m sorry,” some women said, while others nodded and offered shoulder pats.
Little by little, I turned sideways to catch a glimpse of Hawkins at the other end of the Cove. She stood tall, knife in hand, and without any reaction at all, turned away into all that remained of her tent—a few sheets of soaked cloth drooping from soggy, cracked wood.
It didn’t matter that she wanted me dead, or that she’d threatened to hurt Ellie.
Now, we outnumbered her.
All I could hope for was that this feeling wouldn’t wear off—that women wouldn’t return to their old ways after the high tapered off. I’d simply have to act fast and find ways to integrate our people.
“We have plenty of shelter,” I said, pointing at the cave. “You’re all welcome to sleep inside. Coin here”—I pointed at her—“is one hell of a Builder. She can make us all kinds of beds and equipment to make our lives easier.”
A thin, scrawny-looking woman with large elbows, ball-like knees, and a shaved head stepped forward. “I used to be a Builder too. I can help.”
“Me too.”
“I can make clothing.”
“I used to be in charge of the water station.”
“Murk assigned me as a Battlewoman. I’m happy to train others.”
One by one, more women began stepping forward, announcing the skills they’d developed under Murk’s reign.
One older woman with salt and pepper hair and rounded shoulders, raised a trembling hand and everyone fell silent. “I used to make clothing,” she said almost pleading, “but I’ve always wanted to cook.”
She looked beaten and frightened as if voicing her opinion might get her banished from our society. The women around her, too, fell silent, their expectant gazes fixated on me.
This was it.
This was my moment to prove myself a worthy leader. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I’d ended up in this position, but something within me told me I was on the right path.
I could make a real difference on this island.
Murk had seen something in me, and for the first time, I truly felt it.
“As long as we have equal coverage in all areas,” I said, “I think you should do whatever makes you happiest.”
Everyone’s lips parted at the same time, without a doubt in disbelief that I would make such a rule. When Murk had been in charge, everyone had been assigned a specific task. Now, I was allowing women to choose their own work.
Didn’t that make more sense? Why force someone to do something they didn’t enjoy? The key to getting everyone working together was to have them be content with their daily lives.
Then, a short woman—short being an understatement—stepped forward, eyes darting from side to side. Her head reached Rocket’s chest, and if it weren’t for the wrinkles around her eyes, I’d have thought her to be a child.
“I-I can be a Battlewoman?” she asked.
Though her build wasn’t ideal for a Battlewoman, it was what she wanted. How could I deny her what she wanted?
“Of course,” I said.
She punched two fists into the air. “Yes!”
Had I been standing closer, she’d have probably thrown her arms around my waist.
As women grinned from ear to ear, their faces glistening from the ocean’s mist, I couldn’t help but wonder: was I making the right move? Was this what it felt like to be in charge? Was I going to keep doubting every decision I made?
Was this how all leaders felt? Uncertain?
Although I didn’t enjoy feeling doubtful all the time, I’d gotten this far by making decisions based on what I felt was right. Had they been the right decisions? I’d never know, but they’d led me to where I was… alive.
That meant the best way to survive Kormace Island was to rely on my instincts.
And right then, my gut assured me that so long as I maintained a certain level of happiness among these women, not only could we work together to achieve anything—they would follow me into battle if necessary.
CHAPTER 12
Ellie stared at me, then focused her attention on the yellow, black-spotted gecko scurrying across the rocks in the sand.
If only my life were that simple, I thought, watching it slip in and out of small cracks.
Food.
Sleep.
Survival.
Without the Northers and without Hawkins, my life would have been that simple—well, for the most part.
“It’ll be fine,” I reassured her. “Jack already has a dozen women willing to watch over you.”
Ellie scoffed and ran her hands up and down the skin of her unshaven legs. “I don’t want bodyguards, Brone. I don’t see why Hawkins would still come after me after losing that many women.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “She probably wants to even more now. She’s crazy, Ellie, and I pissed her off. I don’t care to be threatened… I’m used to it, and she knows it. But to have her threaten you? I won’t stand for it.”
I hadn’t wanted to tell Ellie about Hawkins’s threats, but it was necessary to warn her. It also seemed only reasonable to explain to her why Jack and a handful of women would be watching her for the next little while.
“All clear,” came Jack’s voice.
I smirked up at Jack, appreciative of her willingness to protect Ellie, even though she acted like an overachieving, straight A student. Ellie and I sat beneath the cave’s rock shelter, while Hawkins had refused to come out of her broken tent.
We weren’t in any danger, but Jack insisted on providing a status update roughly every half hour.
“Why didn’t we run?” Ellie asked. “Isn’t that what you said Fisher suggested?”
I nodded, gazing at the countless women splashing water at each other where the whale had been several hours ago. They were still celebrating.
Farther away from the crowd, Tegan sat in the water, froth pooling around her shoulders. Her matted brown hair resembled an abandoned broom head, and she observed the horizon as if patiently waiting for the sun to come down.
What was she doing?
“Brone?” Ellie asked.
I shook my head. “How were we supposed to run, Ellie? We have a few rafts to get around the Cove and back onto dry land. It wouldn’t have been possible. At least not without Hawkins deciding to attack us. To be honest, I didn’t plan for any of this. And Fisher and I talked before this whole thing happened with the whale.” I rubbed my fingers through my hair but pulled them out when they got stuck in a bunch of knots. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ellie rubbed my back as if trying to warm my skin through friction—small, rapid swirls against my shirt. “You always manage to do the right thing,” she said. “Even when you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll figure this out.”
At this, I smiled. It was a comforting thought to know that Ellie believed me to be a capable leader.
“I think we should drown Hawkins out,” I said.
Ellie pulled her hand
away, staring at me as if I were a serial killer.
“Drown her out,” I repeated, laughing. “Not drown her.”
“Oh,” Ellie said, letting out a long sigh.
“If we can get more and more of her women to switch sides, she’ll slowly become irrelevant.”
“And you think she’ll be okay with that?” Ellie asked. “You don’t think she’ll try to come after you?”
I smirked, even though nothing about the situation was funny. “She’ll try. But we already outnumber her. What’s she gonna do?”
Ellie didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled her long brown hair over one shoulder, twirled it, and dipped its ends into the sand as if trying to paint a masterpiece. I couldn’t believe how long it had grown. Elektra had asked her—while jumping up and down with a small blade—to cut it for her. Anyone who’d seen Elektra’s work knew to refuse the offer, which was what Ellie had done—but in a sweet and loving kind of way.
When the silence grew heavy, I wrapped an arm around Ellie’s shoulder and she rested her head on mine. I wasn’t about to stress her out by revealing my long-term plan.
The truth was, she wasn’t ready to hear it.
And despite my uncertainty about trivial decisions, one thing was certain—I still wanted Rainer and the Northers dead, and I wasn’t about to let go of that plan.
But at that moment, all that mattered was the warmth of our bodies.
Plans could be made later.
I breathed in the scent of coconut and lavender, thankful that Tegan was back to her old soap-and-lotion-making ways. And as I sat there, holding Ellie close to me, I couldn’t help but wonder what Tegan was thinking.
Why wasn’t she moving? The sun was beginning to set, and a cool breeze swept across the shore. Most women had stepped out of the water and were gathering around a fast-growing fire. Rocket, Elektra, and the Hunters dropped a net of freshly caught fish into the sand, and women circled them within moments.
“Let’s cook ’em up!” someone shouted.
Tegan, however, didn’t even turn her head sideways to observe the celebration. Instead, she sat still like a clay statue, the setting sun casting a deep orange glow on her back.
I kissed Ellie on the forehead and gradually released my grip around her shoulder.
“Where’re you going?” she asked.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Promise.”
I walked across the shore, my toes kicking globs of wet sand into the air. Bit by bit, the Cove was returning to normal. It would, however, be a matter of days, maybe even weeks, before everything returned to the way it was before.
Coin had already begun rebuilding the shelters destroyed by the storm. As I walked toward Tegan, the clapping of her stone hammer echoed behind me. She’d been going at it for hours, and surely, she’d start again first thing in the morning.
“Hey,” I said, reaching Tegan’s side.
White foamy water swished past my ankles, then slipped up my calves and onto my knees as I made my way deeper into the water. Although crystal clear most of the time, it was now darkening to a teal blue.
When she didn’t turn around or even glance sideways at me, I reached a hand out. “You okay?”
She flinched, and then, as if coming to, looked up at me with wild, frightened eyes.
“Hey,” I repeated, “it’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
She searched the ocean, then turned sideways and stared at the women dancing around the fire. Biggie held a torch in her hand, and she pumped it up and down as if trying to punch the sky. Light speckles of sand stuck to her bare feet and ankles looking like white in contrast with her skin. Hammer, too, seemed to be enjoying herself—she twirled in circles with her mouth wide open. I couldn’t tell whether or not she was signing; everyone was making so much noise as it was.
Then, Johnson came walking out of the rock shelter with a skull-shaped bowl in her hands. She carried it as if attempting to protect liquid gold, and still, droplets spilled on either side. What was it? Moonshine? Women on the island seemed to enjoy making their own alcohol.
Proxy was nowhere to be seen, no doubt steering away from the party crowd. Had there been a library on this island, she’d have been the type of person to stick her nose into a book and disappear from reality. And Rocket… Where was she? At once, I caught a glimpse of her tiny frame standing next to Elektra. She slouched forward and plucked a fish from the net and Elektra clapped. Then, Rocket handed her a knife and Elektra, as if having done this countless times before, gutted the flapping fish in one slice.
I was about to turn my attention back to Tegan when I caught Fisher staring at me. She sat in her usual spot right by the rock shelter in the sand. A somber groove in the wall usually shaded her during the day. She rested her head back as she did every day and laid a hand over her bare, scarred leg that reminded me of Sumi’s face.
Poor Fisher, I thought.
She’d lost everything.
Her sister, her lover… Then Trim, her best friend, and even Murk, the only leader she’d ever known.
I hoped she wouldn’t do anything drastic. It wouldn’t have been the first time a woman committed suicide on Kormace Island. In fact, as Rocket had once told me, suicide rates had increased so alarmingly fast at one point that Murk had assigned Night Watchers to scan the Village tents every night.
I couldn’t lose Fisher. She needed a purpose… Something worth fighting for.
“It’s so beautiful,” Tegan said, breaking the silence.
I looked down to catch her gazing up at the stars.
Craning my neck back, I observed the thousands of stars floating in the indigo sky.
“You should get out of the water,” I said, remembering everyone’s warnings about being in the water early mornings and late evenings.
She sighed and tried to get up, but seemed to be having difficulty.
The whale, I thought.
“Tegan, are you hurt?”
She shook her head and extended an arm up at me as if to say, No, just help me up.
Grabbing her arm, I pulled her to her feet and quickly scanned her body for blood. There was no injury, but even if there had been, I wouldn’t have seen it. Her clothes, typically thick and loose, were now wet and sticky. They clung to her skin like latex gloves around a hand, revealing every bulge and every protruding bone in her skeletal body.
I blinked once, twice, three times, wondering if maybe the darkness of the setting sun was causing me to hallucinate.
How was this possible?
It couldn’t be.
She stretched her back and rested a hand on her protruding belly that stuck out like a basketball under a blanket.
“You’re… pregnant,” I breathed.
EPISODE FOURTEEN
PROLOGUE
“Let me go!” I tried to shout, but with the piece of cloth shoved in my mouth, my voice didn’t carry all that far.
What was going on? What were they doing?
“Shut the fuck up,” came Collins’s voice.
God, I hated her. Why was she here? Had Hawkins sent for me? And how was this even happening? I’d specifically assigned Night Watchers to guard the cave against Hawkins and her women. While I brushed past my guards, kicking and grunting, I realized they were as helpless as I; behind them, women with fierce scowls pointed blades at their throats and smiled at me as I passed.
My captors dragged me through the sand under the moonlight’s glow. Despite my rough jerking to free myself, no one came to my rescue. Everyone was asleep, and the few who were awake to witness my kidnapping didn’t dare stand up to Hawkins’s women.
Ever since I’d stolen women out from under Hawkins’s nose, the few who remained loyal to her trained for battle every single day. When they weren’t fighting each other, they were busy carving blades and making arrows, while everyone else was afraid of them. It was as if they were preparing to kill those who’d betrayed Hawkins and come over to my side.
When we reached
Hawkins’s corner of the Cove at last, my captors threw me into the sand. With wrists tied behind my back, I fell flat on my face and winced when grains of sand scraped against my teeth. I blinked hard to clear my sight.
Was this it? Was I about to be killed?
Hawkins had threatened it, and she didn’t seem like the type to make empty threats.
Collins tore the cloth out of my mouth at once and pulled me back up onto my feet. I coughed, and although I wanted to rub my eyes, I couldn’t.
“Get in there,” she growled, shoving me through a wood frame opening.
In the recent past, the shabby tent, which had hung on by barely a thread, had been reinforced with solid wooden beams. I hadn’t seen who’d done the work, but it was obvious they knew what they were doing. The opening led inside a small shack that looked several years old—no doubt the result of the aged, cracking wood their Builder had used—and inside, small torches lit up the room so bright the wood of the walls looked orange.
Hawkins sat on a three-legged stool at the center of the shack, her back rounded, legs spread apart, and elbows resting on her knees. What caught my attention, however, was the knife she was holding. She played with it, poking each one of her fingers on its tip, before looking up at me and grinning—a rotten grin I hoped would soon disappear.
“Brone, there you are!” she said.
Collins elbowed me in the back, and I fell to my knees.
“What the hell’s going on?” I growled.
And why did Hawkins sound so cheerful? She was acting as if nothing had happened between us—as if I hadn’t stolen some of her followers and begun my own society at the Cove.
She smirked and cocked an eyebrow at Collins, no doubt her way of saying, Get out of here. Collins did as she was told, ducked under a hanging piece of cloth, and disappeared from sight. Silence filled the air; the lone sound remaining was a persistent creak coming from Hawkins’s stool every time she shifted her weight.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” I said, “but I can guarantee you you’ll pay for whatever it is.”
