The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

  CHAPTER 5

  “Shut up,” Collins hissed, but she retreated as soon as Hawkins gave her a narrow-eyed heinous look that translated to, Learn your place or I’ll teach it to ya.

  But the panic in Collins’s voice, despite Hawkins’s disapproval of the order, was enough to make everyone stop talking and stand still.

  “What?” mouthed the woman beside her.

  Hawkins, standing as stiff as a statue with her wooden armor plates and hand-carved sword, stepped toward the thick array of leaves and slid her fingers along the longest one. The sound of her steps, crackling jungle vegetation, were masked by overhead leaves shaking about—no doubt young curious monkeys hanging around to catch a glimpse of the human species.

  “What is it—” one woman tried.

  But Hawkins raised a tight fist and it was enough to cut the woman off. Slowly, she pulled on the leaf until a large gap appeared, revealing three women surrounding what appeared to be a carcass. They hunched over it like cavewomen, their backs round and their elbows sticking out.

  What were they doing?

  Their hair, matted messes atop their heads, resembled something out of a hamster’s cage with pieces of wood, leaves, and dirt filling the empty spaces. The one nearest us was hunched so far forward that the spine of her back formed little spikes.

  Ogres.

  “Arki anool,” one of them said, and the other two popped their heads up like terrified squirrels.

  Hawkins released the leaf and pulled back. “What the fuck is that?”

  Her question was directed at me.

  “Ogres,” I said.

  She smirked, seemingly on the verge of laughing as if the term Ogre were the dumbest thing she’d ever heard, but instead shook her head and said, “Of course. Ogres. Right.” Then, she focused her attention on all of her women and made her eyes go large. “Well? The fuck are you waiting for? Go kill them and take whatever they have.”

  Instinctively, I stepped forward, but Hawkins’s knife poked me in the throat. “Don’t try to be a hero, Brone.”

  Why was I trying to protect Ogres, anyways? They weren’t worth saving. But, at the same time, it didn’t feel right to attack someone from behind—especially not people who weren’t bothering anyone. They were eating. What was the point in killing them?

  Out of nowhere, growling and shouting filled the air behind Hawkins, and she smiled at me. Although I couldn’t see what was going on behind the leaves, the sound of stone penetrating flesh and blood splattering was enough to paint a vivid picture of it all.

  As the rustling and hitting slowed, Hawkins jerked her head sideways as a way of saying, All right, let’s go.

  She pushed her way through the leaves, and I followed.

  Collins, her fists balled on either side of her reddened face, was still smashing her foot down on one of them. The Ogre’s head bounced up and down against the jungle floor, her eyes remaining open. It was clear she was dead, but Collins seemed to enjoy the beating.

  When the Ogre’s jaw unhinged with a loud snap and blood pooled out of her mouth, Collins laughed and struck down one last time.

  What the fuck was wrong with her?

  Clenching my teeth, I envisioned drawing an arrow and shooting her right through the throat.

  “If looks could kill, Brone…” Hawkins said playfully, wiggling a finger in front of my face. “All right, Collins, that’s enough. Anything good around here?” She walked around the bodies, crouching every few steps to loot them.

  She raised what appeared to be a weapon similar to knuckle dusters but constructed of sharpened bone. She nodded slowly, an amused pout on her face. “Not bad, not bad…”

  It slipped nicely over her fingers, and four sharp spikes protruded from it.

  At the same time, Collins jumped up with a short, handheld spear. Its tip, dark stone with a gooey black substance, looked sharper than broken glass. A worn rope fastened the stone to a crooked wooden handle that appeared easy enough to grip. “Check this out!”

  “Whoa, what’s that?” someone asked.

  Watching them made me sick to my stomach. They were acting like entitled brats tearing through gifts on Christmas morning.

  “Give me that!” shouted the woman standing next to Collins.

  “Fuck off, Stash! This one’s mine!” Collins snapped.

  “I had it first!” Stash said. “You fuckin’ stole it from me!”

  Stash—a heavyset woman with bumpy, acne-scarred skin and a poker game tattoo fading on her shoulder—grabbed for the weird Ogre stick, but Collins pulled away. At the same time, Stash let out a yelp and pulled her hand back.

  “You cut me!” Stash said, blood now spilling out over her large breasts.

  Hawkins, who was in the middle of tearing a necklace off one of the Ogre’s necks, rolled her eyes and let out an exaggerated breath. “Would you two cut it out? God.” She turned to me, and with a stupid, out-of-place smile on her face, added, “Are there any babysitters on this island?”

  Was she trying to be funny? Without saying anything, I ignored her and looked at BluJay, who wasn’t participating in any of the lootings. Instead, she fidgeted at a rapid pace, playing with the tips of her fingers.

  I wanted to say something to her, but I didn’t know what—maybe something along the lines of, It’s going to be okay, or, I’ll get you out of this, promise. But I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “What’s going on?”

  Hawkins jolted upright and rushed to Stash, whose face, now a deep purple, had swollen to twice its size. She clawed at her own neck, leaving red and white scratch lines. It was as if she were trying to pry apart her jaw to catch some air.

  Hawkins reached for her wrist and opened her hand—Stash’s palm was swollen and blistered as if it had been soaked in a bucket of boiling water. The stab wound, a gooey black line, sat right underneath her fingers. Perhaps she’d accidentally stabbed her palm right into the tip of Collins’s Ogre stick.

  “Put that thing down,” Hawkins growled, glaring back at Collins.

  Without arguing, Collins dropped the Ogre stick into the leaves and stepped away from it as if it were a grenade.

  “It’s poison,” Hawkins said. “Shhh, it’s okay.” She rubbed Stash’s face, which didn’t even look like a face anymore, then gently brushed her bald head with her fingernails. “It’s okay.”

  I’d never seen this side of Hawkins before—she was actually being nurturing. Did this mean she had feelings?

  Stash started convulsing with froth foaming at her lips, and the entire time, Hawkins held her down, reassuring her that everything was going to be fine.

  Finally, Stash kicked one last time before her eyes glazed over—a look I’d become all too familiar with. Sighing, Hawkins bowed her head, kissed Stash on the forehead, and with two fingers, closed her eyelids.

  “Hawk, I didn’t mean to… I… I had no idea—”

  Little by little, Hawkins’s cloudy gray eyes rolled up toward Collins. I swallowed hard for Collins’s sake—any second now, Hawkins would lunge at her and slit her throat or snap her neck.

  “Hawk… I swear, I didn’t mean—”

  Hawkins stood up, her clothing and wooden armor chafing against her thighs. Without a word, she stomped past Collins, raising her knees to waist level to get over a fallen tree branch.

  No one moved. Instead, we all stood staring at each other like classroom children following a teacher’s explosive outburst. It was awkward and uncomfortable.

  Before disappearing too far, Hawkins turned around and shouted, “Collins, make yourself useful and find me that poison stick you threw at the ground. Then, wrap it up and give it to me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Although tempted to ask her what she needed the poison stick for, it wasn’t my place to ask. So I bit my tongue and instead allowed my imagination to run wild.

  The person Hawkins wanted dead more than anyone was Rainer. I stared at i
ts handle—a crooked, finely carved branch no longer than two feet long, and it reminded me of a witch’s broomstick you’d find in a Halloween picture book.

  Its head, now hidden underneath three layers of banana leaf strips, hung upside down inside Hawkins’ belt. What if she tripped? Would it pierce the leaves and penetrate her thigh? I could only hope. With Hawkins out of the way, maybe I could convince the other women that heading toward Norther territory was a suicide mission.

  They had no idea—they were blindly following their glorified leader.

  What if I snatched the weapon and stabbed her myself? When she turned around and caught me eyeing it, I looked away.

  “How much longer, Hawk?” someone asked after a while.

  We’d been walking for several hours, and ever since Stash had been killed, no one had spoken a word. Hawkins, farther ahead of the line, didn’t even turn around this time. Instead, she grunted and hacked her knife across two hanging vines. At first, it didn’t cut through, so she swung again, her hair dancing wildly on her head. Her face, although hidden from view, had to be bright red.

  “Fucking piece of shit!”

  “Is it true?” someone whispered.

  I turned to my side to find one of Hawkins’s women—a black-eyed, pale-skinned blob with an AOP tattoo on her throat. On her left cheek was a crater, which I presumed was the result of some form of mouth cancer. She was exactly the kind of woman I’d have expected to find on Kormace Island before being sentenced here—a stereotypical low-life with nothing better to do than ruin the lives of others.

  I was being judgmental, and I knew it. But I didn’t care. Hawkins’s women, in my eyes, were all low-life pieces of shit. Had I met her through different circumstances, I may not have thought so little of her.

  “Well?” she asked, her sour breath making me wince.

  As she walked, a putrid scent entered my nostrils—an overpowering combination of sweat brought on by poor nutrition and month-old water like that of an unwashed kitchen cloth. Did she even wash her clothes? Did she bathe? We’d been living on the Cove—there was no excuse for not bathing. Even something as simple as a dunk in the ocean’s salt water was enough to cleanse off most smells. The sun, too, played its part in disinfecting our clothes.

  I’d been smelling it for the last day but hadn’t been able to determine where it was coming from.

  Now, I knew.

  And what the hell did she want, anyway? She was staring at me as if I had the answer to some privileged information.

  “The girl,” she went on, and the smell was so bad that I turned my head to the side.

  “What girl?” I asked.

  “The pregnant one!”

  “Yeah,” I said plainly.

  All of a sudden, Hawkins’s women grew excited. Some of them even started clapping and making their fingers click in the air.

  “Oh, shit! There’re men on the island!”

  “Oh, come to Mama, Daddy!”

  Rolling my eyes, I focused straight ahead. It was like being surrounded by lonely, middle-aged women at a Chippendales show.

  “Would you shut up?” Hawkins snapped. “She’s not pregnant because some sexy man made love to her, you fucking twits. She was abused. Have you not seen her? The woman doesn’t even talk.”

  I was surprised to hear this coming from Hawkins. Every time she spoke, she came across as heartless. But every now and again, she said or did something that reminded me she was a human—a woman capable of caring for others if it aligned with her values.

  What were her values, anyway? From where I was standing, the only thing Hawkins cared about was making her way to the top. Was it conceivable she could have any space in that black heart of hers to care for other women?

  No one said anything after her outburst, but every so often, a few of Hawkins’s women humped the air or made sexual gestures. It was immature and, to be honest, insensitive after what Hawkins had said.

  Was it true? Had Tegan been raped? The thought made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t imagine how she must have felt. And how many times had it happened? Was it the reason she was so messed up?

  We made our way across a narrow stream—something that looked familiar to me. Everything in this damn jungle looked familiar, with greens and browns decorated by vivid colors here and there. My favorite of all were the colorful birds overhead. Sometimes they cawed or cried; other times, they did nothing but hop from branch to branch, causing a few small leaves to flutter down onto my head. Some of them even went as far as to clean a certain area of the jungle floor. Rocket had been the one to tell me that certain breeds of birds danced for the purpose of attracting a mate.

  “I’ve seen it happen once,” she’d said, “but Biggie here’s seen it a few times.”

  Biggie then clapped so loud I flinched. “Girl, if only all men were like that. You should see the fellas. They have a whole routine. Then the female gets all excited and shit, flappin’ her little birdy wings. If she’s happy with the dance, he gets to have his way with her. Think that’s the most romantic thing I ever seen.”

  With Biggie’s deep voice still in my head, I craned my neck to search the trees, blocking out the sound of Hawkins’s women. Two yellow-tailed birds flew from one branch to the other, their wings moving so fast they disappeared, and for a moment, I almost smiled. Instead, I returned to reality and reminded myself that this little game I was playing wouldn’t last forever.

  Sooner or later, Hawkins would figure out that I was doing everything in my power to not guide her to the Northers.

  I’d led her along the coastline, somewhere I’d never been before. When we’d been captured, we’d cut straight through the island. Had someone asked me for directions, I wouldn’t have been able to give it to them. There weren’t any road signs or landmarks to remember.

  The moment I took a step over the flow of water, my heal jabbing into a sharp rock, someone behind me let out a loud yelp. I reached for my arrows but instead stood empty-handed staring at Pops, the squeamish one of the bunch. She ran in circles, her frail bony wrists waving over her head and her knees bouncing up as high as her flat tattooed chest. She wasn’t even saying anything—she was just screaming.

  At first, Hawkins stared with an arched brow—a look that said, Will someone please figure out what’s wrong with her?

  Pops twirled in circles, now resembling an amateur ballerina. “It—it—it’s on me!”

  Then, as if every woman around her were puppets held by strings, their heads dropped and their eyes searched the jungle floor.

  “What touched you?”

  “What is it?”

  “Snake!”

  Even Collins, who always went out of her way to look the toughest, skipped sideways and darted across the stream. The moment she landed, however, she missed her step and tumbled to her knees.

  “Fucking idiots,” Hawkins growled.

  Stomping her way over the water and toward the group of frenzied women, she tore her knife out from her belt and grumbled something to herself. Squiggly veins appeared on her temples, which made her look like she was about to blow. As soon as she reached Pops’s side, everyone scattered. Were they that afraid of her? She couldn’t possibly be as bad as Rainer… She’d never killed one of her own, had she?

  Pops recoiled like a frightened armadillo, dropping into the fetal position with her hands wrapped around her prickly shaved head.

  Hawkins looked down at her as if she were dumber than a piece of turd. “The hell’s wrong with you? Get up.”

  But Pops didn’t budge.

  “I said get up!”

  Still, Pops shook with her face pressed into her chest and her elbows wiggling on either side of her body. Hawkins sighed, bent down, and grabbed Pops by the ankle. Pops let out a squeal—something you’d expect to hear from a pig—but didn’t have much time to react.

  With one clean cut, Hawkins sliced the vine wrapped around Pops’s ankle. “Grow a pussy, you pussy.”

  Everyone look
ed at each other and then Collins cleared her throat. “Um, Hawk. Isn’t the saying, grow some balls?”

  “Don’t you guys know anything about American history?” Hawkins said.

  Collins shrugged, and everyone followed.

  “Betty White?” Hawkins tried. When no one responded, she rubbed her forehead and rolled her eyes. “She’s a historical figure from my grandma’s time…” She waited, but still, no one said anything. “Balls are weak and vulnerable… Why grow a pair? It’ll make you weak… Grow a vagina instead. That thing can take a pounding.”

  At first, no one reacted, but then all at once, everyone blew up into a fit of laughter. Collins clapped loudly and bent over, arms wrapped around her belly. Her smile stretched so wide that black gaps where teeth had once been became visible. “Oh, man… That’s… That’s perfect.”

  Although I wanted to smile, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Had the joke been delivered by Biggie or Rocket, I’d have no doubt pissed myself laughing. But Hawkins had been the one to say it, and the last thing I wanted to do was smile at her.

  So instead, I stared angrily, wanting nothing more than to cut those curved lips right off her face.

  Then, as if overtaken by a secondary personality, Hawkins’s smile vanished, and she slapped the air in front of her face. “All right, that’s enough. Let’s keep moving.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The fire barely flickered, reminding me of my best friend Melody’s blue-and-orange lighter. She carried it around everywhere she went—something about getting to socialize with the smokers without being a smoker.

  “Everyone always needs a light,” she’d said.

  If I stared long enough into the little fire, would I see her face? Would my mom make an appearance? Were they thinking of me?

  “Some fire…” Collins mumbled.

  I didn’t have the energy to tell her off, so instead, I lay still, uncomfortable in my hammock. We’d dragged our hammocks along with us, but this particular one had been tied up all wrong and gave me almost no space at all.