by Shade Owens
“You’re lying,” Zsasz growled.
“Lying?” Hawkins said. “I know who you are. I know who Rainer is. I know who Brone is. I also know where all of your little prisoners are—” She wiggled a finger in Zsasz face, and in one quick motion, Zsasz snatched it and snapped it sideways.
Hawkins let out a scream so loud I didn’t recognize her. She clutched her wrist and pulled her crooked finger up against her chest. “You broke my fucking finger!”
Without looking away, Zsasz smiled as Hawkins breathed loudly, her posture hunched and her cheeks a deep red.
Maybe now, she’d realize what kind of person she was dealing with; at last, she’d see that she was in way over her head thinking she could waltz onto Norther territory and start making demands.
“If you want your revenge,” Hawkins said, staring hatefully up at Zsasz, “you’ll take me to Rainer.”
In a split second, Zsasz grabbed her by the throat, and with one arm, raised her into the air. Hawkins kicked her feet, her toes sprinkling sand toward Zsasz, and with her undamaged hand, she clawed at her throat.
“You don’t get to make demands,” Zsasz said. “You tell me where to find Brone, or I’ll break every single bone in your body and let you burn in the sun.”
CHAPTER 10
She was insane.
She had to be.
Hawkins sat in the sand with legs crossed, grasping onto her injured hand. But instead of crying, or begging for Zsasz’s mercy, she laughed hysterically. Her throat, now red, blotchy, and resembling tomato sauce, expanded every time she threw her head back and chuckled. It didn’t seem to bother her that Zsasz had threatened her.
In fact, she didn’t look afraid at all.
“What’s so funny?” Zsasz growled, towering over Hawkins.
“Don’t think she takes you seriously,” Rebel said.
For a moment, I glanced her way, wondering how someone that stupid was still alive. The rest of Zsasz’s followers nodded their skull-masked faces and stepped toward Hawkins, prepared to teach her a lesson.
Zsasz raised a finger, assumedly her way of saying, No, don’t touch her… yet.
“Think you’re so tough,” Hawkins said, still laughing. “You might be tough on this island, but you wouldn’t survive the real world.”
Zsasz didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever pondered the real world before. Surely, she wondered what was out there. All she’d ever known was this island. Was Hawkins getting somewhere?
“If you kill me,” Hawkins said, “you’re never getting off this island.”
All at once, Zsasz’s followers started bickering in Russian until Zsasz raised an arm and they went quiet.
“What’re you saying?” Zsasz asked.
Although no longer laughing, Hawkins sat in the sand with an amused scowl on her face. “Take me to Rainer, and I’ll get you off this island.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. She was playing Zsasz same way she’d played me.
“She’s lying, Zsasz,” said one of the masked Northers, but then the woman standing next to her nudged her hard and growled something.
“It isn’t possible,” Zsasz said, staring down at Hawkins. “No one leaves this—”
Hawkins reached into a small, barely noticeable sachet around her waist and plucked out the C-42 Transponder. It beeped and let out a static sound. Zsasz, along with every other Norther circling her, tilted their heads like dogs trying to catch every word being spoken by their human master.
It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen—adults staring at a piece of technology as if it were some alien artifact.
“What is that?” Zsasz said, moving closer.
For the first time, I saw an orphan—a helpless girl robbed of her childhood and forced into a life of suffering and chaos. But I didn’t want to understand her; I didn’t want to feel sympathy for a cold-blooded killer, so I ground my teeth, reminding myself of a single image: Murk hanging beaten and bruised by her wrists.
Zsasz had done that. She was nothing more than a monster.
“It’s a communication device,” Hawkins said.
Again, all they did was stare. I glanced sideways at BluJay, who appeared as astonished as me. Moments ago, these heavily armed soldiers wrapped in animal fur and protected by metallic armor had been prepared to kill us. Now, they circled us with apparent curiosity, eyeballing a small piece of black metal sitting tightly in Hawkins’s grip.
Zsasz reached for it, but Hawkins pressed something, and it made a high-pitched beep.
Like a wild animal, Zsasz retreated with bared teeth.
“It’s best you don’t touch it,” Hawkins said. As she’d done several times in front of me before, she pulled the transponder close to her lips, pressed a button that emitted crackling static, and said, “Ace, Hawk in the sky, over.”
The familiar man’s voice came pouring out through the transponder’s speaker. “Ace in place, over.”
At once, everyone blew up into a cacophonous argument.
Zsasz shouted something in Russian, and Rebel pushed two women away from the transponder. Even Hawkins looked confused—obviously, she was expecting curiosity or excitement, not an outburst.
“Man!” Zsasz said at last, inching even closer to Hawkins.
And all at once, the Northers circled her like wasps around spilled soda.
“Easy, ladies!” Hawkins said, forcing her way onto her feet. She slipped the transponder back into her pouch and everyone’s wild eyes followed it. “Yes, that was a man’s voice. He’s here to help us. To help you. Like I said… Take me to Rainer, and I’ll make sure he gets you off this island.”
Zsasz elevated her chin, staring at Hawkins as if trying to read her mind.
Finally, she cleared her throat. “Tie her up. Let’s take her to Rainer.”
CHAPTER 11
It was like traveling back in time, only with people I despised. Coin wasn’t anywhere near me, nor was Hammer, Johnson, or Franklin. Right now, I’d have taken Franklin’s big mouth over these women. I immediately felt bad for remembering the worst in Franklin—she was dead now, and it wasn’t right to think ill of the dead.
“Ow,” said the woman in front of me.
She stumbled and caught herself against Hawkins’s back, pulling me along with her. I’d never get used to having bristly rope fastened around my wrists. The worst part was Rebel had been the one to tie us all up. She’d paused on me for a second, and even when I’d looked away, I felt her beady eyes searching me.
Was she figuring it out? Would she realize who I was? She’d hated me, no doubt as much as Zsasz did when I was held captive. Now that I’d escaped, there was a good chance she hated me that much more.
Did she spend her nights fantasizing about skinning me alive? If my cover was blown, they’d torture me until I begged them to be killed. My stomach sank at the thought of this. I’d partially accepted the high probability of my death on this island, but torture… That was a different story.
“Move it!” Rebel groaned, jabbing BluJay in the back with a dull stick.
BluJay let out a throaty sound that was neither a whimper nor a shout and I fought the urge to tell Rebel off. But the moment she heard my voice, I knew I’d be done for.
I’d have to either keep my mouth shut or learn to use a different voice. Something deeper, maybe.
“Get your ass moving!” came Rebel’s loathsome voice again.
At the front of the line, Zsasz walked with her head bowed, inspecting Hawkins’s C-42 Transponder. What was she planning to do with it? It wasn’t like she knew how to use electronics.
With a press of a button, a loud static sound filled the humid air around us.
“Don’t touch that—” Hawkins yelled, but one of the Northers knocked her in the back of the head with a long bone—a male hog’s femur bone if I had to guess.
Fucking cavewomen.
In a moment, Hawkins reached for the back of her head. “Ow, you fuck
in’—” and the Norther smacked her in the ribs this time.
Hawkins lunged straight for her, pulling us along. At the same time, the two women tied on either side of her tripped and fell to their knees, the weight of their bodies stopping Hawkins in her tracks.
“Hey!” Zsasz snapped, turning only the upper half of her body sideways. She held the device in her large fist, eyes fixated on Hawkins.
Hawkins, now standing face-to-face with the Norther who’d hit her, raised her chin. “Keep beating me and see where that leads you.”
The Norther stomped one foot down and tilted her head, the bone of her mask almost scratching Hawkins’s forehead. “Is that a threat?”
“Vareek, back off,” Zsasz ordered.
Vareek, the burly-looking Norther with a large bone for a weapon, squinted up at Zsasz, then at Hawkins.
“I said back off,” Zsasz repeated. “This one’s going straight to Rainer.”
Vareek growled and stomped her way to the front of the line, arms sticking out as if trying to make herself look bigger. Hawkins, however, didn’t seem to care that the Norther was twice her size. It was clear she knew what she was doing.
“If you break that thing,” Hawkins said, her pompous voice aimed at Zsasz, “there’s no repairing it.”
Zsasz hesitated, no doubt contemplating whether the device was worth taking orders from a simpleton. She stood still for several seconds, averting her gaze between the transponder and Hawkins. It was as though she’d never been put in a situation like that before: forced to decide between power and an object.
Without a word, she raised her arm and the fur dangling over her shoulders shifted. Underneath the fur sat a small suede sachet. She twirled the transponder one last time in front of her face and slid it into the bag.
“We’ll let Rainer decide what to do with it.”
And once again, I was dragged by a rope around my wrists.
Someone at the front of the line moaned, probably rubbing the irritated skin around their wrists, and Zsasz swung a fist at the woman’s face. When she passed out, Zsasz rolled her eyes and ordered the one behind her to drag the body. It took three of Hawkins’s women to lift her up, while Hawkins stood there, huffing and puffing with her broken finger.
“Put your back into it,” Hawkins growled.
Zsasz stared at her but didn’t say anything. It was like she was trying to understand where someone as pompous as Hawkins had come from. This was possibly the first time anyone in Zsasz’s presence didn’t show any form of fear or hatred.
Not only was Hawkins strolling about carelessly, every now and then, she’d look at one of Zsasz’s women and mumble something under her breath. Was her deranged confidence a result of her transponder? Did she feel untouchable?
When Rebel threw dirt in my face for looking at her, Hawkins spat at her and said, “Brainless primate.”
I didn’t care to look at Rebel’s stupid, quickly inflating face—all I could think about was the burning on mine.
Fuck.
Bits of debris were probably stuck inside my wound, and it was burning worse than any injury I’d ever had before. A line of warm blood trickled down my chin, and I wondered how long it would be before the bleeding stopped again.
What was Rebel trying to prove? She was a survivor of this island—she of all people knew that wound cleanliness was crucial to one’s survival.
So, was that her plan? Fill my wound with dirt so I’d die of an infection? If I didn’t get this thing cleaned soon, the infection would spread.
“All right, let’s get them inside,” Zsasz spat, ordering two of her followers to tug harder on our rope.
The woman who’d been hit unconscious by Zsasz came to, but she stumbled aimlessly while the woman nearest to her helped her walk a straight path. “Where… where am I?”
Zsasz turned around, her stretched lips resembling prison cell bars. “Your new home.”
CHAPTER 12
“What the hell happened to her?”
“Shut up, Fran.”
“Make me!”
The sound of bone hitting teeth spread through the cage, slipping out between the cracks in the bamboo prison bars.
Was this even real? Was I honestly sitting in the same pile of dirt I’d spent months sleeping on not too long ago? How long would they leave us here to rot this time? I glanced out through the bamboo bars at a city I didn’t recognize.
The sun was beginning to set, filling the air with that same orange glow I’d come to think of as blood over this city.
Where there had once been hundreds of women, only dozens remained. The slaves of the city were now shackled around the ankles by metallic rings—some of these women’s ankles were attached to ropes, while others walked about freely.
Was it a cycle? Or, was it based on trust? Would I be shackled?
Behind me, the shuffling stopped at last, and two women dropped into seated positions with bloody noses. Had they been fighting this entire time? I didn’t care enough to look.
“Where you reckon they took Hawk?” asked one of Hawkins’s women.
“Where do you think?” snapped another. She raised a fist in the air, but when her friend cowered, she lowered it. “To see Rainer, obviously.”
“Who’s Rainer?” came a frail voice.
“Fran, mind your business!”
Two women whom I didn’t recognize sat at the far back of the cage, wiping the blood dripping from their nostrils.
“What?” asked Fran. “I keep hearin’ the name tossed around. Sounds like she’s important. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered too, Pam.”
Fran brushed her gray hair back, her sixty-some-year-old skin stretching along with it. How long had she been in here? Her arms looked like thin cheese strings—they were so thin that I could see veins everywhere. Her cheekbones stuck out as much as her nose, which was already too long and pointed. Her eyes, sunken and Dijon mustard-yellow, looked like they’d spent a lifetime beside cigarette smoke. Even her voice was rough and hoarse, which assumedly meant she’d once been a smoker who didn’t give a rat’s ass about maintaining her health. The woman looked like any minute now, she’d croak.
The woman beside her, Pam, shook her balloon-sized head. She was much plumper than Fran but didn’t look all that much healthier. Her eyebrows were so thick, uncombed, and close together that it was all I could stare at. “Prolly the leader of this damn place.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes toward me. “Served twenty-three years of my life sentence in the same old shabby prison, and what do they do? Throw me out to make room for the younger criminals. What kind of justice system is that? I’d have taken the damn electric chair over this.”
“Um,” said Fran, “they still do that?”
“Do what?” Pam snapped, the more impatient of the pair.
Fran sighed and slapped her forehead. “The electric chair, you twit!”
Pam shrugged. “Hell if I know, but I wish I’d gotten it!”
“You two new?” I asked, my voice croaky.
God, I needed water. Everyone turned to face me, including the meanest of Hawkins’s women—Sammy, I believe her name was. But for the first time, she wasn’t looking at me as if contemplating my murder. It was almost as if being separated from Hawkins had changed their opinions of me.
Or, were they so terrified that they looked to me for guidance knowing I’d suffered here once before?
Fran and Pam shook their heads at the same time.
Fran wiped a bit of dry blood from her nose and stuck her thumb out at Pam. “Both from Saint Jerome Correctional Facility. Guess they decided to make some cuts, and instead of transferrin’ us, they sent us to this shithole!”
Pam swung an open hand to slap Fran but missed. It was impossible to tell if they were friends, sisters, or enemies.
“We got caught a few weeks ago by these lunatics…” Pam said, gazing out through the prison bars.
I scoffed, though I hadn’t meant to. “Two weeks is nothing. Get ready to
be in here a few months.”
“A few months?” Sammy shouted, puffing up twice her size.
She looked like the rest of Hawkins’s women—a shaved head, pale skin, and hateful beady eyes that made me wonder if there was any intelligence floating in that hairless skull of hers. Out of all of us, she was the largest—both in weight and in height.
“How do you know?” Fran asked, leaning forward over her crossed legs.
“Well, this isn’t the first time—” Sammy started.
“Not the first time I’ve heard about this place,” I cut in, glaring at her.
I stared at her marble-like eyes, then at her throat, prepared to crush her trachea if necessary. I didn’t care how big she was. If anyone found out about this being my second time around, I was done for.
Sammy crossed her dark-haired arms and dropped against the wall, the earth beneath us shaking as she landed in a seated position. I didn’t yet know the other woman—the other one of Hawkins’s followers—but she kept quiet and followed Sammy.
The other two old women sat on either side of her, while BluJay sat next to me, the growing peach fuzz on her head making her stand out from the rest of us. She turned to me, pointed at my face, and made a gesture I didn’t recognize.
“She says you need to get that cleaned up,” Pam said.
“You know sign language?” I asked her.
She sighed. “I may be a criminal, but I had a life before that little bitch—” She cut herself short, seeming to realize now wasn’t the time to share how she ended up in prison. “I used to teach kids with disabilities. Learned a bit here and there.”
Fran snorted, her cheekbones popping above her wide grin. “Can you believe it? This sweet ole lady used to help retarded kids—”
“Disabled, you skull-faced pillock!” Pam snapped, throwing a fistful of dirt straight at Fran’s face.
Fran reached for her eyes and grimaced. “Goddamn it, Pam!” She rubbed hard, then pulled the skin of her right eye down and picked at a few particles of dirt until she got it out. Glaring at her ex-prison mate, she continued. “One day she’s pushing some kid’s wheelchair, and the next she’s shooting her husband’s mistress!”
