The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

  I did as instructed, pushing the throttle forward to gain a bit of speed. To my surprise, we didn’t crash into the sand, but instead rolled up as if driving a car.

  Everyone rushed around the plane, waving at us to turn it off. It took a bit of searching to figure out how to do so, but I managed to locate the key and shut it down.

  Why had they left the key in the plane to begin with, anyway?

  It didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that we were back on Kormace Island with our friends and that Number 73—the traitorous bastard—was dead.

  As soon as the propellers died down, someone started banging on the side door.

  “Come on,” Coin said.

  She stepped over Number 73’s dead body, moved toward the door’s latch, and opened it.

  Both Biggie and Rocket grabbed the staircase as it came down, even though it appeared to open on its own.

  “What the fuck happened?” Rocket said.

  Smacking two hands on her head, she paced from side to side. “Did this really happen? I mean… You guys were about to take off. What happened in there? Where’s the dude? Holy shit, Brone—”

  Reaching for my throat, I shook my head as if to say, It’s been dealt with.

  Biggie craned her neck to peek inside the plane. “Is he dead?”

  “Yeah,” Coin said. “Son of a bitch attacked us.” Then, searching the empty shore, she added, “Has anyone come out? I mean, there were obviously passengers on this plane. So where are they? Why didn’t they come running when they heard the propellers?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I whispered.

  Rocket winced at me.

  “Maybe we should search”—I swallowed hard and grimaced, feeling like someone took a cheese grater to the inside of my throat—“the plane.”

  “So we can figure out who these people are?” Elektra said. “Like a spy game! Maybe they left clues!”

  Ignoring Elektra, Rocket looked at me. “Brone, maybe you should sit down. You don’t look so good. We’ll go inside and search the plane. You and Coin stay out here and if you see or hear anything, let us know.”

  Rocket was right—I needed to sit down. As she and Elektra climbed the staircase, I leaned the weight of my body against the plane’s exterior and slid down into the sand.

  Had Coin been a few seconds later in her attack, I’d have suffocated to death. I couldn’t shake that feeling… I’d come so close to being gone forever. Yet, here I was, alive and filling my lungs with air. Bringing my knees up, I lowered my head and rested it in my bloody palms.

  What the hell were we supposed to do now? It was clear someone owned this plane, but who? And why didn’t they come out? Were they afraid of us? Were they dead? What came next?

  I considered searching for the survivors, but again, we had no idea who they were. And if we went back to the Village, we risked losing the plane forever. The ideas swarming through my head ignited the beginning of a migraine, so I dug the tips of my fingers against my eyebrows’ pressure points—right above the bridge of my nose.

  Tegan had been the one to teach me this, and while it hurt like hell, it often helped with headaches.

  “What’re we gonna do?” Coin asked.

  Biggie clicked her tongue. “Girl, can’t you see Brone’s takin’ a break? Give her a damn minute.”

  Although I didn’t look up, it was easy to imagine Biggie’s scrunched face full of attitude. Coin didn’t say anything, no doubt a bit intimidated by Biggie. The two of them both had strong personalities; only Biggie was more outspoken and way bigger than Coin, which was enough to encourage anyone to keep their opinions to themselves.

  Without a word, Coin sat down beside me, crossed her legs, and started pinching the sand next to her thigh. She sprinkled it across the dark skin of her leg, then brushed it off. I watched as the sand particles slid down her skin and landed back on the ground.

  Was I even alive?

  Was I still in shock?

  With eyes wide open, I stared into nothingness as the sound around me faded—the seagulls crying overhead, the gentle waves crashing on the shore, and the muffled voices of Rocket and Elektra as they stormed through the plane.

  “Stop looking at him,” Rocket said.

  “But I want—” Elektra tried.

  “I said no. Now, get over here.”

  The plane shook from side to side as Elektra’s footsteps echoed behind me.

  “Um, Brone,” came Rocket’s voice.

  I jolted upright at the sound of my name.

  Out through the plane’s door was Rocket’s head. “You might wanna see this.”

  I climbed up the railing and made my way back inside, following her toward the passenger area. Without saying anything, she stared between two of the seats, her eyes wide.

  What was it? Moving closer, I peered around the passenger seat. A flat screen was attached to the back of the seat, similar to something you’d see in a commercial plane, but this thing wasn’t a television screen—or at least, it wasn’t being used for television viewing.

  The screen was black, but it was turned on. Bright green writing scrolled across, most of it numerical.

  I cocked an eyebrow at it.

  Rocket shook her head. “Yeah, I don’t know what it is, either. But look at this.”

  She ran her finger along the top right-hand corner of the screen, where it read:

  BID: $52,899,145.97

  I grimaced at her, which was meant to translate to, I still don’t get it.

  “Is that fifty-two million dollars?”

  Rocket pursed her lips. “Fifty-two million big ones. I have no idea what it is, but that’s a lot of fuckin’ money. Who are these people? And look.” She pointed to the left corner. “What’s the rest of this?”

  On the other side, it read:

  Members: 9,641

  None of it made any sense. Who were these people? And what did they have to do with members, or with loads of money? Was this plane carrying money? Rocket must have had the same thought. She turned around and started tearing wildly through the overhead storage compartments.

  “Don’t… don’t do that,” I said. “You’ll give them a reason to hate us.”

  She scoffed. “Please. We almost took off with their plane. Whoever they are, they already hate us.”

  “If they saw us,” I pointed out.

  “Well, if they didn’t, they definitely heard us,” she said.

  “Look,” came Elektra’s voice. In her hands were red and blue wires dangling from a little black box.

  “Where’d you get that?” Rocket asked.

  Elektra pointed to a box she’d pulled out from beside one of the seats. “From in there.”

  In it, several more wires stuck out, along with other gadgets I was unfamiliar with.

  “Who are these people?” Rocket asked.

  Elektra reached inside the box again, and this time, she pulled out a grenade.

  “Shit!” Rocket shouted. “Elektra!”

  With a dark green grenade held in her palm, Elektra froze, her eyes bulging.

  CHAPTER 3

  Rocket raised two hands, holding them stiffly in front of her face. “Okay, listen to me. I want you to put it back down. Slowly! Don’t pull out that pin, you hear me?”

  “This pin?” Elektra asked, pinching the silver ring around the top of the grenade.

  “Yes!” Rocket shouted. She was so freaked out that her voice cracked. “Do you have any idea what that is?”

  Elektra shook her head. “It kinda looks like a bug. Or maybe a bug nest.”

  Then, grinning, she looked up at us, no doubt waiting for us to laugh at her joke. But this wasn’t a laughing matter, and by the way Rocket inched her way over, Elektra must have sensed that.

  “Give it to me,” Rocket said.

  Elektra did as she was told and gently placed the grenade in Rocket’s hand. The moment Elektra let it go, Rocket sighed and slowly put it back into the box.

  “Um,
shouldn’t we keep that?” came Coin’s voice.

  With only her head sticking inside the plane, she pointed her nose at the box full of wires Rocket had slipped the grenade back into.

  “Could be useful,” Coin added.

  “We aren’t bringing back a weapon capable of blowing up a bunch of people,” Rocket said.

  Coin looked to me for guidance.

  “Rocket’s right,” I said. It’s not like we need it.”

  Coin scoffed. “Hey, we’re standing in a plane with a grenade in it. Ain’t no tellin’ what else there is in here. These people, whoever they are, are fuckin’ dangerous.”

  “A grenade?” came Biggie’s voice.

  The moment she stepped onto the plane’s stairs, the plane slanted a bit.

  “Guys, you need to stay outside and stay on the lookout,” I said.

  As Coin turned around, preparing to climb off the plane, she shot her head sideways and peered through one of the passenger windows, toward the jungle.

  “What is it?” I said.

  Without saying anything, her eyes popped wide open and she pointed toward the forest.

  “What? What is it?” Rocket asked, stomping through the narrow aisle to catch a glimpse of whatever it was Coin was pointing at.

  “Someone’s out there,” Coin said.

  “How do you know?” Elektra asked. “That’s really far to hear something.”

  It didn’t matter how far away we were from the jungle—Coin had ears like an owl. If she said she heard something, it meant someone, or something, was out there.

  “How many?” I asked, looking at Coin.

  Still squinting through the circular window, she shook her head. “Can’t say for sure, but someone’s there.”

  While I didn’t want to leave the plane, we didn’t have much of a choice. Someone had to have seen us, and standing in here like a bunch of sitting ducks wasn’t exactly the smart thing to do. Our best bet was to disappear into the jungle and observe from a distance.

  “If there’s anything important you found, bring it with you,” I said, pointing at the gadgets around the plane.

  Rocket moved closer to me. “To be honest, there’s almost nothing in here we can use.” Then, raising the mirror Coin had found earlier, said, “Well, other than—”

  I plucked it out of her hand and threw it back onto the same seat as earlier, attracting a ferocious scowl.

  “Why’d you do that?” Rocket hissed.

  “We aren’t bringing that. Do you guys see anyone in the trees?” I asked.

  Rocket squinted toward the thick greenery and shook her head. “Nothing.” Then, she turned her attention to Coin. “You sure you heard someone? I mean, it could have been an animal—”

  Coin stared at Rocket and rubbed at her jaw—something she did every time she pondered. “I mean, yeah… maybe. I guess it could have been. But I don’t know, man… I got a weird feeling. This doesn’t feel right.”

  “Well,” Rocket said, “you know what Trim used to say about instinct—”

  “Don’t overthink it.” Biggie spoke quickly. “Listen to your gut.”

  “My gut’s tellin’ me to get the fuck outta here,” Coin said.

  Elektra rubbed at her forearm, almost nervously. “Me too.”

  Hesitating, I gave Rocket a look, then threw my chin at the box full of wires. “Grab the grenade.”

  I rushed off the plane, urging everyone to follow close behind me. As we moved under the airplane’s wing, I searched the forest but didn’t see anything.

  I hoped to God that Coin had mistaken the sound—maybe it had been an animal. But then I remembered everything that had happened. From an observer’s perspective, we’d attempted to steal the plane, and now, we were looting it.

  If someone was watching, we’d likely made an enemy.

  “Let’s get back to our weapons,” I whispered, darting toward the jungle.

  But as we moved away from the plane, an explosive sound spread across the entire beach. Right next to Biggie’s foot, a pile of sand shot up into the air like popcorn in a microwave.

  She hopped up as if having been electrocuted. “Holy fuck!”

  After the initial second of confusion, reality set back in and I understood exactly what was happening—we were being shot at with a gun. At once, everyone bolted away from the plane and ran faster than I’d ever seen them run before.

  “Go, go, go!” I said, wincing and pointing toward where we’d come from earlier.

  Another gunshot.

  This time, sand exploded hard against my leg and I jumped two feet high.

  Between my legs and around my groin, muscles tore, but I didn’t care. Everything around me blurred, and all I could feel was the sand under the pads of my feet, the warm air sweeping past my face, and my heart pounding so hard that with every beat, I worried I’d been shot.

  Almost there, I thought, eyes fixated on the jungle’s darkness.

  A piercing cry erupted beside me and my heart almost stopped. I spun around to find Coin lying in the sand, her upper lip pulled back over her golden tooth and two hands clasped around her ankle.

  Instinctively, I stopped running, my feet sliding in the sand. Was she hit? There was no blood.

  “Coin!” I said.

  Everyone except for Elektra—who’d already reached the jungle and was standing under a tree, waving at us to hurry up—stopped running and grabbed Coin.

  Biggie grabbed her under the arms and held her up.

  “My ankle—” Coin said. “It—it gave out.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, my voice choppy between heavy breaths.

  With Biggie’s help, Coin hopped on one leg, her jumps few and far between.

  Another gunshot.

  This time, Rocket flinched and gave me a terrified look that said, That was way too close for comfort.

  The moment we entered the jungle, I grabbed my bow off the jungle floor and swung around.

  “What’re you—” Rocket said.

  “Keep going!” I shouted.

  Preparing my bow, I swung around and aimed my arrowhead at our attacker.

  That was when I saw him.

  A man wearing cargo pants, hiking boots, a forest green vest, and a ball cap to match marched toward me with an expression of detestable arrogance. A short beard sat at the bottom half of his face, though it looked like the kind of beard that grew out from lack of hygiene rather than style. In his hands was a black rifle with a slick wooden stock held up against his shoulder.

  With an amused smile, one eye closed, and his barrel pointed straight at me, he aimed and fired another shot. The bullet came at lightning speed, snapping the bark of the tree beside my face. I flinched so hard I lost my grip and my arrow fell out of its position.

  Fuck.

  I couldn’t compete with a rifle. Not like this—not head-on. There was only way I’d get a clear shot—if he was distracted or aiming at someone else.

  As I swung back around, his next bullet skimmed my shoulder. It burned, almost as if I’d been cut by a giant piece of cardboard. Wincing, I reached for my shoulder and ran toward the others.

  When I caught up to the them, Coin was running in an awkward fashion on her injured ankle without Biggie’s help.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She shook her head but didn’t stop moving. “I stepped on a rock and twisted it bad. But I don’t think it’s broken. I’ll deal with it later.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We have to keep moving. This guy isn’t giving up.”

  “What about the grenade?” Elektra asked.

  Biting my bottom lip, I stared at the grenade in Rocket’s hand. Was it that bad of an idea? It was easier than trying to take aim with my bow, wasn’t it? All we had to do was time it right. But then again, I knew nothing about grenades. My knowledge was limited to watching action-packed movies in which army men threw grenades over their shoulders before shouting, “Hit the deck!”

  Was it easy to detonate a grenade
? How long would it take to go off? What if I messed it up and it detonated too close to us? I knew knives, bows, and spears, but grenades?

  It didn’t matter—I didn’t have the time to make a decision. Suddenly, Biggie let out a whimper, threw her arms up into the air, and fell flat on her face.

  Rolling onto her back, she reached for her ankles. “Shit.”

  This couldn’t be happening. What were the odds of two of my women spraining their ankles in a life-or-death situation? But when Biggie removed her hands, I realized she hadn’t sprained her ankles. Across her shins were two ruler-straight gashes that could only have been caused by one thing—a trip wire.

  CHAPTER 4

  When nothing happened, everyone started breathing again.

  “Check it out.” Coin pointed at a gadget fastened to a tree trunk on our left. “Same thing as before.”

  “Another trap,” Rocket said.

  Biggie, keeping a straight face despite her injury, stood up and shook her legs as if trying to kick the pain off.

  “It didn’t make a sound,” Coin said.

  Although I hated Number 73 for what he’d done, I was thankful for the information he’d given us about the trip wires. He’d specifically said that the intent of the trap we’d run into was to notify someone nearby—either by emitting a loud sound or by some electronic transmission.

  If it hadn’t made a sound, it meant whoever had built the trap had been discreetly alerted somehow, and I was willing to bet the person responsible for these traps was the man with the gun.

  “That means—” I started, but was interrupted by another gunshot. This time, the bullet tore through a dense bush, splitting leaves in half and landing right into the trip wire’s battery pack.

  The battery exploded into hundreds of pieces, and Elektra turned around with hands over her ears, her messy orange hair catching most of the fragments.

  Without saying a word, I slapped the air in front of me—a signal that meant, Let’s get the hell out of here.

  We continued our run, Coin hopping awkwardly. I was impressed with how well she was managing her injury. She likely knew that if she couldn’t handle the run, one of us would be forced to help her, which meant we’d have to slow our pace. The slower we ran, the more at risk of being shot we became.