The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

  “Keep moving,” I said, “and let’s focus on getting back to the Village. We’ll figure out what to do once we’re there.”

  Turning my head sideways, I observed Coin as she played with the gun one last time. Finally, she gripped it with confidence as if she’d practiced for years in a firing range with that precise model.

  Out of nowhere, Elektra stopped walking and everyone turned to face her.

  “We have that now,” she said, pointing at Coin’s new weapon. “Can’t we go back and kill that guy?”

  Rocket scowled and slapped two hands on her waist—something she did every time Elektra talked about killing someone.

  “You say that like it’s as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich,” Rocket said.

  “How should I know? I’ve never made one,” Elektra said.

  Rocket slapped her forehead and rolled her eyes like an irritated preschool teacher. “Killing isn’t a game, Elektra. Does it not bother you at all? Do you not feel any kind of guilt or remorse at the thought of killing someone?”

  Watching Elektra’s reaction made my stomach sink—there was none. She stared back at Rocket as if trying to decide between a glass of juice or milk.

  “Well?” Rocket snapped.

  “Not if it’s a bad guy,” Elektra said.

  Had we taught her this? Had she spent part of her most impactful years of life learning that war, chaos, and violence were okay? I thought back to when we’d first found Elektra. She’d been living alone in Trim’s old treehouse. She’d never told us how long she’d lived there or how she’d managed to survive. Had she killed people? There was no question she’d killed animals to feed herself.

  When no one said anything, Elektra forced a laugh. “Why’re you all standing there staring at me? You guys are all killers. So why’s it so wrong when I talk about it?”

  Pinching the bridge of her nose, Rocket moved toward Elektra and laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’ve all killed, yeah, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we regret the things we’ve done.” She paused, searched us for validation, and returned her attention to Elektra. “On this island, you have to do things you don’t want to do to survive. Does that make sense?”

  No doubt uncomfortable in front of Rocket’s intense, narrow-eyed gaze, Elektra looked away. “Yeah, I get it, Rock. But that guy tried to kill us. So why can’t we go back and kill him?”

  How was Rocket supposed to explain that even though we went about killing our enemies, it didn’t make it right? How did you explain to a child that it was okay to kill someone if it meant saving your own life, but at the same time, it wasn’t okay at all? In my mind, I’d adopted the kill or be killed mentality, and it had taken me quite a bit of time to do it. If the day ever came where we returned home to the real world, I’d be haunted for the rest of my life by everything I’d done on this island.

  I wasn’t proud of myself for ending lives; nor did I feel apathetic about it. Deep down, I felt dirty and evil, in a sense. But most days, as I watched little Robin bounce in Ellie’s arms, or as my friends danced around the evening fire, I reminded myself that everything I’d done was to save my people and to live a semblance of a normal life.

  In a disturbing sense, it was less difficult to kill someone when driven by both an inherent need to survive and the knowledge that the person was a monster. Humanizing an enemy by imagining what their life might have been like if they’d chosen a better path in life made it almost impossible to fight back.

  If I started thinking about my enemies and overanalyzing why they’d turned out the way they did, I’d never forgive myself for taking their lives. Some days, I wished Iskra had never told me about Zsasz and about how Rainer had abused her as a child. Every now and then, I imagined Zsasz as a child the way Iskra had described her—clownish and playful—and wondered who she might have become had she not ended up on this island or under Rainer’s reign. Had her biology dictated that she’d become a soulless killer? Or, were trauma, abuse, and misguided mentoring to blame?

  * * *

  Mrs. Dawson turned around, an e-pen in one hand and a plain wooden ruler in the other. She pointed at the e-board at the front of the class, where she’d spelled out Nature vs. Nurture.

  “Can anyone tell me what that means?” she asked, tilting her orange-haired head to one side.

  She was so spunky in the way she spoke, and although she taught the new PPS class—psychology, philosophy, and sociology—she reminded me of an old cartoon character my mom had introduced me to: Mrs. Frizzle, the science teacher on The Magic School Bus.

  With a wide, red-lipped grin, she said, “Well?” and pointed her ruler at Rylen at the back of the class.

  He pulled his face back as if he’d been caught looking up a girl’s skirt, cleared his throat, and said, “Um, I don’t know. Forests versus babies, or something.”

  Beside him, Alexa rolled her eyes, pushed her purple-rimmed glasses high up on her face, and shot her arm up like a flagpole.

  “Yes, Alexa?”

  “Nature means that people are prewired to behave or think in a certain way due to their biology or genetics, while nurture dictates their behaviors and actions are the results of exterior influences: the way they were raised, social interactions, education…” She bit the back of her e-pen and waited, a proud smirk on her face.

  In an exaggerated motion, Mrs. Dawson threw both arms out, her red and white polka-dot dress expanding to twice its size, and said, “Exactly!”

  Making her way behind her desk, she bent forward in front of her computer and tapped the screen a few times. On our desk screens, a new notification popped up: 1 New Assignment.

  “I want you all to write a three-page essay about this old debate,” she said. “Tell me which one you think is right and why.”

  She clapped her hands so hard together that my shoulders jerked. With ticking heels, she made her way over to her personal coffee maker, made herself a cup of coffee, and sat down in her leather lounge chair with a book in her hands. When no one moved, she peered at us from behind her coffee cup and said, “You can do your research anywhere online. Oh, and I want it sent to my inbox by the end of class.”

  As I stared at my screen, I couldn’t help but wonder: was my mom’s boyfriend Gary an asshole because someone else had been an asshole to him when he was young? Or, had he always been a bad person? I thought of the times he’d yelled at me when I’d tried to defend my mom and how shaken up I’d been afterward. I’d never been a violent person by nature, but every time Gary smashed a beer bottle into the wall or yelled at my mom, all I could think about was pushing him off our apartment balcony.

  I opened the assignment, and at the top of the page, typed: Nature vs. Nurture: a 50/50 Recipe.

  * * *

  “You have to respect life,” Rocket said, now shaking Elektra’s shoulders.

  Gently, I pulled Rocket away, realizing that this argument had become more about her than about Elektra. I was willing to bet Rocket, too, was haunted by everything she’d done.

  “It’s not like she’s getting in fights and trying to kill people,” I whispered to Rocket. “This is all she knows now. You can’t change that. If someone tries to kill her, her automatic response is to kill them.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be,” Rocket hissed.

  Fighting the urge to smile, I said, “Shouldn’t it be? Wouldn’t we all do the same thing on this island?”

  Frowning, Rocket offered a one-shouldered shrug. “I guess.”

  “So let her be,” I said. “If anything, you know she’ll be safe. She knows how to protect herself and she isn’t afraid to do it.”

  Rocket turned to Elektra, who was now hopping up and down beside Coin, begging her to let her hold the gun. Like an annoyed toddler not wanting to share her toys, Coin pulled away and told Elektra to back off.

  But right when she did that, a loud bang went off, and Coin fell to the ground.

  CHAPTER 7

  Coin threw her head back and be
llowed in pain. Wincing, she clawed at her bloody thigh.

  Elektra, looking confused by what had happened, backed away with two open hands as if to say, I didn’t do it.

  It was obvious she hadn’t done it—Coin had been holding the gun with its barrel facing up, and the gunshot had punctured her thigh.

  The son of a bitch had caught up to us, no doubt having been alerted by the trip wire and the sound of the Ogre’s gunshot.

  “Grab her!” I shouted, rushing behind Coin.

  With as much strength as I could gather, I scooped her up underneath the arms and started dragging her away from the opening in which we were standing. Biggie rushed to grab her legs, as did Rocket, and together, we tore through dense bushes and prickly leaves. We even broke through a bush so dry its branches snapped into pieces.

  “Keep going,” I hissed.

  We ran awkwardly together as Coin moaned in our arms.

  “Elektra,” I said, and Elektra came running at me with her lanky legs making her look like a daddy long-leg. “Take Rocket’s place. I’ll take Biggie’s.”

  With sweat pouring out of us, we kept swapping positions every few minutes to give everyone a break.

  When it was my turn to jog alongside everyone, Coin moaned like she was trying to say something, so I rubbed the back of my hand along her grimy forehead. “Hey, relax, okay? We’ll get you home safe and we’ll give you something for the pain.”

  She nodded fast, her brown skin turning a deep shade of gray.

  “We have to hurry,” I said. “She’s losing a lot of blood.”

  Inching near Biggie, I grabbed Coin underneath the arms. She was heavy with all her muscle mass, but I couldn’t focus on how difficult the task was. What option did we have? No way was I leaving Coin out here to die, even if it killed me.

  I’d have to push through it.

  The more turns I took carrying her, the more my muscles started to shake—so much so that I feared I might lose my grip and drop her. This was, by far, the most physically demanding thing I’d ever done in my life.

  “We got this,” I said, barely able to catch my breath.

  The more we ran, the dryer my throat became, and the more it hurt.

  But this was Coin—I couldn’t give up. We continued until at last, Biggie stopped, bent forward, and waved a hand in the air.

  “I—I—I can’t.”

  She was so burned out that she stood with her mouth wide open as if this would somehow help her breathe more easily. She breathed in hard, a line of saliva dangling off her bottom lip.

  The rest of us lowered Coin to the jungle floor with care.

  I raised a fist, which was meant to order everyone to remain silent, and closed my eyes. No leaves were crunching, no branches were cracking, nothing.

  “All right,” I whispered. “Let’s take a few minutes… I think we lost him. This gives us time to wrap her leg up.”

  We all fell to the ground, our shirts soaked in sweat and our breaths so heavy I kept telling everyone to keep it down. The last thing I wanted was for this psycho to hear us.

  “Coin, you hanging in there?” I whispered.

  When she didn’t answer me, I poked her shoulder with my toe. “Coin?”

  Biggie shook her head, still trying to breathe. “She’s—she’s out, man. Prolly the pain.”

  At the same time, Rocket and I shot upright.

  “It’s not just the pain,” Rocket said before I could get a word in. “She’s fuckin’ going white.” She tore a piece of her pant leg off and started wrapping it around Coin’s wound as tight as she could. “Goddamn it… I couldn’t tell how bad it was while we were running. Guys, she’s bleeding out.”

  There was no time to waste.

  I climbed back up onto my throbbing feet when my back spasmed.

  Shit.

  How was I supposed to keep carrying her like this?

  “We need to get back, now,” I ordered. “But we’ll never make it like this. We have to carry her differently.”

  Elektra wrinkled her nose. “How?”

  “Like a rolled-up carpet,” Biggie said. “We line up and wrap our arms around her.”

  Rocket’s bright eyes shifted to where we’d come from—an array of thick bushes and giant vines. “You sure we lost him?”

  I followed her gaze. “No, I’m not, but we all know how easy it is to lose a target in this jungle. Besides, we haven’t heard any shots since we started running. If he were nearby, he’d have tried to hit us.”

  “Why’d he only shoot one bullet?” Rocket asked.

  I’d been wondering the same thing, but I hadn’t vocalized it. He’d had a clear shot, and yet, he’d shot Coin in the leg. How come? Why not go for the kill? What the hell was he planning?

  Elektra bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know… I used to play this computer game where I had to build armies and stuff—” She zoned out for a moment as if replaying it in her mind. “It was all a bunch of little characters. Like, a society you’d take care of.”

  “What’s your point?” I said, my tone a bit harsher than I’d intended.

  “I used to follow enemies so that I could find out where their city was. I’d be real quiet about it. Well, you know what I mean. Like, I wouldn’t attack their characters. The point was to—”

  Rocket scoffed. “Why kill a few wasps when you can follow them and take out the nest?”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Man, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Biggie said. “Ain’t like we got a choice. Our girl’s dyin’”

  “Biggie’s right,” Rocket said. “If we don’t head back to the Village, Coin dies.”

  Without looking at either one of them, I said, “And if we do go back to the Village, we’re risking everyone’s lives.”

  Everyone went silent.

  I didn’t like this any more than they did, but what were we supposed to do? As Coin’s friend, I wanted nothing more than to take the risk and return to the Village. As the leader of my people, however, the right decision was to protect the majority.

  Finally, Elektra broke the silence. “Doesn’t he already know where the Village is?”

  Everyone craned their necks to look at her.

  “The plane flew right over us,” she said.

  I locked eyes with Rocket.

  Why hadn’t we thought about this?

  “That’s fucking great,” Rocket said. “The dude might not even be following us anymore. He could be going straight to the Village.”

  “Ain’t like he’s got GPS,” Biggie said. “I’m sure he’ll find it eventually, but he doesn’t know where he’s goin’.”

  “He does if he’s following us,” I said.

  “We’re all talking what-ifs,” Rocket said. “We have to make a decision. Either we don’t go back to the Village and risk him finding his way there based on the direction we’ve been heading this whole time, or we go to the Village and risk him following us straight to it. Or, best-case scenario, he never finds the Village.”

  Without giving it much thought, I said, “We’re going to the Village.”

  * * *

  By the time we arrived, the sun had set. Although traveling in the dark went against everything I believed in as a Hunter, we’d had no other choice. Coin had fallen in and out of consciousness several times, and while Rocket’s tightly-wrapped shirt around her leg had stopped most of the bleeding, it was obvious she was in excruciating pain.

  “We’re here,” Rocket whispered, pointing at the orange glow surrounding the Village.

  The outside view of the Village at night was a fascinating thing to see. With its enormous wooden gates closed, the Village remained hidden from view, resembling a kingdom pulled out of the Middle Ages. The only things missing on the inside were additional cabins with hay rooftops. Instead of adding more four-wall cabins, Coin had insisted we build tent-shaped shelters as they were not only easier to construct, but they were more solid. They weren’t quite as large as the cabins she’d rebuilt at the b
ack of the Village, but they were large enough to fit a twin-sized bed, a toilet-like hole that connected to a removable bucket underneath the tent—something I was still mind-blown over—and a few chairs for those rainy days.

  Although I hadn’t like the idea of women defecating inside the Village, everyone had agreed to empty their buckets every single morning outside the Village, through a small gate at the back. The last thing I’d wanted was women passing through the main gates with buckets filled with urine and feces.

  Every time one of these buckets was emptied, women were obligated to wash their hands at one of the Village’s water pumps—a creation by one of the Northers’ slaves designed to pull water out from deep within the ground. She’d created them using materials from the crashed plane, and alongside them were soap-like dispensers that were constantly refilled by Tegan.

  If Coin hadn’t been on the verge of dying, I would have smiled at the sight of the Village—my home.

  In an instant, one of the Night Watchers clicked her fingers and the sound of bowstrings stretching filled the air around us. It wasn’t hard to imagine them squinting at the darkness, loaded bows swaying from side to side, prepared to kill intruders.

  Bringing my lips tight together, I let out a rhythmic whistle—two high notes and a long low note.

  In the distance, a similar whistle was returned; only this time, there were two low notes and one high note.

  To conclude the wordless message, I finished with a dozen high notes back to back, letting the sound flutter out of my mouth.

  “It’s Brone,” one of them whispered.

  The moment we stepped out from the darkness, the Night Watchers and the Tower Guards lowered their weapons. Exhausted, we lowered Coin to the ground as delicately as possible, but dropped her a few inches too early.

  Fortunately, she was out cold.

  Close to collapsing, I groaned in pain. Although I couldn’t be certain, it felt like the insides of my suede shoes were covered in blood. The night we’d camped out in the jungle—the day before we found Number 73—my feet had already begun to form blisters. Being that I didn’t hunt anymore, it was rare that I wore shoes around the Village or the Working Grounds. I could only imagine how bad my feet were now. My hands shook violently every time I raised my arm even in the slightest. How had we managed to carry her all the way back? My back was so tight and hurting so much that with one wrong move, it would give out—this had happened before when I’d helped my people construct the wooden cabins, and I’d ended up bedridden for two days. I’d never been one to have back problems, but ever since the Northers had enslaved me, my body had changed.