by Shade Owens
Right?
With that in mind, I threw the sword forward and prepared myself for a reaction. When the blade’s metal hit the wire, it bounced off and fell into the dirt.
“It’s off!” one woman shouted, running forward.
“Don’t be a fuckin’ moron,” said another one. “You can’t be sure of that. What if it has pulsating current?”
“Doubt it,” said the excited woman. “You saw how fast it killed—”
But then, everyone went quiet. Player 1 had already admitted that this wasn’t like a fence you’d find to keep farm animals within a certain confined area. It was unlikely that the current swept through from time to time. This thing was designed to kill people on a regular basis.
“Throw something else, to be safe,” Rocket said.
Someone else handed me one of their swords and I grabbed it by the handle. Eyes glued to the fence, I swung my arm back and forth for momentum.
“If you can hit the blade on two wires at once,” Rocket said, “that’s even better.”
Right as I prepared myself to let go of the sword, something caught my eye. At the base of the fence was a small squirrel similar to the one we’d seen earlier. Its tail flicked in the air, and its ears moved back and forth. It pranced in circles several times, then made its way to the lowest wire. It sniffed it, rested one of its hands on it, and chewed at the metal.
Smirking, I turned my head sideways. “Looks like we’re in the clear.”
The women behind me cheered, some hugging and others high-fiving each other. Rocket grinned, dropped two fists on her waist, and shook her head. “You did it again, Brone.”
Although I wanted to smile, I couldn’t. The truth was, we had two more players to worry about.
“We should head back,” Rocket said.
Several women started walking toward the Village’s gates, but I didn’t follow.
“What’re you doing?” Rocket asked.
Bending down next to the electrical box, I tore through the rope holding it in place. “We have a human-killing fence around our entire Village”—I glanced up into the tree—“and an electrical box connected to what I assume are solar panels.”
I didn’t have to say anything for Rocket to know where I was going with this. Her eyes lit up, and she smiled like a kid receiving her first bike.
“We have fucking power,” she said. “Like, real power… Unlimited power. And metal. Holy shit, Brone.” She put both hands on her head and paced back and forth.
When the women saw her reaction, they crowded around me and the power box.
“What’s going on?” one of them asked.
With my knife, I cut off the last rope and the box loosened in the dirt. Standing, I smirked at everyone. “First, we kill these sons of bitches. Then, we create light.”
EPISODE 20
PROLOGUE
No one knocked on my door in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency.
Had Black Panther infiltrated the Village? How could he? We’d turned the electric fence back on, and with the power box now inside the Village, we controlled it.
Blinking hard, I sat up in my bed, careful not to wake Ellie. But she was already awake and sat upright at the same time I did, a tired moan slipping out of her mouth.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Not sure,” I whispered.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
My heart raced. All I could imagine was that we were under attack. I should have listened to my gut—I should have stayed up to watch over the Village despite my exhaustion from the fight earlier that day.
I threw the hemp sheet off my body and rushed to the cabin door, wincing as my blistered feet met the floor. Before I could open the door all the way, Fisher’s face appeared, her hardened features illuminated by the lit torch in her hand.
Although it wasn’t raining anymore, the clouds had remained overhead, concealing the stars and the moon.
In the darkness behind Fisher, the Village appeared to be still—women weren’t running about in a frenzy, weapons weren’t clashing against each other, and no one was screaming.
That was a good sign.
I’d stationed twice the number of guards at the towers to ensure we had eyes everywhere. Although I’d ordered all fires to remain unlit, I’d made it clear that if anyone was seen trying to get inside the Village, I wanted all fires lit up for visibility.
If this Black Panther guy was nearby, we had to spot him before he found a way inside.
I didn’t have to say anything for Fisher to know I wanted details and I wanted them now. What could warrant her waking me up in the middle of the night if we weren’t under attack?
“There’s crying,” she said.
“What? What’re you talking about?”
With how exhausted I was, it took everything in me not to yell.
“Outside the Village walls,” she said. “It sounds like a kid crying.”
Staring at her, I ran several scenarios in my head.
Was it really a child? Or, was this some trap? If it wasn’t a trap, would this child survive the night if we didn’t go out there? Was it worth opening the Village gates and shutting down the electric fence? We’d have no visibility out there, so we’d be forced to walk out with fire. And it wasn’t like we could cross the fence through the holes we’d dug out earlier that day. I’d ordered women to fill them back up.
“What do we do?” she asked.
I bit my bottom lip. What the hell was I supposed to do? “You think it’s real?”
Fisher planted two hands on her waist as if the answer were obvious. “Unless one of those gamer guys has some sort of audio recording and an amazing speaker system, there’s no question that it’s real.”
CHAPTER 1
I stomped through the grass to keep up with Fisher. “Where’s it coming from?”
She led me to the north side of the Village and pointed at a small group of women gathered next to our wooden wall.
“Sweetheart!” one of them shouted. She tilted her head back and cupped her mouth as if her words were tangible and capable of being strategically thrown over the wall. “We’re right here, okay?”
Clenching my teeth, I ran toward her. “Shut up!”
She cowered at the sight of me running and raised two hands as if to say, I mean no harm.
“You have to stay quiet,” I whispered, my glare traveling through the crowd. There were five women in total and several more walking toward us. “We don’t know who’s out there, and if you keep shouting like that, you’ll attract them to us.”
“I-I’m sorry,” the woman said. “She’s just a kid… And it sounds like she’s all alone. She’s crying, and—”
I raised a fist to get her to stop talking.
On the other side of the wall came a little girl’s voice.
“H-h-hello? M-m-mommy?”
She sucked in a quivering breath and sniffled what I could only imagine were snot bubbles.
Who was that? How the hell had a kid managed to get out? I’d been very clear when I’d ordered everyone to remain inside the Village. With countless mothers and Eliot watching in earnest, how had one slipped through the cracks?
“Maybe it isn’t real,” said one of the women in the dark.
It was comforting to know I wasn’t alone in thinking this. While I didn’t like the idea of a child being left alone in the jungle at night, I couldn’t risk the lives of all my people. The moment we turned off the electricity, we became vulnerable. Wooden walls would only protect us for so long.
If this Black Panther guy was as agile as Player 1 had described him to be, he likely had the tools necessary to climb over a wall without any difficulty at all.
“Does that sound fake to you?” hissed the first woman I’d told to shut up.
“All right, everyone, back to your tents,” I ordered. “Fisher and I will take care of this.”
“You aren’t gonna—” the frantic woman tried.
�
��Please,” I said. “Let us take care of this, okay? I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that little girl is safe.”
Although seemingly unconvinced, she nodded as the rest of the women wrapped their arms around her and guided her toward the wooden tents. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have assumed this woman was the child’s aunt or godmother.
“What’s your plan?” Fisher asked.
“I don’t have one,” I said. “What am I supposed to do? It’s pitch black out there.”
“Mommy!” came the little girl’s voice again.
“You think that’s fake?” Fisher asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said. “These bastards have weapons I’ve never seen before, so yeah, it’s crossed my mind. What if this is some ploy to get us to turn off the fence?”
Fisher shrugged, her dancing orange flame following her movement. “It could be, but what if it isn’t? What if that is a little girl out there. She’s alone, Brone, and it’s the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, folding my arms. “I’m trying to think.”
We both went quiet, listening to the little girl’s sniffling and whimpering. Then, a branch cracked and leaves crunched.
Was she moving? Was she trying to find her way inside?
And then, it hit me.
The fence.
What if she tried to climb it? What if she grabbed onto one of the wires? Isn’t that what kids did? Touch things they shouldn’t be touching?
My thoughts must have surfaced onto my face. Fisher’s mouth hung open and her owl-like eyes shifted between me and the wall.
“The fence,” she said. “It might be protecting us, but the second she touches it—”
“She’s dead,” I said.
The longer we stood around trying to figure out a game plan, the more at risk this kid’s life became.
“Get some women armed and ready,” I ordered. “We’re going out there.”
Fisher nodded. “You got—”
And just then, the little girl shrieked at the top of her lungs.
CHAPTER 2
“Turn it off!” I ordered.
The guard to the right of the gates flipped the power box’s switch.
A low humming sound filled the air, and at the same time, two other guards opened the gates. I hadn’t had the time to arm anyone—Fisher and I were going at this alone.
Rushing through the open gates, Fisher held her torch with a stiff arm in front of her, its glow casting an oval light across the jungle floor.
“P-p-please!” the little girl cried.
By the shrill sound of her voice, the one thing I could imagine was a wildcat pawing at her or a monkey trying to pull her up into the trees.
What if it wasn’t an animal? What if it was a person? One of the players? Even though I could barely see anything ahead of me, I held my bow straight up, my metal arrowhead aimed into the darkness. As we moved closer, two little blue shoes appeared inside of Fisher’s light.
Above these shoes were two light brown ankles, scabbed legs, and a fluffy blue dress. With the fire’s glow lighting it up, the dress looked green.
When the light enveloped her entirely, she turned around with wet brown eyes and wiped a glob of snot from her nose. Her bottom lip trembled like a caterpillar stuck on a branch during a windstorm.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I said, my voice as soft as possible.
Before I landed on this island, I would have never called anyone sweetheart. I wasn’t nurturing or motherly in any way whatsoever, and being nice to kids wasn’t my forte. To me, they’d always been annoying little brats. But ever since Robin had come into my life, things had changed—that, along with the other kids who, when they weren’t throwing fits, made my heart smile.
She tried to say something but instead sucked in a broken breath.
Lowering my bow, I leaned forward and rested my hands on my knees as if preparing to tell her a bedtime story. “We heard you screaming over here. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Without warning, she squealed again and hopped sideways, her feet landing in a pile of wet leaves. It made a sloppy squishing sound and she winced so hard her brows almost touched her cheeks.
It was obvious she wasn’t hurt—she was scared, and I knew why. Beside her, a small frog had bounced out from the leaves before disappearing again.
“Are you afraid of frogs?” I asked.
Without opening her eyes, she nodded fast.
“Did someone tell you they’re dangerous?” I asked.
She nodded again.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She popped one eye open. “V-Violet.”
Violet. It all made sense now. Her mother, Mason, was the one who’d tried to kill Player 1—the woman I’d been forced to kill. I felt sick to my stomach.
How had little Violet managed to escape the Working Grounds when Player 1 started shooting everyone? She must have found a hiding spot and sat there for hours.
Oh God. Had she witnessed the shooting? Had she seen her guardian, Schmitt, get murdered? No one had seen her after the shooting, which led me to believe she hadn’t made it out alive. No wonder Violet was terrified—she was traumatized.
“Hey,” I said softly, and she opened her other eye. “We’re here now, okay? You’re safe. And I can promise you that the frog bouncing around is a friend. You probably couldn’t see its color because it was too dark for you, but I saw him. He’s green with cute red eyes—” I needed to add the word cute because in any other context, red eyes were anything but cute. “That frog’s called a red-eyed tree frog. It has sticky feet and likes to climb things, even wet surfaces.”
“S-s-urf—” Violet tried.
Could she even understand what I was saying? Violet had been born a few weeks after the last battle, which meant she was about two years old.
“Come here,” I said, extending my arms. “I’ll get you back home safe, okay?”
She hesitated, scanned the leaves around her feet, and then hopped as far as she could as if jumping over a deep puddle. At the same time, I swung my bow around my back and scooped her up.
Bouncing Violet in my arms, I followed Fisher as she led the way back. When we approached the front gates, they creaked open, and we were welcomed inside.
“Turn it back on,” I ordered.”
That same humming sound filled the air, and we were safe again.
As I stepped inside the Village, two women came running toward us, choppy breaths coming from their mouths with every stomp.
“Oh my God, Violet!”
The other woman didn’t say anything, but when she heard Violet’s name, she ran even faster. I didn’t even have to hand the child over—the woman, a plump, sweet-looking lady, plucked Violet right out of my arms and kissed her hard on the cheek, the forehead, and then on the cheek again.
“Oh, honey, you’re okay… you’re okay,” she said, bouncing her up and down.
Her big wet eyes met mine, and she nodded as a way of saying, I can’t thank you enough.
I wasn’t certain what her relationship was with Violet, but there was no denying that Violet meant the world to her. That didn’t come as a surprise. Most women in the Village had developed family-like relationships with each other and the children after the war.
In a sense, I owed the Village’s stability to the birth of these children. While I may have been responsible for ending our suffering, most of the violence, hatred, and resentment dissipated after the mothers gave birth.
How could women focus on fighting each other when innocent lives were around them every day? People—at least most level-headed people—didn’t want to fight in front of a child. Plus, the children had brought out many soft sides within our society, and for the most part, people stopped being destructive and instead became nurturing.
How could they not? I’d gone to sleep to the sound of women crying countless nights—not because they were pris
oners on this island, but because the possibility of ever being a mother had been stripped away from them.
Now, everything was different.
While I was grateful for our new dynamic, it saddened me in a sense because it confirmed that most of the violence and hatred among my women had been the result of their poor emotional states. Many of these women, all convicted criminals, were here because they’d done awful things in the past. What about before their crimes? Had they been miserable? Had they been living hectic lives? Were they destitute? No one’s misery excused killing another human—ever. Some nights, however, my mind was all I had to keep me company as Ellie lay sleeping next to me. I’d lie there, staring into nothingness and wondering how many women’s lives could have gone in totally different directions had life offered them a different hand of cards.
“Brone?”
Fisher’s voice pulled me back to reality. She pointed her chin toward the gates. “Why aren’t we closing them up?”
Loading my bow, I said, “We’re going back out there to do a sweep.”
CHAPTER 3
“Keep the gates closed until we come back,” I ordered the guards.
Before we stepped out, I reached for an unlit torch and swept it across Fisher’s. With my newly lit torch in hand, I led us out beyond the Village wall but remained within the electric fence.
A loud creaking sound filled the space around us, and within seconds, the gates were closed.
“How’re we doing this?” Fisher whispered. “Shouldn’t we be getting backup?”
“No,” I said. “We don’t have time to go waking everyone up. Besides, this Black Panther guy’s all about stealth, which means we aren’t going to find him standing in the dark, prepared to fight. He’s all about surprising his victims. If he can avoid a face-to-face altercation, I’m sure he will. All we have to do is make sure he didn’t come in.”
“What about FaceCrusher?” Fisher asked.
“SkullCrusher?” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Maybe he got in.”
