by Amber Hart
“What do you know about the habitat?” he asks.
I pause. Weigh my options. At night, in his room, Clovis and I have practiced what I’m supposed to say. Gone over it until it’s smooth, seamless. But in this moment, looking into Mr. Tondjii’s deep-brown eyes, I change our plans a little. I think smooth might not be the best thing. I think putting it all out there might ruin me. It’s just an instinct, but it’s all I have.
“How about this,” I say. “I will give you bits and pieces. Here and there. For now I’ll tell you that I came to this place because my mom thought I should travel the world, maybe study the jungle and its plants, since my major was botany. She thought it would be good for me. But it was never really my wish to be here. I’ve despised it from the start. I didn’t want to be in college either, but she made it clear that if she was to continue paying for my apartment back home, and most of my necessities, then I had to be in school. So I picked the major she wanted me to pick. Took the classes she wanted me to take.”
My lie flows brilliantly. The beginning of what Clovis and I practiced.
“She’d researched internships and thought the habitat would be perfect. She was right,” I say. “It was perfect because I hated it. I spied on them instead, and then informed the habitat that I’d be returning to the States, so they wouldn’t expect me anymore.”
I watch the way Mr. Tondjii sits, not giving away his thoughts. But I know I’ve captured his attention. Simply because he hasn’t asked me to leave yet. Or shot me. Which is why I have to space out the information I give him. I cannot play all my cards at once.
“That’s all you need to know for now,” I say, brave, hoping Mr. Tondjii doesn’t see the way my knees are trembling. “There will be more information later.”
“Later?” Mr. Tondjii asks. “What makes you so sure that you’ll even be here later?”
I smile. “Exactly this: The fact that I’m not laying it all out. The fact that you will have to keep me around if you want to know what I know about the habitat. I have information that will benefit you.”
Mr. Tondjii calls my bluff. “Maybe I already have information on the habitat. You, little Raven, might not actually be of any use to me.”
I see the way his fingers rest on the gun holster in his lap. The way he lounges back in his desk chair. A posture that screams, I can kill you in one second. Just might.
I smile wider. Play the first card of a winning hand. “You do need me, I’m sure of that.”
And even though he is the type to recognize a bait line when he sees one, he plays along. “And why is that?”
“Because,” I say. I pick up my roll. Take a bite and make him wait while I chew and swallow it. “I was closer to the center of the habitat than your spy ever will be.”
The air is still. A few beats of my triumphant heart. Then Mr. Tondjii barks out a laugh.
“Well done,” he says.
I take the last bites of my food.
“Very well done,” he continues. “You might be of some use to me. But you should know”—his voice suddenly takes on a hard quality, all traces of laughter gone—“that if you double-cross me, it will be your last move.”
I don’t get a chance to respond.
Someone knocks on the door roughly. Simon answers it to find a poacher on the other side, speaking in French.
“If you’ll excuse me, Raven,” Mr. Tondjii says, “it seems I have an urgent matter to attend to. We’ll finish this conversation later.”
And, just like that, I’m dismissed.
Chapter 10
Jospin
The moment I catch sight of Mattius, I know something isn’t right.
I’m careful with my footing. So very meticulous with the way I’m perched in a tree. One of its branches holds me as if I’m sitting in a chair. I’ve spotted Mattius walking my way, though he doesn’t know I’m here.
He’s too close to the habitat. Part of me wants to jump down, embrace him, and pretend that I haven’t been disowned. The smart part of me reaches for my gun. Just in case.
I’m covered in moss, not visible in the least. I couldn’t take one more minute of the habitat. Five days. I’ve been there five days now. Might as well be five years, for the torture it brings. Feeding gorillas. Cleaning up after them. Smiling in workers’ faces, when all I want to do is be back home, where I belong. My place. Raven visiting. Like it used to be.
Do I even have a place anymore?
Maybe Father has burned down my home. Maybe he left it standing to see if I’m foolish enough to return. Who knows.
I have no home now.
It took some convincing to get Chloe to agree to a full day off for me. She doesn’t trust me. She shouldn’t, really. But I promised her that I’d spy on the jungle and see if I can steal clues about Raven—pack members talking about her, word of how she’s doing at the compound, make sure she is at the compound, make sure Father has no plans against her. I wouldn’t put it past him.
The wind catches stray strands of moss and swings them around. I watch as they swirl on a gust before landing on the forest floor.
Mattius moves closer and finally stops only a few yards away. If he were to look up, he would see the tree I’m in. But he wouldn’t see me at all. Unless I blinked. That little motion could ruin it all. So could my finger if I pulled the trigger. I hope I don’t have to.
I watch Mattius use a stick to sift through a bush and part the branches to reach a hand inside. He emerges with a small package the size of a book and tucks it under his shirt. He quickly glances around the forest before taking off in the opposite direction.
I wait a minute, until I’m sure he’s long gone, and hop down from the tree. Shake off moss and twigs. Wipe dirt from my arms and face. I reach the bush in a flash. Maybe Mattius left something behind. I check to be sure, but there’s nothing.
Someone left a package for Mattius. So close to the habitat. Poachers don’t go close to the habitat. I think of possibilities. Maybe the pack is changing the rules, the way they operate. But if they are switching things up and leaving information at drop spots near the habitat, what does it mean? Why would they choose such a hiding spot? Who else is using it? Why not keep whatever it was at the compound? The most obvious reason: Maybe they fear that the compound isn’t safe. Maybe they fear the infiltration of spies. But to hide our tribe’s information in the bushes like that doesn’t feel right.
Or maybe they have a spy at the habitat who is leaving them information. That might be worse.
Instinct tells me that the pack is in danger. Other poaching packs want to take Father’s throne. Our pack is hiding things in bushes, changing tactics that have long since kept us safe.
Us.
I wonder how long I’ll consider myself one of them. Maybe always. When you take away the core of somebody, all they’ve ever known and loved, what’s left? A shell. A phantom.
I search the rest of the surrounding habitat forest. I search and search and search for clues to make sense of what I just saw. I search for hours. I am meticulous, ridiculously organized, not leaving one surface untouched. I want to look even farther into the trees, but it’s not safe yet. So for now I stay close.
It does me no good.
There’s nothing here for me.
—
For the first time since being banished, I’m able to take a life.
I’m the happiest when I’m with Raven. I’m almost as happy when I’m hunting. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I can’t deny who I am.
I quickly remove my knife from the heart of a bush pig. They’re easiest to hunt right before sunset, when they come out to forage, grunting and stuffing their noses in brush. I’ve killed only one, left the other to squeal and take off.
Below the shoulder blade, a clear path to the heart.
Father’s words hit me out of nowhere—the ones he taught me when showing me how to hunt—sending an ache to my bones. I hate remembering the people I love, knowing that they think of
me as some sort of treacherous monster.
I wipe the blade on the pig’s coarse fur. Use the clean blade to skin him. I’ve killed enough pigs to know what to do and how to do it quickly. I leave the bones and innards for other animals to eat, then take what I need for myself, wrapping the meat in the skin.
I’m a hunter to my core. It’s a primal need. Hunt. Eat. Live. The most basic level of survival. I don’t know how not to hunt. I already feel better. A day in the jungle, not locked behind habitat doors. Fresh food for the night.
I think about how much energy I’ll have from eating this one kill. Protein enough to last for days. I’ll take the remaining meat back to the habitat, though I have no idea what they’ll think of me eating a pig, of killing an animal.
It’s getting late. I need to start a fire soon. I pause. Listen. Someone’s coming. I’m on alert, gun in hand, ready for anything.
“Do you need help?” I hear.
It’s a voice I recognize.
“Loriant,” I say, relieved. I pocket my gun before he sees.
Not another poacher. Just a habitat worker.
He steps into view, smiles at my kill. There’s another worker with him—François, if I remember correctly. François is Loriant’s opposite: Where Loriant is tall and lanky, dreads falling down his back, François is short and stocky, heavily muscled, with short hair.
“Do you need help?” Loriant asks again.
“You want to help me?” I was so sure they’d be disgusted, maybe even angry, to find out that I had taken an animal’s life.
“Well,” Loriant says, “you’re welcome to do it alone.” He pauses. Assesses my kill. “Actually, it looks like you’ve already got it under control.”
“I was just going to start a fire,” I reply. “You hungry?”
They’re both Cameroonian. I’m pretty sure anyone from this jungle has hunted at least once or lived with someone who hunts. There’s no way to survive here otherwise. But I wonder if that has changed for them now that they work at the habitat. Are they happy enough with soups made from vegetables, fruits picked from trees, and artificial food that tastes like garbage? I have no idea how the Americans eat so poorly. Only a couple of days of it and already my body feels weak.
I need natural meat. I wonder if Loriant and François do too.
“If you don’t mind us joining you, that’d be great,” François says.
There’s enough for all of us.
He collects a few branches, some moss, some dried grass, as if he’s set a fire countless times.
Loriant pulls a lighter and cigarette pack from his pocket. Extends one to me, a silent offer.
“No, thanks,” I say. It reminds me too much of Father, of his beloved habit. Not what I need right now.
We move away from the kill, just far enough that we won’t be near when other animals come to pick the scraps.
“You don’t mind that I hunted?” I ask, throwing the question out casually.
Loriant uses his lighter to make the pile of brush catch fire. “How else would we survive?”
Good, so we’re on the same page.
“But you save gorillas,” I say.
They look at me strangely.
“And so do you,” Loriant replies.
Right. Slip-up.
“What I mean is that I’m so new at this,” I cover. “I didn’t know if it was still okay to kill other animals, since we work at a place that’s against the killing of apes.”
“Pigs aren’t endangered, like gorillas,” François says. “We need meat to survive here. We just choose which meat wisely. Killing a pig for food is not the same as hunting gorillas to the point of extinction.”
Yes, but buyers don’t pay astronomical prices for pigs, like they do for apes.
“We should hunt together sometime,” François says. “Loriant is deadly with an arrow.”
This makes me smile. It’s the smallest thing. Just an invitation to hunt. But somehow it feels nice, like being a part of a pack again. I wonder what weapons they have and where they keep them.
“Next time,” I agree, making a grill from wood.
We cook the pig over the fire, charring each side. The aroma of fresh meat permeates the air.
“Do you hunt often?” I ask.
“Every few days,” François answers. “The habitat food is…”
He seems to be looking for the right word.
“Shit?” I offer.
They both laugh.
“Yes,” Loriant agrees. “It is certainly that.”
Each bite of pig is a renewal to my system. I feel more alive, energy pounding back through me. Maybe it’s the buzz from the kill. I’m not naïve enough to think that I could be friends with these guys—we’re worlds apart—but I’m okay with that. It’s just nice to have some company.
Under the setting sun, I accept that I might have many nights like this. Hunting and eating and getting by in this jungle, though most nights will find me alone.
I think of Raven.
Chapter 11
Raven
I wonder what Dad would think about me living at the compound. I wonder how he’d feel about me infiltrating the poachers’ home. Proud, maybe. Scared, for sure. Would he warn me against it? Encourage me to stay strong? I’ll never know.
“You’re thinking about your father, aren’t you?” Clovis asks.
It scares me how well Clovis reads me.
“Yes,” I admit in the comfort of our shared room. “How’d you know?”
We are sitting on the couch while a movie plays on TV.
“You get the same look every time,” Clovis says.
“How did you manage before I came here?” I ask, half joking.
Clovis must have been miserable. No one to talk to in any true sense.
Clovis grins. “You mean how did I ever have a life outside of you?”
I laugh. “Well, I am extremely entertaining.”
Not so much lately, I suppose.
“Mostly I went through jungle girl after jungle girl.” He cocks his brows suggestively.
I laugh again, nudging his arm. “I’m sure you did.”
Truth: Clovis is beautiful. He’s only twenty-one, a year older than me. A body that women can’t help but look at. Mesmerizing eyes. Though I know he’s mentioned the jungle girls as a joke, to make me smile, I very much believe that there’s truth in his statement.
“Why aren’t you with anyone for real?” I ask.
Clovis sighs. “No time for something like that here.”
“Sure about that?” I challenge. He seems to have time on his hands between hunts, patrols, and meetings. Not much, but enough to have a relationship.
“Fine,” Clovis says. “What I mean is that Mr. Tondjii discourages relationships and I don’t want one.”
“Why does he discourage relationships?”
“Because he doesn’t want us to get distracted. A night here or there with different women? Sure. But nothing more. Before Jospin was banished, he, Mattius, and I were being groomed to become powerful leaders of this pack. We have to make sure that certain things, like a steady girlfriend or love, do not stand in our way. They are what Mr. Tondjii calls casualties, like in war. And we are prepping to go to war. Plus, I don’t think it’d be fair to bring a girlfriend into the middle of it.”
“War?” Against whom? For what?
That’s when he tells me how other poachers want to take over, dethrone Mr. Tondjii. How there have been rumors of a jungle uprising. How Mr. Tondjii fears that other tribes will join together now to gain control of his empire.
Clovis goes on about how the pack meetings are an utter secret. How the trees show traces of treachery. Trails in their territory not made by their own men lead to concealed spots—maybe areas where traitors meet up to exchange information.
Ever since Clovis returned with me, someone else has been taking care of their paper trail, which was once his job, he says—keeping records of transactions and the amounts
of money crossing hands, that sort of thing. Which tells me that Mr. Tondjii no longer trusts Clovis like he used to. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t trust anyone like he used to, after finding out that his own son betrayed him.
Even though Jospin didn’t actually betray him.
But it is clear that someone within the pack is deceiving them. Their operation is beginning to fray around the edges, Clovis says. No one knows who the mole is, but he has been feeding information about buyers, patrol times, where they load shipments—all of it to other packs.
“So that’s why,” says Clovis, “we cannot be distracted by relationships, Raven.”
“But I’m here,” I say, more amazed than ever that Mr. Tondjii didn’t kill me already.
“Yes,” Clovis says.
He doesn’t bother to say more. With that one yes, he says so much.
Yes, you’re lucky to be alive.
Yes, you narrowly escaped execution.
Yes, your days here are limited.
“And what about Mrs. Tondjii?” I ask. “Does she feel the same way about relationships? Is she as cold and calculating as Mr. Tondjii? Because for some reason I don’t get that feeling from her.”
“No, she is different,” Clovis replies, softer. “She is maybe the only decent person in this whole place. Well, besides you now.”
“Do you think”—I pause, wondering if maybe there’s a chance—“that Mrs. Tondjii would help us?”
Clovis frowns. “Raven, I don’t know. That is an extremely risky idea. You would have to tell her why you’re really here. Don’t you see how dangerous that could be?”
“Of course,” I reply. “Absolutely, yes. But she may be our way in. She is closest to Mr. Tondjii. And have you noticed the way she’s been acting lately? I think she’s not happy with him, and I think she misses Jospin terribly.”
“True,” Clovis says, but he is still frowning.
“Maybe if we tell her about my connection to Jospin? Or even if we just mention that we need her help in order to help Jospin? Could it work? I wonder if her loyalty to her son is stronger than her loyalty to her husband.”
