The Chieftain

by V. K. Ludwig

  I opened the door to the cockpit and climbed inside, gazing over the massive control panel in front of me. Red and orange pointers sat in small circular windows, and an assembly of buttons surrounded a giant black screen in the center of the panel.

  Xavier poked his head in. “Intimidated yet?”

  He looked at me for a while, so I gave him a quick nod, and he hopped in, closing the door behind him.

  “Tell me something, Xavier.” I took a deep breath, feeling smaller than I ever had before inside this massive machine. “You’re letting go of a machine that would turn your Clan from a smudge on the map to a position of dominance?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re giving it to another Clan. A Clan you’ve been at silent war with for over a decade.”

  “That was my predecessor,” he said, rummaging through a black plastic box between our seats. “Things have been quiet between us ever since I, uh…” He let out a brutish snicker. “Since I took care of our old chieftain and his family. Don’t you think?”

  He flung a book onto my lap, the edges yellowed and a collection of century-old coffee mug stains soaked into the cover. I picked it up and flipped through the pages upon pages on how to operate this monster.

  “Why are you giving me this helicopter?” I asked him straight, my deep voice making it clear his silence wasn’t an option. Not this time.

  He looked through the glass and let his eyes wander across my people. Some of his men had joined them, discussing parts of the helicopter with pointed fingers.

  “Do you think it’s fair that you have trade agreements with the Districts and our Clan doesn’t?” he asked.

  “They canceled all after this shitshow of an exchange. Not to mention the kidnapping of their scientist.”

  “Before that. You know, when things were still good between you. After you became a chieftain. You got medicine, coffee, fruits we can’t even pronounce. We got nothing. You think that’s fair?”

  I stared him straight in the eyes. “We don’t owe you anything.”

  Yet! The moment he left without his helicopter, I would owe him big time. And I didn’t like it.

  “Precisely,” he said. “See, our old chieftain thought that you should let us dip our cocks into your honeypot. I, on the other hand, understand that there is only one way for me to turn things around for my Clan.” He paused for a moment and then sighed. “I must follow your example.”

  “I feel flattered.” I placed my hand onto my chest and leaned into him. “But that still doesn’t explain why the fuck you’re giving me a helicopter.”

  His eyes turned a shade darker, making his pupils melt into his iris in a stare that might creep the shit out of anyone. Anyone but me, because I had something he wanted. I just had no clue yet what that was.

  “Truth is,” he said, “Brandy is useless to us. She’s difficult to maneuver in the mountains, and the lack of oxygen on our altitude makes her engine work too hard. The engines overheat. She burns too much kerosene. So I decided to re-home her.”

  Oriel’s fist hammered against the window, and he waved his hand at me. I pointed a finger up and bought us a few more minutes before we had to step back outside.

  “Alright, tell me,” I sighed. “What’s the catch? What do you want from me?”

  He leaned back, folded his hands together, and let his thumbs wrestle against each other. “Nothing much. Only two things.”

  “And what are those… things?”

  “A wife.”

  “A wife?” I asked, letting my eyes track down my sister. She stood in the right corner of the window, one hand on her stomach, the other wrapped around Max’s waist. I had promised him, Autumn, once. Granted, he must have been furious when I went back on my word.

  “We got a lot of enemies, you and I,” he said in a sigh, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. “And we won’t make it to a ripe age unless we have each other’s backs. Marrying someone from your Clan would be…”

  His voice trailed off, knowing that every additional word had already been implied, anyway. Marriages between our Clans would strengthen a potential alliance. Alliance. Never had such a sharp word such comfort to it.

  “And the other thing?”

  He turned and gazed out the small circular window by the door, followed by a one-hundred degrees screen of everyone in front of us. Then his voice dropped into a whisper. “The laws of my Clan require me to have elders on my council. Most of them are easy to deal with, but others are… holding me back. Their minds are stuck in the past. A past that will ruin us if things don’t change soon.”

  “You want me to talk to them?”

  No answer came, and silence spread through the cockpit. With each breath I took, the metal panels seemed to close in on me, and Brandy threatened to swallow me whole. He couldn’t want me to…

  A chill ran down my spine, and my palms turned slick. What have I gotten myself into?

  “You’re not seriously asking me to kill some of your elders, are you?”

  “Just two.”

  “Hah!” A laugh blurted out of me, though nothing about this felt funny at all. “Leave me out of your politics. Shit, this helicopter is as useless to me as it is to you, and I sure as hell won’t kill for it.”

  “Except that it isn’t,” he said. “If you want your wife back, you’ll need Brandy.”

  My hand darted for his neck faster than the gears in my brain could turn, squeezing the sides of his column and pushing him into the seat. “You know nothing about my wife.”

  Blood rushed into my veins and turned my limbs hot. Droplets of spit sprinkled his stubbles. Blue veins popped on his forehead. He croaked for air but struggled a patronizing smirk on his mouth at the same time.

  “I know… I know you need… Bra-a-andy… to” he said, his voice so hoarse it was barely audible.

  “To what, motherfucker,” I said and squeezed harder, placing my ear inches from his trembling mouth.

  “Get’ r… out…”

  His fists punched against my ribs but died down within seconds. The heat of my limbs wandered to my core, turning my insides into hot lava. I wanted to squeeze the life out of him for mentioning my wife, but killing a chieftain wasn’t on my to-do list. That was bad business for everyone. And knowing my luck, shit, they might make me the leader of two Clans — the last thing I needed.

  I let go of his neck, and he sharply sucked in the air through his mouth. Coughs stuttered through the cockpit, and hands pointed at us from the outside, though people were now barely visible because of how fogged the glass had gotten.

  The air hung still and wet, like a mixture of sweat and anger in an already overcrowded room. Xavier wrapped his hands around his neck and leaned over, cough-snorting spit and snot onto the floor, chuckles making it into the mix with each exhale he managed. And hell… did he manage.

  “My sister and her husband are on it together with my best men,” I said, holding onto the door handle, pulling in here against whoever had pulled from the outside. “And she isn’t my wife anymore.”

  “You divorced her?”

  I hesitated for a moment. “Pretty much.”

  “They will fail.” Xavier closed his eyes for a moment. “Did you really think they will let you sneak in and out again? The Districts are crazy little fucks, for sure. But stupid they’re not. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Not even you. Not even her. Unless you —”

  “Unless I come from above… I mean they,” I quickly corrected myself. “Unless they come from above because I’m not coming.”

  A question burned my throat, but I didn’t dare ask. Instead, I played it over in my mind.

  Did he hear she ran away?

  Did whispers tell him why?

  Did he ask if Rose was my daughter because he had the truth? Each answer I gave myself made me shrink a bit more, turning me into a twelve-o’clock shadow of my former self. News traveled fast, especially the parts that could cost a chieftain his leadership — or hi
s life.

  I kicked the door open and gestured everyone to give me some fucking space.

  “Take Brandy back home where she belongs,” I mumbled. “I’ not killing for you.”

  I stepped outside, immediately surrounded by the villagers and a few of Xavier’s men, who had followed behind me.

  “What was going in there?” River asked, pushing his wife Ayanna behind him. “You need any help?”

  Xavier gave me a manly pat on the back. “Just a talk between two chieftains. Am I right, Rowan?”

  A low grunt came as my answer and I jumped off the trailer and hurried over to Max. Some older girls came together and swooned over Xavier. Too young to marry. Too old to pretend they didn’t notice the charm he had around the females.

  “That guy inside the longhouse scared me,” Autumn said. “He acted like he knew everything and the way he was so sure of how he provoked you…”

  “Doesn’t take a genius to do the math,” I said. “Rose is almost too young to fly under the radar to be mine.”

  “Only by a few weeks. Maybe we should make her older when people ask, just to keep the noise down. Do you get now what I meant by things aren’t as simple?”

  “Oh, come, on,” Max said. “There will always be someone who sees himself as chieftain. Things will calm down eventually.”

  My sister pinched her bottom lip, her eyes dull and lost in thought. “I’m not so sure about all this anymore. That guy, the video, pastor William… it’s getting way more complicated to bring her back.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What is with Max’s dad?”

  Oriel ran up to me, hands in his pockets to play it cool, but his eyes had sparkled as soon as he set sight on this massive pile of metal and fuel. “I can maintain her. Talked to one of Xavier’s guys about how to check on the mainframe and take the engine apart. Maybe I could even… like… fly her?”

  “Not gonna happen,” I said. “Brandy will go back home tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Max asked. “I haven’t heard from my dad in over two weeks. A helicopter is exactly what we need right about now.”

  “We can’t just invade the Districts with a helicopter,” Autumn said. “What if they shoot it down or something?”

  I took a deep breath. “Good point. We should wait until we hear from your dad, Max.”

  He raked his hands through that shaggy thing he called a beard, concern making him look away from us and deep into the forest. “What if we don’t hear back? The last time I spoke to him over the satellite, he said the council was cracking down on them. He might be dead for all I know.”

  “Don’t say that!” Autumn caressed his face and pressed her head against his chest.

  “How is this thing supposed to work out,” I asked, “if you got nobody left on the inside?”

  Max closed his eyes and rubbed the center of his forehead. “My old co-worker. Ruth. I got in touch with her a while back, and she will help us execute everything. The council never disconnected my holo-band, and I’m able to track down Ruth’s location once the day comes. We just need to make sure Darya will be with her when we come.”

  Oriel crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood up tall. “Rowan, I’m telling you I can fly that thing if I get my hands on the manual. Just give me a chance and you’ll —”

  “I said no!”

  My shout echoed through the village center and made everyone turn and look at me. For a while, we all just stood there. Saying nothing. Pretending everything was alright, and awkward silence was the new norm.

  Xavier leaned against the trailer and stared at me from a lowered head, the collar of his black leather jacket barely covering the red marks my hand had left behind. One of his men leaned into him. He sported a deep cut at the back of his bald head, beads of sweat either running down his neck or steaming into the frigid night.

  The chieftain nodded at each whisper and gave his man a thankful pat on the upper arm. Then, he looked straight at me and moved toward us.

  I quickly turned back to Max. “In that case, we will delay it until we heard from your dad. Anything else would be too risky, and I can’t lose more people.”

  Max and Autumn exchanged a quick glance, and both dropped their heads, their eyes frantically chasing for something to focus on in all this fucking snow.

  “Alright, spit it out,” I demanded. “Something’s not right, and you two suck at hiding it.”

  “It’s just…” Autumn’s voice trailed off, and she bit her upper lip a few times before she continued. “You said you wanted nothing to do with this plan, so we thought it would be better not to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Autumn shook her head and gazed up at me, tears welling up behind her blue eyes. “Rowan… they…”

  Her undertone of desperation stabbed my heart. “They what?”

  No answer came, and my heart skydived into some sort of deep abyss I did not understand existed inside me. Something inside me screamed to stay away from the edge. Not to gape down. But once again, my mouth set into motion without formal consent.

  “Holy hell, spit it out already!”

  Max stepped in front of my sister. “They put her in a deprivation room for weeks, and they might put her in there again. And if they do, we’re not sure if she…”

  His voice trailed off, and the fact that nobody here seemed capable of finishing a sentence started to piss me off. I took a deep breath. One. Two. Three.

  “Ok,” I said. “What the hell is a deprivation room?”

  “My dad once told me it’s a completely white room. I mean, everything in there is white. They put noise-canceling plugs into peoples ears and put them in white rubber suits. Basically, they are depriving them of all sensorial stimulation.”

  “People lose their sense of time,” Autumn added.

  “Uh-huh,” Max said. “Because the lights are on the entire time. It’s tough Rowan, and we heard of people who… didn’t make it out alive. They become disoriented, hallucinate, and…”

  Killed themselves. No need to finish the sentence this time. The abyss inside me seemed to have no end, and my heart continued in a never-ending drop. How could I ever look at Rose again, knowing I let her mother die?

  Xavier stepped up beside me with his man, his posture less cocky with the way his shoulders had slumped, but the look on his face as sly as ever. “A word?”

  He pointed toward one path that led away from the village, and the three of us broke from what had turned back into Yule festivities.

  Xavier glanced over his shoulder and talked once we were a couple of steps away from the drunken brawls and dirty jokes. “I fear I failed at showing you how much an alliance between us would mean to me.”

  We stopped a few hundred feet outside the village center. To the left stood a dead oak with the trunk gobbled up. To the right, a large boulder rested with a cap of snow, one side stained in something that glistened a reddish gray underneath the moon.

  “I told you already to leave me out of your politics,” my voice came out a bark at first but lost more and more strength with each spoken word. In the end, I added an “I told you I won’t kill for you,” the rasp in the undertone of my voice barely convincing myself, and certainly not him.

  Knowing what cruelty the council was capable of, what did two old scumbags from the mountains really mean to me? The thought put my stomach in knots, and the suddenly sweet and irony smell in the air didn’t help with it. Shit. Better two of his than one of ours.

  The chieftain pointed at the other side of the rock, and we all took a few steps toward it. There, sitting in a puddle of blood, was the guy who had challenged me less than an hour ago.

  They had tied his hands with his own intestines, which jerked and moved and would do so until a few minutes after his death. Then the gases would take over, continuing to move around whatever he had eaten today. For now, he still breathed, left to die a slow and painful death.

  “I sent Eric here behin
d him when everyone left the longhouse,” Xavier said, pointing at the guy next to him. “When everyone went to look at Brandy, this one walked the other way. Probably for your little girl. You might not want to kill for me, but I won’t hesitate to do what’s necessary to make us work together. We live dangerous lives, Rowan, and so do those we love. And neither you nor I will make it another year if we don’t have each other’s backs. Two old men and a wife. No more. No less.”

  Chapter 6

  Darya

  “Isabelle, you went through a very traumatizing experience.” Claire, the therapist, stared at me with a reassuring nod. She sat astride her chair like she always did, making herself look more approachable and less of a shrink. “The loss of a child was described by some as one of the worst emotional pains. It’s natural for you to go from denial to anger, and you know what? It is healing, as well. We want you to be angry!”

  “Uh-huh,” said the guy to my right.

  “Be angry, Isabelle!”, an older woman across from me added.

  Our ergonomically correct chairs stood arranged in a neat circle, and everyone around me nodded in unison, pumped up by the jolly peer pressure of group therapy.

  Heavy notes of patchouli hung in the air. Apparently, the revolting scent of dead hippie helped us unlock our sub-conscience. Or so they said.

  Alright. One. Two. Three.

  “Aaaahrgh,” I let out a gut-wrenching shout, emphasized with my clenched fists pressing against my thighs.

  “Again, Isabelle!” Claire shouted. “You are angry!”

  “Aaah,” I let out another scream.

  Yes, I was angry. Mostly at myself.

  “Give your anger a voice!”

  Another scream, this time long, deep, and with something primal to it. It sucked a hole into my core as if this scream had been long overdue.

  The vibrations of it worked themselves through my body and skittered across my skin. It was the scream I should have let out over a year ago — instead of leaving behind the man I loved.

  Claire clapped her hands, a big smile hanging across her over-lipsticked mouth. “We are so proud of you.”