The Broken Peace

by Martha Adele

  I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She prints off a receipt and hands me the small yellow paper. I look it over and it shows me she left two hundred dollars on my account, and transferred the rest over. I now have a little over twenty-nine thousand dollars left to pay off.

  “The longer these bills aren’t paid off, the more money will be added for you to pay.” The woman tells me, “But as long as you make regular payments, the interest won’t be much.”

  “Interest?”

  “The extra you have to pay if you wait too long.”

  I understand that this is an incentive to keep people from skipping out on payment, but I can’t help but hate it, no matter how rational. “I don’t think I can afford to pay it off quick enough. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Just,” she shrugs, “pay it off as soon as you can.”

  I think and think about a way out of this and find only one solution.

  I guess it’s time to get another job.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Logan

  I force my overly sore body off the ground and finish wiping off the handles of the weight machine. The muscles in my back ache terribly, and it feels as if each of my lower back bones are grinding against each other. I assume that this is a result of me working so hard cleaning and brush the pain off.

  After finishing the handles, I put my rag and the spray back into its bucket and look around the room. The amount of sweaty men surrounding me becomes more apparent as the smell sinks in.

  A waving hand catches my attention from the gym entrance, and I make my way over. John finishes up his conversation with a man with a clipboard and shakes his hand. “Remember that,” John tells him.

  The man nods to John and marches off, writing something on his paper.

  “Forge.” John waves me over to follow him, and I do. We head out into the hall and begin walking. “You have been doing a great job cleaning. I’ve never seen this equipment as clean as they are when you are done with them.”

  “Thank you.” I shrug. “I do my best.”

  “Good. That’s good. We need more people like you.” He points down the hallway. “I’m going to go and clear out Course A for you to clean next.”

  “Okay.”

  A man walks by the two of us and nods to John, who returns the gesture. Without looking back at me, John asks, “So how are you feeling?”

  “Feeling?”

  “Yes. Feeling. Are you sore? Is it hard to move around?”

  I shrug. “Somewhat. My legs and back have not regained normality yet, but I’m doing better.”

  “That’s good. I am happy to hear it.” John clears his throat and taps a few of the buttons on his cuff. “I was actually going to see if you would be interested in rejoining Taai.”

  “What?” My mind stumbles over his offer. “You were the one who told me to take it slow.”

  He nods. “I was. I was also the one who got you this job. Do you know why I was wanting you to take this one?”

  I shake my head.

  “I wanted to keep an eye on you. Make sure that you were getting around okay.”

  “Okay?”

  John chuckles. “I have been able to see that though you are sore, you should be getting back to normal anytime now. I just wanted to let you know that once you are, you are welcome to rejoin the Taai.”

  We make it to Course A and enter the room. John and I stand together and watch people run a course I have never seen before. They have to climb up a wall, swim through some sort of artificial rapids, carry a body dummy over their shoulders, and so much more that seems too physically painful and tiring for me to even consider.

  “Thank you, Young,” I tell him. “But no thank you. I like the job I have right now. It gives me more time to be home with Eric, who needs me a lot more than the team does.”

  John nods. “I can respect that.” He smiles at me and pats me on the back. “Just remember, you can come back whenever you feel like it. Pending a few tests, of course.” He winks at me and walks off into the room, observing his students.

  “Young,” I call out to him, catching his attention before he leaves. “I actually need to ask a favor. Eric is getting his new prosthetic today, and I was wondering if I could get off early to—”

  “No problem,” he interrupts. “You can get off after the course is clean.”

  “Thank you.”

  Why is he being so nice to me? I have never really liked John. I assumed the feeling was mutual with the way he treated me. But we seem to be okay now.

  I would never show John that I don’t like him. I would never show anyone that I don’t like them. What good would that do anyway?

  But I can’t help it. I don’t like John Young. Just speaking to him annoys me. The moment his voice hits my ears, I want to shoot myself.

  Or him.

  I will never let him know how much I don’t like him. There are times I can tolerate him, but there will be times I can’t.

  When those times come, we will see what happens.

  Mavis

  I hold the back of the gun to my shoulder as tight as I can. I look down the barrel and line up the two small dots that this gun has for sights. I point the gun into the air and wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  “Pull,” I say to Derek.

  He presses a button on a small controller the host of the hunt and owner of the lodge gave him. A bright orange clay skeet flies through the air from my right, and I swing the barrel of the gun over. Following its path for a moment to track its pace, I quickly aim a few seconds in front of it.

  I pull the trigger, my shoulder is forced back, and the corner of the skeet cracks.

  “Wow.” Derek chuckles. “You hit it.”

  I can’t help but turn to him with a scoff. “Why do you sound so surprised? I’m a good shot.”

  “Bows and guns are nothing alike.”

  I hand him the gun and take the controller. “Apparently they are.”

  “What are you doing? Here.” He hands the gun back to me and reclaims the controller. “There are still four more shots in there. Don’t be so eager to take my controller.”

  I roll my eyes at him and prepare myself for the rest of the skeets.

  “Pull.”

  I shoot, missing the second skeet.

  “Pull.”

  I shoot, barely hitting the third skeet.

  “Pull.”

  I shoot, missing the fourth skeet. Without hesitating, I shoot my last shot and disintegrate the skeet just before it falls into the large valley of trees.

  I put the gun on safety, not addressing the fact that I didn’t before I handed it to him last time, and give it to Derek. “Your turn.”

  He nods and hesitantly hands me the controller. “Don’t rapid fire on me again, okay?”

  “I promise nothing.”

  We both practiced with another shotgun before practicing with this one. Our plan is to see which one suits each of us better and then use our favorite during the hunt.

  Derek pulls his five bird shot shells out of his pocket and loads the gun. Within seconds, he brings it up to his shoulder and has it ready to shoot.

  “Pull,” he tells me.

  I press the button labeled “right,” and a skeet flies from the large wooden machine about twenty-five meters to our right.

  Derek shoots and hits the skeet perfectly. It didn’t disintegrate like my last shot, but it definitely did more than my first.

  “Pull.”

  I press another button, and a skeet flies from another machine to our left.

  Derek pulls the trigger and disintegrates this skeet even more than I thought possible. I see nothing but dust float from where it last felt the sun’s touch.

  “Pull.”

  “Pull.”
>
  “Pull.”

  Derek hits all but the last skeet, making me feel somewhat better about my skills.

  “Four out of five isn’t bad,” he tells me, pulling out his earplugs.

  “No. Not at all.” I make my way back to the picnic table provided under the overhang and take a seat. “How much practice have you had at this?”

  He follows my lead and sets the gun down on the table as he sits adjacent to me. He looks over to our other gun, propped up against the side of the overhang and looks back to me. “Some. Me and a bunch of others practiced for an hour or two in Bergland before we went to fight.”

  My jaw drops. “Only an hour?”

  “Don’t worry, they only gave guns to people who were actually good marksmen. Everyone else, they assigned a different job.” He runs his hands through his hair, trying to get it out from in front of his face. “They actually offered me a spot in the special forces group. What was that called, the Tay? Or something—”

  “Taai?” I ask.

  “Yeah, that, but I couldn’t complete the physical tasks necessary to be accepted.”

  I look down to his arm. It’s covered by his jacket, but I can still picture the bloody bandage wrapped around it. Could he not be a part of the Taai because of what my dad did to him?

  The old bus, parked up in front of the lodge, honks a joyful tune to let everyone know it is time to go. Derek and I rise, each with a shotgun, and head up to the bus. We watch as over fifteen old men in camouflage file onto the bus with their guns and backpacks filled with cases of ammunition.

  Derek hands the controller to the lodge owner, who is standing by the bus and passing out boxes of ammo.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Page,” he says as he slides the controller into his pocket. “What all do you need?”

  He looks at me and shrugs. “Three boxes?”

  The lodge owner nods and smiles. “Good choice.” He hands me one box and Derek the other two. We slide them into our bags and file onto the bus.

  The large men in puffy hunting jackets fill up almost all the seats toward the front, causing Derek and I to have to scoot through the small and tight-fitted bus to get to the back. Once we do, we share a bench and watch as all the men talk among themselves.

  “So”—he leans over to me and whispers—“how many of these guys do you think are business owners?”

  I look through the crowd and count nineteen people on the bus, including the two of us and the bus driver. I take a wild guess. “Thirteen.”

  Derek chuckles. “Once my boss gets onto the bus”—he points out the window to Mr. Gregory taking two boxes of ammo from the lodge owner—“you will be right. Apparently, Mr. Gregory rented out this party and invited his business associates. Everyone else on the bus besides the two of us had to pay a hefty fee to come.”

  “Why do you think he invited us?”

  “A guess?” Derek tilts his head and squints. “Probably to try to make me not sue him for ‘sexually harassing’ my friend.”

  I snort, “What?”

  “Yeah. I could have ruined him if I wanted. So could you.”

  I watch as Gregory gets onto the bus. He tilts his hat at the two of us and takes a seat in the front with one of his friends.

  I shrug. “We are getting free meat out of this, so I’m okay.”

  Derek chuckles as the bus driver honks his cheerful horn once more. The doors close, and the bus squeaks and creaks as we take off. We ride the brakes down a steep hill, out of a fence gate, through some woods on a dirt path, and into a large open field with a wooden tower in the middle of it.

  The wooden tower scares me by just looking at it. It has a rickety old set of wooden stairs spiraling up to the top, its entire foundation tilted, and the whole thing looking to be a previous meal to termites. It looks as if, with one kick, I could take out one of its four legs, causing the whole thing to come down.

  We park directly beside it, and Mr. Gregory rises to his feet. Everybody else on the bus stays seated as Gregory addresses us. “Good morning, everyone! I am so happy that you all could make it today. We have just a few safety points we need to go over before you are given your partner. Okay? Okay.”

  He goes on to tell us that we will have bird dogs that will be running out into the field to retrieve whatever we shoot, so never shoot into the grass. He also tells us that there are a total of ten stands located around the field in a circular pattern. Each group will be at one stand per term, and there will be ten terms. The beginning of each term will be announced by a horn being blown five times. The changing of a term will be announced by that same horn being blown three times. Each change of a term, every team will need to shift one stand to their right. If the hunt for some reason needs to stop, there will be an announcement from the tower.

  “So remember to listen. Okay, now that safety has been taken care of, let’s get to the fun bits. There will be three trophy pheasants during today’s hunt. The announcement of a trophy pheasant being thrown out will be one swift blow of the horn, so be listening. This trophy pheasant will have a purple tag around its foot. We will know who shot it because there will be a dog’s keeper at every post to retrieve the birds. These keepers will be looking out for who shoots the trophies.”

  “What do we get if we shoot the trophies?” one of the men in the middle calls out.

  “Give me a moment.” Mr. Gregory holds his hands up to the man and scoffs playfully, earning laughter from everyone in the bus but Derek and me. “I was just about to get to that. Whoever shoots the trophy birds gets fifty dollars knocked off their bill for coming.”

  One of the men says something that I can’t make out, earning another large sum of laughter from the bus. Mr. Gregory finishes up the instructions and lists who will be in each group. The group sizes range from one to three. Derek and I are paired together by ourselves, which make us both a little giddy, even though we were expecting it.

  When everyone exits the bus, Gregory points them in the direction of their stand. When he gets to us, he doesn’t say as much as I expected him to. “You two can head directly to my left and take the stand right there.” He nods to us both once again and smiles. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you for inviting us.” Derek shakes the man’s hand and heads back to our stand with me.

  There is a small worn-down path within the large field of dried grass that comes up to my waist, but it isn’t worn down enough that I can make my way through it easily. Once we finally get out of the grassy field, there is a large ring of dirt that paves the path for us to go to each stand after every term. It is much easier to walk on and through than the field, but it still somehow makes me question these people who set up the hunt.

  After a few minutes, Derek and I stand behind the wooden pallet that is supposed to help us somehow and wait for the horn. We watch the black dog fidget with excitement as its keeper holds it by the collar and scratches it behind the ears.

  “Good girl. Just wait a little longer,” the man tells the dog.

  Derek adjusts his grip on the gun and looks over the pallet. “How old is she?”

  “Two years old next month.”

  “Oh wow.” Derek gives him a small smile. “She is wonderfully trained.”

  “Thank you. I think so too.” He gives her a treat and increases the rate at which he pets her. “Good girl.” The brown-eyed black dog looks up at her owner and sits as calmly and still as she can, trying to earn another treat, but is interrupted as the hunt begins.

  The horn blows three long blows, and Derek and I hold the shotguns up to our shoulders and aim at the tower. We watch as a pair of hands toss out a bird to our right. The feathered being squawks and flies in the opposite direction it was thrown. We lower our guns and listen to whoever is on the other side of the ring shoot repeatedly, only to miss the bird and watch it fly over them to freedom.

&n
bsp; “This is what we’re doing?” I ask Derek, “Shooting at birds that are flung off the top of a tower?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  The two of us stay at our stand, watching the birds get flung off in all directions, only to fly in whatever direction they please. Bird after bird, shot after shot, almost every bird thrown from that tower goes down.

  “Don’t worry,” the dog keeper tells the two of us, “one will come this way.”

  Just as he says that, a bird is flung off the tower and flies our direction. Derek and I immediately aim the guns and wait for it to get into range.

  Derek fires. He misses.

  I fire. I miss.

  We both shoot once more, and the bird goes down about ten yards in front of us. The sound of the bird hitting the ground is much louder than I originally expected.

  The man beside us releases the dog, and it takes off into the field. I watch as the grass parts for the beast as she scurries around in circles looking for the bird. She emerges from the grass with the animal’s living body in its mouth and brings it to her owner, who then grabs its head and spins it around until the body becomes lifeless.

  Derek and I look at each other. A smile rises up on his face and he chuckles. “I got that one.”

  I can’t help but scoff, “No way. I got that.”

  “Right,” he sarcastically smirks. “You shot a second before me, and the bird went down when I shot, but you got it. Okay.”

  I nudge him in the arm as the tower throws another bird.

  This hunt seems sick. They raise these birds to early adulthood just to throw them off a tower, forcing them to evade gunfire from every direction.

  But I can’t help but aim and shoot every time a bird comes our way. It is almost instinct.

  Derek is enjoying himself. Every time he shoots something, a large smile finds its way onto his face, causing me to return the expression.

  Whenever we change terms and arrive at our next stand, we see a pile of the dead pheasants beside the dog keeper. When we change to our third term, one of the pheasants in the pile stands out from the rest. Most of the birds are a mixture of browns and some white, but this bird is larger than the others and much more beautiful. Its entire body is covered in this sort of sheen. Its head is a deep purple, and his eyes are surrounded by red feathers. Directly beneath the purple is a set of bright white feathers, leading to more purple and beautiful auburn colors running down his chest. The feathers on his back have what looks like a yellow oval outlined by a dark brown, which pops out against the auburn, and his wings are almost a grayish teal color. Each and every feather on his back has a different pattern than his chest, and his chest has a different pattern than his wings, and yet they all go together beautifully. Even his tail, which is an array of different purples, blues, and browns, has a sort of sheen to it. Over all, this is the most gorgeous bird I have ever seen.