The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

  Fisher stood there, her chest expanding with every rapid breath. Beside her, in the sand, was the still body of the woman who’d threatened Trim. Her face, which was pressed into the sand, was surrounded by a quickly forming pool of blood.

  There was no doubt she was dead.

  Fisher reached down and grabbed the dead woman’s hair at the back of her head, then pulled upward, revealing a thick gash at the base of her throat. The cut widened, splitting farther open and spewing dark blood in all directions.

  “This may not be a dictatorship”—Fisher eyed everyone with ferocity—“but it sure as fuck ain’t no democracy, either.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I stared into the fire, reliving the moment over and over again so vividly I could have sworn I saw it come to life in the flames. I remembered the shriek and knowing at that moment someone had died. How had this happened? Why were people dying so pointlessly? We were barely surviving on Kormace Island as it was. Why not band together?

  But then I remembered that as human beings, personalities, beliefs, and values varied so drastically from one person to the next that the ideology of large populations coexisting without conflict was inconceivable.

  I recalled back in high school—one of the worst times of my life—when I watched cliques argue over insignificant drama. Back then I thought surely, once we reached adulthood, maturity would set in. But as I sat by that fire, aware of my surroundings—among women of all different ages, races, and religious beliefs—I realized we were nothing more than educated animals.

  The Hunters had unintentionally gained control around the fire. Women spread out across the Village, sitting in the dirt or on patches of colorless grass as far away from us as possible. Even Sumi and her cooking crew joined the others after having served everyone supper.

  I didn’t blame them. The moment Fisher slit that woman’s throat was the moment she unwillingly declared an unofficial separation between the women of the Village and the Hunters. We were dangerous in their eyes. I hoped the fear would maintain control rather than persuade rebels to take a stand against us.

  Bickering instantly erupted around us, and I noticed everyone’s eyes turned toward the Village’s entrance. I followed their eyes, only to find Fisher walking toward us. She sat down heavily beside Flander without a word.

  “So?” Flander asked, breaking the silence. “You banished, or what?”

  Fisher shook her head. “It ain’t turning on your own if the other woman ain’t even part of the society anymore.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rocket asked, poking her utensil at the piece of fish in her bowl.

  “It means the woman she killed wasn’t one of us,” Trim said. “I’d already officially banished her.”

  “Must be nice,” Rocket scoffed. “Kill someone and just get away with it.”

  “Nice?” Fisher said. “The hell is wrong with you? You think I’m happy about what I did?”

  “All right, enough.” Trim waved a hand.

  “What’d Sumi make today?” Fisher asked, eyeing our bowls.

  “Fish,” I said, scooping cold fish into my mouth.

  There wasn’t much of it, but I wasn’t in any position to complain. It was food, and if there was one thing I was thankful for on this island, it was the food. Despite our limited resources and food supply, Sumi always managed to cook up tasty dishes, even if they were cold by the time we got around to eating.

  “I don’t like fish,” Elektra said, poking at her supper.

  Biggie burst out laughing. “Girl, you’d better start liking fish if you wanna survive this place. Ain’t nobody gonna serve you mac n’ cheese or French fries.”

  “French fries…” Rocket said dreamily.

  “Macaroni…” Flander said. “I always did make the best mac n’ cheese on the block.”

  Fisher laughed. “How would you know? D’you go around knocking on everyone’s door? Challenging them to a competition?”

  “I just know.” Flander stiffened up. “I put half a brick ’o cheese in mine and a secret ingredient.”

  “Jesus,” Rocket said, “I hope the secret ingredient was laxative.”

  “Is this seat taken?”

  I glanced up and met her mocha-colored eyes. I recognized that face and that hair—blonde tips and dark roots. She smiled at me and at the empty space between Fisher and me.

  “Holland,” she said. “You guys found me—”

  “We know who you are,” Fisher said. “What do you want?”

  Holland’s smile faded, and she stepped back.

  “Fisher!” Rocket hissed. “Don’t be such a cunt.”

  “She killed someone t’day,” Flander said, staring at Holland and throwing Fisher a look. “Ain’t in the best of moods.”

  “Flander!” Rocket said.

  “What?” Flander shrugged. “Everyone saw it. And for those who didn’t, well, they know ’bout it by now. So much goddamn gossip ’round here.”

  “It’s okay,” Holland said. “I was there. I heard the threats she made. You made the right decision.”

  I stared at her. The right decision? It hadn’t been a decision. It had been an impulsive act based on anger and hatred. Fisher hadn’t decided to kill the woman the way people decide to put down animals who pose a threat to human beings.

  Who was this Holland, anyways? I noticed Trim eyeing her curiously, just as she’d done the first time we’d found her in the jungle.

  “You related to the Bishops at all?” Trim finally asked. “South Dakota?”

  Holland shifted her eyes to one side, confused by Trim’s question. “Sorry, I’m not sure—”

  “Never mind,” Trim said quickly.

  And there it was—the reason for Trim’s special treatment toward Holland. I’d been given a blow to the head when the Hunters had first found me, and Holland had been given immediate attention. How was that fair? This was proof that even the strongest leaders’ judgment could be clouded by emotion or personal beliefs.

  “Have a seat,” Fisher said, eyeing the log across from us.

  I glanced up across the fire, where an entire log—usually crowded by a group of Mexican women—was completely vacant. Holland sat down at the edge closest to us. Elektra jumped up to her feet and extended a straight arm out in front of Holland.

  “I’m Elektra,” she said happily.

  Holland grinned and shook her hand. “Got a strong grip on you. I’m Holland.”

  “I’m a Fighter.” Elektra sliced through the air with open palms.

  “A Battlewoman,” Flander corrected her through a mouthful of fish.

  “She isn’t exactly a woman,” Rocket said. “Let the kid be whatever she wants to be.”

  Fisher scoffed. “And who’s gonna train the kid to fight, huh? And be responsible when she gets killed?”

  “I am,” I heard.

  Everyone turned around to find Eagle standing behind us. To my surprise, she stood without a crutch and without Ellie by her side to help her maneuver.

  “Eag!” Rocket jumped up and threw her arms around Eagle’s neck.

  “Easy,” Eagle said, a crooked smile on her face, “still healing.”

  “Man, where’ve you been?” Rocket asked.

  Eagle shrugged. “Night shift. You know how it is.”

  She limped over the log and sat down beside Trim. It was evident she’d been isolated from daytime civilization for quite some time. Her skin had lightened to a beige, and her short scraggly hair had grown several inches and hung just below her eyebrows.

  “I’m Elektra.” Elektra stood in front of Eagle with that same stiff arm.

  Eagle smiled—something I didn’t see often—and shook her hand. “Eagle.”

  “Eagle!” Elektra shouted. “Like the bird?”

  “Like the bird.” Eagle looked at her steadily. “I hear you’re pretty strong. I can make you even stronger if you’re up for a challenge.”

  “I sure am!” Elektra shouted.

  “Go
od. We start at sunrise,” Eagle said matter-of-factly.

  “Ain’t you workin’ the graveyard shift?” Biggie asked.

  Eagle’s lips curved at one side. “Not anymore. Now that I’m off the crutch, Murk assigned me to train the Battlewomen.”

  Although I already knew Eagle wasn’t my biggest fan, I resented the idea of other women being trained by the best of the best when I’d received mediocre training through some measly words of advice and hours of strenuous practice. I’d been taught to shoot an arrow—but only well enough to hit my target. Eagle was far more skilled than I was even with her injuries, and although she rubbed me the wrong way, I hoped one day she’d be willing to teach me everything she knew.

  “Looks like you guys are popular today.” Eagle eyed the crowd of women surrounding us at a distance.

  “Fisher’s fault.” Flander pointed a thumb in her direction.

  “To be fair, Fisher did defend her honor—and all of yours,” Holland said.

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Who’s this?” Eagle asked.

  My thoughts exactly.

  “That’s Holland,” Trim said. “One of our Battlewomen.”

  Eagle nodded slowly but didn’t say anything.

  “So why you here, anyways?” Fisher asked, nudging Holland.

  “I told you, I think what you did—”

  “No,” Fisher said, “what’d you do? Why you on the island?”

  “Oh,” Holland said. “Um… isn’t that kind of private?”

  “Ain’t no privacy here,” Biggie said, her eyeballs round and wide. “Who’d you kill?”

  “Guys,” Trim said, glancing sideways at Elektra, and everyone went quiet.

  How long was this supposed to last? How long was this kid going to follow us around? I felt like we’d been assigned the task of Babysitter. It was humiliating. We were supposed to be Hunters—and yet, here we were, mincing words to avoid tarnishing some kid’s innocence, even though her very presence on Kormace Island proved she was the complete opposite of innocent.

  What had she done to end up here, anyway? Kill her parents? Why wasn’t anyone questioning her about her background? She clearly had mental problems.

  “So what’s this girl talking about, anyways?” Eagle asked. “What’d you do to defend your honor?”

  “She made someone fall asleep”—Elektra proudly crossed both arms over her chest—“because the lady was rude.”

  Eagle smirked.

  “Yeah, asleep.” Biggie slid her thumbnail across her throat.

  Eagle nodded. “Gotcha. And where’s the woman sleeping now?”

  “Biggie and I took care of it,” Trim said. “Let’s just say she’ll be making friends with lions and tigers and bears.”

  “Oh my!” Elektra shouted, before bursting out into a fit of laughter.

  I hadn’t found the reference funny. Her face darkened, and small veins bulged out on her temples as she laughed. But the laughter gradually turned into sobbing, and she fell to the ground with both hands over her eyes.

  Fisher rolled her eyes. “Here we go.”

  “Sweetheart,” Rocket said softly. She dropped onto her knees beside Elektra and pushed her hair behind her ear, but it only aggravated her further. Elektra began slapping herself across the head repeatedly, babbling on about something that no one could understand.

  Like a doctor conveniently present during a medical crisis at a shopping center, Eagle jumped up and rushed behind Elektra. She wrapped both arms around her, securing her wrists against her chest, and held her close.

  “Shhhh,” she said. “You’re okay. When you calm down, I’ll let you go.”

  I was stunned. Not because she’d reacted so quickly and confidently, but because it was evident that she’d done this before. I hadn’t pegged her as the comforting type. There was a side to Eagle that I had yet to know. It was so difficult to remember the women on this island were just that—women. They were instinctively nurturing despite their barbaric ways. I became queasy. I’d always wanted to be a mother. There had always been a yearning inside me—an indescribable need—to care for an innocent life. And now, I would never have that.

  I forced myself out of my trance because I knew if I allowed myself to feel my emotions to their fullest extent, I may never recover. I preferred to maintain a certain level of denial.

  I refocused my attention on Eagle, who still held Elektra tightly in her arms. Elektra screamed, and many eyes were directed our way, but Eagle’s grip didn’t loosen.

  “It’s okay,” she continued. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”

  Elektra finally stopped fighting. She inhaled a deep breath and released a long sigh.

  “Good,” Eagle said, before letting her go. “How about you go look over there and find yourself a nice solid stick? I’ll carve it for ya and I’ll teach ya how to fight with it.”

  Elektra’s lips stretched into a grin, and she bolted toward the back of the Village, where several tall trees cast a shadow over the cabins. I stared at the third cabin to the right. I knew Murk’s house, which sat right in the middle, and the Hospital, located on the left. But what was the other cabin used for?

  Flander leaned in against me and followed my gaze. “That right there’s a prayer house. Somethin’ you may wanna consider using.”

  A prayer house? Why would I need to pray? Any so-called God that would allow for a world to exist in which human beings were cast to die on an island by a corrupt government was not a God I wanted to pray to. My life had been taken from me, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. What would praying do for me now?

  * * *

  “Keep your knees closed like a lady,” my mother said, smiling down at me.

  I sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench in my Sunday dress and my black see-through tights, staring at the little leather bibles in racks at the back of every church bench.

  The pastor spoke of fairness and equality, but I barely listened. My mother always brought a sketchpad for me to doodle in, so that’s what I did—I doodled during the sermons. Most kids did, actually. It wasn’t realistic to expect a child to pay attention to a man speaking in the distance about God and the bible. I found it boring.

  But then I heard something that caught my attention—the word justice. I wasn’t sure why the sound of this word had caused me to look up. From a young age, I’d always found the world cruel and unfair. The idea of justice and absolute fairness had always seemed too unobtainable.

  “Justice,” the pastor repeated. He brushed through the pages, then raised a finger into the air. “Ecclesiastes 3:17. ‘I said to myself, God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.’”

  I wondered if my dad would be punished for leaving us.

  * * *

  “Whoa…” Holland stared at Elektra in the distance. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Rocket shook her head, almost defensive. “She’s a good kid.”

  Eagle sighed. “Asperger’s.”

  “Ass burgers? What the—?” Fisher said.

  “AsPERgers,” Eagle enunciated. “Or autism. Hard to tell. My nephew, Kyle, had it. He was four years old last time I saw him.” She gazed out in Elektra’s direction, a look of sadness in her eyes. “It’s tough.”

  There was a moment of silence until Biggie clapped her hands together, causing my shoulders to jerk forward, and said, “Well, she’s in good hands now.”

  I assumed this was her way of saying that the buck had been passed off to Eagle. Although I didn’t think it fair to delegate such a demanding responsibility solely to one person, I had a feeling Eagle may have been the right individual for the job. She was familiar with Elektra’s condition, and it was apparent she missed her nephew. Maybe, just maybe, Elektra would fill that void.

  “Piss off, Hammer!” I heard several feet away.

  Hammer—the butch woman from the Tools tent—was laughing away while a th
in, Filipino-looking woman swatted at her, urging her to leave her alone. I wasn’t sure whether Hammer was flirting with her or purposely antagonizing her or both. What I did notice, however, was the duo these two women made.

  I suddenly remembered being ambushed in the jungle by the two women in serpentine masks—one larger and one smaller; the larger of the two women had been the one to pin me down on my back. I was still paying pearls on a weekly basis just to avoid a violent confrontation. Was Hammer responsible? I remembered the smaller woman—the one in the brown mask—and how she’d nearly given away her partner’s name, “H…,” before correcting herself and referring to the larger woman as “Panther.”

  I clenched my jaw. How had I not seen it? Hammer had hated me from day one when she’d tried to rip me off in the Tools tent, only to be scolded by Ellie and forced to offer me a fair price. I knew Ellie shouldn’t have become involved. How were they still getting away with this? Why was I so pathetic as to allow two women to dictate the amount of pearls I received? I was a Hunter, yet here I was, still being bullied into giving away more than half my pay.

  I bit the inside of my cheek just to maintain a certain level of sanity. There was a part of me that wanted to draw an arrow and shoot her right in the back, but I knew this was idiotic. I had to be methodical. I had to plan.

  But one thing was for sure—enough was enough.

  I’d catch them in the act, and I’d make them fucking pay for it.

  CHAPTER 9

  I blinked repeatedly, hoping my dry, tired eyes might produce enough moisture to stay open for a few minutes longer. All it took was one moment of confrontation—one moment to prove myself as something other than a victim.

  Although the concept of time was irrelevant on the island, I knew it had been at least several hours since sundown. I sat in silence near the edge of the Cliff, my bow and quiver fastened to my back, and my eyes fixated on the tree under which my pearls were resting.

  The smell of urine and feces filled my nostrils, and I felt like I was sitting in a port-o-potty, which didn’t make any sense. Rocket had clearly explained that waste should be wrapped in a leaf and thrown over the Cliff. Had some missed their shot? Or were some women so lazy as to defecate wherever it suited them?