The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

  Why was she always right?

  “You can talk to me, you know.” She reached a warm hand up to my face, curving her delicate fingers around the back of my neck.

  I wanted to tell her about the flashbacks—about the night terrors and the anxiety attacks—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “Hey, Ellie?” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why are you here? I mean… What did you do?” I knew that questioning someone’s past was a big no-no on the island, but Ellie was one of the sweetest women I’d ever met. The thought of her murdering someone was unfathomable.

  “You honestly want to know that?” she asked.

  I did.

  She let out a soft sigh. “I was heavy into drugs when I was eighteen. I used to party every night. A friend of mine had a house party on November seventeenth. I’ll never forget the date even though I can’t remember what happened. I guess I walked in on some guy raping her… All I remember is coming to in a police cruiser and seeing blood all over my clothes. Turns out I stabbed him twenty-four times.”

  My eyes went big.

  “You really shouldn’t ask people that question if you aren’t ready to hear the answer,” she said.

  “No, no,” I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’m glad you told me.”

  She knew she’d freaked me out a little bit. Twenty-four times?

  “I was a different person, Lydia. And I was under the influence. Drugs can turn you into something completely different, especially excessive use.”

  “How old are you now?” I asked.

  “Twenty-six.”

  I grabbed her hand and pressed it against my lips. I wasn’t afraid of her. I knew she was a good person despite what she may have done in the past.

  “Thanks for sharing with me,” I said.

  “Yo, shut the fuck up!” someone said. “We’re trying to sleep.”

  Ellie laughed like a kid caught playing games during nap time—a whispered giggle, almost. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her against my chest.

  “We should get some rest,” I said. “I need my strength tomorrow morning.”

  Her hair tickled my chin as she pulled her head back. “Why’s that?”

  “I have to go pick up a crocodile.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “It’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?” I asked, my anger misdirected at Coin.

  “It’s gone,” she repeated plainly.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It had been right here—the crocodile—right atop river stones in the shallow end of the bay.

  “Well, it didn’t just float away,” I said.

  Franklin, who we only brought along for extra muscle power, jeered, “Maybe it came back to life.”

  I glared at her. Was this all a big joke to her? Aside from fruit and nuts, most of us hadn’t eaten a solid meal in days. She wasn’t a Hunter—she had no idea what it felt like to venture dozens of miles per day on an empty stomach.

  “What?” Her eyes went big at me, and she shrugged, her palms facing up.

  I grinded my teeth and bit my tongue. I wanted to tell her off—tell her she was nothing but a worthless waste of skin because all she ever did was complain or find fault in others—but if I did, things would only escalate; and if things escalated while I was in pain, starved, and exhausted, I’d probably black out again.

  When I looked away, she said, “That’s what I thought.”

  The muscles in my neck went stiff and I stretched them slowly, hearing a loud pop. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it.

  The quiver on my back was instantly hot against my skin, and I wondered how fast she’d drop to her knees like the pathetic coward she was if I were pointing an arrow at her face.

  “Yo,” Coin said, slapping me across the forearm. “Ain’t worth it.”

  I quickly glanced at her, realizing how psychotic I must have looked—clenched teeth, eyes wide, neck veins bulging out. I inhaled a deep breath through my nostrils and slowly released it.

  Franklin wasn’t even invested in what was going on—she was wandering around at the edge of the jungle, walking circles around Proxy, who stood as stiff as a nail board, her hands held together behind her back and her chin raised high as she observed our surroundings.

  I hadn’t been too keen on Proxy tagging along, but we’d agreed to four women lifting the crocodile, while also leaving a few women behind at Redwood who were capable of battle in case of an attack. Proxy wouldn’t survive one minute on the front line.

  That left Johnson and Ellie—which I also wasn’t keen on, but Ellie was caring for Fisher—to guard Redwood. Everest was too old to fight, so she didn’t count.

  Fortunately, Proxy had constructed a flutelike mechanism out of a bamboo stick.

  “If you blow here,” she’d said, guiding Ellie, “it will emit a high-pitched whistle capable of being heard several miles away and we will quickly return.”

  “Looks like it’s gone,” Proxy said now, staring out at the river’s current.

  “No shit, Batman,” Franklin said.

  I closed my eyes again and inhaled slowly. God, I hated her.

  “There goes our meal,” Coin said.

  “Doesn’t make much sense, though.” Proxy stepped forward, the tips of her toes soaking in the bay’s shallow water. She had thick leatherlike slabs underneath her feet and dry meshing around her ankles and shins. I’d seen a few women wear these when I first landed on the island. I would much rather have had that instead of my deteriorating leaf boots. “Crocodiles can weigh over two thousand pounds.”

  Franklin crossed her arms and rolled her eyes like a teenager on the verge of receiving a lecture.

  “It wasn’t that big,” I cut in. “A young female, maybe.”

  Proxy rubbed her chin. “A leopard can carry up to twice its weight up a tree”—she paced back and forth—“and a large leopard can weigh up to two hundred pounds.”

  Everyone stared at her in silence.

  “Then I suppose, mathematically speaking,” she continued, “if the crocodile weighed less than four hundred pounds, which it wouldn’t unless—”

  “We get it,” Franklin said.

  “Does it matter who took it?” Coin asked, her patience thinning.

  It did matter. What if a group of savage women were responsible? What if it wasn’t a wildcat at all, but Ogres or Rogues or even Northers?

  “Could be humans,” I said.

  Everyone’s eyes shot up at me.

  I glanced around, peering through the dark gaps in between the flourished trees and tall reed grass around the water’s edge. “I mean, we don’t know this part of the jungle very well. What if there are Ogres nearby? Rogues?”

  “Rogues travel alone,” Coin said. “One woman wouldn’t be able to carry a crocodile.”

  “Ogres?” I repeated.

  The thought of being in close contact with uncivilized, cannibalistic women was more frightening than the crocodile. My shoulders stiffened, and my eyes continued to scan every inch of thick greenery around us.

  “Look,” Coin broke the eerie silence. “It don’t matter anymore. The damn thing’s gone. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Franklin threw her head back and moaned, her mouth loose and her eyes in the back of her skull. “God, I’m starving.”

  “We’re all starving,” I growled.

  “You’re the Hunter,” she threw back, her eyes narrowing. “Get us some damn food.”

  In one swift movement, I pulled an arrow from my quiver, loaded my bow, and pointed its sharp tip straight at her face.

  “Whoa!” Franklin said and raised two open hands by the sides of her face.

  My heart was beating out of my chest and a sense of surrealism clouded my head—that familiar, adrenaline-induced, out-of-body feeling like I wasn’t in control of my physical self, but rather, a spectator.

  She stood there, a crystal-clear image, with panic in
her eyes.

  “Brone!”

  The bow’s string made a stretching noise as I pulled back, and the arrowhead’s aim bounced up and down from her face to her neck, following my rapid breathing.

  But before even being able to visualize letting go of the arrow, I was hit hard from behind and propelled into the water, over a bed of slimy stones. Water flowed around me, but not over me, and the next thing I knew, Coin was straddled on my stomach and I was pinned down with no weapon in hand.

  “Just ’cause Murk ain’t around, don’t mean we get to lose control,” she said calmly.

  “Get the fuck off me!” I shouted, kicking water in every direction. Who did she think she was? This was between Franklin and me.

  “You need to learn to control your anger,” she said. “Ain’t nobody happy about being here. I’m hungry, too. I’m exhausted, too. But we ain’t goddamn animals!”

  Her thick arms were too short and stalky for me to break her hold. She held both my hands firmly against my own chest and sat there, her triceps bulging out.

  I finally dropped my head back and stared at the sky. It was no use. She was too strong.

  “You done?” she asked.

  I waited a minute or so before finally answering. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” She let me go and helped me up.

  I slapped a hand into the water to pick up my floating bow and a few of my arrows that had fallen out.

  “Just ’cause you have a weapon,” Coin said, “don’t give you the right to play God. If you’re gonna fight, at least be fair about it.”

  “There’s nothing fair about this goddamn island,” I said, whipping my arrows over my shoulder and into their quiver.

  “We’re all struggling, Brone,” Coin said. “We need to stick together.”

  I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was too angry—angry at myself, angry at the justice system, angry at everyone.

  I hated this place.

  “Let’s go,” I said, making my way back into the jungle.

  As I passed Franklin, who I assumed would keep her mouth shut after I pointed an arrow at her, she smirked sideways at me. “You’re nothing without that bow.”

  Without thinking, I swung a fist as hard as I could at her nose and there was a loud crack. She stepped back, completely disoriented with both hands over her bloody nose, but her wild eyes slowly rolled up at me, and I immediately regretted hitting her.

  I didn’t have the time to dodge her attack. She swung her long arm out, a curved punch to the side of my head. Everything went fuzzy, and I heard a ringing noise in my left ear. She grabbed me by the hair, dragged me down to the ground, and dropped her knee right into my ribs.

  At that moment, I thought for sure she’d cracked my ribs, even though I could barely feel anything.

  Another hit to the side of my head sent pain through my skull.

  “Guys!”

  “Ohhh, this is not good.”

  I swung back as hard as I could and felt the impact, but I couldn’t tell where I’d hit her. She tried to pin me down, but I kicked her in the stomach and she fell back a few steps.

  Coin intervened and grabbed Franklin by the arm, but all it did was aggravate her. She swung a fist straight for Coin’s jawline and came back at me and drop-kicked me in the chest, crushing both my arms against each other.

  Another hit—a stomp-like kick to my face this time, and everything around me began to fade.

  I waited for that final blow to knock me out, but nothing happened. I glanced back, my vision blurry, and witnessed something I thought for sure was a dehydration-induced delusion.

  Proxy, whose face was completely emotionless, had her long bony forearm wrapped around Franklin’s neck from behind. Her biceps showed minor definition but nothing worth bragging about. Franklin's face was beet red and her eyelids became heavy as Proxy slowly lowered her to the ground until at last, she lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Oh my God, Brone, what happened?”

  Ellie rushed to me, her panicked eyes scanning my swollen face and bloody arms.

  “A slight altercation,” Proxy said.

  “Slight?” Ellie retorted.

  Sensation had finally kicked in—a sharp ache in my ribs and painful throbbing on my face, my arms, and my knuckles, which were scraped up pretty badly. My vision was still fuzzy, and I had a wicked headache.

  “Who did this?” Ellie’s eyes shot up at Coin and Proxy. “Where’s Franklin?”

  “She’ll find her way back,” I said. “Maybe. Hopefully not.”

  “She did this?” Ellie asked.

  “As I said,” Proxy said, “a slight altercation.”

  “They got into a fight.” Coin rubbed her jaw where Franklin had clocked her.

  “And you guys left her there?” Johnson asked, stepping into the conversation.

  “I had to subdue her somehow,” Proxy said. “With the right amount of pressure on her carotid artery—”

  Johnson laughed out loud. “You put her in a sleeper choke?”

  For a moment, it looked like she was getting along with Proxy.

  “I did,” Proxy said.

  “Quiet down,” Ellie said. She glanced back at the farthest hammock in Redwood. “Fisher’s sleeping.”

  “How’s she doing?” I asked.

  Ellie shook her head. The look on her face told me Fisher’s condition wasn’t improving. “I’ve cleaned her wounds twice this morning, but I think the infection’s spreading into her bloodstream. She’s feverish.”

  I clenched my teeth. I couldn’t lose Fisher.

  “Where’s the crocodile?” Ellie asked, glancing around.

  “Wasn’t there,” Coin said.

  Ellie cocked an eyebrow. “How on earth did a dead crocodile disappear overnight?”

  Proxy pointed a finger in the air. “There are several possibilities. It could have been taken by Ogres, by Northers, or, depending on the weight of the crocodile—”

  “Ogres?” Johnson cut in, distraught by the very idea of them. “I thought we were far away from those psychotic bitches.”

  “We don’t know what happened,” I said. “It could just be a leopard.”

  Proxy cleared her throat. “Actually, the odds of it being a leopard are quite slim—”

  “Are we even safe here?” Johnson continued. “What if we’re on Ogre territory right now? What if there are Northers nearby? We have no defense in place. We’re all starving. We’re an open target. What the hell are we—”

  But she abruptly stopped talking, and everyone’s eyes followed hers.

  At the edge of Redwood was Franklin, huffing and puffing as she walked in backward dragging something, her back curved and her neck glistening with sweat. She stopped pulling, stiffened her posture in a stretch, and glanced at us.

  “Well, are any of you twits gonna help me?”

  I didn’t move. Coin ran to her side and together, they walked into Redwood backward, branches cracking and leaves crunching as they dragged through the dirt whatever it was they were pulling.

  “Holy shit,” Johnson said.

  There was a loud thump, and at the very center of Redwood lay the crocodile that had attacked Fisher. Its short, dinosaur-like legs hung stiffly at the sides of its body, and its belly faced upward. But what took me most by surprise wasn’t the fact that Franklin had found the crocodile, nor that she had somehow managed to drag it by herself—what took me aback was its beige belly. It was completely torn open and empty.

  I hesitated. “You took out its insides?”

  Her eyes rolled up at me. There was pink swelling underneath her right eye and a gash across her lower lip but nothing else. Clearly, I’d lost the fight.

  She smirked. “Found it like this.”

  I clenched my fists. “Where? When?”

  “When I woke up,” she said. “You know, after Gentle Giant over here put me in a sleeper choke.”

  “My apologies,” Proxy said, “but it was
necessary.”

  “Whatever,” Franklin said. “I’m over it. Anyways, I ended up walking in the wrong direction for a while, and I found this little bastard lying flat on its back—like this.”

  Proxy knelt by the crocodile’s side, her index finger running along the smooth scaled skin of its open belly. “This was cut open. It looks like the shape of a triangle. A ritual, perhaps.”

  Everyone looked up at one another.

  “Did you see anything else?” I asked. “When you found the croc?”

  Franklin shrugged. “I’m not sure. I didn’t look around. I just grabbed it.”

  “Think,” I said. “Any weird markings on nearby trees? Any altars? Anything unusual?”

  Her eyes were glued to mine. “Like I just told you, I’m not sure.”

  I nearly lunged at her again, but Fisher was sleeping, and truthfully, I didn’t want to get my ass kicked again.

  “You think this is an Ogre’s doing?” Johnson asked, a slight tremble in her voice.

  “Could be,” I said.

  Franklin scoffed—the one thing she was good at. “Ogres aren’t even a sure thing.”

  I glared at her. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” she said. “No one knows for sure if they’re even real. For all we know, it’s some dumb myth Murk invented to keep us inside the Village walls. It’s perfect, really—a bunch of crazy woman-eating savages.”

  “You were practically shitting yourself by the river when the word Ogre was mentioned!” I pointed a stiff arm in the direction we’d ventured earlier.

  Another scoff. “I was only messing around.”

  Why did she feel the need to look so tough in front of everyone? So badass?

  “My friend was killed by an Ogre,” I said slowly, grinding my teeth. “And I saw one during the wildfire. So don’t tell me they don’t exist.”

  There were a few gasps and low-toned bickering, but Franklin kept up her appearances.

  She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Your friend? What friend? Or is this an imaginary lover you like to fantasize about when you touch yourself at night?” She laughed out loud. “I mean, come on—we all do it.”