A Brutal Justice

by Jess Corban

  The small crowd that followed the commotion turns back too, eager to get on with the meeting so we can get to the food.

  All the Brutes except one.

  Rohan smacks Jase’s chest. “You wanted to, though,” he says, a little too playfully, I think, for the tense situation we just escaped.

  Jase shakes his head, a half smile relaxing the marked tension in his jaw. “Maybe.”

  They exchange a laugh.

  I can’t help but ask. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because brawn without control makes you an animal.”

  “Power without virtue . . . ,” I muse quietly.

  Jase raises a quizzical brow.

  “It’s the Nedéan motto: ‘Power without virtue is tyranny.’”

  Rohan acknowledges me for the first time tonight. I don’t know why I know it’s the first time. I just do.

  I meet his gaze in the near darkness, surprised to find it holds the same strange urgency as that evening in the treetops during my last visit.

  “Seems we all have to choose,” he says, then turns away, suddenly deep in thought.

  We make our way back to our seats. Understandably, even though Bri’s hands have been retied, Torvus watches her closely while he answers a few more questions.

  “When do we start?”

  “Do we have enough weapons?”

  “Does the Rescuer know?”

  Torvus doesn’t attempt to answer the last question. Instead he seems to grow simultaneously tired and agitated, flopping into his chair.

  “Eat,” he says.

  Immediately the Brutes descend on the roasting animals, hacking away the outer layer of charred flesh to the tender meat beneath. They skewer chunks on long, stripped sticks and pass them around the circle, followed by jugs of chicha.

  Twice I catch Torvus staring at me, slumped in his high-backed chair on the platform. The second time our eyes meet, he rises and makes for the Jungle without a word. Jase said the leader never stayed long after eating—that he tired easily of their antics. But I suspect tonight his hasty exit has more to do with the other reason Jase gave: I remind Torvus “too much of someone.” It must be Mother. And now that she’s gone, how the reminder must sting.

  What little inhibition remained around the circle disappears with their leader’s departure. With food in their bellies and spirits lifted with drink, their unrestrained mirth rises with the curling smoke, ever higher into the deep black of night. Once the music begins—a single drum at first, evolving into a rhythmic orchestra of eclectic instruments—the Brutes all but forget four outsiders invaded their camp today.

  This time it doesn’t take much for Jase to coax me into the fray of dancing. Though, even with a functional shoulder, I have as much rhythm as a spinning scarecrow. No one seems to mind my lack of talent; in fact, they seem genuinely honored I’m trying.

  Jonalyn is a harder sell, but eventually I convince her that we should humiliate ourselves together. I’ve always found her especially beautiful when she laughs; tonight she radiates pure loveliness. If only for the briefest of escapes, she appears to forget the danger and loss of the past few weeks. In this moment, she is the sister I remember. The sister I have terribly missed.

  “Oh, Reina,” she laughs above the din. “Who knew they’d be fun?”

  “Ha!” I return. “Definitely more entertaining than a roomful of stuffy Senators.”

  As we stomp and sway, spin and twist, between bodies I catch a glimpse of Jase approaching Bri where she sits on the ground, back against the log, arms crossed. He crouches down to hand her a coconut shell and skewer of meat. A figure passes by, obscuring my view; when it moves, I see Jase has braved sitting down beside her.

  Jonalyn takes my arm and swings me in circles. With each revolution I crane my neck to make sure Bri doesn’t do something stupid. Amazingly, it doesn’t seem she plans to run him through. In fact, she even smiles at something he says.

  Another revolution and I smack dizzily into something solid.

  “Ow—I’m sorry,” I laugh.

  Ori regains his balance, mumbling his own apology. As he walks away, Jonalyn disconnects from me to follow after him.

  “The baby?” I overhear her ask.

  “It’s Jem’s night for cub duties,” he says, avoiding her eyes. He begins to walk on, then, turning back, adds, “He named him Finch.”

  Halting, she repeats, “Finch.” A thoughtful crease folds her brow.

  Ori slips back into the throng churning around the fire.

  Jonalyn calls back to me, “I think I’d better rest.” Then she returns to her seat by Neechi.

  I’m about to follow after her when a deep voice behind me says, “I heard you apprehended an armed cub tonight.”

  I wheel around a little too quickly, knowing who I’ll find.

  A smile curls his thick lips. “The clan thanks you for your service.” He dips his head in feigned gratitude.

  I smack his arm.

  “Ow,” he groans, pretending to be hurt. “Why are you women so violent?”

  “Did you come over here just to make fun of me?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “To tell you that what you did was brave.”

  “Disarming Pip?” I laugh.

  He shakes his head and says something, but a passing drum drowns out his words.

  I shout above the music, “What?”

  He leans closer, angling toward my ear. He smells of smoke and damp earth. “Rescuing Dáin,” he says, clearly now. “It was brave of you.”

  One of the dancers bumps my back, and I stumble into Rohan’s unmoving body. Heat immediately burns my cheeks, and I back up as far as the pressing crowd will allow, though it’s barely a step. Rohan doesn’t seem bothered by my unintentional breach of personal space. He glances around, then presses a hand to my back and guides me toward the perimeter so we can avoid being trampled by the escalating fire dances.

  Once we’re clear of the carousing mass, I confess, “Rescue Dáin? I’d say it was more of a release, and I don’t know how brave it was. Stupid, more likely.”

  I wish he wouldn’t smile. Now I have to try not to stare, a battle I’m decidedly losing.

  “But you sent him. To warn us.” He studies my face.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Why does he make me so nervous? I can’t keep two thoughts together around this Brute. “I . . . I don’t know. For the Gentles, I guess.”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say a flash of hurt burns in his dark eyes. “The Gutless?”

  Is it my imagination, or does the Jungle suddenly cool? “I want to help them.”

  “Help them?”

  “It’s not right that we gentle them without their knowledge.”

  “But with their knowledge—that would be alright?”

  I snap back, “No, I—I don’t know.”

  He studies me with equal parts curiosity, urgency, and . . . something I can’t place.

  “I need you to know,” he nearly whispers.

  His gaze burns through me, searching, fierce, magnetic. I could run from those eyes. Or I could step into them.

  For all the unusual events of the evening—Pip’s antics, Bri’s escape attempt, the merriment and food—none of them keep sleep at bay like the encounter with Rohan. I retrace his words over and again, replay each glance, every chance touch. There are dozens of Brutes at Tree Camp. None of them draw my attention the way he does. None make me stumble over my words or chase sleep away. Why?

  Neechi snores, sprawled comfortably on the floor. Bri, lying on Dáin’s former hardwood cot opposite mine, stares up at the ceiling. Jonalyn’s is situated perpendicular to ours, along the wall, her head resting near mine.

  “You asleep?” she whispers.

  I shift my head toward her in answer.

  “They’re nothing like I imagined,” she confesses quietly. “Why didn’t Mother tell us sooner?”

  “She said it
was for our protection.”

  The thrum of insect chatter pulsates in the small room, drifting in through the netted half of the walls. Silvery moonlight traces my sister’s lovely features.

  “I don’t know how I’ll leave him,” she says.

  “The baby?”

  She nods. A tear slips from her eye, illuminated like liquid starlight.

  “Are you afraid they won’t care for him?”

  “No, not exactly. I can’t explain it, Rei. It’s just different, knowing what he’ll become. I’ve never felt this way about a baby—I mean, about a Gentle baby.”

  “A Brute baby.”

  She sighs. “Maternos know better than to get attached—you know from the start you’ll be sending them away eventually, and you know it’s for everyone’s good.” She reaches across to play with a strand of my hair. “But now I don’t know what’s for our good anymore—or for his. And if letting them be Brutes is best, how can I forgive myself for—” her voice trembles, then cracks, “for the first one? The one I sent to another finca?” A second tear chases the first. I brush it away.

  “You didn’t know,” I soothe.

  “And now that I do?”

  “You’ll do something about it.”

  “Like Mother.”

  I smile, imagining her trekking through the Jungle with tiny Brute babies. Like we just did.

  “No,” I say, “like you.”

  She seems pleased with my confidence in her, and we rest awhile, each absorbed in our own private thoughts, until her eyes shut and her breathing slows.

  But I still can’t sleep. Not without knowing what Rohan meant by his questions. Why does he care so much why I warned them, anyway?

  Here, now, without his striking features muddling up my mind, I can think of seven better ways I could have explained why I released Dáin.

  I don’t trust the Matriarch either.

  I didn’t want Teera to destroy them.

  I wanted to see him.

  No, I would never tell him that. Still, was my answer so bad? Why wouldn’t he want me to help the Gentles?

  Bri shifts restlessly, flipping to her side.

  “I’m glad you stayed,” I whisper.

  “Yeah, well, I figured my chances one-on-one with a Brute were slim.”

  “Naw, you could have taken him.”

  She smirks.

  I press a little further. “Do you see now why I came back? Why I couldn’t let Teera kill them?”

  She shrugs.

  I’ll take that as progress.

  “I still don’t trust them,” she mutters. “You’ve obviously been here before. Was it—?”

  “The night of the raid,” I finish for her. “Callisto and I fell behind you and the others. I saw some of them making for the Jungle, and I took after them. I almost had a shot, but they got the upper hand. Dáin might have killed me, but Rohan and Jase got to him first. They saved me, then . . .” There’s really no way to soften this part. “Then drugged me and brought me here.”

  Her incredulous stare makes me cringe. “Let me get this straight. One attacked you, and some others saved you by drugging and kidnapping you?” she whispers fiercely.

  “Dáin is the one who was attacking fincas, not the Brutes here. Torvus was against it.”

  “But he didn’t stop this Dáin?”

  I have nothing to say to this. She’s right—Torvus knew about the attacks, Rohan and Jase knew about the attacks. They decried his actions as inexcusable. Torvus kicked him and his accomplices out of camp. But why didn’t they put a stop to it? Why didn’t they put an end to him?

  “Look,” she continues. “They aren’t quite what I pictured Brutes to be, I’ll give you that. I can even see what Jase means about wanting what is theirs. But I still say there was a reason the foremothers gave them whatever it was that gentled them—the vaccine or whatever. The attacks themselves are proof they aren’t safe. At least not all of them.”

  “But what of us?” I argue back, trying to keep my volume from waking Jo and Neechi. “Are we ‘safe’? What we’ve done to the Brutes by gentling them—you saw the clinic at the Center, Bri. They were begging to die. You watched the Matriarch murder the Gentle at the Hive yourself, for no reason and with no remorse. And she’ll do worse. If these Brutes are monsters, how is she not one?”

  She rolls onto her back, chewing her lip. “I still don’t trust them.”

  Something Rohan said tonight simmers to the surface, and I repeat it as much to myself as to her.

  “Seems we all have to choose.”

  She turns to face me again. “I did choose. I chose to follow you into this death trap, remember? I have no problem killing Teera, or Jamara either, if it paves the way for you to become Matriarch. But if you think these Brutes are going to dance around a fire while you take your rightful place, you’re delusional. They’re in it for power, just like Teera.”

  Power . . . tyranny . . . Is it possible to have one without the other? I answer my unvoiced question with a single word: virtue. If power without it leads to tyranny, then virtue is the only way to keep a leader or system free from tyranny. So the question is, which of us—women or Brutes—have more virtue?

  That’s a question I can’t begin to answer.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AS WE DESCEND THE TREE THE NEXT MORNING, a heavy aroma of citrus and jasmine envelops us even before I notice that the ground resembles the fabled snow of the old world. Jase opens the gate, and I’m already jumping down, entranced by the peculiar sight, itching to get a closer look.

  No, not snow. The ground around the base of the mahogany is carpeted with thick-petaled, pinwheel-shaped blossoms. Someone has created a living, fragrant frosting of plumeria flowers in creamy whites, palest pinks, and barely yellows. They gather in mounds and slip between underlying palm fronds.

  “Who did this?” I breathe.

  “Torvus,” Rohan says, coming alongside us.

  “Torvus?” I glance past Rohan toward the Brute leader’s house, partially visible through the curtain of Jungle. The single plumeria blossom carved on his door echoes the otherworldly display. “Why?”

  Rohan shrugs, but Jase grows thoughtful. “I suspect to honor her.” He gives me a meaningful look, and I instantly understand.

  “If there comes a day,” I sing softly, “when you can’t find me . . .” My throat tightens, choking me into silence.

  Jonalyn picks up the refrain. “Lay my flowers there, by the mahogany tree.” She turns away, covering her face with her hands.

  Skirting along the edge of the extravagant display, I lift a single blossom and spin it in my fingertips, inhaling the rich fragrance as if it could conjure a memory of her. Torvus must have stripped the flowers from every plumeria tree from here to Nedé. To honor a woman he’ll never see again.

  What kind of deep devotion does that?

  “But . . . wasn’t he angry with her?” I question Jase.

  He comes closer to answer, affording us a little privacy. “He couldn’t forgive her for leaving him.”

  “Leaving? But she lives—lived—in Nedé.”

  “I don’t know the details. I just know he made that house for her, but ‘lost her’ to Nedé. That’s all he told me.”

  “Lost her . . . ,” I whisper, the final line of Mother’s song pounding like a downpour in my ears.

  I lost my love, at the mahogany tree.

  She did love him, and he loved her with the devotion of ten thousand blooms.

  What must it be like to love someone that way? Not with the affection of a family member or friend, but with a oneness that defies explanation, as Mother said. For a heart to entwine with another, like a strangler fig enveloping a ceiba in an inseparable, strangely symbiotic embrace. To completely disregard the Articles and give yourself wholly to another.

  Involuntarily, my curiosity wanders to Rohan, whose eyes are fixed steadily on me. As always, he exudes an untamed energy, like the Jungle put on clothes today. All the draw o
f the wild, embodied in two broad shoulders, within the set of his jaw, in the curve of his lips. And the smallest flutter of understanding ignites inside me.

  I force myself to look away . . . eventually. But not before he’s walking my direction. Or am I pulling him toward me with some kind of invisible magic?

  He stops a respectful distance away. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me, even though Jonalyn is busy examining the flowers, and Jase has gone, and I’m the only other person in sight.

  “For what?”

  “Your mother. You were close to her.”

  “Not as close as I should have been. She was an angel. Me—not so much.”

  His cheek twitches, revealing a dimple I’ve never noticed. “We all have our faults.”

  “Do we? And what are yours?” I ask him, not really meaning to. I guess my conversation with Bri has brought my doubts too close to the surface.

  He considers my question. “I’ve made my mistakes,” he says. He has the look of someone considering whether to say more, but Jase interrupts before he has a chance to decide.

  Already five meters off the ground, en route to retrieve Neechi and Bri, he calls down, “Rohan, take them to the kitchen. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Breakfast already?” I ask, perfectly content to change the subject.

  “Preparations,” he corrects. “We’ve got a lot to do before nightfall.”

  Jonalyn falls in beside me as we follow him toward the path adjacent to the orchard. But I can’t help glancing over my shoulder one more time. She would have loved them.

  The kitchen hut and surrounding vicinity already swarm with busy Brutes, three or four dozen, gathered in smaller groups. Each cluster attends to a specialized task, some twisting ropes and tying thick nets, others carving spears and assembling bolas—the strange weapon that took Callisto down the night of Dáin’s attack. Younger Brutes fill clay vessels with water and food, strip carcasses of their meat, and lug fruit from the orchard, dumping green mangoes, thick plantains, and rough-skinned mamey fruit into leaf-lined underground lockers.

  The more time I spend at the Brutes’ camp, the less reliable I find the limited facts I was taught about them. My initial assumptions seem to constantly shift and re-form, being molded by the tutor of experience with each new interaction. As I scan the group now, working with diligent focus on their assigned tasks, I notice even more variation than I’ve perceived to this point. Oh, they’re all Brutes—no doubt about that. As a class of human, they’re as distinctive as Gentles or women. But within their kind, they also possess variations in color, size, hair texture, and personality. Some are shy, like Ori, while others—hello, Jase—are as friendly as young pups. Their skin tones span every shade I see at home in Nedé—from weathered thatch to oiled mahogany, bronzed further by the sun. Their voices possess a strangely deep timbre, but they don’t all rumble like Torvus’s. And their bodies . . . obviously, they change as they get older, just as ours do, but even among the Brutes who seem about my age or a few years older—like Rohan, Jase, and the others Torvus plans to take with us to Nedé—no two are alike. Hard labor has done its work on them all. Even so, some wear their might like an understated garment: surprising strength concealed in a sinewy physique. Others resemble stallions, their pronounced muscles chiseled with peculiar definition.