by Amy Cross
Glancing over my shoulder, I watch the forest for a moment. Apart from Jude working on the fence, however, I don't see anyone.
“Someone's coming this way,” Deckard continues, “don't you hear the shouting?”
“No,” I reply, “I just -”
Suddenly I realize that he's right. There are raised voices in the distance and they sound angry. I reach down and grab a knife, and Deckard does the same as we make our way toward the center of the clearing. Jude hurries over to join us as the voices continue to ring out through the forest.
“Is it them?” I ask, turning to Jude.
“I don't have a clue who it is,” she replies, “but -” Suddenly she points toward the trees. “There!”
Spotting a figure darting through the forest, with several more right behind her, I take a step forward before realizing that someone's being chased. Too stunned to react, I watch as the girl gets closer, until finally she bursts into the clearing and comes to a halt. She looks completely disheveled, with several large bruises on her face and dried blood caked all around her mouth and neck, and as soon as she spots us she seems to panic, freezing for a moment before turning to run again. As she does so, she lets out an inhuman wail, as if something's wrong with her voice.
“Wait!” I call out, but Jude has already hurried over, quickly grabbing the back of the girl's tunic and dragging her to the ground, just as several other breathless men emerge into the clearing.
I instantly recognize one of them as Goddard, the English guy from the makeshift town.
“She's ours,” he says firmly, making his way over to Jude. “We'll be taking her back now.”
“Does Vargas want her?” Jude asks, struggling to keep hold of the girl's struggling body. “If -” She lets out a cry of pain as the panicking girl bites into her arm, but she manages to keep hold of her and quickly smacks her elbow into the side of the girl's head, knocking her out cold.
“It's none of your business why we want her,” Goddard mutters, reaching down to grab the girl's limp arm. “She's ours and we're taking her.” He glances at me. “We thought you lot had moved a little further away. Fancy our surprise, finding you up here.”
“Who says this girl is yours?” I ask, stepping toward him.
“Leave it!” Jude hisses, getting to her feet.
“You're not seriously going to start an argument over this, are you?” Goddard asks as he hauls the unconscious girl over his shoulder. “I don't know quite what you think you're doing around here, but you're not on safe ground just yet.”
“The way I see it,” I reply, stepping closer, “you're on my territory now, and so's that girl.”
He laughs.
“I'm serious,” I add, holding the knife out. “What do you want with her?”
“I don't have to explain myself to you,” he sneers.
“You do if you want to take her.”
“Stop!” Jude hisses, nudging my arm. “You know what they want! Just let them go without turning this into another fight!”
“I'm sick of this,” I continue, raising the knife until the blade is close to Goddard's face. “People claiming land all over the place, and claiming people now too. It's like you're trying to copy the worst of the world we left behind. Not here, though. Not right now. Leave her alone and go!”
Goddard stares at me for a moment, as if he's not sure that I'm serious, and then slowly a smile starts to cross his lips.
“Are you actually threatening me?” he asks incredulously. “You want to pick a fight over the life of some scrappy little scrap of meat you've never even met?”
“I don't want to pick a fight at all,” I tell him, “but I'm tired of being told what to do by people like you. Put her down and leave.”
“Make me.”
“There are three of us and six of you,” I point out, turning the blade a little and resting it against his dirty, bearded neck. “Those are pretty tough odds, but it'll be three against five pretty soon if you don't put the girl down. For once, I actually fancy our chances a little better.”
“Don't be a dumb -”
“Put her down!” I say firmly.
He pauses, before shrugging the girl off his shoulders and letting her fall hard to the ground.
“If you think that was a smart move,” he says after a moment, “you're going to find out pretty damn fast that you're wrong. You just sealed your fate, 'cause this girl here -” He kicks her hard in the chest. “She belongs to us now. She escaped, but she wronged us and she's going to pay for it. Either you let us take her away right now, or we'll come back with more people and we'll take her from you, and then we'll make you pay.”
“Why wait?” I ask. “If you want her so badly, try to take her now.”
He stares at the knife for a moment, before taking a step back. “I think I'll wait until I've got a little back-up. You might be a dumb whore, but even dumb whores can get lucky in a knife fight.” With that, he spits on the girl's unconscious body before turning and making his way back to the others who arrived with him. “Come on,” he announces, “we need to get back to Vargas and tell her someone's causing trouble.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “I don't think she'll like that one little bit.”
As they make their way back through the forest, I look own at the girl's slumped form.
“What the hell did you just do?” Jude hisses, stepping toward me and shoving me in the chest. “Are you insane? You basically just declared war on them!”
“No,” I reply, “I saved a girl from getting eaten. That doesn't seem so wrong to me!”
“And what are you gonna do when they come back?” she asks. “Are you just gonna give another little speech about being up for a fight? Then what? You just signed our death warrants!”
I turn to Deckard. “I couldn't let them take her,” I tell him. “I'll think of something, but they're monsters. They'd have ripped her apart.”
“I know,” he replies, looking a little ashen. “Maybe we should think about moving on, though. Before they get back.”
“Running again?” I ask.
“They're going to come back. You can't doubt that for a second.”
“They're cowards,” I mutter. “You saw them just now, they weren't even willing to take us on.”
“I don't think their boss is a coward,” he replies. “She's the one you've got to worry about.”
“Maybe it'll be okay if you apologize,” Jude tells me, with a hint of panic in her voice. “If you take the girl to them and present her as a kind of offering, maybe you can make them believe it was a misunderstanding.”
“You want me to hand her over so she can be eaten?” I pause, before crouching next to the girl and rolling her onto her back, so I can see her face properly. “No, I'm not doing that. I'm not letting them run us off again, either.”
“You're insane,” Jude hisses.
“Maybe,” I mutter. The truth, though, is more complicated. If Jude knew about my past, about my life before I came to the island, maybe she'd understand a little better why I'm willing to stay and fight.
Chapter Forty-nine
Iris
“What's a revolution?” Della asks, looking up from the book she's reading on her bed.
I turn to her. “It's nothing. Where did you hear that word?”
“It says here that -”
“It's nothing,” I say again, reaching over and taking the book from her hands. “It's just an old, stupid idea that people used to talk about.”
“The book says one day there'll be a revolution here. What does that mean?”
“It doesn't mean anything,” I tell her, frowning as I realize that the world around us feels strangely calm and quiet. No passing Schiff vessels, no sounds from the marketplace, no shouts or angry cries. On top of that, the air seems brighter than usual, as if more light is getting through.
Something's wrong.
“Why would people want a revolution?” Della asks.
“They want things to cha
nge,” I reply, turning to her, “but it's never going to happen. The world is just the way it is. There's no more fighting back, no fixing things. It's always going to be -”
Stopping suddenly, I realize that Della's face is glowing.
“What's wrong?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It's not real,” I whisper, reaching a hand out toward her but not quite daring to touch her arm. “You're not real.”
She frowns. “You're scaring me, Iris.”
“I'm not even here,” I continue. “I can talk again, that means... This is just a -”
Suddenly I sit up, gasping for air as I feel a cold breeze blowing against me. I'm on the ground in a clearing, somewhere in a forest, but it takes a moment before I remember that I'm on the island, and a moment longer before I remember that I was being chased.
And then I hear a voice behind me.
“Hey -”
Spinning around, I see two girls and a guy standing a few feet away. I freeze, terrified, but slowly I start to realize that I haven't been dragged back to the cannibal town. These are different people, and they're staring at me with a mixture of confusion and concern.
“It's okay,” one of them says finally, a girl with dark hair. She reaches out toward me, but I flinch and pull back. I don't want anyone to ever touch me again.
“Is she mad?” asks the other girl, turning to the man. “Maybe she lost her mind. She looks completely insane.”
“I think something else is wrong,” he replies, leaning closer to me. “My name is Tom Deckard,” he continues. “We're not going to hurt you. We're not like those people who were chasing you through the forest, we don't eat human meat.” He pauses, as if he's waiting for me to say something. “Can you tell us your name?” he asks finally. “There's nothing wrong with doing that, is there?”
I want to believe him, but after everything I've experienced on the island I feel as if I can never trust another human again.
“My name's Asher,” the dark-haired girl says, forcing a faint smile. “My friend here is Jude. Please, just tell us your name.”
I stare at her, my body rigid with fear, and finally I shake my head.
“Why not?” she asks.
I can feel tears in my eyes as I imagine what it'll be like when they realize the truth. I don't want to let them see, I don't want their pity or sympathy, but finally I know I have no choice. Opening my mouth a little, I let out a low moan before tilting my head to let them see the back of my throat.
“What's she doing?” Asher says. “What -”
Suddenly she falls silent.
“Woah,” the other girl says. “Is that -”
“Her tongue's gone,” Asher adds with a sense of shock in her voice. “Jesus, they must have...”
I close my mouth and look down at my trembling hands. I hate the thought that these people are pitying me, that they're looking down on me as if I'm some kind of wretch. All I want is to get away from here, to keep running, so I start getting to my feet, only for Deckard to put a hand on my shoulder. I instinctively push him away, while trying not to panic.
“Easy,” he says, holding his hands up as if to show me that he won't try again. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”
“Did they do this to you?” Asher asks. “The people you were running from, I mean. Did they take your tongue out?”
I stare at her for a moment, before nodding. Slowly, a sense of shame is creeping through my body at the realization that I let myself get into this situation.
“Jesus,” Deckard mutters, leaning back as if he doesn't want to get too close to me. “They really are... I mean, to do this to someone...”
“It's inhuman,” Asher adds. “It's one thing to kill for food, but this is just torture.”
“We don't know exactly what happened,” Jude says firmly. “For all we know, this girl is the one who did something wrong and they were just trying to stop her, or maybe punish her. Maybe -”
Before she can finish, I lunge at her, filled with an instinctive urge to grab her throat for saying such a thing. The others quickly pull me away, however, and I brush their hands off me as I crawl back.
“See?” Jude gasps, clutching her neck. “She just tried to kill me!”
“I think she's angry,” Asher replies, crawling closer to me. “It's okay,” she continues, “we're going to help you, we just... I'm sorry, it's just so shocking. I've never seen anything like this before. I've seen some monstrous things on the island, but this is a whole new level.”
Staring at her, I try to tell myself that I can trust these people, but deep down I'm terrified. Finally, realizing that I should at least make an effort before running away, I reach down and write my name in the mud.
“What's she doing?” Deckard asks.
Asher waits until I'm finished. “Iris,” she mutters. “Is that your name? Are you Iris?”
I nod.
“That's a good start,” she continues. “Iris, I need you to listen to me. I think those monsters are all over the place, there's no way to run. Behind us, there's only a ridge and a small clifftop beyond this patch of land, so you can't go that way. Your best option is to stay with us. We won't let those people come here, I promise.”
“Hey!” Jude hisses, grabbing her arm. “Why would you risk our lives for someone we don't even know?”
“Not now,” Asher mutters, turning to her.
“She tried to kill me,” Jude continues, “and now you're defending her!”
Hearing a sound nearby, I turn and look toward the trees, convinced that at any moment I'll see Vargas and the others. I can't help thinking about the old man, and about the fact that he gave his life in one final attempt to get us both free. I never even found out his name.
“It's okay,” Asher says after a moment, putting a hand on my shoulder, “we -”
Pulling away from her touch, I suddenly feel a sense of panic bursting through my chest. I know those cannibals will be back at any moment, so I stumble to my feet and start running to the far side of the clearing and then between the trees, ignoring the others as they call my name. The ground slopes up ahead of me, and finally I come to a halt on a small clifftop overlooking the sea. For a moment, I consider jumping down into the water and trying to swim to safety, but a moment later I hear someone nearby and I turn to see that Deckard has caught up to me.
Further off, back in the clearing, I can hear Asher and Jude arguing.
“You're safe,” Deckard tells me. “Really, I understand why you might want to get away from everyone, but your best option for survival right now is to stay with us.”
I shake my head, with tears in my eyes.
“I don't know how we'll make a stand,” he continues, “not yet, but Asher's smart and I'm not too rusty. I can't imagine how much pain you've been through, but if you keep running you'll only end up right back with those monsters.”
I try to reply, to tell him I'm scared, but all that emerges from my mouth is a sorrowful moan.
“Come on,” he continues, holding a hand out toward me. “Let us help you. We're not quite so beaten yet that we can't help each other.”
I stare at his hand, but the thought of touching another human being is enough to send rolls of nausea through my belly. At the same time, I feel as if the old man gave his life to save me and I can't throw it all away, not yet. Slowly, cautiously, I make my way toward Deckard and although I don't take his hand, I start walking with him back toward the clearing where Asher and Jude are still arguing.
Chapter Fifty
Asher
“She's just some dumb bitch,” Jude hisses as she follows me across the clearing, doggedly refusing to let the subject drop. “You're doing the exact opposite of the smart thing!”
“And you're welcome to leave,” I tell her, crouching next to one of the pieces of wood I saved from Deckard's work pile. Taking a knife from the ground, I start carving letters into the surface, partly to take my mind off Jude's rant. �
�I'm the one who picked this fight.”
“And why did you?” she asks.
“Because I'm sick of folding,” I reply. “If I run from this bully, I know I'll spend the rest of my life running from all the other bullies out there. In case you haven't noticed, we're on an island, so that isn't a strategy that's going to work for very long. I've run from people for long enough. Now I'm going to make a stand.”
“We need to ally ourselves with these people,” she continues, sounding increasingly frustrated. “Hand this Iris girl over to them as a token, and let's hope we can establish common ground.”
Ignoring her, I keep carving until I've got the last letter done, and then I get to my feet and carry the piece of wood over to the fence.
“What are you doing?” she asks, hurrying after me. “I thought you were the one who wanted to keep exploring the island!”
“I've changed my mind,” I mutter, propping the wood on top of the fence and then taking a step back to admire my work. It looks pretty scrappy and I'll definitely make a better sign later, but for now this will do.
“Steadfall?” Jude says, reading the sign. “What's that for?”
“Our town needs a name,” I tell her.
“Town?” She stares at me, her eyes wide with shock. “You think you're building a town here?”
“I think we're starting,” I reply. “I don't know about you, but it's been a long time since I had anything that felt remotely like a home. I guess I was scared of trying, but now...” I take a deep breath. “Now nobody's going to take this patch of land away from me, not unless they kill me first.”
“You're losing your mind,” she hisses. “What the hell is Steadfall, anyway?”
I stare at the sign for a moment longer, before turning to her. “It's something from a long time ago. Don't ask me to explain, because I won't, not ever. It's just something that was important to me once, and I'm hoping it reminds me to fight for this place. Like it or not, this piece of land is Steadfall now.”
“Says who?”
“Says me, and anyone who argues otherwise is going to have to face me.”