Star has clearly done the same thing. Her face and arms are red from scrubbing.
Jake is clean too. I smirk, "That was some punch you threw."
He snorts, "I think I need lessons."
Will shakes his head, "You need way more than that."
He scowls at his brother, "At least I can have a conversation with someone, without making them want to kill me."
I laugh and nod, "He has a point there."
Will gives us both a narrowed gaze.
I glance at Star, "How comfortable are you with killing them all?"
She nods, "Very."
I bite my lips, "We need guns. I'll go see if I can get some."
Will shakes his head, "You stay here, for Christ's sake. You go out there and they'll all start thinking about the fact you’re a girl and they're not." He sighs and runs his hands through his dirty, whisky-soaked hair, "I'll go."
He doesn’t look at us as he leaves the cabin. I wait a couple seconds and glance at Jake, "I'm going out the back window, I'll be back in a minute. Make it seem like I'm laying down, in case he gets back before me."
Jake opens his mouth to argue but I leave. Sneaking out the window isn’t so hard. I've done it hundreds of times, but the camp is bustling. I creep along the back, seeing a man sharpening a knife on a log. He must be a guard of sorts. I walk up behind him, staying low to the bushes. I sit next to him on the log, making sure no one sees us. He jumps a little, flashing an angry glare at me. He's not much older than me but tired looking. His dark hair is messy and longer.
"What the hell do you want?" he grumbles.
I notice the bit of dried blood on his sleeve. I don't recall him from the fighting, but I'm sure I nearly killed him. "How do you know Jack?"
He looks at me like he might snap but his eyes are scary like mine. He looks deeply into mine and something he sees in there kills off his anger. "He's my dad."
My stomach falls as I nod slowly. I need to see him as one of them bad ones. "Do y'all rape a lot of women?"
He gives me a shocked look but then sighs and shakes his head, "I've never done anything like that before. I didn’t even know what Fish was doing. If Dad had been here that wouldn’t have happened but he's been off lately. Taking a lot of trips."
I think for a second, "Who is Fish?"
"Dad and him have been friends for a while. We found this old camp and have spent a few winters here. We have been safe and sound and not worrying about much."
I nod, "I think Jack was looking for somewhere for you and him to go to."
He shakes his head, "He's always gone lately, and Fish and them don't seem as bad when he's around."
I whisper, "Do you want out?"
He glances down and gives a single, subtle nod. I get up and leave. I'm not making him any promises, but I like Jack and this guy is the reason Jack won't let us kill them. He didn’t want me to know his son was in on the assaults.
I sneak behind the buildings to the cabin they had tried dragging Star into. I hear men arguing. It freezes me up inside. I don’t budge. I hold my breath and wait.
I can't hear what they're saying, but I can hear Jack. I can only assume it's Fish but then I hear Will. I creep to the scum-covered window with the huge bush in front of it.
I can hear their voices better.
"She isn’t going to go for that. She's all or nothing," Will says.
"The rest were never like this. Fish has lost it. He's got them doing things—bad things." Jack says in a hushed tone.
I lean against the house and realize they want to only kill the ones they have to.
I bite my lips. Can I walk away, knowing they would have hurt me and Star?
A branch snaps behind me. I spin just in time to see a fist coming for my face. I duck and tackle. Taking Fish to the ground. He grabs at my arms, laughing and rolling us so he's on top of me. I scratch and pinch and fight, but he pins me.
He is breathing heavily and looking down on me with a huge grin, "You are a savage."
I clench my jaw, looking for my out or his weakness.
He smiles, "Come on, Emma. You want me. I can sense it. You like it rough. I can tell this sort of thing about girls and you are just my type."
I snarl, "You're not my type, Fish. I like to be on top." I roll us as I wrap my thighs around his waist. I squeeze hard into his kidneys. He screams and it's my turn to laugh. He wraps his massive hands around my throat but I punch his windpipe hard. He chokes and I roll us again. I pin him to the ground, pressing on his throat and digging my fingernails around his Adam’s apple.
He laughs in a wheeze. He doesn’t have the dead look in his eyes, he's enjoying the wrestling. Gasping for air and confused, I shake my head, "What are we doing? Why do you want this? Is this fun for you? Are you insane?"
He grabs a fist full of my hair, dragging it down to his face, "Women are dead inside. It's rare to see one so alive." He smells my greasy, dirty hair. He closes his eyes, "I just wanted to know what you would feel like in my arms." In the closed slits of his eyes, I see tears forming that are about to fall down his cheeks. I don’t know what is happening.
My arm is grabbed as someone shouts, "WHAT THE HELL?" I flinch but it's Will. He drags me off of Fish.
I point at Fish, "You are weird."
Will looks crazy but Jack laughs bitterly, "Coming from her that is an insult."
I shake my head muttering, "I'm out of here. Friggin’ insane bunch." I give Jack a look, "A couple guns and we're gone."
His eyes flicker to Fish, who is still in a daze of some sort. I almost feel sorry for him. He's lost his mind. I don’t even know what's happening.
Fish waves a hand, "Give her guns and show her the way out." He turns and walks away. He's defeated, I think.
Jack looks confused or scared. He gives me a subtle headshake, "I told you to stay in the cabin."
I try really hard to give him a caring look, but I know how it looks on me. It always looks like I don’t give a shit. I've mastered it. I turn and walk away. A man standing near the cabin gives me a wide birth as he walks past me. I almost feel like faking at him and watching him run away.
I see now that my way of reacting is never the same as other people’s, except Will. Me and him react exactly the same, only he ends up calling me crazy and telling me how unstable I am. I snort and walk into the cabin where Star and Jake are talking quietly. I nod, "We're leaving now. Sleeping in the woods with nature would be better than trying to sleep here."
She looks exhausted but smiles, "Okay. We killing on the way out?"
I sigh, "I don’t know. These guys are crazy."
Will comes in the cabin after me. He gives me a hard look. I sneer at him.
"They've been eating some of the people they kill."
I don’t understand. I stand there confused and still for a minute. Jake and Star must be feeling the same way, because they don’t say anything either. None of us move or speak for a minute.
Will nods, "I know."
I shake my head, "What? No. I must have misheard you."
His lip is tucked into a constant grimace, "No. They've eaten some humans. They got real hungry last winter. Jack had been doing the hunting but he wanted to find other folks to live with. He saw them all getting weird, like they had been alone too long. He knew they needed more diversity and he'd heard about the rebel camps having women and men. He figured these boys needed some women. When he left they caught a big bunch of men and a couple women. They had run out of meat…"
I put a hand up, "Stop."
He nods slowly, "We gotta go. Jack was gonna down a big deer or something to start a big barbecue up before we left. So that would be cooking as we left. Drinking and eating distracts them."
"That’s why they're so strange?"
He gives me a look.
"They're eating people and Jack wants us to let some of them live? He thinks they'll be okay if Fish is dead?"
He nods once.
I storm past him, flinging the door open and scan the grounds.
I'm breathing like a crazed person. I see a crossbow like the one I had a few years back. I storm up to the guy next to it.
I point at it, "Can I have that?"
He gives me a look, "Get lost."
I punch hard, cracking his jaw and my hand. He's up and off his feet, but I have the crossbow in my hands. I point it at his chest, "I asked nicely."
He wipes the blood from his face, "You never said please. I see the blade in his hands come at me. I leap back, pulling the trigger. The arrow slices into his arm. He drops the blade as I kick his legs out from under him. Another guy gives me a look. I wing his right arm too. Grabbing the small stack of fresh arrows from the ground, I glance around at the fire pit. There is no one around.
The two guys I shot are calling me names but Will and Jake are with me. I hear scuffles and harsh words. I'm at my threshold for crazy.
I wish Leo were with me. Holding the crossbow up and taking small steps, I round the corner of the cabin where the guy was sitting. I fire three shots, hitting the three guys standing next to a smaller fire pit. The fire is being built by a forth guy. I miss him, reload and hit his right arm. Jack comes running when he hears the screaming. He points a gun at me, "Stop."
I shake my head, "Jack, me and you both know this is never going to stop."
I can feel Will's hulking body next to mine. I can hear the scuffles behind me. A gunshot makes me jump. I glance back at Star holding a handgun over a dead man. She has the dead look in her eyes. The man on the ground is the one who was mainly attacking her before.
I look at Jack, "You need to purge this place. It's only going to get worse."
His eyes shoot to his son. He's pleading with me, but I shake my head. He sighs, "Go, Emma."
I walk backwards, holding the crossbow on him, "How do we get out?"