C. Redwine: Outcast

“No!” Willow leaps forward, grunts, and crumples to the walkway, an arrow sticking out of her side.

“Willow!” I drop to my knees beside her. Jared throws himself down next to me as another arrow buries itself in the door frame of the council building. Quickly, I grab one of the flower barrels beside the door and shove it in front of us to spoil Dad’s aim.

“Gently.” Jared looks at Willow, and then snaps at Elder Toilspun, “Get me clean rags, a bucket of hot water, and whatever plant you use to disinfect a wound.”

Panic races through me, and my hands shake too much to pull out the arrow without widening the wound.

“Let me,” Jared says.

“You should get inside. He might try to shoot you again,” I say.

“Focus on the girl.” Jared nods toward Willow. She’s bleeding; a puddle is forming on the walkway beneath her. My heart is pounding, and my throat is tight.

Willow is all I have. I was supposed to save her, but instead, she saved me. I have to keep her alive. Losing my sister would do the one thing Dad hasn’t yet managed to do—destroy me.

Several elders hurry out of the building, thrusting rags our way. Matthias has been sent for disinfectant and hot water, but we don’t wait. I press the rags around the arrow’s tip while Jared gently pulls it out. Willow screams once, and then clamps her jaw shut and moans in pain. Blood bubbles up, and I push the rags against the wound while I pray that the arrow didn’t hit anything vital, didn’t go too deep.

“Get out of my way!” Dad’s voice booms through the night.

I don’t turn around, but Jared lunges to his feet.

“Did you do this?” Jared doesn’t raise his voice, but there’s power inside of it. Power and anger. “Did you shoot this girl?”

“I shot at you, you worthless piece of trash. My children were stupid enough to try to save you.”

The shaking in my fingers creeps up my arms and settles in my chest.

“You shot at me while your children were in danger of being hit?” Jared’s voice rises.

“Raised them better than to risk their lives for a stranger, but the boy is a soft-spined fool, and the girl was stupid enough to protect her brother.” Dad’s voice is filled with contempt.

Something hot and feral unfurls in my stomach as Dad approaches us.

“Get away from her,” Dad says.

Keeping my hands pressed against Willow’s wound, I slowly raise my eyes to meet my father’s. “No.”

“You listen, boy, and you listen good. This is your one chance. You get away from her and you take care of the threat the way I taught you, or the next weapon I use will be on you.”

“Quinn—” Willow whispers, her hand reaching for my wrist.

“You try to use a weapon on your son, and you’ll be dealing with me,” Jared says.

Quicker than water, Dad leaps forward, across Willow, his knives in his hands as he dives for Jared’s knees.

I slam into him and send him sprawling in front of Elder Toilspun.

“Help Willow,” I say to Jared as Dad flips to his feet and turns on me with a snarl.

“Think you’re better than me? Think you could choose a stranger over your own family, and I’d stand for it?” He spins the knives into his favorite throwing position.

I drop and roll toward him as the first knife leaves his hand. It flies over me and embeds itself in the railing that lines the walkway. Before he can throw the next one, I come up swinging.

The rage bursts free of the dam within me. I can’t hear anything but the pounding of my heart and the memory of the constant litany of abuse that has spewed from my father’s lips since I was born. I can’t feel anything but the blazing heat of my anger coursing through me and the way his body gives beneath my fists. I can’t see anything but the blood he’s put on my hands and the flash of fear on his face as he realizes I’m stronger than him.

We smash into the council door and land heavily on the floor inside. In seconds, we’re both on our feet, throwing punches and pivoting to match each other’s moves. I take his blows and barely feel the pain. We have the same training, the same instincts, but I’m faster.

I’m always faster.

This time, I don’t hold back. I drive my fist into his stomach and think of every time he laid a whip to Willow’s back. I slam my elbow into his temple and remember the way the light in my mother’s eyes grew fainter and fainter until all that was left was a haze of corn liquor. I kick his knee hard enough to shatter bone and remember my screams the first time he broke my arm. Before I’d learned that screams only made the punishment worse.

“No more,” I pant as his shattered knee gives out, and he falls heavily to the floor. “You’re done giving orders. You’re done abusing us. And you’re done killing people.”

He spits out a mouthful of blood and teeth and glares at me. “I’m done when I say I’m done.”

I lean down, my face inches from his, and say with absolute certainty, “You. Are. Done.”

His right shoulder tightens, a nearly imperceptible movement, and his eyes flick toward my chest. He whips his remaining knife toward my heart.

I block his arm with my right palm, moving the tip of the blade to the side.

He lunges forward.

Grabbing his wrist with my left hand, I wrench the weapon around, and shove it toward him.

The blade slides into his chest.

We stare at our hands, both holding the hilt, while blood pours across his tunic. My pulse pounds against my skull, and my breathing tears through me like sobs. I feel sick. Vindicated. Horrified.

His eyes find mine, full of fear and confusion, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but I let go of the knife and back away. I don’t want to hear his last words. I don’t want to watch him die.

As his death gurgle rattles in his throat, I turn and stumble out of the council building.

“He’s dead,” Elder Toilspun says. “You killed him.”

I walk past the elder without a word and sink down beside Willow. There’s blood on my hands, but I no longer know if it’s hers or my father’s.

I killed my father.

Something warm wraps around my shoulders, and I look up in surprise to see Jared’s cloak resting on me while he shivers in the winter air.

I’m shivering, too. My teeth are chattering, and the rage that drove me now feels like a sea of ice chilling me from the inside out.

I killed my father.

Dimly, I realize that Willow’s injury is packed with turmeric to clean the wound and that Jared is carefully wrapping a bandage around her stomach. Her eyes are open, and she’s staring at me.

I killed my father.

Killed him.

“So much violence,” Elder Saintcrow mutters. “It isn’t natural.”

“You didn’t have a problem with it as long as we kept it outside the village border,” Willow says weakly. “You turned a blind eye. Kind of hypocritical to complain now.”

“I killed my father.” I try the words on for size, shocked to hear my voice shaking.

“He was trying to kill you, son.” Jared’s voice is kind.

“You stopped him,” Willow says. Her eyes are fierce. “Nothing else would’ve worked, Quinn. You stopped him.”

Do the echoes of his violence—echoes of my own violence—die with him? If I turn away from everything he taught me to be and choose a different path, can this moment be the ashes on which I build a new life?

“Quinn—”

Willow’s hand is cold against mine. I try to wrap my fingers around hers, but all I can think of is the blood on my skin. The blood on my soul.

“We will meet to decide what must be done in the wake of these events,” Elder Saintcrow says to us before ushering the rest of the elders into the council house, where we can no longer hear what they’re saying.