C. Redwine: Outcast

“Yes, that’s our job.” Willow saves me from having to answer. “But you don’t want to grow up relying on other people to keep you safe. You want to know how to take care of yourself. You want to be strong and independent.”

“Like you?” The girl looks at Willow while behind us Shawna calls for the children to go inside.

Willow flashes a quick grin. “Like me. Time to go back to your classroom.”

The children groan in unison, but obediently walk toward Shawna, who flaps her hands at them to hurry them along and then slams the door without ever once glancing at Willow or me again. I shrug off her reaction and turn away.

For a moment, the morning is perfect. The warm scent of Harvey Eagleclaw’s pumpkin rolls drifts from the bakery to the left of the school. Bright-red cardinals hop along the smooth railings of the village walkways. Beside me, Willow’s smile matches mine, the cold edge that lurks inside her banished beneath the enjoyment of teaching others what comes so naturally to her. My chest still aches from Eliah’s faith that if I’m the village protector, I must be brave.

But then Willow’s smile uncurls into a thin, flat line, and I turn to look behind me.

Dad stands at the edge of the playground, his long, dark hair pulled back with a frayed thong and his leather coat—stained in places with the blood of those he declared his enemy—flapping in the breeze.

Silently, Willow moves to his side, her shoulders drawn back, her chin held high. I wipe my face clean of all expression as I follow her.

“Intruders spotted a half day’s journey to the east.” The creases around Dad’s eyes deepen as he scowls at us. “Time to stop playing with babies and do your real job. My bet is they’ll be here after nightfall. We’ll give them a proper welcome, won’t we?”

His smile twists something inside of me, and I hesitate a beat too long before nodding along with Willow. Dad’s expression goes flat and cold, and his scarred hands become fists.

“Won’t we, boy?” he asks with quiet menace.

My tongue feels too thick for my mouth as I say, “Yes.”

Yes, we’ll give them a proper welcome—the kind Dad has beaten into us since the day we were born.

I don’t know who is foolish enough to approach our village, but I’m sure of one thing: None of them are going to survive the night.

I’m also sure that Eliah was wrong. I’m not brave at all. I’m trapped, Willow is trapped, and every time I give in to my father I come a little bit closer to losing what little I have left of myself.

Dad, Willow, and I rest for the afternoon in preparation for the night’s hunt. Just before the sun goes down, Dad receives a final report from the village scouts—the intruders are a band of highwaymen. We move east of the village to establish our position in the trees and wait for them to arrive.

The wind rattles the brittle branches of my tree as I wait. I pull my fur-lined hood closer and flex my hands inside my deerskin gloves to keep the circulation flowing.

Soon they’ll show themselves. I’ve been hearing the soft crunch of snow beneath their boots for a while now.

Fools.

Trying to sneak up on our village is a difficult task even on a clear night. Trying to sneak up on us with a crust of icy snow underfoot is suicide.

In the tree directly across from me, Willow stretches along a branch, her arrow strung, her bow drawn. She flashes a quick glance my way, her smile a shade too bright for my comfort.

Several trees to my left, an owl hoots, slow and mournful. I grip the hilt of my long stone knife as Dad’s signal fades into the silvery night sky.

It’s time.

Seconds later, the highwaymen materialize out of the dark forest, moonlight gliding over their drawn swords like ice. Ten men walking two abreast. Four are shorter than my six-foot frame, though the length of their swords takes away the advantage of my longer reach. I’m faster, though.

I’m always faster.

They pass Dad’s tree, and now I can make out the details of their clothing. Coats cobbled together with sleeves from one jacket, a hood from another. Mismatched shoes. Pants covered in patches and seams until the original design is impossible to distinguish.

Highwaymen are scavengers who pillage the remains of the cities that once were, salvaging anything they can lay their hands on to use or sell at one of the city-states. I don’t care what they do to the ruins of the old cities. But highwaymen are also notorious for attacking travelers or Tree Villages throughout the Wasteland, stealing anything of value and often leaving their victims wounded or dead.

I take a deep, slow breath and close my mind to anything but what lies in front of me. A whisper of sound disturbs the night, followed immediately by another. Two men in the middle of the group drop to the ground, dead. Willow’s arrows still vibrate in the soft flesh between their eyes.

Even as the rest of the men turn, shouting to one another and drawing their swords, two more arrows fly. Two more men fall.

Men scramble for the trees, tripping over roots and branches, shoving one another out of the way.

Willow draws her bow, and a man in the front shouts her location but never gets the chance to attack. Dropping from my tree, I land just behind him and snatch a handful of his hood. Then I yank his head back, whip my knife up, and slit his throat. Releasing him, I flip backward, narrowly avoiding the slash of another man’s sword as it slices through the air in my wake. He rushes toward me, but Willow buries an arrow in his back, and he stumbles to his knees.

Two more men attack me, and I crouch, waiting until they’re almost upon me. Trusting Willow to drop the one to my left, I lunge for the other, spin to the inside of his sword arm, and bury my knife in his chest. He coughs once and sags against me. I lay him on the ground.

Dad drops from his tree, lands behind the two remaining men, and laughs. In each hand he holds a wickedly curved knife. The men whirl around, but Dad is no longer there. Diving between their feet, he slashes each of them behind their kneecaps as he rolls forward and flips around to face them.

The men scream in agony. One falls to the forest floor. The other limps to a stop and tries to hold his sword steady. It isn’t going to help him. An arrow streaks past and the man falls to the ground with a heavy thud.

Dad whips his hand in the air. “Leave the other for me, Willow.”

Bile climbs up the back of my throat as my father advances on the injured man.

“Dad,” I say as the man clutches his leg and moans in pain. “He’s already down. He isn’t a threat now. Just make it quick.”

I’m trying to stop floodwater with a river stone. Once my father begins, he never stops.

I turn away, trying to block out the sound of the man’s screams as Dad draws out his victim’s death with vicious glee. When the screams finally fall silent, I draw in a breath of icy air and force myself to sound calm.

“Let’s get the bodies away from the village before we draw any wild animals to us,” I say, bending to scoop my hands under the arms of the man with the arrow in his back. He moans softly, and I stiffen.

I know what I should do. What Dad and Willow would do. I should slit his throat and toss him onto the pile without a second thought. And if he had a weapon out with intent to attack, I would.

But the thought of killing a now defenseless man makes my stomach churn.

Worse, though, is the thought of what Dad will do if he discovers that we have a survivor. It would be an act of mercy to kill the man myself.

I lean forward with my knife ready.