A Brutal Justice by Jess Corban

Author:Jess Corban [Corban, Jess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Dystopian, YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Values & Virtues
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“SECURE THE SURVIVORS!” Torvus booms from the platform.

Every able-bodied Brute immediately sets to work carrying out his order, first hastily tying bandages to stem the worst of their bleeding. Some cover the dug-out pits, filled with trapped Alexia, with latticework lids made of long boards and netting, then secure the edges with stakes. Others transfer bound prisoners across camp to the bamboo cages. Dozens of cages. Those trapped under heavy nets, like Trinidad, remain as they are. I locate her bundled form again, ensuring she’s still secure and relatively out of danger, about fifty meters from the base of the mahogany tree. She’ll be safe there for now. So I turn my attention instead to the Brute leader, who’s descending the dais.

“Torvus!” I call, running to intercept him.

He reluctantly halts.

Veins pulse in raised ridges up his neck and down his arms, and his hands and chest are mottled with dirt and blood. So much blood, mirroring the devastating loss all around us. Still, it could have been much worse. Torvus’s tactics did succeed in limiting the death toll.

“Thank you,” I say, “for sparing so many.”

He grunts, wearily, and turns away.

“And I’m sorry,” I blurt, the guilt I’ve been ignoring for the past hour resurfacing. “I should have been more careful. This is my fault.”

He looks like he might tell me exactly what he thinks of my carelessness, but Jase jogs up, breathing heavily. Mottled bruising blooms across his body, beneath a patchwork of seeping lacerations.

“How many?” Torvus asks him.

“Six,” he reports, straining to keep the word steady.

The Brute leader stills in reverence. “And them?”

“I count forty-two captured, twenty-seven slain. The rest escaped to the Jungle.”

Torvus curses under his breath, then glares at me while addressing Jase. “We must assume our location will be reported. We’ll have to evacuate.”

I wither under his stern gaze.

“Take the bodies to the outskirts of camp,” Torvus continues, “for the cubs’ sake. We’ll bury them tomorrow.”

Jase nods and runs off again, nearly colliding with Rohan, who had been making his way toward us. Toward me. Rohan’s waist is wrapped with a wide brown cloth, bandaging a wound that already bleeds through, and he limps slightly as he nears. But his chest heaves in relief at finding me alive. Before we can say a word, Jase grabs his arm and pulls him away, recruiting him and several other Brutes to help with Torvus’s unpleasant errand.

They’re all injured, yet each one keeps moving. Tonight has revealed new depths of their strength, and not just their physical might.

I fight the urge to follow them—to assure Jase his sacrifices are not lost on me. To tell Rohan how his voice steadied me while I dangled between life and death.

Now is not the time. Instead, I let Torvus’s mention of the cubs steer my purpose. As the Brute leader joins the efforts to secure the Alexia, I jog toward the hollowed-out tree near the kitchen where I assume Jonalyn is still hiding.

Halfway between the mahogany tree and the orchard, a group of younger Brutes, gangly and sweaty, descend from the canopy using a rope ladder.

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