Exodus Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen
The Slow Death


"We need new names. Our old names are what our parents called us. And they don't know us anymore."

I remembered the rabbit that lived in Owl's blackberry bush, the one Owl had saved from Frisk. Mildred Sanger had said that the rabbit taught the Plains Indians magic and storytelling.

"I'm Rabbit from now on. The storyteller. That's me." I said.

Viper snickered. I ignored her.

"Well, if we're doing animal names, then I'm Wolf; because wolves are bad ass."

"Raven is always talking for the people, speaking to monsters to help people who can't and tricking them into doing right. So, if we're doing animals, then I'm Raven."

Viper pouted for a minute, and then said, "Well snakes are keepers of knowledge, but 'Snake' sounds stupid. So I guess I'm Viper, because then I have poison if you mock me."

"I guess, I'm last. I like Owl. Silent when hunting and like a sniper in the night, and wise too- the symbol of wisdom and strategy.”

“Do you know how silly it is, giving ourselves new names?”

“That's what children do when they become adults. They get new names.”

“Okay, fine.” Viper said, “But now what?”

"Bruce Lee always said, 'real living is living for others.' If we are just doing this ourselves, maybe that's why we're failing. Maybe we need to help other people who will listen." Raven said to Owl.

"Nobody is listening." Owl said quietly

"The adults aren't. But what about the other kids? How many of them could we convince? How much more could we do with five more people? With ten?" Viper added. Owl looked at her in surprise as Viper kept talking, "I think we should do like Victoria from Twilight and form an army of our own?"

"Wasn't she the bad guy?" I asked.

"And so are we, and you shouldn't think otherwise."

Raven shook her head, “Anyone doing something big is a villain from somebody else's point of view. Other people can call of villains. I still say we're heroes.”

"In brightest day it's easy to be heroes. But the Green Lanterns knew that you also had to be a hero in blackest night. This is blackest night bro. Every night ends, but you gotta fight the whole way through if you still want to be a hero when dawn hits. I'll run interference, you build us the Green Lantern Corps." Wolf smiled as he spoke.

And with that Wolf got up and ambled back over to the food line. As he was in line, we quickly began whispering to kids who would listen that a big secret meeting was about to take place- just for kids. And we told them to watch for the distraction and the follow us.

Wolf waited until he got back to the front of the line and was told that he had already got his meal for the evening.

“But I’m hungry!” Wolf said loudly, “What about him, he’s a skinny little runt. He doesn’t need that much food. I’ll take some of his.”

“Wolf reached for the soup bowl on the plate of the nearest boy. And adult reached out to restrain Wolf, and Wolf hammered a fist into the man’s gut.

“I want my food!” Wolf yelled, as he swung his fists in the midst of what was quickly becoming a melee around the food line.

“Well, that’s a distraction.” Viper said.

“Yup.” Owl said, “Let’s hurry.”

We quickly led the kids who had listened to us out of sight. And got everyone sitting on boxes facing Owl, who positioned himself at the front of the room.

"You guys know me. I'm the freak in the cowboy hat. I'm the guy whose mom got shot 'cause she talked too loud. You shouldn't even be listening to me. Old Lady Winter and her goons wouldn't like it. They will probably slash your rations for listening to me."

Owl let that sink in for a second. the kids shuffled, but nobody moved.

"But you and me, we know something. Old Lady Winter will slash the rations anyway, to punish us, to control us, to keep us helpless. Well, I don't want to be helpless. Do you? Do you like waking up in this place and begging for food from the school bully? Do you like watching your parent turn on you one by one? Is this how you want to die? 'Cause you're probably going to die if you stay here. You know I'm right. We've all seen death, we've learned that nice little lesson. Maybe you didn't get it as close up as I did, before this how many of us had seen a dead body? And how many now?"

Once everyone had raised their hand, Owl continued.

"So why are we still here? So we can starve and be miserable, die slow instead of fast?"

Hawk stood up.

"You talk tough, but what do we do?

"We leave, and we make it hard for them to follow."

"And then what? We starve."

"And then we live. You don't think we won't starve here?" Owl spread his hands and stared Hawk in the eye. "We leave, maybe we starve. We stay, you know we starve and we get kicked while it happens just to make it that much better."

The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves, and a bunch of kids got up and left. Viper looked around and tightened her lips into a line as sharp as a metal roof. She stalked up Owl and spoke to him, loud enough for the crowd to hear.

"Enough of this, they aren't up for it. You wanted warriors, and all we have here are cowards who want their moms to make everything better. Let them die sucking thumbs and praying for the adults to fix it. As if the adults didn't cause it in the first place."

The crowd had gone silent, listening to Viper's rant. Owl looked at me, and I winked. And Owl smiled for just an eye-blink and then shook his head and spoke to Viper.

"They aren't cowards. They're scared, there's a big difference. You're scared and so am I. You'd have to be nuts not to be scared. But they aren't cowards, that's why I picked them. Think about how many kids there are in town. I didn't call all of them did I?"

Viper shook her head, "So?"

"So, these are the ones who are smarter, sharper and braver than the others. These are kids who have seen what's going wrong. They know what's wrong, but we're asking them to do something big- huge really. So of course they aren't going to just jump into line."

"I don't think there are even five kids here with the guts to leave with us." Viper said and folded her arms.

The kids were squirming and murmuring again.

Hawk was still standing, and she spoke again, "Okay, I'll bite. How do we keep from starving? It's winter. We've got no stored food and no grocery store close by that's still open."

Owl grinned, "You know me. You know my Mom. What did my mom let me do?"

"Wear a cowboy hat and carry a pocket knife?" Hawk asked.

"And go hunting." Owl said, facing her with a broad grin.

Hawk considered for a second, and turned and looked back towards the main room.

"And what about our parents? How do we help them?"

"Will they let us?" Owl answered, "My mom knew the score right up to where They shot her. Look at Raven's parents, they knew. What happens to every adult who knew that the town is doomed? Mrs. Sanger's dead, my Mom is dead and all the rest are under house arrest. House arrest, think about what that means? I bet you've tried talking to your parents. Haven't you? And I bet they're like everyone else's parents here. If they aren't scared into line, then they're under house arrest like this is Nazi Germany. You tell me what to do about our parents."

Hawk's shoulders dropped, "I don't know."

Owl put a hand on her shoulder, "Then let me tell you. We let them choose. They're grown ups, they're allowed to stay here.”

“But that’s breaking the rules. That’s breaking the law. Like actual laws you go to jail for.”

"Do you think laws made of paper are going to keep us safe after this?" Owl said. “Right now, adults are useless. The adults don't know that the world they lived in, built and paid for, is already dead. Their world is gone now and they can't handle it. They're going to fight until they die or smarten up. That's their choice. Now its time to make yours. Do you think we can make it to spring living under Old Lady Winter and her goons?"

Hawk shook her head.

“Exactly. We aren't going to make it staying here. We need to run. We have to stay hidden, because the adults- our parents- will drag back to live on this corpse until we all freeze or starve or tear each other to pieces.”

“I guess.” Hawk said.

"Does anyone else think that we can make it to spring like this?" Owl said to the group, now dwindled to about twenty-five. Nobody spoke.

"Does anyone else think that our parents will save us this time?"

Nobody spoke.

"Who's hungry?"

Murmurs.

"Who's tired?"

Murmurs.

"Who's sick of being pushed around?"

"Who's sick of being scared of the adults that are supposed to protect us?"

"Well, I say let them deal with this mess. They made it. I say we leave. We can't do worse than they already are. So who wants to be free?"

And then, one by one, the kids still here stood up and then we knew.

We snuck back in small groups to the main room. When I got back, I saw Wolf sitting by himself with several choice bruises on his face. I sat down beside him.

“So?” I asked.

“Well let’s see. I was on one third rations for running away. And Now that’s been cut in half, so I guess I’m on one sixth rations,” Wolf grinned, “I think their going to need a teaspoon to serve my last few meals here bud. So how did it go?”

“We didn’t get a lot, maybe twenty five kids.” I said.

“Better twenty five that care than five hundred that don’t.”

As we talked we were joined by the rest of the group, and also Hawk and her crew. Sparrow in particular seemed pleased by the whole turn of events.

"This song goes out to everyone who's ever fought for freedom." Sparrow said.

"Why do you say that? You don't even sing." Hawk said, rolling her eyes.

"Dunno," Sparrow said, "Sounds good? Always wanted to be a DJ? It irritates you?"

"So, your plan is to walk away?" Hawk said, keeping stride with Owl.

"Yeah, I don't see any other option. This isn't working and now that all those spider webs that Professor Tuttle talked about seem to have snapped, I don't see us putting it back together any time soon. We can’t stay near town. Not at all near town. That’s what we learned the last time we ran away from here. The whole area around town is hunted out. So we need to walk away, completely." Owl said.

"Then what happens after we walk away? I mean seriously, where are we going? Out into the woods to hang on as long as we can before dying like everyone else?"

"My mom," Owl paused, "My mom married my dad, because she saw something in him and what he dreamed about that she thought was noble. It didn't last. At first I blamed my dad, I thought he was a lazy slob. He's no prize, I know, but he isn't lazy. He's broken. He saw something that he valued die, and it broke him. When he looked at this world that's dying now, he saw a monster that was devouring everything he loved."

"What's your point?" Hawk asked.

"My point is that you see nothing beyond this world of ours that's dying. My dad didn't see it that way. He saw a whole other world being devoured by this world of ours, which he saw as a monstrous cannibal nothingness."

"So, do you know what he saw? I don't know that you ever talk much with your dad? And if we don't have something, then this is still a dumb idea."

"I don't. Dad is broken, still too broken to teach probably. But I know what we need to look for, and what we need to find. It's a gamble, but staying here is worse."

"This means we're all stuck trusting you and your cowboy hat."

"No, it means we all need to trust each other. I'm not in charge of this. If I am, then we're screwed. People being in charge is part of the problem, I think. We need to be something different, a tribe maybe and not whatever this is."

"So it boils down to going native? Doesn't that seem a little silly."

"I am native- remember? They lived here for ten thousand years without everything we had, and they did okay. I don't think that's it exactly. But I think we need to find what they had. Because whatever it was, we don't have it now."

"I still think this is one big gamble."

"Nobody is forcing you to help us. Stay here and starve. We don't need people who don't want us."

"No, I'm with you. I just want to know how crazy you are."

"Mr. Wolf says that things will get better after the initial crisis has lowered the population to realistic levels, and then the real leaders will rebuild," Mouse said abruptly, causing both Hawk and Owl to jump.

Owl was quiet for a moment and then he said, "What are they going to rebuild with, Mouse? Before we lost TV, everything we saw said that everything was breaking. We're going to end up in the Middle Ages by this time next year at this rate."

"No we aren't. The real leaders are stockpiling essential technology." Mouse countered.

"Okay, so that will buy them time. But how do they repair things, and get new materials? Everything is made in super huge factories now. Parts are made miles and miles away- you remember what Professor Tuttle told us. How do we rebuild that?"

"The leaders will know," Mouse said.

Owl looked around, "Does this feel like rebuilding?"

"We have to wait for the population to drop to manageable levels."

"You mean we have to wait for people who oppose Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter to die off or disappear like Mayor Tailor did. You mean we have to wait for them to get rid of anyone who doesn't agree with their ideas. You mean that we have to wait until everyone is so weak from lack of food and scared from the men with masks and guns that nobody will say 'boo' to them anymore. Yeah, that sounds like the answer to me too."

"But what if it works?" Hawk asked, "What is they do manage to get people through this?"

"You tell me," Owl answered, "Do you want to live in a town where Mrs. Winter is Queen, Mr. Wolf is judge, the his goons are the secret police?"

"I like Mr. Wolf," Mouse said quietly, "He thinks I'm strong. A real man."

"He told me that too, once. And then I started to make my own decisions and he didn't think I was a man anymore. See if he still thinks you're a man when you ask him the questions Professor Tuttle taught us. And then decide if you still like him."

"Thank-you Mouse,” Raven added, “Now we know their endgame. Turn back the clock to when a few people controlled everything because they think that they know better than everyone else."

"But I don't think that is going to work. I don't think we have enough food and water and power to last the winter. Do you guys?"

"No. But what do we do?"

"We trust Owl," Viper said, "we should have listened to him in the first place."

"Then the least I can do is get you that white picket fence. Maybe not today, but someday."

"Take your time. I trust you."

“So we’re running, fine. How do we get out?” Hawk asked.

“I’m working on that. Last time we had a distraction. We’ll probably need more this time.” Owl said.

We sat in silence, all thinking then, all watching, looking for something useful.

I was watching the 'Hello Kitty' gunman, the one who murdered Owl's Mom. He was watching a group of people walk march through the food line. As I was watching, he brought his thumb up to his face again- like he had when he shot Owl's mom. Then he stepped forward and dragged Mrs. Lamb out of line for some apparent infraction. And I realized that he wasn't giving a thumbs up, as I had originally thought. He was reflexively trying to wipe his nose like Bruce Lee spoiling for a fight. And suddenly I realized that I had seen that before.

I turned to Owl, "Did you see that?"

Owl glared at the 'Hello Kitty' gunman.

"Yeah," He said, "I saw that, and I know what that means."

We kept sitting though and Owl just scanned the room like he was looking for something. Then his eyes settled on Skunk.

Skunk sat on a yellow plastic folding chair next to a pile of boxes containing bags of rice. He carefully unfolded his knife, making a show of it, so that the kids around him would see it- and presumably be afraid of him for it. Then Skunk set to work cutting open the boxes and removing the bags and then flattening the boxes once they were empty.

Once he had finished the boxes in front of him, Skunk stood up and walked out of the room to get more boxes. I returned to talking to Wolf.

Sparrow looked back at us and asked, “So, a tribe huh? What does that even mean?”

Raven answered, “It means we stick together. It means everyone is valuable. I hear the adults talking a lot about the needs of the many and the good of the group. My dad never talked about that stuff, even when he was band chief. He always looked at each person as being as important as the tribe, maybe each person was the tribe to him in some way.”

“Okay, so what do we do with that?”

Wolf grinned, “No kings, no presidents, no mayors, none of that stuff. Any time you got that, then you got somebody taking more than their share.”

“So how do we get stuff done and decided things?” Hawk asked.

“We talk it out. Leaders can be different,” Viper said, “They don’t have to have formal power. Owl ends up leader for us a lot lately, because he actually knows stuff about how to survive. But it’s not like we’re going to bow to him and call him King. And if he doesn’t teach us how to do what he does, then we’re going to either make him, or tell him to get lost. He’s leading right now, because he’s the right person to do the leading right now. But he’s only leading, because we let him.”

“Don’t most kingdoms or gangs or whatever start that way? I mean Mrs. Winter didn’t start in charge. Mr. Wolf didn’t start in charge. They acted like leaders and then suddenly they were in charge.”

“Definitely true,” Raven said, “And we have to guard against that. Mildred talked about needing three things to be warriors. You had to know how to think for yourself, how to provide for yourself and how to defend yourself. And Mrs. Winter has used people not having enough of the first two, and Mr. Wolf has used people not having enough of the last one, so that they stay in charge.”

“Mildred also said that you have to admit that there is no single right way.”

“Then why leave this place if there is no right way?” Mouse said.

“She didn’t say that there weren’t wrong ways. There are lots of wrong ways, but there isn’t just on right way. And so you can’t stop people from leaving or doing different. And anyone who does is dangerous.”

“Mildred also said no wars, don’t wage war. This whole thing feels an awful lot like war- even if I can’t figure out who my Dad and Mrs. Winter are at war against.”

Maize shook her head, “Maybe you can’t figure it out, but I can. They’re at war with people who disagree. They’re at war with their own people: us, our parents, the whole town.”

“Sounds about right,” I said, “The other thing Mildred talked about, was that we need to live for the future. You need to do things so that you aren’t damaging your ability to stay alive tomorrow, or next year, or twenty years from now. That’s the problem with what’s happening in town here. The town is eating up everything that would give food next year. If they run out of food, what do they plant if they survive the winter? They’ve over hunted the whole area, what’s going to be left to have baby’s to grow into new deer and grouse and ducks and rabbits to hunt around town next year.”

“Okay, but that isn’t good for us, either is it?” Hawk said, “How do we not do that?”

“That’s a question for Owl.” I said. As I said it, I realized Owl hadn’t said anything for the whole conversation. I looked around and saw Owl sitting just behind me.

“Don’t do that.” I said. “So how do we avoid over hunting?”

“Don’t hunt underage animals, don’t hunt females during the times when their probably pregnant or raising babies. Hunt the bigger older males over the younger males. Don’t take more than you need. It’s pretty simple. Mom and Dad drilled all that stuff into me pretty early on. I can teach you guys. I figure that I’ll be doing a lot of teaching for the first little while. I didn’t han out with the band much, but something one of the elders told me once. I kind of ignored it at the time, but it makes more sense now. He said that the reason Natives were called indigenous is because indigenous means that something belongs to a place. He said that city people always wanted things that belonged to them, but that the earth was too big to belong to anybody- you had to belong to it. I think, that’s what we need to relearn, in order to survive.”

“Okay good, but what do we do until then?”

"We could act like Malificent in 'Sleeping Beauty' and transform into something scary in order to fight them." Viper said.

"That didn't exactly work for her did it?"

"And again, she was the bad guy."

"And so are we. But in the books the bad guys lose. Bad guys win in real life all the time."

“I can feel it, you know.” Owl said to me, quietly.

“Feel what?” I asked.

“The transformation that Viper's talking about, that Mildred talked about. I can feel the stories, the mythology, that Mildred talked about. I feel it thick around us. And I can feel the outrage. The Witch Doctor, the one without a home. We don't have a home Rabbit. I don't think we've ever had a home. I don't think our parents did either, or their parents, all the way back- I don't know how long. This is what happens if you scratch the surface off everything our parents and their parents have built. This crap is what we've all been raised on. How many years back did that story Mildred tell us happen? I can feel the outrage, and I think its older than me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, I'm officially freaked out.”

“Good, because none of this will be easy.

"Why? What you are doing?"

"Thinking."

"That's dangerous."

“Isn't that the truth. We think and we think and we think and we don't do anything. Thinking doesn't work on its own, because unless start breaking rules and shaking everything to the ground, thinking won't change anything.”

“We've already broken more than a few rules.”

“Fine. Now it's time to break the biggest rule of all. People rebel all the time in the history books, you know? The French Revolution, the American Revolution, The Russian Communist Revolution- all those people rebelling against other people doing horrible things, and nothing really changes except the people doing the horrible things. It's a game of musical chairs. And people are dying because now we're almost out of chairs to sit on.”

“And?”

“And now it's time to admit that this is a stupid game, and that it's time to leave. We need to break the biggest rule the adults ever taught us. Mildred's story was about people trying to keep growing forever to out run the prophecy that if they ever stopped everything would fall. Well, you can't keep growing forever can you? Eventually you run out of stuff or space or both. And things are falling apart. Mildred's story is warning about how our parent's have lived and everyone's parents all the way back to whoever started this. We need to admit that this whole thing: cities, the spiderwebs of factories and roads and supply lines, all the stuff the adults are trying to hang on to- none of works anymore and maybe it never really did. And then, we need to leave.  I figure it will be pretty hard and scary, so be ready for that.“

“Alright, let’s not bunch up like we have some big secret conspiracy. I think I have the beginnings of a plan. I’ll let you know once I’m ready.”

We nodded and all kind of moved off as casual as possible. Wolf and I wandered off to practise sparring. Owl and Viper found and bench and sat down together and Viper snuggled into Owl. Raven wandered from kid to kid talking, probably reassuring people. Hawk and Lion found a spot and started arm wrestling. Maize and Sparrow pulled out a deck of cards and started playing. Mouse wandered off. And I hoped that he wasn’t going to listen to Mr. Wolf again, or worse yet to expose us. Mouse was a problem, he was loyal as a German Shepherd to Sparrow, but I was never sure how smart he really was.

"Hey!" Skunk yelled, and I turned to look at him.

"Who took my pocket knife?" Skunk demanded, looking back and forth at the people- mostly kids- sitting within easy distance of his chair.

His eyes settled on Sparrow and Maize, who were playing cards just a few feet away from where Skunk had been working. Neither was very big and that was probably part of Skunk's reasoning. Skunk stomped over to the two and glared down at them.

"Alright small fry, give it up, or I'll start enforcing rationing restrictions."

"How would taking your knife help anyone here?" Maize asked. She looked like she was trying to calm Skunk, but Skunk wasn't having it. He rounded on Sparrow and snatched Sparrow's glasses clean of the smaller boy's face.

"What about you four eyes? Are you going to lie to me, like your girlfriend here?"

Sparrow stood up, "Those glasses cost significantly more than your stupid knife. I don't care about your toy. I don't care about you power trip. And I don't care about your threats of rationing. If my glasses are not in my hand very shortly, you are going to regret mistaking me for a helpless nerd."

Skunk shoved Sparrow over, knocking the smaller boy to the ground, "You are helpless and you are a nerd. This is my house. And these are my rules. So, where is my knife?"

"You never had a knife." Owl said. He wasn’t shouting, but he spoke loud enough that Skunk turned.

"What was that, freak?" Skunk asked.

"You never had a knife. I had a knife, you had a toy. A little boy who's lost his toy and now is throwing a tantrum. I should be the one to complain. My knife was actually worth something. Yours is just silly and pitiful. Not only is your knife a little toy, but you're crying, because you lost it."

Skunk looked Owl up and down, as though considering the potential altercation. Finally his eyes lit up and he tossed Sparrow's glasses to the ground and jogged off.

Sparrow picked up his glasses and wiped them clean and put them back on.

"This song goes out to all the wimps who couldn't stand up for themselves," Sparrow said in frustration, "If Mouse were here, this would be different."

"Yeah, but Mouse likes listening to Mr. Wolf a little too much." Owl said.

"You did fine." Maize said and Sparrow sat down, "The timing wasn't right to escalate that."

Sparrow nodded.

Hawk tossed an MRE bag at Sparrow, "Don't be a Chotch Monkey!"

"What the heck is a Chotch Monkey?"

"Somebody who's way too full of themselves, generally male."

Sparrow spread his arms, "I'm too little to be full of anything. You are talking to the literal 98 pound weakling. The only I'm alive these days is because I don't eat much and people still think that Nerds are cool."

"And cute." Maize added with a wink.

Skunk strode back to his seat. He was carrying Owl's sheath knife.

"So somebody took my knife. But now look what I've got. Anyone who thinks my knife gives them clout, remember that my new knife is bigger."

With that, Skunk sat back down and continued opening boxes and removing rice.

Hawk shook her head, “Okay Sparrow, you are officially not a chotch monkey.”

Wolf and I looked at Skunk and then each other, and then stopped sparring and walked over to Owl.

"Hey bud. Why did you remind him that they had your knife?" Wolf said.

"Yeah," I added, "It seemed like you wanted him to take your knife."

Owl nodded, "That's better than him beating up Sparrow. I like Sparrow, he's smart and has fight in him. And anyway, now I know where my knife is. Don't I?"

"So that was on purpose?" Wolf asked.

Owl nodded, and Wolf suppressed a chuckle.

"Epic Win Bud."

"Thank you."

"He does have a bigger knife now."

"But he has no idea how to use it."

"True, but that might make him more dangerous, not less."

Conversation turned back to the guard with the Hello Kitty sticker, and how to get him alone.

“I figured that I'd just confront him and let him chase me to an empty room,” Owl confessed as we talked.

“That's dumb,” Viper said, “Everyone will see it and other guards will follow.”

“But we know his weakness,” Raven said, “We know what gets him angry and who he likes to hurt. Women. I bet if he overheard me talking about how dumb his sticker looks and what a wimp he looks like with that sticker on him, then he would follow after me to teach me a lesson. And I bet the other guards wouldn't think much of him going after a girl, compared to the number one troublemaker in the seventh grade. Men always underestimate us ladies.”

Wolf and I both objected at the same time, “You could get hurt!”

“We all could get hurt. Don't talk like Wolf's dad. We aren't any weaker than you boys,” Viper said.

Owl nodded, “I know. The only problem that I see with the plan is that you can't taunt him or just sit there talking to yourself. Both would be kind of obvious.”

Viper nodded, “You need another poor weak and defenceless girl to join the conversation, so that we can giggle at the stupid sticker. I can do that.”

“I didn't mean you.” Owl said abruptly.

“Why not?” Viper asked, “You just said you knew we girls weren't weaker than boys. So why not me?”

Owl breathed in and seemed to be trying to find words that were hiding from him somewhere in his ribcage. Eventually, his shoulders sagged a little and he shrugged.

“I just didn't want to put anyone on the spot. You can totally do this. Just, you know, just be careful and don't get hurt.”

Our new team of kids, minus Raven and Viper wandered off in groups to an used corner, hidden from view by stacks of boxes. Isolated and hidden from view, we waited.

“What are you going to do?” Lion asked.

“Yeah,” Hawk added, “You still haven’t told us the plan.”

“The guard with the ‘Hello Kitty’ sticker? That’s the one who murdered my Mom.”

“Oh.” Hawk stopped and seemed to be searching for words, but couldn’t find them.

“And now I also know who he is.”

Lion leaned in with interest, “And so, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to do something colossally stupid. And then I’m going to use it to help us escape.”

I could see Hawk adding things up her head, “Is this a good idea? I mean I normally don’t run from a fight.”

“This is almost certainly not a good idea. But I need to do this. And I think I can use it to add a distraction to get us out of here.”

“I like it.” Lion said.

“I don’t.” Maize interjected.

“Okay, I understand that not everyone likes this.” Owl said, “But does anyone hate it enough to stop me?”

Nobody answered And then the girls darted around the corner and quickly stepped into the crowd of kids, with Owl standing just ahead of myself and Wolf.

Seconds later Mr. Pinchen came barrelling around the corner in his riot gear, with his helmet under his arm. He pulled to a stop when he saw the group of us and stared. Owl had his hands clasped behind his back like a general addressing disobedient troops as he faced Mr. Pinchen.

"So, Mr. Pinchen, that thing you do with your thumb is a bit of a give away, huh? I mean, I don't know any other adult who tries to imitate a Bruce Lee movie before being a jerk or a creep. So I know you wear the uniform with the 'Hello Kitty' sticker on the shoulder pad- which is really lame, by the way. But that means I know something else. I know what that means. That means, I know who killed my mother. Want to guess who did it?"

Mr. Pinchen looked around, I think to see who was watching. Once he realized it was just us, he grinned and did his thumb wipe again.

"I don't think you thought this through little boy. Nobody here can help you, and none of the bleeding hearts can see you to cry and moan about what I'm going to do to you."

Owl had a wild look in his eyes now, one I didn't like. He looked like he was swinging between supremely confident and absolutely terrified.

"So Mr. Pinchen, I know you like your victims unarmed. My mother, your wife and so on. " Owl said, "We kids aren't dumb Mr. Pinchen. We see things, we understand more than you might think. And once we realize that there is no Santa Claus, we know that adults lie to us, all the time. We aren't fooled. You aren't lying to protect us. You're lying to protect yourselves, and we're tired of it."

"Doesn't matter," Mr. Pinchen replied, raising up his fists into a boxing position, "You're still a thirteen year old boy who hasn't grown into his body, and I'm still a grown man who knows how to fight."

"You know how to beat unarmed opponents," Owl corrected, "I don't think you know how to fight. I know you think you've got this in the bag. After all, my sheath knife was confiscated and everyone knows Skunk has it now. So, I understand that you must feel pretty confident right now," And then Owl raised a eyebrow and glanced subtly over Mr. Pinchen's right shoulder, looking behind the man, "But I'm not the only kid who carries a knife around here."

Mr. Pinchen twisted reflexively to look where he had noticed Owl's gaze looking, and Owl swung his hands back into view, his right hand carrying Skunk's missing pocket knife. Owl thrust the pocket knife into Mr. Pinchen's mid section, just below the ribs in the soft bits- but pointing upwards at his lungs.

Mr. Pinchen gasped in pain. Then, before his opponent could cry out, Owl let go of the knife, cocked his right arm back and drove a palm strike into the knife- jamming the knife up into the older man's lung- burying the knife in Mr. Pinchen's mid section until it was almost entirely invisible.

The impact drove the air out of Mr. Pinchen's lungs, and he gasped for air, but the knife now lodged in the lower part of his right lung was causing him breathing problems. He gasped and wheezed and tried to make noises, but every sound he made was crushed to a laboured whisper.

"You killed my mother. You shot her from the safety of a crowd, hidden by a mask and large numbers and false authority. You guys aren't the good guys, and maybe you never were. But you got what you deserved today. For my mother's murder, for your wife's abuse, for your general cruelty while hiding behind that mask- plastic or otherwise. This is it. Today you get to answer for how you've lived your life."

"Sticker..." Mr. Pinchen managed to wheeze, "...from ...daughter ..."

Owl paused at this, mid stride. And then I noticed that he had begun crying, silently, like he had when his mother was murdered. Then his gaze hardened.

"You beat your wife Mr. Pinchen. I don't know if you beat your daughter, but you certainly weren't a father to her. It doesn't matter what you told yourself. Fathers don't abuse mothers. You aren't a father. you're a monster. And you know what? I didn't know this about myself before, but it turns out, I'm okay with killing monsters."

Owl was still crying. I didn't say anything. It was okay. He could handle it.

Mr. Pinchen did not die quickly. He faded off slowly crumpling to the ground. He pulled at the butt of the knife in his stomach, but couldn't get a grip- and probably didn't have the strength to remove it had he managed to get a proper grip on the handle.

Owl looked down at his right hand, now wet with Mr. Pinchen's blood. Reaching out he placed his hand on the stickered shoulder pad and pushed the bigger man over onto the ground, leaving a red hand print over the 'Hello Kitty' sticker.

"I guess our hands are always red from now on." Owl said quietly, “I can live with that. I thought this would break me. I really did. It didn't, and I can't imagine anything breaking me if this didn't. I'm something else now, something new. I guess we'll find out what, huh?”

And we just stood there watching him. I didn't know what to feel. There was a human being dying in front of me. I could feel something approaching horror crawling under my skin. At the same time, I could feel satisfaction in what Owl had done. I hated Mr. Pinchen, and everything he and the rest of Them stood for- and this felt like justice. It felt wrong too, but it felt like justice- and I couldn't pry those feelings apart.