Ralph watched as scarlet droplets of blood slid down his right arm. He winced in pain and withstood from crying out. He had slashed his arm on a jagged rock while climbing the mountaintop. He knew Jack and his tribe of savages would come hunting for him soon.

Ralph was nursing his arm when a hand was shoved into his lower back. He stumbled and fell to his knees. He glanced up and saw Jack's muscular body, glimmering with sweat in the sun, standing before him. He was fingering his hunting knife. Roger stood in back of him. Trapped between his two most brutal enemies.

While Ralph's attention was focused on Jack, Roger pounced on him and roughly forced him to the ground onto his stomach. Roger straddled Ralph, asserting his dominance. Ralph was forced to lay flat on the hard ground, pinned down by a body sitting on his waist.

Roger grabbed Ralph's right arm, grasping his hand tightly around the wound, and pulled it back behind him. He held the arm at an odd angle and twisted it slowly but steadily backward. Ralph gasped and struggled against Roger's body. Roger, delighted with his power over the lame Ralph, was delirious with excitement. Ralph quietly whimpered when his arm was still further pushed back. Roger ignored the boy's whimpers and, when he thought the arm was twisted far enough, he stopped.

He grabbed Ralph's wrist and held it firmly, pointing it downward. Ralph waited, fidgeting. Roger smiled to himself. With one quick movement, he broke the boy's wrist, forcing it sharply upward and to the side, twisting it. Ralph let out his first scream of agony, blinded by the searing pain. Roger held onto his wrist and forced him to move it, wiggling it for emphasis.

"Roger." Jack said in a stern voice. It was the first word he had spoken. Roger reluctantly got off of Ralph and left the boy sprawled on the ground, cradling and protecting his broken wrist with his body. In contempt, he lifted his head to look at Jack, who stared back at him with a superior expression on his face and then squatted beside him. He reached out for Ralph's broken wrist; Ralph quickly withdrew it from his reach, scowling at him. Jack seemed unaffected by this gesture.

He forced Ralph onto his back without much resistance, placing one knee on either side of his groin, pinning him against the ground. Ralph's body arched and tensed. Jack looked down at the boy pinned beneath him with a smirk of satisfaction. Ralph looked at Jack with anger and frustration.

"Who's chief NOW, Ralph?" asked Jack quietly. "Who's the leader? Who has control and respect?" Ralph knew what Jack wanted him to say, but he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of saying it. He glared at him. Jack whispered dangerously, "I want you to answer me. Tell them whose chief. Tell them who was right all along."

Ralph answered boldly, "They know who's chief now. You are. But that doesn't make you right. You're wrong, Jack. We would have gone home if you hadn't let the god damn fire go out. We would have been rescued. We would have gone home!"

"WE WOULD HAVE GONE HOME!" he reverberated, shouting and startling Jack, making him jump. Ralph tried to push him off of him. "Isn't that what you want? Or do you WANT to stay here?"

Jack declined to answer.

"What do you want from me?" Ralph questioned quietly. "I have nothing to give you except the TRUTH, which you obviously will have none of. You won't believe it because you were WRONG! You're scared to mention it because you KNOW you are WRONG!"

Jack snarled and stuck his face close to Ralph's. "I am NOT wrong." Then, "What do I want? I want you to fear me. I want you to hurt. I want you to suffer for what you've done to me."

"What I've done to you?" Ralph questioned, incredulous. "What have I done to YOU that you haven't done to ME? All I did was beat you in that election because THEN your slaves realized that I am the one who is sensible."

He was gaining momentum..."I haven't hunted you down just to save what little remains of my dignity. I'm not obsessed with the need for ultimate submission. I'll face up to the things I did wrong. I'm not a coward in that way. You just can't admit to yourself that you were wrong. You're afraid of the truth, you're afraid of ME, because I AM the truth, because we both know you are WRONG! And that's what sets us apart. That's why I have some decency left but you've been reduced to intimidating these kids because you can't face yourself..."

Infuriated, Jack pressed the tip of his knife against Ralph's throat. Ralph swallowed gently.