Power, Roger thought, lay in knowing who to hurt.

Or rather, knowing who had to be hurt to get what you wanted. It was a matter of blackmail and bluffs, and cards had always been Roger's game. Fear was the friend here, and friendships were damning. A friend could be used against you—his pain meant a victory for your enemy.

The littluns didn't count, so why bother learning who mattered to them? Samneric were the easiest, certainly; they were one and the same, and if you hurt one then you had the other. Hurt Sam to get to Eric, hurt Eric to reach Sam. Piggy and Simon were easy, too. Piggy deferred to Ralph and Simon idolized the blond kid. Laying a threat against Ralph was a sure way to get either of those outsiders to obey. Piggy—him and his brains and his fat and his ass-mar—wouldn't believe anything implausible, but there were so many real ways to hurt someone on the island that creativity was hardly necessary. "Shut up, Fatty, or you won't see Ralph blowing that shell any more. Maybe he should come hunting with us…Better be careful, though. Our spears are sharp…"

And of course, young Simon believed any impossible threat you could invent. It was easy to manipulate Simon; his own imagination made any threat worth yielding to. And knowing how to influence Simon and Piggy was important, because they were Ralph's support. Those three were a threat to Jack's leading. Why else, then, would Roger have sent Simon away on the great hunt? One narrowed look in Simon's direction sent him volunteering to go back to the shelters. And that left Ralph on his own that night, and that was important. With two against one, Ralph's word meant nothing.

Roger himself was untouchable, because no one could threaten the chief. Anyone who tried to touch the chief would soon learn how big of a mistake it was.

Jack was a puzzle, and Roger almost feared to know the answer. If it wasn't the answer Roger wanted—but it had to be. The dark boy found himself watching, possessed by a need to know who was Jack's… favorite. Not any of the littluns, certainly, for Jack didn't count them as people. They weren't, anyway.

It wasn't Maurice, for sure. Maurice was closest in size to Jack among the hunters, and yet he had not been on the first hunt, was not all that trusted by the chief. Besides, he wasn't a proper bigun—neither was Robert. And Bill had remained with Ralph's tribe in the first hunt with Jack as chief.

Piggy and Ralph were out of the question. The way Jack abused Piggy, called him Fatty and used his specs, was the clearest marker of Jack's hatred for the boy. And Jack would not have left the other tribe if Ralph was his friend.

Could it be Simon? Roger remembered how angry Jack had been that Simon didn't eat the first kill Jack made. "I got you meat!" he had yelled. Did he want Simon to depend on him for food? But there was the way Jack let Simon lie after he'd fainted, the way he mocked the boy so harshly at assemblies when Simon actually got the guts to speak—no, Simon couldn't be Jack's best friend.

But he had been on every hunt. He had sharpened the stick twice—once at each end. He had gone up the mountain and found the beast, and he had joined Jack's tribe from the start. He had gone on the fire-taking attack. He had killed the pig, the threat. And that was why Roger dared to hope—hope that he held power over Jack.

Author's Note: My first LotF fanfic. Sharpen the verbal stick at both ends—be cruel—and tell me what you think.