The Renegades (The Superiors) (11 page)

“What?”

“Do
you trust me to do what I’ve said I’d do?”

“I
don’t know. I guess I don’t have much choice.”

“No.
You don’t,” Draven said. After a pause he asked, “Are you sorry you came with
me?”

“I
haven’t decided yet.”

Though
fair, her answer did not please him. He’d imagined that once he’d taken her,
and everything would be good and right, and both of them happy. As if to
emphasize his failure, the baby resumed its wailing.

Draven
glanced at the sky. The rain looked to resume soon. The trackers would be
setting out after him and Cali. He could only hope their footprints and scent
had been washed away near Princeton and that finding their trail would prove
difficult. Now he needed to remove Cali’s locator chip before the trackers
reached the area.

Draven
located a bag of milk powder for Cali, and she mixed it into the bag of
rainwater. She sealed the top of the bag except a tiny spot at the corner. She
put this corner in the baby’s mouth, and he grabbed with both hands and shoved
it to his face, biting and sucking at the bag until he’d emptied it. Then he
began whining for more.

“We
can feed him more later,” Draven said, taking some wet things from his
backpack. He wrapped the baby in the wet blanket and put it inside the
backpack, leaving its head out.

“That’s
awful,” Cali said. “We can’t leave him like that. He’ll think we’re leaving him
to die.”

“I
don’t imagine he knows much about death, or much about leaving,” Draven said.
“I’ll hang this bag from a branch so he’ll be safe from animals. He ought to
stop crying, though.”

“Can’t
you bring us both?”

“How
well do you swim?”

“Fine,
I’ll go first. Just hurry.” Then she added, as if in afterthought, “Please.”

He
left everything hanging from a branch and took Cali onto his back again. “Hold
on,” he said, and started into the water. The icy cold of it burned his skin,
but he knew it hurt her more. After a few minutes, the sound of her teeth
chattering in his ear drowned the baby’s cries on shore. She gasped so often he
didn’t know if she could draw a breath at all, but she held tightly to his
neck.

The
water dragged at Draven’s clothing, and combined with his exhaustion and pain,
and Cali’s weight, it nearly proved too much. He longed to stop swimming and
sink to the bottom of the lake, to give in to the instinctual urge to stop
moving during daylight hours. The water’s surface reflected the darkening sky,
but beneath the surface, inky blackness beckoned. It drained his aching limbs
of energy, and he longed to grow numb, as Cali could, instead of growing slow
and clumsy with cold.

Finally
they reached the spot he’d found on previous visits to the lake. From where
he’d begun swimming, the hiding spot lay about halfway around the edge of the
lake instead of directly across. He could have walked, but swimming gave them a
more direct route and would leave no trail for the trackers to follow. He
struggled from the water onto the smooth stone that made up the mouth of the
cave. Cali began to slip from his shoulders, and he had to boost her onto his
back a few times. Each time, the splinters in his skin bored into him like
shafts of ice. He pulled himself over the slippery edge of rock and into the
small opening in the face of the bluff, depositing Cali before he stood. She
slumped to the floor, soaked and shivering, so bedraggled he had to smile.

“I’ll
warm you as soon as possible. You’ll learn to trust me, Cali.”

“Okay,”
she said through bluish lips.

“Now
I’m going back for your baby, before he leads the whole of Princeton to us with
that dreadful screaming,” Draven said. Without waiting for a response, he
dropped out of the cave, into the icy water, and started back across the lake.

Chapter 23

Cali sat on the floor shivering. She thought she’d never stop. At least the pain had mostly
gone when she’d grown numb. She’d thought her hands would get too numb to hold
on, but maybe they’d frozen around the Superior’s neck, because they hadn’t
slipped until Draven started hauling her up to the cave.

She
wondered how long he’d been around here, to have found this spot. It seemed like
a good hiding spot, only accessible through the water. Of course, that also
made escape awfully difficult. She didn’t plan to escape right away, though. It
had been hard enough to get away with a Superior. How she’d ever thought she
could escape on her own…

She
heard Leo’s cries, and lord and master, did he sound mad now. He probably
didn’t like that cold water much. Poor baby. Maybe Draven was right. She should
have left him with Shelly. But she couldn’t stand the thought of Master hurting
an innocent baby because of her. Besides a bruised ankle, he seemed to have
escaped Master’s wrath. Cali could only hope Shelly had gotten off as lightly.

When
he arrived at the cave, Draven didn’t come all the way in, just deposited the
backpack with the baby’s head still sticking out the top before dropping back
into the water. Cali took Leo out of the bag and found that somehow, he’d
warmed the wet blanket around his little body. She held him close, and they
shivered together. After a few minutes, Leo stopped crying and stared
glassy-eyed at nothing, strangely silent.

Draven
reappeared, threw the rest of the wet stuff into the cave, and left again. Cali
looked around. Darkness had fallen but she could still see a little. The cave
had dusty white powder on the floor, and a few spider webs, and leaves that had
blown in. Drops of water lined the roof of the cave near the mouth, but its
floor looked relatively dry. The cave was only about twice the length of her
body if she lay down, and that deep for maybe the length of her body once. The
ends of the cave grew shallower and then opened out into the face of a low
bluff of gray stone that bordered the lake.

A
log clattered onto the floor, startling Cali. She checked Leo to see if she’d
scared him, but he remained blue-lipped and silent. Draven pulled himself into
the cave and just lay on his stomach for a minute, not moving. Cali hadn’t
known it was possible for a Superior to get tired. She tried to calculate when
he’d last slept a whole day, but she couldn’t seem to make her brain work
right. She wanted to say something nice, but she kept thinking this was only
the first day and he didn’t seem like he’d last much longer. He didn’t have a
plan or a house or anything. If she was going to die anyway, she might as well
make a run for it. At least then she’d die free.

But
after a few minutes, Draven pushed himself up and started a pile from the
sticks he’d heaved in on top of the log, breaking branches to make a small
stack in the center of the cave. He lit a few flames before the branches caught
and started smoking. The fire went out three times before he got it going good
enough to start burning and putting off heat instead of just smoke.

Draven
knelt in front of Cali and put his hands on her shoulders. “You will be
alright,” he said, and his eyes locked on hers, so intense she had to look
away. He stood and went to the mouth of the cave again.

“Where
are you going?” Cali asked.

“To
get more wood,” he said. “The fire won’t last long. I’d rather not have it at
all, since it will be visible across the lake. But it cannot be helped.” He
dove out of the cave into the water. She didn’t hear a splash when he hit the
water, but she’d seen him jump off the side of a building onto concrete, so she
didn’t worry too much now. She moved as close to the fire as she could get
without sitting in it, and cradled Leo in front of it until his clothes got too
hot. When they started burning her hands a little, she took off the little
one-piece suit he wore. She held him in front of the fire, turning him every
few minutes to warm his cold skin until his lips and face regained some of
their color.

Draven
came back with more branches, holding them over his head before pushing them
into the cave and descending the short distance to the water again. He came and
went three times, and every time, it seemed he stayed gone longer than the last
time. By the time he came all the way in again, she had begun to drowse against
the wall. He stood next to the fire and undressed. Cali turned her face away.
After hanging his clothes on little sticks poked into crevices in the walls of
the cave, Draven turned to her.

“You
should remove your clothing. It draws heat from your body, and we must dry your
things.” He turned and stretched the blanket along one wall and began to secure
it.

After
some hesitation, Cali began to undress. Leo had fallen asleep near the fire,
his bare, unmarked backside catching the flickering firelight and warmth. If
she looked at him instead of Draven, she didn’t feel so exposed or scared. The
last naked man she’d seen, besides Shelly, was a breeder who’d tried to
impregnate her. She might have been able to fight one off with Shelly’s help,
but the next time she hadn’t been so lucky. And she’d never be able to stop a
Superior if he wanted her that way. She had a sudden recollection of Draven
asking her for that kind of service at the restaurant where she’d worked when
he first started coming around. Watching Draven’s every move, she crossed her
arms over her chest and sat down in her underwear as close to the fire as
possible.

After
he spread all the things from his backpack on the floor of the cave, he swung
around to face Cali. His eyes seemed to glow orange with reflected flame as he
crouched on the other side of the fire. Cali shrank back involuntarily,
tightening her arms around her chest.

“What
frightens you?” Draven asked.

“I’m
not scared.”

“I
savor it.”

Cali
considered this new information. He could smell her fear? Well, wasn’t that
just great. Obviously she couldn’t hide much from him if he could smell her
feelings. Maybe he could read her mind, too.

“I—I
don’t know.”

“Yes
you do.” His eyes shone with that scary intensity again.

“Okay,
I do. I—you’re naked.”

“And
this bothers you?”

“I
guess, kind of.”

“How
odd,” he said. “Why is this?”

“I
don’t know,” Cali said, looking away and hugging herself closer.

Draven
pulled on a pair of wet shorts and put another piece of wood on the fire. It
smoldered and hissed and steamed. “So you are not afraid of sex, you’re afraid
of men?” he asked, shifting the logs around in the fire.

Cali
glanced up quickly. “No I’m not. Just…”

“Naked
men?” he asked, smiling a little.

“Yeah,
that.”

He
laughed now, but quietly. “You’re funny.”

“How
am I funny?” Cali asked, laughing a little, too.

“You
do not like men, and your mate did not like women. Perhaps it’s a better match
than I imagined.”

“Wait,
no, that’s not…” She started to say that wasn’t it, that she liked boys, just
not naked ones or ones who wanted to mate with her. But she stopped her words,
because if he thought that, maybe he’d never try to make her do anything with a
man. So she said, a few beats too late, “…funny.”

Draven
shook his head and went back to trying to get the wet log to burn. The other
wood lay drying around the fire, some of it with items of clothing hanging on
it. A light rain had started outside. Cali huddled behind Leo, shivering.

“Come
closer to the fire,” Draven said. “You should warm yourself.”

Cali
paused, then slowly scooted to sit beside Leo, pulling her feet in close and
wrapping her arms around her knees again. Draven watched her from across the
fire. When she’d settled herself, he edged around the fire and sat beside her,
so close she could feel the cold glow of his skin. She started to scoot away,
but he slid his icy hand over her forearm.

“Look
at me,” he said softly. She didn’t want to, but when he said things in that
warm, insistent voice, she couldn’t help herself. She looked at him, the light
flickering over his face and making strange shadows in his eyes. “You have nothing
to fear from me,” he said. “I’m not your master, and I’m not Byron, and I’ll
not hurt you.” She wanted to look away, but her eyes wouldn’t move from his
face. He smiled and said, “With or without my clothes on.”

Her
face warmed at his words, and this time she dropped her gaze. When she glanced
back at Draven, he was again watching her with that fearsome intensity. “What?”
she asked, leaning away.

“Nothing,”
he said, still not moving. “Only I’ve said I would never hurt you, and that was
a lie.”

Cali
shrank back. “What does that mean?”

After
a long pause, Draven shifted and cleared his throat. The longer he wouldn’t
look at her, the tighter her stomach knotted. He could always stare her down.
He was never ashamed or embarrassed or uncertain. It seemed wrong to see him
squirming, unable to look a sap in the eye.

“What?”
she asked when she couldn’t bear his silent discomfort any longer. “How are you
going to hurt me? Or…why? If not…not how I think?”

“It’s
only…you have…” Again he paused for an agonizingly long time. Finally he met
her eye. “I have to cut you.”

“What?
No…” Cali said, shaking her head as she backed further from him. “Why do you
have to cut me?”

“So
they can’t find us.” Draven looked more determined now, scary determined. And
now she had nowhere to run except straight into a freezing cold lake.

“But
you said they could smell my blood if I cut myself on a stick.”

“This
is different,” he said. “I’m sorry. But it has to be done.”

“Why?
So I won’t run away?” She remembered Master saying he’d chop off her leg so she
couldn’t run away. Surely Draven couldn’t plan to do that.

“I
would rather do almost anything,” he said.

“Then
do something else. Whatever you can, please? I’ve been branded, and it hurts so
bad you wouldn’t believe…”

“It’s
not for that,” he said. “It’s not for me to keep you. It’s so they can’t find
you. Not easily, anyhow.” Cali opened her mouth to protest, but Draven stood.
“Come along, don’t beg. It only makes it harder. Go and soak your hindmark in
the lake for a bit to numb your skin.”

Cali
stood reluctantly, trudged to the entrance of the cave and lowered herself into
the water. The cold shocked her, but she stayed in a few minutes, until her
body ached deep into her bones from it. When she could bear it no longer, she
called out to Draven, who came and lifted her from the water, holding her under
her arms the way she might lift Leo from his bath. Though she usually didn’t
like Superiors to see her without clothes, the pain of the cold, along with her
fear, made a little thing like her nakedness seem silly.

Draven
set her on the blanket next to Leo. “Lie on your stomach,” he said softly.

“I—I
don’t want to do that.”

“I’ll
be quick about it,” he said. His jaw was set, but he spoke in the gentlest
voice. If he’d been mean about it, she could have turned her fear into anger.
That was harder to do when his eyes were brimming with sorrow and regret. “Try
not to scream and awaken your child. There now, that’s a good girl.”

Cali
lay stiff on her stomach, her knees clenched together so hard her bones hurt.
Draven had said he didn’t want her that way, but now he tugged at the band of
her wet underwear, rolling it down. She knew girls were supposed to get on all
fours for breeding, but she also knew that even if they didn’t, men could do it
anyway.

“No—no,”
Cali said, her voice muffled in the blanket as she began to panic. She tried to
roll away, but Draven pressed his palm on the small of her back and suddenly
she went limp, her legs useless and numb. Before she could register what he
did, he’d sliced into her, a blade sliding through the skin of her hindmark.
She bit down on her lip and muffled a cry. The cut didn’t last more than a
second. But then it felt like he was tearing her skin off, peeling it back. She
squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her teeth and fought back some combination of
sob and shriek.

The
heel of his hand kept pressing, pressing, on that one spot that made her feel
helpless and paralyzed, and his fingers shredded her skin until she couldn’t
bear it any longer, and she drew in a ragged breath that came out as a sob.
“Mon
dieu,”
Draven muttered, and then he withdrew his fingers and crouched over
her. While she tried to catch her breath, he leaned down and his hair brushed
against her back, and with horror, she realized he was eating from her wound.
She let out a strangled sound of protest, but she couldn’t twist away. That one
hand of his, in that one spot, had trapped her whole body.

He
lifted his mouth from her and murmured some consoling words, “It’s nearly over,
my
jaani
, you did so well, another moment…” Again his mouth found her,
and she jerked at the flare of pain, but when his cold tongue slipped inside
the slit he’d made, her body grasped at that fleeting relief from agony,
however mild. It did ease the pain for a moment, and her breath slowed while he
explored her injury with his tongue, cleaned the blood from the surrounding
skin, and continued to cleanse her wound until he seemed satisfied. Cali had stopped struggling, and she lay motionless, stunned by what had just happened.

His
hands left her, and he left her, and then he returned and laid a bandage on her
wound, smoothing it on with the gentlest fingers. He remained awake, sitting
beside her, shifting now and then, but she didn’t turn her face towards him.
After a time, the lull of him moving about the cave, feeding the fire, tending
their clothes, sitting beside her and petting her and murmuring things like,
“It’s all over, my little pet…so sorry…never hurt you again…sleep, my
jaani
…”
pulled her into a dreamless sleep.