The Renegades (The Superiors) (12 page)

She
woke some time later to find the fire had turned to coals. Draven sat watching
her, and as soon as she rolled over and sat up, he said, “I must eat.”

“Oh.
Of course,” she said, her voice high from sleep. For a moment, she couldn’t
seem to piece together how she’d ended up here, on a stone floor with Leo
beside her and a throbbing ache in one flank.

“Now.”

“Yeah,”
she mumbled. “Sorry. I forgot. You didn’t eat all day?”

“I
had a bit earlier. But you needed strength.”

“Why
didn’t you take more? I was already cut. You could have eaten.”

“I
hoped you’d offer.”

She
tried to blink clouds of sleep from her mind. “Why?”

“Oh,
I don’t know. I suppose I forgot what this was. I didn’t want to make you feed
me, but isn’t that why I got you? My mind must be in disarray from staying out
all day. You’re not going to offer because you don’t like me. You’re not
Sally.” He dropped from the log where he sat to his knees on the floor, took
her hand, almost roughly, bowed his head and drove his teeth into a vein on the
inner side of her forearm. After the initial needle of pain when he broke the
skin, it didn’t hurt too awfully bad. Each time he pulled with his tongue, a
dart of pain surged and then ebbed again when he released suction a little. As
he drew, his dark head bobbed, and a cool rush of air brushed her skin each
time he breathed. When he finished, he closed the bite and flung her arm away
before quickly crossing to the other side of the fire. He sat staring into the
embers with a fierce frown on his face for a long time.

Cali
rested her cheek on her knees and stared into the pit. After a while, she
drifted off. She jerked awake some time later when she felt his hands, hot now,
on her bare back.

“Come,
my little
jaani,
” he said softly. “Lie down. You’ll fall into the fire.”

He
pulled her back from the fire pit, and the cold found her immediately, snaked
around her warm body and stole her heat. Draven urged her sideways onto the
blanket, now dry and hot, and loosened her bandage to check her cut. She
stifled a cry when he leaned down to touch it with his cold tongue. After he
had run his tongue over it, he sat back and covered her with the blanket. She
curled into herself, trying to ignore the throbbing in her hip. A minute later,
Draven opened the blanket, and she didn’t have time to be scared of his
intentions before he put the naked baby in her arms and wrapped the blanket
around them both. As she held Leo and buried her nose in his hair, she wondered
how she would ever be able to escape before Draven hurt him, too.

Chapter 24

Although
exhaustion dragged at him, Draven could not sleep so early in the night. He sat
listening for sounds of approach, thinking of this ridiculous thing he had
done. Stealing Cali and the baby, likely only to get them—and himself—killed.
And for what purpose? To stop the seepage from his wounded pride?

He
had wanted Cali in his old home, where he could care for her properly and she
could enliven his dull, routine life. He hadn’t wanted her as a runaway, in
constant fear of endangering her, forced to cut her open just to prevent
trackers from honing in on them in a matter of hours. It was one thing to live
outside society, to scrape a living from the fringes of a town, always staying
just out of sight and off target boards. This was different. Now someone would
hunt him for the rest of his life, or until he turned himself in. And he didn’t
want to do that.

He’d
enjoyed living outside the system, unencumbered by societal restraints,
discovering the amazing power of his body that had stayed hidden from him for a
hundred years. Somehow, he had never known the strength or abilities he
possessed, and he’d wanted to explore this new aspect of his existence. He
hadn’t expected to have to care for two sapiens, one of them a baby whose inevitable
death would fall on Draven’s shoulders.

That
Cali would understand that bothered him as well, though he tried not to examine
too closely why Cali’s comfort and contentment suddenly concerned him. In
reality, it mattered little if she liked or trusted him. He had his human. His
only concern should be ensuring she stayed alive and out of Byron’s hands.
Whether she wanted him to wear clothing or not, if she despised and feared him
for hurting her, were matters of no consequence.

And
yet, he had risked his life to retrieve her baby—no, not her baby, someone
else’s baby—simply because she wanted him to, even though he couldn’t
understand her attachment. She’d wanted to escape Byron’s so she wouldn’t have
to bear children, and yet she’d been willing to risk their lives for a child.
But she was only an ignorant sap. That explained her choices. She thought like
a sap because she was a sap. And he, a Superior who knew better, had taken
orders from her, had done as she bid him and risked all their lives in the process.
He must be going mad.

Perhaps
living so long without contact with fellow Superiors had loosened his grasp on
reality. Or perhaps the torture he’d undergone at the hands of Sally’s people
had warped his mind. Or Byron’s gun could have damaged his brain. Since then,
he’d not had enough contact with others to know if he’d relate to them
normally. He couldn’t remember the last real conversation he’d had with a
Superior.

From
this moment on, however, he vowed not to concern himself with his human’s impulsive
desires. Nor would he ask her permission to eat, or do as she bid him. He would
steel himself for what had to be done, no matter how loathsome the task, as he
had when he’d removed her locator chip. If she thought him cruel, what matter?
She could return to Byron if she imagined Draven treated her badly. He’d seen
the swarm of bites Byron had left open on her arms. He knew the pain well by
now. It was not unbearable.

He
circled the fire, lifted the blanket and slipped beneath it. He’d forgotten her
state of undress, and seeing her so bare startled him for a moment. But what
matter, she was only a sap. A very warm sap. Although that warmth had once
disgusted him, now, in the cold, he enjoyed it nearly as much as drawing from
her. He fitted his body around hers and drew her heat, instead of sap, into
himself. Slipping two fingers into his mouth, he wet them with saliva and
dabbed it onto the hot, swollen skin surrounding Cali’s cut. When he slid his
arm over her and drew her to him, she awakened and began to struggle, but he
tightened his grip to still her. After a few moments, her movements ceased, but
her body lay rigid and trembling against him.

“Relax,”
he whispered into her ear. He pulled her hair back from her neck, slid gently
into the vein and let her life flow into him.

Her
skin rose with a chill against his, hoarding the warmth that he took so
greedily. He pulled hard on her neck until she whimpered before he released her
skin and licked clean the marks his teeth had left. But he didn’t release her
body. A long sigh of contentment escaped his lips. Finally, he had secured his
long-coveted prize. At last, he had what for so long he had desired, what for
so long had seemed beyond reach. He relaxed behind her and slept.

He
awakened when the baby cried, but fell back into sleep immediately. From the
chill in the cave, he knew the fire had died and that Cali had slipped from his
arms. The brightness in the cave and the burning in his skin told him daytime
had arrived. He pulled the blanket over his head and curled under it to shield
himself from the light, and then he slept again.

The
baby’s squeals awakened him again some time later. Draven sat up and groped for
his shades. He found them and slipped them on so he could see Cali and her baby
clearly. Cali had dressed them both, and now she sat feeding Leo from a packet
of freeze-dried food. Nearby, the ashes lay cold on the floor.

Draven
rose and felt for dampness in each item of clothing before he knelt and lit the
fire again.

“Aren’t
we leaving?” Cali asked.

“Not
today. I imagine we’ll travel at night for a few days. This place is
well-hidden, and if we light the fire in daytime only, perhaps we’ll stay that
way.”

“What
do we do here?”

“Recover.”
Draven knelt and retrieved the small treat he’d bought her at the store. He
pushed it into her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, and before she could respond, he
stepped to the entrance of the cave and dove into the water. His sunshades came
loose, but he pulled them down around his neck and swam. Without a burden in
his arms, and without clothing except a pair of undershorts, he could swim far
and fast, and he didn’t have to come up for air.

This
time he swam to the lake’s far shore and found some deadwood that had lain for
quite some time. Yesterday’s rain had soaked everything, but the wood would dry
after a short time beside the fire. He carried it back to the cave and spent
the remainder of the day transporting wood and stones and a few live branches
back to the cave. By evening, all he’d collected crowded into the cave.

As
daylight dulled to evening, Draven went out once more. He left his shades and
shorts, disregarding Cali’s preference. He dove into the water, slicing into
the icy blackness, and sank down and down. Far below the surface, where water
almost obscured light, he moved forward, cold and tired but finding an absolute
peace in the cloudy depths, an indifference to the rest of the world that
calmed him to the very core.

Sliding
through the water, close to the bottom, he followed the edge of the lake as it
curved towards the shallows. He’d almost reached the spot where he’d taken Cali
and then the baby into the water when suddenly he came face to face with a
person.

He
pushed back and kicked hard until he broke the surface and sucked in a welcome breath
of air. Suddenly the cold clasped him tightly. He paused, not wanting to dive
down again, but at the same time, compelled to. For a few moments, he waited on
the surface, breathing in and out and nothing else. Then he pushed his head
beneath the surface and began to glide back towards the body. Draven had seen a
dead man before, just after he killed him. But this man had been dead much
longer.

Upon
reaching the bottom, Draven floated before the skeleton. The clothing it had
died wearing still hung from the skeleton’s frame, fluttering lazily in the icy
water. He’d died in denim trousers and a red shirt. He lay on the bottom,
almost undisturbed except for the removal of flesh by fish and underwater
creatures. From the exposed teeth, Draven could tell the man had been Superior.

He
bent to untie the rope from the skeleton’s waist, and as he loosened the knot,
his knuckles bumped the body and the bones shifted. When he’d undone the knot,
he pulled at the rope, which fed out a meter or so before pulling taut. He
looked from the rope to the surface and back. Holding to his resolve, he
gripped the rope and swam towards the source. The rope, almost as thick as his
thumb, might prove useful in all manner of scenarios, despite a length where a
creature had gnawed halfway through. Draven followed the rope through the
murky, dark water for about six meters before reaching the end. It had been
secured to a submerged car. Like the man, only the car’s skeleton remained.

After
untying the rope, Draven gathered it in his arms and swam to the surface.
Throughout the day, he’d spent many hours in the icy water, crossing the lake
time and again to supply the cave. By now he’d grown quite cold, and therefore
moved more slowly than usual. The cave seemed a long way off from where he
surfaced. Willing his stiff limbs to move, he began to make his way towards the
entrance in the cliff face. At last, he reached the cave and pulled himself up
and in.

Cali
sat next to the fire, gripping her squirming baby, who appeared determined to
reach the flames. She watched as Draven slipped into a pair of denim trousers
and a shirt before he began the task of hanging the rope to dry. When he’d
strung it on every protrusion of stone and available branch in the cave, he
stoked the fire and added a few stones before seating himself next to Cali.

“What’s
all this stuff for?” Cali asked, gesturing to the stacks of branches and stones
Draven had piled in the cave throughout the day.

“The
stones hold the fire’s heat. They will warm the cave a bit longer.”

“Are
you going to put out the fire now?”

“Soon.”

“Oh.”
Cali gave the baby his feet, but held the back of his jumpsuit so he couldn’t
reach the fire. “Well, I wish we could keep it all the time. Leo doesn’t like
the cold.”

“Trackers
search after dark. We don’t want to draw unneeded attention.” Even with Cali’s
locator chip destroyed, they had little chance of evading capture. They must
take every precaution, not send a beacon to the trackers by burning a fire
through the night.

“And
the…trees?” Cali asked, nodding at the branches again. Her baby squealed in
frustration and crumpled to the floor where he began pounding his heels into
the dusty shale.

Draven
stood without answering and approached the mouth of the cave. Weaving together
the branches he’d gathered, he covered as much of the opening as he could,
leaving a gap at the top for smoke to escape. He could only cover about half
the entrance, but it broke the wind and hid the cave a bit. When he’d finished
working, he returned to stoke the fire and slip from his shirt, now filthy from
tree bark and sticky with pinesap.

Cali
gave him a doubtful look but didn’t speak. He moved to where she sat and sank
to the floor beside her. “May I?” he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he
took her hand and turned her arm so he could see the blue veins on the
underside of her wrist.

After
a moment, Cali lifted it to his mouth. When he’d eaten, a bit of his earlier
peace returned. Working all afternoon had left him tired but as close to
contentment as he could hope to come. He had been fortunate their escape came
at such an opportune time. The rare day of clouds and rain made spending
daylight hours outside tolerable, although still not comfortable, as well as
allowing him a chance to elude trackers for a short time. He could not afford
to waste much more time, though. Already trackers would be seeking him and his
companions in the surrounding areas. Soon they would have to leave the cave and
Princeton behind.

But
first, he had to remove the last remnant of her Princeton life. He could not
erase the scarred R that covered the back of each hand and marked her a
runaway, or the other harm Byron had done her, but he could remove her ankle
cuff, the constant physical reminder of her life of captivity. When he began to
work at it and saw how raw her skin had become beneath it, he cursed himself
for not removing it sooner. Cali winced as he pulled at the cuff, but she did
not complain of the pain, just as she had not complained of it as they made
their way up the mountain and it slowly wore away her skin. Working carefully
so as not to hurt her any more than he had to, he finally worked through the
cuff with a small metal file on his knife.

He
slept afterwards and awoke a bit after dark. When he’d eaten, he began to prepare
for departure. He worked more quickly at night, despite the cold creeping into
his limbs. At least his mind stayed sharp. After setting a net in the water, he
slipped back into the lake. The skeleton tethered to the car had haunted his
thoughts all evening. Again he moved through the water until he found the spot
where the dead Superior lay. He searched the car for anything he might salvage,
but nothing useful remained in the burnt interior. As he began swimming to the
surface, something caught his eye. Movement.

For
a moment, he thought he’d seen a fish, but when he swam in that direction, he
spotted a length of fabric waving slowly in the current like smoke rising from
the fire he’d built for Cali. The cloth trailed from another burnt-out shell of
a vehicle, this one empty. Swimming further, Draven came upon another, this one
containing the remains of a person.

The
woman in this car hadn’t fared so well as the man Draven had discovered the day
before. He found a skull and some bones, but nothing seemed connected to
anything else. He debated taking the windows from the car, but they would be
difficult to carry, and he did not know what use he could find for them.
Instead, he took the trousers from the car and shook the bones from them. Some
sort of organic growth and a layer of sediment coated the denim trousers in a
layer of slime. After winding the garment around his arm, Draven swam from the
car, exploring further. He found a few more cars but nothing of much value.