The Renegades (The Superiors) (13 page)

He
returned the way he’d come, wondering who had disposed of the dead cars and
dead bodies. He had an idea, but he didn’t care for it. He had stopped too
close to the vigilante community.

When
he reached the cave, Draven perched at its mouth, scrubbed the trousers and
beat them on the cliff until he’d rid them of much of their coating. He entered
the cave and hung the trousers to dry before turning his other garments to air
the other sides. When he had finished tending the clothing drying around the
fire pit, he took out his choice piece of wood and resumed carving.

After
a time, Cali woke with Leo. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“I’m
cold.”

“As
am I,” he said. “I’ll light the fire in a bit. Go back to sleep. I need you
well rested.”

“What
are you making?”

“A
knife.”

Cali
laughed, and Draven looked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard her laugh in such a
long time he had almost forgotten she could. “What amuses you?” he asked.

“You’re
making a knife with a knife. Why don’t you use the one you have?”

“This
is a different sort of knife.”

“Oh.”
She lay watching him until he looked up. “What kind?” she asked.

“The
kind that kills Superiors.”

Her
eyes widened and she drew a breath. When she spoke a moment later, it was in a
whisper. “I thought you were…invincible?”

He
smiled and dropped his gaze to the knife in his hand. “Not entirely.”

“So…what’s
so special about this knife, that it can kill you?”

Draven’s
hands stilled, and he looked at his human, who likely thought his death would
solve all her problems. “Would you like to kill me?”

“No,”
she said quickly, but he could hear her heart rate increasing.

“You
lie,” he said, going back to the knife.

“No
I’m not. If I killed you, I’d be stuck in this cave, and we’d run out of food
and die.”

When
he looked at her, she wouldn’t meet his eye. “And when we leave?”

“I
don’t think I could kill anyone,” she said quietly.

“I
never imagined I’d kill anyone, either.”

She
began to run her fingers through her hair, pulling at the tangles while she
spoke. “Maybe if I didn’t think about it and just did it,” she said. “But a
life…that seems like a sacred thing to take. You’d have to feel pretty
important to think you had the right to decide something like that. For a
human, anyway. I know human lives don’t mean that much to your people.”

“I
killed a man,” he said, glancing up to see her reaction. She continued finger
combing her hair and staring absently into the fire. It seemed an obscene
display suddenly. He concentrated all his attention on shaving a sliver of wood
from the blade. Of course she didn’t mean it that way. Most saps wore their
hair loose. It meant nothing to her.

“I
killed a man to get the money to buy you,” he said.

“Really?”
She turned to face him and left off grooming herself. “You never told me you
were going to buy me.”

“I
didn’t tell anyone.”

“So
you killed someone and stole his money?”

Draven
smiled. “I was paid to kill him. But when I went to get you, Byron had already
bought you and left.”

“I
wondered what happened to you,” Cali said. For a time, she watched him carve in
silence. “How come you never told me you might buy me? If you knew you’d have
the money, I mean…”

“I
didn’t know if I would succeed when I took the assignment. I thought if I
succeeded and received payment, I’d surprise you.”

“That’s…I
don’t know. Nice, I guess.”

He
frowned and peeled off a long curl of wood.

“And
thank you for that caramel earlier,” she said. “I hadn’t had one since…since
then. When you left. Is that where you went?”

“Yes.”

“What
was it like?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“Killing
someone.”

Draven
began to answer, but when he glanced up, Cali was fingering her hair again. His
knife slipped and he sliced his thumb. He sucked at it for a few moments,
pressing his tongue against the wound. Although he’d sustained many minor
injuries in his lifetime, lately he’d noticed that not only could he do many
things he’d never known possible, but also that the abilities he’d been aware
of had become much more pronounced. He’d never healed so quickly before.

“Dreadful,”
he said, turning his attention back to the knife.

Chapter 25

Cali watched Draven peeling off wood shavings with his knife, and after a while, the rhythm
of his movements and the little babbling noises Leo made lulled her to sleep.
When she woke, light filled the cave again. So did smoke and the most amazing
smell she’d ever smelled. She sat up, her stomach growling already.

“What
is that?” she asked, looking at the slices of pinkish white stuff sizzling on a
piece of foil on the coals.

“Fish,”
Draven said. He had his shades on again, and he was putting his things in the big
pack. He didn’t pause even to look at her. She got the feeling he wasn’t very
happy with her, but she couldn’t think of what she’d done to make him mad. He
was the one who’d cut her open. At least he didn’t beat on her when he got mad.
He just didn’t talk to her much, and he wasn’t as gentle about biting her or so
long to linger afterwards.

“Where’d
you get it?” she asked.

“The
lake.”

“There’s
fish in the water?”

He
smiled at a shirt as he folded. “Yes.”

“Do
they bite?”

“No.”

“How’d
you get it out?”

“I
caught them.”

“With
your hands?”

“In
a net.”

“You
can do that?”

“Yes.”

“How
do you know how to do it?”

“Oh,
I don’t know.”

“What
else do you know how to do?”

He
smirked. “Lots of things.”

“Did
you learn from a book?”

“Only
experience can teach some things.”

“So
you did this before? When? And why?”

“If
you want to eat, it’s likely cooked.” He went to the fire and pulled the foil
off the coals. He wiggled a twig into the middle of one slice and then pushed
the foil towards Cali. “It’s hot. And I’ve perhaps missed some bones. They’re
clear and stiff. If you find one, do not swallow it.”

Cali’s
mouth filled with saliva as she sat looking at the steaming food. After a few
seconds, she couldn’t wait any longer, and she began picking off the cooler
pieces at the edges. Though she scorched her fingers lots of times, she didn’t
stop until she’d eaten the whole piece. She found a lot of bones.

“Perhaps
you should feed Leo as well,” Draven said, still busy with his packs.

“Oh.”
Cali looked guiltily at the boy who sat playing in the wood shavings Draven had
made. She’d been so hungry she hadn’t even thought about him. She’d never have
made a good mother, but she’d chosen to be one, so now she had to do her best
to keep the baby alive.

Draven
pulled another piece of foil off the fire, and Cali flaked off a pile of fish
for Leo. This piece had no bones, and by the time she’d made a pile to feed him,
it had cooled enough for him to eat. Cali fed him as much as he’d eat, but the
whole time, she hoped he wouldn’t eat very much. She’d never tasted anything
like it, and she’d gotten so hungry that it tasted like pure happiness. When
Leo wouldn’t eat any more, she quickly finished what he’d left.

Draven
straightened and hoisted the backpack. The bag he’d taken from the store, much
smaller now than it had been, hung from the pack. Draven retrieved his hat, the
last item from the branches around the fire. He took out his knife, unrolled
the bottom of the hat, and started cutting holes in it. Cali wanted to tell him
to stop, that she’d wear it, but he wasn’t talking to her, and she didn’t want
to make him madder.

He
put his shades inside the hat and pushed until the eye pieces came out the two
holes he’d cut. Then he pulled the hat down all the way over his face. Though
Cali had gotten plenty cold walking in the rain, his hat-mask seemed extreme.
Also, he looked awfully silly wearing nothing but a bug-eyed hat and
undershorts, but Cali didn’t say anything. When Superiors got moody, she’d
learned to stay as invisible as possible. She watched Draven put away his knife
and survey the cave before she picked up Leo and stood.

“I’ll
be back for you,” Draven said, and he swung down out of the cave with a grace
that did not fit his insect-like appearance.

She
stood in the entrance of the cave and watched Draven’s hatted head move out
over the water, his big backpack balanced on top, supported by one hand. She
didn’t see how he could swim with only one hand. Or how he didn’t freeze solid.

Something
inside her pulled with fear and loneliness as she watched him move away from
her, sending concentric circles over the water’s smooth blue surface. She wished
they could stay. At first, she hadn’t liked the cave, but now that they were
leaving, the world out there looked big and scary. The cave felt safe, as safe
as she’d ever be with a man who wanted to suck her blood. And inside it, she’d
stayed warm. Outside, the sun shone bright, but that only amplified the iciness
in the air.

In
daylight, just before crossing it, the lake looked bigger than it had before. Draven’s
head got very small before she saw him emerge from the water. After depositing
the bag on the opposite shore, he returned to the water and crossed to the cave
again. The surface of the lake lay perfectly still, with the mountains and blue
sky and white clouds all reflected in the surface. If Cali could stand in the
doorway and never leave, pretend she had no master and that she lived here free
and by choice, eating fish every day forever, she’d have found real heaven.

Draven
climbed out of the water but stopped at the mouth of the cave, balancing his
wet arms on the lip of rock at the entrance. His masked face looked alien and
frightening, like something out of a story she’d heard as a child while sitting
around a fire, clutching her sisters for comfort. Only Draven’s arms looked
human, with the crease in his shoulder above the muscle, and beads of water
clinging to his skin. Of course he wasn’t human, but Cali knew about Superiors,
which made them less scary than the monsters from her childhood tales.

“Should
I come next?” she asked.

“The
baby. Unless you’d like to swim beside me.”

“He
can go first.”

Draven
held Leo the same way he’d carried the backpack, except Leo sat astride
Draven’s head while they crossed the water, stopping from time to time when Leo
struggled. At least Cali got to leave last, so she could stay and see the lake
for a few more minutes. Too soon, Draven slipped back out of the water. When Cali
started to climb on his back, he stopped her.

“I’d
not recommend wetting your only clothing,” he said, scrutinizing her for a
moment. “Do you imagine you could remove the bottom part of your jumpsuit and
roll it up around your chest?”

“Okay,”
Cali said, still not sure if she could say no. She’d promised she wouldn’t. And
he really had done all the work, and he was being awfully nice to Leo even
though she knew he hated babies. So she figured she should do what he asked,
even though she’d rather not. She wondered if she should try to keep her injury
dry, but Draven didn’t mention it. He’d licked it or rubbed his saliva on it a
lot of times, and it hardly hurt anymore. So she thought it would be okay,
although she still didn’t understand why he’d done that. She wanted to ask, but
she was waiting for his mood to improve.

She
pulled her legs out of her suit while Draven knelt and waited, his back to her.
“Climb on my shoulders,” he said. She obeyed. His skin was achingly cold, and a
shiver ran through her entire body when he secured her legs around his neck.

“Can
you swim with me like this?” she asked as Draven slipped into the water.

“I’ll
soon find out,” he said. “Try to avoid getting your clothing wet.”

When
they dropped into the water, she understood why her legs ached from just
touching his cold skin. The water was even more frigid than the first day. Cali
sucked in a breath when the icy surface swallowed her feet and legs.

Draven
didn’t say anything, but he had to be awfully cold. He held onto her leg with
one hand and swam with the other. A few times, his head slipped under water for
a second. The first time his head almost disappeared, Cali’s heart lunged into
her throat, and she snatched two fistfuls of hair and clung on with both hands.
He came up after a second and growled at her not to do that. So she tried to
balance, and hold her jumpsuit in a bundle on her chest, and rest her hand on
top of Draven’s head all at once. By the time they reached the shore, even her
bones ached.

“Take
off your wet underthings and put on the bottom of your suit,” Draven said,
turning away from her. Cali did as told. When she turned back, Draven had put
on a pair of jeans and was pulling on a shirt. She caught only a glimpse of the
awful mess of his back before the shirt covered it. When he turned, his face
wore a tight grimace and his jaw clenched and unclenched. Cali wanted to say
something, but he spoke first.

“Let
us get our shoes,” he said. He handed her the pair of shoes she’d worn the
other day and a new pair of socks. She’d never worn socks before in her life.
They were soft and plushy and wonderful.

“Thanks,”
she said. She knew he’d just given her something precious of his own that he
could have saved for himself. “These are the nicest thing I’ve ever had.”

“They
won’t be so lovely by tonight,” he said, going to the backpack, which hung from
the lowest branch of a tree near the shore. He dug out Leo, who had somehow fallen
asleep in the bag as it swayed. He shuffled Leo into Cali’s arms before
repacking the bag, swinging it onto his back with a quick little inhalation,
and taking Leo again.

“You
must walk today,” his muffled voice said from inside the wet hat. “It will warm
you.”

He
started walking, and Cali followed.