Drawn

by David Alan Jones

  Flat treeless land surrounded Camp Den for better than a quarter mile leading up to the wall. Several dark shapes—sheds? small houses?—stood out as darker blobs in a field of black. Shadowy figures boiled out of the nearest one, ten at least, hustling along on pounding feet. Each carried a short-barreled rifle.

  Anna’s heart squeezed like a fist in her chest.

  Someone down there was calling orders. Not shouting but speaking low as if into a mic. With her draw on hearing, Anna caught his words. He had spotted her and was directing his people her way. Five peeled away from the main body, moving at phenomenal speeds.

  Anna bolted across the top of the wall, a good ploy for the first few seconds as she put distance between herself and her pursuers. She grinned at her ingenuity. Ironic that the Order had given her all the skills she required to outfox them.

  That grin faulted a moment later when she spotted still more troops pouring from additional shacks ahead of her position. Unless something changed, and soon, they would intercept her with ease.

  Drawing healing, and giving herself no time for a second guess, Anna leapt. She plummeted like an Acme anvil, struck the ground, and screamed when her ankles snapped with a white-hot flash of pain. She flipped twice and slid to a stop, her legs in agony. The urgent thrum of draw-enhanced footfalls boomed in her ears. She had to move.

  She gave her broken ankles a quick five count to mend, then lumbered to her feet. Staggering, she started for the forest, bolts of pain lancing up her shins, into her thighs. Yet, with every step, the pain lessened. Her bones knit; her muscles healed. Within thirty feet she had resumed her normal gait and poured on the speed.

  The troops closed on her, but Anna adjusted her angle to outpace them. Several lost their footing in their excitement, somersaulting away with grunts and cries of pain.

  One incubus attempted to block her path, brandishing his shotgun, but he underestimated Anna’s acceleration. She barreled into him, not even slowing, shoulder checking him with such force he flew backward like a crash dummy.

  The trees grew closer. Anna could smell their budding leaves, the almost peppery tang of their bark. These guards weren’t going to catch her. No one could. She was too fast. Maybe the fastest succubus in the world.

  A woman dressed in black pulled even with Anna. A man did likewise on her opposite side. Wind skirled through the twin barrels of the shotguns they carried.

  “Stop!” the female shouted.

  Anna struggled to draw more speed and dexterity. Her lungs burned, and her ears rang with the sound of her coursing blood and thrumming heart. She couldn’t keep this pace up forever. But she didn’t have to. Ahead, perhaps two hundred meters from her current position, stood the outer tree line that marked the beginning of a thick Georgia forest surrounding Camp Den. If she could reach it, she knew she could lose her pursuers. No way more than a couple of them could dodge through the trees at her pace. She just had to beat them there. Concentrating, she pulled a stride ahead, then another. She would make it. Freedom yawned before her with open arms.

  Anna’s right thigh exploded. She registered the sound of a shotgun blast an instant before she found herself flipping ass over elbow, tearing up the ground in a headlong tumble punctuated by the crackle, snap, pop of bones.

  She ground to a halt at the edge of the forest, broken and bleeding and writhing in pain. Her head lay on a gnarled pine root.

  “Central, this is patrol lead,” said the woman, the shotgun in her hand still smoking. “We got her.”

  Fifteen minutes later, a mostly healed Anna sat on a leather chair in Master Gunnery Sergeant Lipe’s office inside Links, her wrists cuffed behind her back. Surprisingly, her mind felt clear. No obtrusive charm clouded her thoughts. Where had it gone? How was it being so thoroughly blocked? She considered asking her guards—a couple of draw sergeants flanking her on either side— but decided against it. Neither looked particularly talkative. Besides, the female of the duo was the same patrol leader who had ruined Anna’s escape with a blast from her shotgun. Anna didn’t relish a chat with that one.

  A commotion outside caught Anna’s attention. Her guards heard it too. They all turned to regard the closed office door.

  “Sir, I can’t let you go in there.” By the sound of things, the guard in the hall had stepped in front of the office door.

  “Sergeant, you will stand aside, or I’ll set you aside. Those are your choices.” Anna knew that voice and the tone of annoyed menace that went with it. Matt Snow didn’t need to shout to sound threatening. His words put her hackles up, and he wasn’t even talking to her.

  “Uh…yes, sir.” The hall guard sounded far less self-assured than he had a moment ago.

  A shuffling of boots and the door clicked open. Matt strode inside, his face a veritable storm cloud of anger. “Where is she? What did you do—” His eyes lit upon Anna seated between the guards, and he visibly relaxed, exhaling a heavy sigh. “Carver.”

  Anna sat stunned for a moment. Did she really feel ashamed for trying to escape? What was that? Stockholm syndrome? Did some defeated part of her want to please Matt Snow? To graduate this hellhole to impress him? She didn’t owe him anything, and this stifling embarrassment was pissing her off.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Why is she cuffed?” The weight of Matt’s glare could have crushed Lipe’s steel desk. “Get those things off her. Now!”

  The female guard—she seemed to be the leader—shook her head, unfazed by Matt’s bluster. “No, sir. Standard procedure says we keep escapees on lockdown until they’ve seen the gunny.”

  “You can shove your standard procedure—”

  “Matt!” Anna drew voice to override his tirade—not all the Order’s lessons had been a waste of time—and he turned back to her, his expression melting from angry to worried. That gave her pause, but not for long. Likely, his concern stemmed from losing one of his trophies. What? Did he get a bonus for each successful graduate he kidnapped? “Why are you here? Did you come to chase me down again?”

  Matt’s face fell. He looked like a kid who had just seen his dog runover in the street. “They told me you were shot.”

  Anna’s anger fizzled under Matt’s earnest gaze. It happened so quickly she assumed he or one of the guards must have turned on their charm. But no. She felt not the slightest twinge of interference in her thoughts. By dint of effort, Anna resolutely did not glance at the female guard—she of the smoking shotgun—when she said, “Rubber buckshot. Nothing serious. I got a few bruises, that was all.”

  So, she lied a bit, better than looking weak to either Matt or the guards.

  “Oh. Okay then.” Matt seemed suddenly unsure what to do with his hands. He reached toward Anna’s cheek as if he might caress it, faltered, and settled for awkwardly patting her shoulder. “I’m glad to see you’re not seriously injured.”

  “Thanks?”

  “Well, I had better get back. The gunny will be here soon. Don’t want to get in his way.” Matt shuffled toward the door and nearly tripped over his feet. Anna had never seen him move with anything less than perfect aplomb. Was he nervous?

  “Matthew.” His full name felt pleasing on Anna’s lips.

  He froze in the doorway, his eyes expectant. “Yes, Anna?”

  “Thank you. For coming to check on me, I mean.”

  He quirked that half grin of his and nodded. “Anytime.”

  Matt left, and the guard in the hall shut the door behind him. Anna turned back to face Gunny Sergeant Lipe’s desk, a grin of her own curling her lips despite her growing trepidation and fear. She didn’t know what to make of Matt, but she couldn’t deny his coming here gave her a warm feeling inside. Maybe he would advocate for her should the Order decide to toss her in some succubus prison for the next twenty-five years on charges of desertion. Or perhaps he would at least visit. Even that silly idea pleased her.

  Anna shook her head in an attempt to put Matthew Snow out of mind, though her r
ecalcitrant thoughts kept returning to that stupid grin of his. He confused the shit out of her, and she didn’t need that kind of noise right now. She had bigger concerns.

  No matter how they couched it with their military-flavored patriotism and us versus them attitude, the Order owned Anna bodily. They might call what they did training, but she knew its real name. Slavery. She couldn’t afford to lose her wits to sappy infatuation, especially for the man responsible for kidnapping her in the first place. She had to focus on the here and now.

  Anna concentrated on the room around her and what it might say about the man who occupied it. Lipe kept a sparse office. It contained one other chair—twin to Anna’s—a steel desk decorated with an old-fashioned ink blotter, and a floor-to-ceiling corner shelf. No computer.

  Various medals, coins, photos, and other memorabilia detailing a thirty-year stint in the US Marine Corps covered the shelf. Central to the display, ranking a position of obvious pride, stood a silver tri-fold picture frame, the kind that holds several snapshots of varying sizes. A handsome, dark-haired woman who looked to be in her middle fifties smiled out from the left side. Three young adults, two brawny guys and a gorgeous girl who favored the woman, stared at Anna from the right.

  Family photographs on a shelf: that alone shouted the difference between Anna and the man coming to judge her. Lipe represented everything Anna’s father had taught her to fear: authority, power, and dominant control. Lipe didn’t playact this soldiering business. He had been a marine, and a highly decorated one to judge from the medals on display. No doubt a man like that took abandoning one’s post seriously.

  Footsteps echoed in the hall outside. Anna could have set an antique watch by their measured gait. Definitely not Matt. The sound put her in mind of Victorian Age drummers signaling the advance on a battlefield. Anna’s guards snapped to attention and she, despite herself, likewise surged to her feet, weeks of training getting the better of her.

  Lipe swaggered into the office and gave them a dismissive wave. “None of that crap. Zoomies come to attention for an enlisted man.” He rounded the desk and took his seat. “Sit down, Carver.” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait, get those handcuffs off her.”

  “Yes, Gunny.” The female guard produced a cuff key and released Anna.

  “Good,” Lipe said. “Now sit, Carver. You two wait outside.”

  “Gunny,” the woman looked askance at her commander, “we aren’t supposed to—”

  Lipe, who had the prototypical incubus physique, short and spare, save that years of training had imparted to him some girth, nevertheless seemed to grow in his seat. He fixed the guard with a blank stare. The look bore no menace but might as well have been a slap in her face.

  The guards left at speed, shutting the door behind them.

  “Now, Carver,” Lipe said. “Let’s talk.”

  Anna’s heart pounded. She fought a nearly insatiable urge to run. That plan had already failed once, and she didn’t relish the idea of provoking Lipe’s troops into shooting her again. Despite what she had told Matt, those rubber pellets had hurt like hell.

  Since Lipe seemed to expect something from her, Anna asked, “What are you going to do with me, Gunny?”

  “Reward you, I think, though I’m still debating that.”

  “What?”

  “Why’d you run, Carver? You’re halfway through training—you’ll be done in no time—you’re a sime at the top of her class in nearly every category, and according to Sergeant Torres, you have leadership potential.” Lipe leaned back to eye Anna. “So, what’s going on?”

  Anna hesitated, jaw tight.

  “Speak your mind,” Lipe said.

  “I’m sick of being charmed.” Anna leaned forward in her seat. Lipe wanted the truth? She’d give it to him. “I’m sick of being forced to participate in your little war. And I’m sick of this damn chip in my arm.”

  “Ah, that.”

  “Yes, Gunny, that. It’s intrusive.”

  “And you don’t consider being disappeared by Breathers pretty damn intrusive?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Gunny. I’ve only ever been disappeared by the Order.”

  Lipe narrowed his eyes, and Anna thought she might have gone too far. Then he chuckled. “Torres said you had a mouth. But you also have a point. Look at it from our perspective, Carver. We’re fighting what is, for all intents and purposes, the U.S. Government. The Indrawn Breath has its fingers in the NSA, FBI, the Army. What is the Order compared to that? A flea—less than a flea. A microbe. Where the breathers can afford to expend men and material like they’re worthless, we have to guard our lowliest troop like they’re the last bullet in the foxhole.”

  “I understand the reasoning—” Anna began.

  “It’s the implications you fear.”

  “They scare the shit out of me.”

  “Because what if you get out into the world and people like me can track you—come find you any time we like.”

  “Exactly.”

  “News alert, Carver, because we already did that. And, so did the Breathers. We can find you. They can find you. Who do you want getting there first?”

  Anna said nothing. If it meant getting near her kidnapped family, she would take the Breathers over the Order any day. But she couldn’t say that.

  Lipe’s eyes softened, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Did you know I’m a monodraw?”

  “What?” Anna scrunched her nose, momentarily thrown by the gunny’s non-sequitur.

  “I have a pitiful draw on charm. ‘Weak as bird’s breath’ my mama used to say.”

  “Gunny, I—”

  “I discovered my true draw after I joined the Corps. Discernment. I’ve got that in spades.”

  Succubus discernment, the ability to predict outcomes based on observation and good old-fashioned intuitive reasoning borrowed from votaries, had never figured much in Anna’s life. She hadn’t even heard of it before Camp Den. And though she knew some succubi relied on it for their every decision, it seemed a trifling thing to her. She preferred speed. “No offense, Gunny, but why are you telling me this?”

  “I have a prediction for you, Carver. You see, I helped set up this camp. Den is designed to instill loyalty and pride in its graduates. And it works for most people because what we’re doing here is worthy of those things. Lots of recruits understand that on a gut level. The charm just reinforces those feelings.”

  “You mean they swallow the Hitler youth propaganda,” Anna said. “The enemy is all monsters; we fight for right while they’re all sick and depraved.”

  “Thing is, most of that is true.”

  “I don’t believe that, Gunny.”

  “I know you don’t. You’re quite the freethinker. I have a son just like you.”

  “What’s your prediction, Gunny?” Anna did not like being compared to one of Lipe’s obstinate children.

  He gave her a wintry smile. “Punishment won’t work on you. You’ll quietly serve the extra duty I dish out until you think it’s safe, and then you’ll run again. Or you’ll wait till you’ve graduated and get some doctor willing to keep his mouth shut to remove that chip in your arm and immediately disappear.”

  Anna kept her face expressionless, hands folded in her lap. “What would the Order do then? Hunt me down? Do you really want unwilling soldiers for your cause?”

  “We want every troop we can get. But more than that, we want the Breathers deprived of those same troops.”

  “I’d never join them.”

  “So you believe,” Lipe said. “But if you think Camp Den is brainwashing, I assure you the Indrawn Breath does worse.”

  “Are we back to the Hitler youth fearmongering, Gunny?”

  “Maybe.” Lipe rubbed at a spot on his immaculate desk. “You never let me tell you the other part of my prediction.”

  “Okay.”

  “There’s a mission coming up—an extraction. The Order is looking to reach a young succubus before the Breathers get to her. It’s rout
ine stuff. I’ve told the draw sergeants to provide me with some names of top students we might send along for the experience. I predict, Carver, that if I add your name to that list, you will return here committed to the Order.”

  “I don’t see how, Gunny.”

  “That’s the strange thing about predictions,” Lipe said. “Neither do I.”

  Anna watched Lipe’s face, searching for the lie. She found none. “If I go and return feeling the way I do now, do I get to leave sans microchip?”

  “You’ll go,” Lipe said. “And you’ll change your mind. But if you don’t, I’ll buy you a plane ticket to wherever you’re going.”

  “I have your word?”

  “Yes.”

  Anna stuck out her hand, and Lipe shook it. “Gunny, you’ve got yourself a rookie taker.”

  9

  The Abduction of Emily Stone

  The drive from Camp Den on the outskirts of Atlanta to the small town of Lucas Falls, South Carolina, took three hours and twenty-five minutes. During that time, Matt had said exactly six words to Anna.

  “You still want the heat on?” he had asked about twenty minutes ago.

  And because the day was cold, she had nodded. Since then, Matt had kept his gaze on the road and his hands plastered at ten and two on the wheel.

  Valerie Satterfield lay on their van’s center row seat, sprawled out and snoring, her conservative skirt hiked up around her curled knees. Behind her, Phil Benson, a recruit chosen from Bravo Platoon, sat staring out the side window, AirPods jammed in his ears. Even without drawing, Anna could pick out the tinny buzz of his music over the road noise. She hoped he had a deep draw on hearing. He would need it in his old age.

  They had disguised themselves as Mormon missionaries. The guys wore black suits over pure white shirts with nametags pinned to their breast pockets. Snow’s read, “Elder Frost.” Anna thought it a bad pun.