THE
FUGITIVES
Lena Hillbrand
Copyright © 2015 Lena Hillbrand
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN-13: 978-1-945780-16-5
ISBN-10: 1-945780-16-9
DEDICATION
For Gabriel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A big thank you to everyone who patiently awaited this book’s release, as well as those who went without my attentions while it was being written, rewritten, and edited—Gabriel, Jon, my parents, and possibly a couple dogs and some chickens. As always, thank you to my sister Rose for reading and pointing out flaws in the early draft. And last but certainly not least, thanks to all my readers.
PART ONE
THE STONE HOUSE
Chapter oNE
They left the trailer containing the wounded Enforcer in a plains town the second morning after Cali knifed him. Draven had driven all night looking for an ideal spot. He’d passed through cities where he could have left the burden, but he sought a more populous area, one that served as a crossroads for those continuing on to larger cities. In a well-traveled area leading to Moines’s industrial sector, he pulled to the shoulder of the road to disconnect the trailer. An unattended prisoner transport trailer would draw attention, so the Enforcer would not have to wait long for rescue.
Draven knew the Enforcer would live, though the healing process would prove slow and painful as he regenerated the hand Draven had removed. The hand had been an unfortunate necessity. Now the unpleasant task of disposing of it had arrived. It had begun to reek, and the car held a faint odor of decay even after he returned the hand to its owner. He considered taking the other one, but, lacking the sharp focus of necessity he’d had when he took the first, he couldn’t bring himself to take both the man’s hands.
When he returned from his task, he donned his sunshades and pulled the car back onto the road. If not for the solar charger on the roof of the Enforcer’s car, they could not have traveled this far without a recharge. He’d spent little time with Superiors in the past two years, and although driving didn’t bother him, if he had to walk among people, he didn’t imagine he’d fare so well. Even now, a sense of paranoia clung to him as he drove, and he checked his mirrors and dash screen every few seconds.
“Where are we going?” Cali asked.
“I’d like to put a few miles between us and that trailer.”
“I wish we could go home.”
“As do I,” Draven said, knowing she meant The Funnel rather than Princeton.
“I know it’s not our home anymore,” she said. “It was just so warm.”
“Are you cold?” Draven had some difficulty estimating the homo-sapien threshold for cold, though he knew she could not withstand anywhere close to what Superiors could.
“A little,” Cali said, wrapping her arms about herself.
“This adjusts the heat.” He activated the control screen and explained how it functioned. “Choose the temperature you like. I’ll be comfortable.”
“Where should we go now?” she asked. “Can we keep the car?”
“Perhaps, for a bit. It would be better to stay out of the city. I’ve deactivated the smart chip, which will arouse suspicion. People often let their vehicles navigate, and since the cars will not detect us… If we were hit by another vehicle, we’d likely be recaptured.”
Cali shuddered. “Let’s not do that then.”
“We could go south, towards home. It’s warmer there,” Draven mused. “But that’s where they’d expect us to go. So perhaps we should go north.”
“Would that be safest?”
“There is less population the further north we go. But perhaps they’ll think we tried to throw them off by going north, and they’ll check there first.” In his paranoia, he’d talked and thought himself in circles all night.
“Where would they look last? Where would no one ever look for us?”
Sometimes Cali’s reasoning still surprised him, made him momentarily forget she was only a sap. “Princeton,” he said after a moment’s thought.
“I don’t want to go back there,” Cali said with another shudder. “Even if no one would look for us there. What if we ran into Byron?”
“There is one other place that no one would look.”
“Where’s that?”
“Here.”
“Why would no one look here? We led them right here, didn’t we? You said the trailer had a smart chip you couldn’t find. So they’ll follow us here and… We’re just going to wait for them?”
“That is why it’s perfect. Do you not see? We would not bring the Enforcer here and stay. Obviously, we would run.”
Cali’s grin spread across her face slowly, shy and triumphant at once. “You’re so smart.”
“If I were smart, we wouldn’t be in this predicament,” Draven said. “Now we must decide how to dispose of the car. I don’t imagine it will be difficult, but we don’t want it parked where we’re staying.”
Cali ran her fingertips along the dash. “But it’s so warm.”
“I’m also sorry we cannot keep it.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, but withdrew his hand before making contact. “We’ll sleep here today. And we’ll find a good place like last time, like the endlot, to stay. It won’t be cold much longer. Winter is almost over.”
Draven found an abandoned lot on the southeastern edge of the city, in a seam along the edge of the service sector where everything crumbled with age. The parking lots and roads lay full of cracks with last year’s dead grasses sagging through. The city sprawled before them, old enough to have known the rule of humans and having grown much larger over several hundred years of Superior rule. It bordered “corn country,” the middle section of North America that stretched across quarter of the country. The country exported more corn than any other in the world, making it rich in both sapiens and their necessary supplies.
When Draven had drawn the blinders over the car windows, Cali reclined on the back seat, and Draven settled across the two front seats. “Do you think we’ll be safe here?” Cali asked.
“For tonight.”
“No, I mean here. In this place.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Draven considered his next words before speaking. He had promised to teach her survival skills, and knowing what to fear was part of that. “I should tell you something,” he said after a bit. “Perhaps I misunderstood it, but I found some interesting information in our files.”
“What files?”
“Everyone has a file in the database, even sapiens. I looked them up on the pod before I disabled it. I discovered some things…about all of us.”
“What things? Did you find out something about me?”
“Sapien files are not thorough. Your file contains your name, your birth name, and a bit more relevant information—that you’ve run several times, that you require harsh discipline. But that’s not important.”
“You’re not going to start being mean now, are you? Because it said that?”
He chuckled. “No. That’s not what I wanted to tell you. I checked Byron’s file, and he’s temporarily left
his assignment, and Princeton as well. He hasn’t registered in another city. His reason for leaving was listed as ‘personal business.’”
“And you think that business is us?”
Sometimes her naïveté frustrated him, while at other times, her shrewdness surprised him. “Don’t you?”
“Probably,” she said. “I was his human. Can a master just come and retrieve his… property… like that? Why did he send trackers after us if he could come get us himself?”
“He’s an Enforcer, so he can do nearly anything in the name of the Law. I’m a criminal, so he has every right to find and arrest me.”
“So who sent the trackers?”
“The government pays for them, so he’s not spending his time or money. And most Second Order Superiors think it beneath them to track a sapien. I wasn’t a murderer then, so I was not considered dangerous.”
“But you killed that man before…”
“For the government. Anything for the government is legal.”
As always, she grew quiet when he talked about politics, and he guessed she understood little. From a moral standpoint, he did not understand, either. Murder was murder, whoever sanctioned it. He hadn’t felt the burden of guilt any less after he’d killed on assignment than the two times he’d killed to survive. One, technically, but he would not tell Cali that. She had enough worry without shouldering the guilt of taking a life.
He had to admire her resilience—she had the fiercest desire to live he’d ever encountered. All that, for just the short life of a sap. Upon reflection, it did make some sense. A short life of bondage may not mean much to a Superior, but it was everything to sapiens, all they got.
“Cali,” he said after a time. “Can I ask you about the night you escaped with the humans?”
“Sure,” she said from the back seat. “What?”
“Do you not remember that I was there?”
“I guess I do,” she said. “I didn’t at first. It was all so strange, and I thought half of it was a dream, because I kept falling asleep. I thought I’d dreamed you were there until you showed up in my garden all that time later and told me it was real.”
“Do you remember a man, or a boy—a male being—beautiful and… golden?”
When Cali did not respond, Draven sat and peered over the seat. She lay gazing at the dark ceiling, only her face visible outside the mummy bag. “I guess, somewhat,” she said slowly. “He seems more like a dream than anything.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“Well…I was there that night, and this man was trying to mate with me. And then he was gone, and this other…thing…came down.” Cali broke off and drew her fists up under her chin. “It was like he came straight from the ceiling. He picked me up and put his mouth to mine, but he wasn’t kissing me… More like sucking the breath out of me. I couldn’t breathe, and it went on and on. When I woke up, I was breathing again.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Not exactly. But it felt awful, like…panic. Like I was smothering.”
“But it’s better than being bitten?”
“No.” She shivered. “Not when you do it. I’m used to you now, so I—don’t mind.”
“You don’t mind when I draw from you?”
“Not much. I know you need to, and you’re awfully nice about it.”
Nice. Always she used that word.
“I try to be gentle,” Draven said. “I don’t like to hurt you.”
“I know. I told you, I don’t mind.”
“May I draw from you before we sleep?”
“Sure.”
Draven slid over the seat and knelt on the floor. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to Cali’s.
She pulled away quickly and looked at him with consternation. “What are you doing?”
“I only wanted to try it. Will you let me see if I can do it that way?”
“Why?”
“Because I think…whatever he was…I might be one now.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I want to try. So I don’t have to hurt you.”
“Okay…” Cali said, but she looked uncertain when he pressed his mouth to hers again. Her mouth was warm, so warm, and he could feel the sap under her skin, languid as it pulsed against him, such life hidden inside her still lips.
“Relax,” he whispered, suddenly feeling very foolish and not sure why. It wasn’t a kiss.
But it was so like a kiss.
Cali’s lips parted, and he inhaled the breath from her mouth before returning it to her, still warm from its time inside her. They passed the breath back and forth between them until it had grown cool.
Draven pulled away. “It’s not working. Did he do something else?”
“No, but he sort of…sucked the air out of me, very fast.”
Draven put his mouth to hers and tried again. The heat of her lips and her face so close to his face, her open mouth under his open mouth… He had an almost uncontrollable desire to slide his tongue into her mouth, to pull hers into his mouth and sink his teeth into the wet flesh. He sat back. His head felt strange, but he hadn’t taken anything from her. If anything, his hunger had grown.
“Perhaps just the usual way, then,” he said, not meeting her eyes. Could she tell? Did she know the shape of his thoughts, his desires?
When he leaned forward, she turned her head to expose the side of her throat. He pressed his lips against the warm skin until it trembled in a contraction of cold under his breath, rising to meet his ready need. He slid his teeth into the stream of her life, letting her warm and perfect sap fill his mouth, the scent invade his nostrils until his longing nearly blinded him. He needed more than even this, needed her in the most primal, instinctive way. He pressed his face into her neck, felt her heartbeat quicken with the rise and fall of her chest.
He pulled away slowly, swirling his tongue over her skin until the last traces of sap disappeared. Again he longed to speak, to thank her or say something, but he knew his voice would come out in tattered shreds. So he slid over the seat and lay facedown, crushing the evidence of his longing until it slunk away, dejected and denied.
CHAPTER TWO
First things first. Byron parked his car and looked up at the snowy mountain with dread bordering on hatred. He checked his pack again and secured his pod and charger before climbing from the car. He slipped on the icy crust and braced himself on the door. Damn snow.
Already, he longed to climb back into his car and make the treacherous drive down. He heard an engine and spotted a helicopter climbing towards a mountain peak, away from Princeton. Though he hated the city, from up here, it looked cozy and comfortable as it glittered far below. But only imbeciles chose to live in little flailing towns hidden away from the real world. With everything that larger cities had to offer, it was no wonder Superiors had flocked to them, condensing their population in major metropolitan areas.
And who in their right mind would come here voluntarily? He missed the warmth and the lack of trees back home almost as much as he missed his wife and kids. But he was being paid handsomely to be here, although his case had stalled. He’d gotten tired of waiting around and left the case to his partners while he took care of his personal problems. One problem, to be more precise, that went by the name of Draven Castle.
Byron had never done any sort of tracking except the kind that led to a kill. He didn’t expect this one to be any different. He sighed and watched the helicopter disappear over the peak of the mountain and move off before he tramped into the woods. Every quarter hour, he checked his Navigational Guide Pilot to make sure he stayed on course. He’d never been much of an outdoorsman, but if he wanted to deal with Draven in the manner his crimes warranted, he had to prove Draven was a murderer. To do so, he had to find the trackers’ remains.
He had taken more assignments after returning from the War, when he first began his Enforcer career and everything was new and exciting. Since then, he’d settled into a comforta
ble life in the Funnel. Lately, tracking jobs had become scarce, and he spent most of his time dealing with petty criminals and sitting in on cases, acting as judge. He was good at it, could tell when someone was lying with almost complete accuracy. That was one thing that threw him about Draven. He hadn’t known when the ignoble bastard lied to his face. For two years Byron had owned a sap, not knowing she’d been violated by his own friend. No wonder she couldn’t reproduce.
Though Byron had a new female, now pregnant, and soon he’d have a baby to sell, he couldn’t shake the bitterness of losing his original saps. He’d loaned the current pair to a sap farm in his absence, and when he returned, he’d receive a portion of the profits from the sale of their sap. Sapiens were always a good investment. Except that infertile runaway Cali. What a waste.
Byron stopped and looked down the slope. So many trees, so many branches protruding like hungry stakes waiting to sink into his chest. He turned back and resumed his trek up the mountain. The NGP indicated Lathan’s position just above the tree line. Byron hadn’t left himself enough time to get there. He’d thought this would be an easy climb, but he wasn’t used to struggling through deep snow on such a slope. Sometimes it held him, but often he fell through the top layer of hardened snow and had to struggle in an ever-widening pit until he fought his way out.
The light of morning had already begun in the east, shining over a mountain and onto the white peak of the one he climbed. The brightness of snow reflecting the glare sent a dagger of pain into his brain. Muttering curses, he turned and started back to his car. Stumbling blindly, he broke through a sheet of ice that sent him sprawling. The momentum carried him down the side of the mountain, gathering speed and snow as he slid. He came to a sudden stop, having slammed against a tree trunk. The snow did not stop. It pinned him to the tree, piling deeper behind and above him.
Blood Sport: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Vampire Novel (The Superiors Book 4) Page 1
