The Warrior

by Kay Camden

  I alter my direction to head away from the dogs. Thirst haunts me. So does my paranoia. There’s no reason my family needs me to kill her. With her captive on our land, they can do it themselves. As soon as they figure out I jumped the gun, defied orders, thought for myself for one damn second of my life, they’ll not only see me unfit for my mission but also as a direct obstruction. Disloyal. Defiant. I know what happens to the ones who defy them. I’ve seen it firsthand.

  Now that I’ve left an erratic path of my scent to hopefully buy me some time with the dogs, I pocket the rock and hoist myself into the nearest climbable tree, ignoring the sight of my wrecked arm. It’s a risk to crawl out on the branch, but I have no choice. There’s a thick vine I need to reach that will help me move to an adjacent tree. The branch creaks under my weight as I extend my arm and lean. Then I’m grasping vine and swinging over, latching onto a new branch that won’t hold my weight either but that’s okay. It lessens the force of my fall enough so I don’t break my legs. As soon as my boots hit the ground, I cover my head against the falling limb.

  It comes down hard on top of me, gouging me good in the lower back. I twist to check the damage but can only see the top of the rip in my shirt. No time for first aid now. I get a shoulder under the limb and lift—not enough to leave the forest floor undisturbed but it’s the best I can do. About a hundred feet away I drop it and stomp it apart, flinging pieces in every direction. They’ll probably figure it out, but I can do no more here. I need to move.

  Crossing water would be the best strategy, but I’m too far from the stream on our land. So I cut north toward the site of the old stone buildings. If the dogs do catch me, it will be nice to have a wall to my back.

  In their clearing, the buildings sit in a natural spotlight from the moon, peaceful upon first glance, sinister if you look closer. Or know what went on here. I do, and the peace I find is what comes of wrongs made right. People earning what’s due them. Justified consequences. But as soon as I think it, there’s a clash of dread for what I’ve done and what consequences may await me.

  That’s if I’m caught. Or if I don’t kill her and claim the power that’s mine.

  I walk to the closest building and toe a loose piece of stone, half expecting the whole structure to crumble to the ground. I wonder what this spot looked like before the buildings burned. Without their roofs, the rain has decayed them. Young trees sprout against the walls, leaning away as if they didn’t mean to root so close. Vines climb up about half a foot before turning direction like the ground is a better bet. And nothing grows inside. It’s just a fight between mud and debris. The mud is winning.

  A figure in my peripheral vision has me spinning around to find Sloane Bevan emerging from a doorway. I feel the rock in my pocket—no, Rex, don’t go for it, not yet. Her black eye makeup has smeared, turning her eyes smoky in the moonlight. And those dark clothes? No one told me she’s a stupid goth. The blood from her split brow has dried along with that screwed-up symbol she drew on her forehead. And probably mine too. I need to find out what kind of shit that was, but I’m not talking to her. She studies me, hugging herself, frowning so intently I get a jolt of memory when she was in my head and I could sense things—

  She’ll pay for that. I don’t even care how she beat me here, how she knew I’d be coming here, or why she didn’t attack me when my back was turned. She’s stupid like the rest of them, a dumb animal to be put out of its misery. I extract my rock. Unconcerned, she watches me. Still that frown. Like I’ve done something to disappoint her. It makes me laugh, and I do, fully aware I’m the cackling villain in her story. Because how could she expect anything but disappointment from the guy whose job it is to kill her?

  I advance on her but she puts up a hand, distracted, like she’s so through with us and there’s a bigger issue at hand. She’s not even looking at me—she’s tilting her head, eyes intent on the trail that dropped me into this clearing. A swarm of insects bursts upward from the stone building behind her, clouding the sky with their number. It’s those moths again, and a perfect distraction for me to attack, to smash her head with this rock and go home to bed. I don’t know why I’m not doing it.

  As the moths disperse in the sky, I hear a disturbance in the woods. A range of it, not from one direction but many. It’s obvious now she’s tuned into this somehow, and I want to ask her what it is but remember she’s deaf and voiceless—how she’s surviving all this is a real trip. A bark splits the summer night, provoking more from all around, and I back into the wall as she comes forward, passing me as if unafraid of what I’m about to deal her.

  The anger I’ve been taught to use as fuel rises from the pit of my gut. She’s got her full back to me now. It would be so easy and so due; dismissing me like that is a lesson she needs to learn but won’t because she’ll be dead. The kill needs to be slower than a brain bashing so she can fully process the mistake.

  I start toward her and she drops to a squat, not in reaction to me but to the pack of dogs that’s now shooting from the trees. She turns around to face me, one hand pushing down toward the ground, eyes big and reassuring.

  Reassuring? What the—

  I squat, my body taking control over my brain because it doesn’t want to be torn apart by a pack of Dobermans. And apparently it trusts Sloane Bevan over me. Seriously?

  She points two fingers into her eyes then points to the ground. I follow her lead, my gaze on the ground along with hers. The Dobermans reach us and swarm, bumping me with their shoulders and muzzles, but I feel no teeth. No claws. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her extending a hand level with the ground, palm down. I raise my eyes just enough to see one of the dogs sniff her hand then nudge it with its head. She shuffles forward; the dog growls but she goes in closer, unalarmed because she can’t hear it. I restrain myself from shouting at her because she wouldn’t hear that either. Is she stupid? If she provokes an attack, these dogs will steal her slow death away from me.

  I stand. The dogs who were watching her wheel on me raise their lips, snapping, barking. She motions get down again to me as if I’m going to take orders from Bevan trash. I take a step; a dog latches onto my thigh. Piercing teeth bad, hefty clamp of jaw worse. The fist I’m swinging toward its ribcage is derailed, and I find Sloane Bevan clinging onto my arm.

  I’m at once aware the dog has let go, but she hasn’t. It’s an invasion almost as bad as what she did to me in her room, but this time I don’t fight it for the shock it lays upon me, the realization that bursts so painfully in my head. The reason it’s brought that mind connection up again is because of how similar it feels. It doesn’t feel like I’m being fought by Sloane Bevan at all. It’s more like I’m being saved.

  I grab her arm and twist, forcing her to release me. She has no chance against my strength. She spins and ducks, breaking my grasp too fast for me to counter. Dogs gather beside her, looking primed to leap at my throat should I make one more false move.

  “Okay,” I say, hands raised. Temporary truce because I’m not stupid enough to fight her and a pack of attack dogs she’s somehow tamed and recruited before my eyes. “Back the fuck away from me, then.”

  She has the nerve to stand her ground and smile at me. And I’m in no position to backhand her without getting torn to pieces. The fantasy of it is awesome … until it turns my stomach in a way I’ve never experienced.

  I need to find out what the hell she did to me in her room and make her undo it. I can’t go back to my family like this. If I sense something has changed, so will they. And even if I try to hide it, they’ll find out. They always find out.

  She points to the bite mark she left on my arm, but I simply stare at her. She leans to the side, pointing around me at the wound on my back from the falling limb. I have no idea how she noticed it or why she’d be pointing it out.

  “What is wrong with you?”

  Of course I don’t expect an answer because the girl i
s surely mental on top of deaf. Or has some sick fascination with other people’s wounds. She did cause one of them. Maybe she’s rubbing it in. But there’s no perceptible gloating—it’s something else, another emotion I refuse to name. She drops to a squat and writes in the dirt: Infection. Raises her face back to me.

  This is too much.

  I turn around and barge through the throng of dogs. They’ve lost all threat. Because even if they rip off my limbs and eat my face, it would be easier to deal with than this.

  *

  After putting some distance between me and her, I locate the stream. I quench my thirst then take off my shirt and wash my arm and back wounds with handfuls of cool water, careful to avoid the watch I should probably be taking off. I scrub the dried blood of her evil symbol off my forehead, wondering if I just introduced some flesh-eating bacteria into my open wounds. But who cares. Let it kill me.

  I’ll probably get some hellish diarrhea from drinking the water too.

  I need to go back home and get a rifle with a scope. I could kill her from a distance like a first-person shooter game. I’ll admit to myself, it’s so I wouldn’t have to watch her die. Hard to believe I’d go out of my way to avoid something I’ve anticipated my whole life. This change in me must be a result of some hardcore exhaustion—something to explain my hesitation for completing what I need to do. I’ll need to tell them to adjust my pills again, or I need a different mix. Something stronger? Less strong? Anything that will return me to normal.

  Forget it though. I need to focus. I’ll get the rifle. Return to the woods and hunt her down. Then I’ll go home, find my father and tell him she escaped and I caught her before she made it to the road. Yeah, we didn’t get her Bevan magic, but we won’t need it after we eliminate all her kind. We can let it die with them. And by the way, now that I’ve completed my mission and killed Sloane Bevan, this house and all of you belong to me.

  One small problem: The eastern horizon has a morning glow to it and birds are getting loud and restless. I check my watch—not good. It’s a long hike back to the house and by that time the sun will be up and the house will be awake. Sneaking in wouldn’t be hard on a normal day, but today they’ll be watching. It’s strange I haven’t encountered a search party but it’s no coincidence the dogs were loose last night. They know we’re gone. They might be waiting for me to take care of it. A bit unusual they’d leave such a decision to me, but really, it’s about time. It is my mission after all.

  Shit, I’m starving. I didn’t bring a snack but at least I have my pill case. I swallow one with stream water and wait for it to kick in and clear the sleepy fog from my brain. Not much later I’m overcome by a rush of energy that leaves me shaky from so much activity and not enough calories. And a missed night of sleep. I can’t go home without killing her. I can’t sneak in to retrieve the rifle in the daylight. And the longer I stay out here, the thirstier and hungrier I’ll get. So that settles it. Screw the rifle. It’s time to kill.

  I hike toward the old stone buildings because that’s where I left her, and I can track her from there. I half expect her to be hiding in one of the buildings, but they’re all vacant. My combat boot footprints are easy to spot mingling with dog prints. Hers, not so much. I try to recover the image of what she had on—yeah, soft fabric ankle boots, flat sole. She’s small, her feet must be too. I poke around where she tamed that first Doberman and find the arc of a heel, then another, following them around the largest building to a pile of sticks stripped of their leaves. Not ripped off, but shaved off by a knife. She’s armed. And making more weapons. Good to know.

  Now that I’ve identified that heel print, it’s easy enough to track. She took a deer trail I follow northeast, losing her path a few times so I have to double back. I can’t think about my stomach. It’s well past breakfast now. I probably won’t be getting lunch either. A grasshopper lands on my shoulder as I plow through a clearing. Yeah, not yet hungry enough to take advantage of that. Try me again in a few hours.

  Almost at the opposite edge of the clearing her prints disappear. There’s nothing she could have jumped up on. No trees to climb, no running water. I backtrack and try again. I scour the whole clearing. The sun’s overhead now and beating me down, boiling my nerves. The sunburn I earn today is going to be brutal. I slap another mosquito. And the insect bites? Not gonna be pleasant. Damn the elements, they’re no help to me now. How could I let her get away from me? I had her how many times—three? And I walked away? Since there’s nothing to hit, I reach into my hair to pull and find it buzzed off.

  Now that I’m admitting all these things are pissing me off, I should probably call attention to the human bite mark on my arm that’s weeping blood and pus-looking crap. Serious bad news. Nothing to do about it. The tree branch wound on my back is killing me too, more bruised than raw, though. I use the bottom of my T-shirt to wipe the sweat off my face. I need to find that stream before I get dehydrated. Or more dehydrated. My lips are dry enough to split.

  The stream. That’s the key. Of course she knows to stay near water, unlike my dumb ass who’s hiked far away. Once I find it, I’ll follow its length and will no doubt find her too. If she’s smart, she’ll take it to the northern boundary fence and use that Bevan magic to escape. I have to catch her before then.

  I up my pace, ignoring all complaints from the deep tissue bruise on my back, my damn human bite wound—oh yeah, and my sore leg thanks to the Doberman’s latch. The canopy above keeps the sun off my shorn head and bare neck. The relief of the shade convinces me to increase my jog even more.

  Catching sight of the stream, I just about make a dive for it. I guzzle water knowing full well the intestinal upset I bought earlier just leveled up. After washing my face and neck, I get dizzy so bad I almost can’t get my pill case out. I swallow one down, taking note of the time. The doses are too close together, but I’m not sure how to help it.

  I lean back on my heels. A moth flutters past, then two more. Following them with my eyes, I catch sight of Sloane Bevan upstream, wading into the water with her pant legs pulled up to her knees. All her focus is on the water. I stay in a squat and slowly back toward cover—one step, two, three. She looks up, right into my eyes from a hundred feet away.

  Okay, no ambush then. I’ll play friendly. I stand and stare at her a moment. Can’t appear too chummy, she’ll be suspicious of that. She was concerned about my arm—I actually cringe at my own thought, at that emotion I refused to name before. Concern is such a disgusting concept I pack it away. But wait, Rex, you can use that. Maybe I’m here because I need her help. So I raise my wounded arm, point to it.

  She straightens all the way up, rubbing her palms on the front of her pants. Gives me a nod. I approach. Her shoes and socks sit on the shore. I notice the stretchy band on her forearm isn’t just for decoration. There’s a slender object stashed in there that must be the knife she used to strip those tree branches. She remains in the water, watching me with her head cocked like an animal angling its ears for a better listen. Which would make sense if she could hear, because the birds have started wigging out above us.

  I could attack her now, press her face under the water, and end her quickly. There’s something so unsatisfying about not seeing the blood run, though. I raise my arm again and point to it. “Infection.”

  She nods knowingly but stays put. Her face is clean and totally healed. As expected, but it annoys me more than it should.

  I half turn, pointing to my back. She leans to get a better view, but I don’t move to make it easier. She’ll have to come out of the water to see it. No one ever taught me how to lure an opponent, but no one ever predicted I’d be such a dumbass to let one get away three times. She takes one step forward but stops there. I’m under such scrutiny I’m overthinking every breath. There’s no way to know what’s the best look for me right now, what would sell it so she’ll draw near. If I should hide my shaky exhaustion or let it show.
Showing weakness is so against my training, but will she trust me if I look normal? Will she want to help me if I look weak?

  Weak is less threat. I let my shoulders slump, relax my stance. Pretending to look at the wound, I twist, stretch my neck, and can’t see a damn thing. At least it’s not a lie. “I can’t see it at all.”

  She comes out of the water and drips for a moment as if still trying to decide if I’m safe. Yes. I’m very safe. I promise. I rotate my torn arm to pretend to give that a look. She comes closer. Walks around me. As soon as her eyes move from my face to my back, I lunge.

  The first thing I go for is that amulet she’s put back around her neck. She either doesn’t predict it or lets me get it, and I yank hard, snapping it off her neck as the metal burns through my palm. I fling it into the stream. For a moment I think she’s going to go after it, but when my head jerks to the side, I realize that was a distraction and she’s popped me in the jaw instead.

  Every move I expect to drive home meets a block or open air. Fighting her is like catching a mouse. So much speed and power packed into a little body that slips through my fingers every time. If I can get ahold of her, though, it’s over. She knows that too. I need to get her on the ground. Soon. I’m fighting two opponents right now: her and my exhaustion.

  I take a risk to sweep her leg—she jabs me straight in the wound in my back I just exposed. As I fall I make a blind reach that rewards me with fabric I clamp onto with my tightest grip. She falls with me, landing close enough for me to wrap a leg around her waist and an arm around her throat. Something really bad is going on with my torn arm but right now I don’t care. I tighten on her neck. She chokes a little before slamming her head back. I take it in the mouth and feel the blood well onto my tongue. It’s a slippery mess leaking into her hair. She’s working a shoulder under my arm. Then she heaves all her weight, rolling us, sending a deadly foot into my knee and a hit to the jaw that turns my vision black for one sick second. No.