The Renegades (The Superiors)

by Lena Hillbrand

  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.

  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 wha
t 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 ke
ep 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.”