The Renegades (The Superiors)

by Lena Hillbrand

  Draven took the cup and dumped it into his mouth. Cali turned away, but not before he caught her expression.

  “I’ve disgusted you,” he said.

  “No—”

  “I have. I’m only putting it back where it belongs. It came from me, and that’s where it is again. I’d have given it to you, if you’d take it.”

  “I know,” she said, shifting away. “Thank you, I guess. That’s…nice.” Nice but awful at the same time. Sweet and horrifying.

  “Nice. Yes.”

  She glanced at Draven, getting that feeling that she’d said something wrong again, like she should know the right thing to say, but she didn’t. She’d disappointed him. Maybe to Superiors, the offer conveyed a great honor, and by refusing, she had offered him a grave insult in return. But how would she know? She was a human, with only the beginning of a general idea of how Superiors lived and how their society worked.

  “Is there more?” Draven asked, holding out the cup to her. She fought back her disgust again. But they weren’t the same, he and she. They didn’t come from the same society or even the same species. She couldn’t imagine being so hungry she wanted to eat part of her own body. But for him, it wasn’t far from his usual meal. Maybe it was like if she ate dog, or some other thing that would serve as a meal though she didn’t prefer it.

  Wordlessly, she gathered what blood she could from his wounds. Most of the blood that would come had already soaked into his clothes. When Cali told him she couldn’t get more, he sat and removed his pants. She heard his shuddering breaths when he stopped a few times to rest, but she sat silently on her sleep sack and didn’t offer to help. She didn’t want to see him this way, hurt and weak. If he couldn’t even get undressed… With growing anxiety, she watched his face, the studied blankness of it, and hoped he only stopped to absorb the pain before it became unbearable and not out of exhaustion. She turned away and opened her sleep sack. His pain shouldn’t bring her relief, but she didn’t want to think of the alternative. She could not take care of herself if he died—taking care of him, too, would be further than impossible.

  After Draven had worked his pants over his feet, he balled them up and set them on Cali’s food bag. He didn’t look at Cali, didn’t even glance at her, so she let herself stare. She studied him with a sick fascination at how much pain he could endure and still function rationally. He had dug a bloodstained shirt from the backpack, and he tore it into strips and wrapped them around his legs, tying the ends securely and adding more layers until blood stopped blooming on the cloth.

  Using his teeth and hands to tear the shirt, he worked until he’d used every scrap of cloth, and then he used another stained shirt to finish bandaging his legs. The whole time he never stopped or even paused, and he never looked at Cali. She found herself wishing he would, wishing he’d say something that let her answer with a compliment to his determined bravery, the matter-of-fact way he didn’t let pain stop him but did what had to be done because that’s what he had to do. Not just now, but every time.

  When he had finished the second shirt, he pulled on a pair of jeans stained brown with blood splatters and limped out with the newly ruined pair he’d shed. A while later, he came back empty-handed. Cali thought she should say something, but she couldn’t decide what. Draven closed the tent and got into his mummy bag, but not with his usual grace and speed. Now he moved in a tentative, faltering way. She could hardly stand to look at him. She’d gotten used to the quietly efficient Draven, the one who did things like leaping across buildings without pause, without mention, like he’d only stepped over a little rock in the trail.

  But she wouldn’t worry. Not for a few days.

  “I did not get food,” Draven said when Cali turned off her flashlight.

  “It’s okay. I still have plenty. A whole bag.”

  “I would ask to draw from you. I’ve lost blood and I’m weak.”

  “Of course,” Cali said, sliding her arm out of the bag and passing it across the cold space between them. He didn’t remove scars this time, or linger over his meal. He went in quickly and sucked at a moderate rate until she felt her head start to swim and spots of blackness opening behind her eyes like the spots that bled through his bandages. She had to fight the urge to stop him, to tell him he’d taken enough and more.

  He stopped before she could ask and closed her skin in the same efficient way he’d eaten, businesslike, like the clients she’d had while working at restaurants. Just getting it done, not enjoying it like he usually did. She surprised herself by missing his usual enthusiasm. She liked how much he appreciated her, and that in this one way, he let her know, without having to say anything.

  They lay a while in silence. Cali wondered if it was light out yet, if she should pull on her wool jumpsuit under the sleep sack, layering on a pair of jeans from one of the Superiors they’d killed and Draven’s shirt and jacket over it to keep her warm when she went out. She didn’t go out as much as she had when they’d first arrived in the endlot, but sometimes she had to. She couldn’t stand just lying in the tent all day. Moving around during the day kept her warmer, too, even later that night.

  “I wanted you to put your mouth into my flesh,” Draven said after a while. Cali started. She hadn’t realized he was awake. “I wanted you to put your hands inside so I could feel your warmth inside me, and your tongue…”

  Cali shrugged down as deep into her bag as she could get. Sometimes he said the sickest things, things that made her feel strange and crawly and awkward and a little bit exhilarated. The intensity of his desires terrified and captivated her at once.

  In the dark, his cold fingers found her chin, her lips. “I would feel your tongue,” he whispered. The quietest, deepest warmth flowed from his voice into her body, until the heat spread inside even while his fingers like the icicles she sucked for water slid into her mouth. “Suck them.”

  Even as she began to obey, mindless and without intention, powerless against the undeniable insistence in his low voice, he said, “No, don’t.” He withdrew his fingers before she’d completed the act. And just as quickly, he rolled from her side. The space between them stretched out in the darkness as he drew further from her, to the far edge of the tent, and she didn’t have to switch on the flashlight to know he’d turned his face to the wall.

  Cali lay still, heart pounding, waiting for him to come back. But he didn’t.

  Without meaning to, she had done something wrong again, something that caused a sudden flare of guilt and the urge to apologize, to reach out and pull him close, comfort him. But maybe he was just suffering from his wounds. The dogs had bitten him up awfully bad. She, like most humans, had seen enough suffering to recognize someone in misery, whatever his reasons. Even if the someone was a Superior.

  Chapter 46

  Draven slept for several days, waking only to draw as much from Cali as he dared, until she grew as weak and lethargic as he. The bites on his legs had begun to heal, the pain dwindling in proportion. Though several days had passed, when he went out into the snow, he saw he’d left obvious tracks, a beacon signaling animals—or worse, Superiors. He cursed his carelessness. Though at the time it had seemed excusable, he could not afford even a minute mistake, let alone such a glaring one. The slightest error could lead to their capture or death.

  He kicked snow over the blood, working his way out of the endlot. Though snow had fallen nearly every day since they’d made camp, it appeared not a flake had fallen since he bled into the snow. Blood-splattered chunks of the crust atop the snow slanted into the trail he’d made, collapsing under his feet. He erased what evidence he could before returning to the tent.

  Perhaps if Superiors saw the blood, they would not think it so strange. Perhaps, if they only saw bits of blood and did not approach to catch the scent, they would assume a wounded animal had crawled into the endlot to die. Stray dogs sometimes lingered in the area, although they shied away, suspicious, when he talked to them. Not like the ones that had attacked him. />
  Vicious guard dogs protected wealthy Seconds and their human property. Though he’d caught their scent before he entered, he had imagined he could talk them down, the way he always did. Usually, dogs could sense that he intended them no harm, and they responded obediently to his soothing tone. These Rottweilers were of a less forgiving disposition.

  Draven wandered through the endlot a bit, neither looking for anything to salvage nor hoping for anything. He had spent years after the War scouring cities for usable material. He knew how meticulous the search had been, and he imagined searchers had combed everything at least once after the initial push for building materials. No matter how he longed to find a stash of burnable items for a fire, he knew he would not. Most of the sapien houses in the sector were temperature regulated from inside the Superior owner’s home. Further into the city, they lived in attached apartments like the one Cali had shared with her mate. Using fire as a heating method had long ago become outdated, and Draven had counted himself fortunate to find the few fire biscuits he’d procured. He could not return to the same store to steal more, though.

  His failure to keep Cali warm, and his inability to find out how to do so, caused him constant frustration. He’d relied on his pod for so long that without it, he did not know how to find the information he needed. Already he’d recalled more about human survival than he remembered knowing as a human, knowledge of how to chip bark and peel slivers of wood from trees for making fires, or use the fibers under the bark or the intestines of animals to make tentative rope, how to catch fish and butcher rodents. But knowing how to survive and knowing how to care for a human seemed quite different. As a human, he’d never been forced to survive alone in such an open space, with no place to hide and nothing to burn.

  He returned empty-handed again that morning. While Cali slept, he undressed outside the tent and scrubbed himself with snow. When he finished, he turned to go inside, but something stopped him. He’d caught something familiar on the wind, the scent of danger, foreboding and unmistakable. The scent of Superior.

  Though a truck came to the endlot each week, it should not come this night. Draven paused, turned his face into the wind. He found it again. That scent. That person. He turned, slowly, and their eyes met.

  She stood watching, fingers hooked into the chain-link fence behind the endlot, close to the tent. Not ten meters separated her from their camp. For a moment, neither moved. In his surprise, Draven did not react, only stared back at the small wide-eyed girl regarding him with solemn eyes. Then a gust of wind threw her scent at him once more, wrapping it around his bare body. He snatched his trousers from the snow and thrust his legs into them, springing towards her before he’d finished securing their button.

  Why was she out there, in the middle of nowhere?

  Draven leapt the tent, landing in a pile of debris that sent him tumbling. He sprawled in the trash heap, then rolled to his feet, gained his legs, and sprang at the fence.

  The woman had run when he made apparent his intention to pursue. She’d gotten a fair start on him. Although Draven scaled the fence as quickly as he could, he’d lost much of his speed as well as his strength in the past months. By the time he dropped into the snow on the opposite side of the fence, the woman had sprinted far ahead. Ignoring the tearing pain in his mangled legs, he pushed himself forward with every bit of strength he still possessed. Speed had always been his advantage, and now he called on every reserve of energy left to propel him after her, leaping further than he’d known he still could. A bolt of pain tore through him when he landed, and he felt his freshly healing skin split when he leapt at her again.

  This time, he came down close behind her. She had run, but perhaps she had never attempted the feats he performed, perhaps she, like most Thirds, still did not know the full power she possessed, because she had never utilized it. Draven steeled himself, and in one final bound, he smashed into her.

  They toppled into the snow together. She let out a yelp of surprise and twisted under him. Even through her coat, he could feel the slimness of her body, and its strength. He hadn’t realized how weak he’d become until that moment, wrestling to pin a child-sized Superior and failing so miserably. She scrambled forward on all fours, slipping through his hands without much difficulty. Grasping her coat, he clung to her as she dragged him a meter forward in the snow. Then she twisted onto her back, braced her hands behind her in the snow, drew her knee towards her chest, and smashed her heel into his face.

  Teeth snapped off into his mouth as the force of the blow shot through Draven. He blinked hard, trying to clear the momentary haze of pain from his eyes. His tongue convulsed to prevent the fragments from slipping down his throat, and he heard the moan escape his lips with a gush of blood. The woman had torn herself free and run again, leaving a handful of fabric from her coat in Draven’s clenched fist. He stumbled to his feet, ripping his mind from the waves of pain that threatened to overtake him.

  The little woman had disappeared from sight. He followed her trail through the snow until he reached the first cleared road. Her trail stopped, and he stopped with it. She’d returned to her scooter and fled into the night. From her tracks and those of the tires, he could tell she alone had dismounted. He’d managed more than a cursory glimpse of her before she fled. Though unusually young, he guessed she belonged among his order. Like most Thirds, she had that soft, underused look about her, nondescript and ill-defined as a shape outlined in watercolor. Only her youthful appearance set her apart, and that only slightly. Though most Thirds had evolved having twenty or so human years, the woman he’d seen watching him appeared no more than half that. Still, many had only managed fifteen years before the Evolution, and some even less.

  Draven tread back through the snow, cursing her and himself. He stopped to pick the shards of teeth from the patch of bloodied snow on his way, and gathered them in his mouth while he scaled the fence. His body protested every movement, as if it would give out before he’d gained the top of the fence. With relief, he dropped to the other side and trudged to the tent. He crawled inside and collapsed on his sleep sack.

  Cali stirred inside her bag.

  “Cali, awaken,” he mumbled through the mouthful of broken teeth. “We must leave at once.”

  She sat straight up and turned to him, wide-eyed. “Why? What happened?”

  “Someone saw us. A woman. She was outside the fence, watching me.”

  “Well, maybe she was surprised to see you. That doesn’t mean she’ll turn you in.”

  “She ran when I went after her.”

  “Why would you go after her?”

  “So she wouldn’t report us.”

  “Were you going to kill her?”

  Draven considered. He’d not stopped to formulate a plan. He’d acted. “I don’t know. But we must go now. Someone knows where we are.”

  “What’s wrong with your mouth? You’re talking funny. I can hardly understand you.”

  “Hurt my lip.”

  “Oh. Well, that woman, she doesn’t know who we are. Right?”

  Draven paused. “Perhaps. She didn’t look important.”

  “Maybe she was just one of the homeless people you told me about, the ones without papers. Maybe she was looking for a place to stay or some food. You should have talked to her. Maybe she could have helped us.”

  “She wasn’t an Illegal, she had a car. And what do you imagine she would have eaten?”

  Cali didn’t answer.

  “They often travel in packs. Would you invite a group of Superiors to draw from you?”

  “I guess not.” Cali rubbed her eyes and touched Draven’s back. “You’re freezing. Where are your clothes?”

  “Outside. I was bathing in the snow when she surprised me.”

  “You still have splinters,” Cali said, running her hand down his back slowly. He tried not to lose focus on their new problem, but her hand, her warm, soft hand…

  He pushed her away. Though he did not tell Cali, he knew he’d not
have the strength to fight off even one Superior if the woman came back for Cali. If she brought a pack… But no. The woman had savored a human and not tried to reach the tent. And she had a car. No paperless Third would own a vehicle or pass up a chance for a hot meal. She was a law-abiding citizen, and she would follow the correct procedure for reporting suspicious persons. “She’ll likely report us,” he said. “I look suspicious. And she ran without speaking to me.”

  “Because you ran after her. She was probably just scared.”

  “People don’t run without reason. Not Superiors. We’re not scared of unknown people. She knew I was a criminal.”

  “That’s silly. She could have just been startled, or scared because you ran at her. I doubt most people’s big goal is to turn us in or even find us. Only Byron, and maybe a few more trackers by now.”

  “Perhaps,” he admitted. “Still, it would be safer to leave.”

  “Come on, can’t we just stay and be on the lookout? I really like it here. And I want to finish our house, once the snow is gone. Don’t you? Please? Please?” Her voice had gone softer with cajoling, her finger kneading into his lower back. Warmth flowed from her, thawing him, sinking into his skin where her thumbs massaged. He began relaxing back towards her, letting his mind go, taken over by the sensation of her fingers pressing into him…. He jerked away from the dart of pain, turning quickly away from her probing fingers.

  “What was that?” she asked, staring at him.

  “Nothing. It’s not anything.” He began to search for a clean shirt.

  “Yes, it was,” she insisted. “I know what those are. I have them all over. And you have them, too.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Yes, it is. It feels exactly the same. Who bit you? Can you drink each other’s blood?”

  “Of course not. Rather, I could, but it’s…wrong. Like cannibalism.”

  “Then who bit you?”

  “No one. It matters not. It was a long time ago.” A long time ago when he was human. He’d had more then, as many as Cali and more. He’d removed most of the beads with his teeth or a knife, but he could not reach those at such an awkward angle.