When the elders reconvened at the Extant’s home, they had a plan. They were armed with medication to make Crave more manageable and help on the way to build a custom facility.
The Exiled found the presence of humans in Newland a little unsettling, but the elders were quick to point out that humans were going to feel the same way when Exiled moved to Farsuitwail to begin integrating into their society.
As a lucky break for both Scar and the Exiled in general, when construction got underway, the human workers quickly became addicted to the ales and ciders they drank at the Commons and wanted to buy more to take home. Since, the Exiled would no longer be subsidized by the human population for protection services, they would be needing to find ways to work within the culturally merged economy. Scar was quick to realize that it could be the first commercial venture founded by hybrids.
Dandelion visited Crave every day even though it was excruciatingly difficult to see him bound in chains, with vacant eyes, roaring mindlessly until his voice was no more than air forced over vocal cords that were numb from overuse. The medicine that Flora had brought back helped, but administering it presented another problem. They finally combined it with drinking water and forced it down his throat knowing that, in his incapacitation, he viewed that treatment as more reason to be fearful. The hatred he bore for his new captors was identical to the way he felt about the Rautt. In his mind, there was no difference.
On the fifth day after the Rautt battle, Crave’s holding cell was complete. It was housed in a building by itself, set apart from the cluster of buildings that formed the core of the colony.
The building walls were constructed of thick mortar. On the inside, three walls of the cell were the outside walls. The fourth side was made up of iron bars. There was an area about eight feet wide between the bars and the fourth mortar wall. It had several south-facing windows. They’d reasoned that it would be good for his morale to let natural light in and also give him a view to outside, but thought that he should be facing south toward the training field that was surrounded by green forests. Rolling pastures and farmland could be seen in the distance beyond.
They also built a fireplace large enough to heat the space. Just in case he wasn’t well by winter.
Once Crave was situated in the cell, his medication was reduced so that he was more awake. Great care had been taken to ensure that, even with his superior strength, the bars would not give way.
At first they provided a cot for him to sleep on, but it quickly became evident that, from his twisted perspective, furniture was undesirable. He set about destroying it thoroughly, which meant that he had to be sedated for most of a day while they cleaned up the feathers that had stuffed his mattress along with pieces of fabric and wood. They tried leaving blankets, but he tore them to shreds, snarling and growling as if the cotton wool blend was the enemy.
Dandelion brought bedding and made a pallet on the floor in the hallway outside his cell. Except to attend to matters of personal hygiene and maintenance, she refused to leave. She ate, drank, and slept next to where Crave was kept. When she lay on her pallet, he would reach through the bars with his long arms, trying to grab on so that he could do to her what had been done to furniture, blankets, and clothing.
He was enraged by everything in his sight, including her, and would destroy anything that could be destroyed.
She couldn’t be dissuaded from staying, even though Dr. Reising wasn’t sure it was a good idea, because Dandelion’s presence seemed to be doing more harm than good. The patient was agitated in her presence, but because he was constantly agitated, it was impossible to draw an absolute conclusion. Since the young female was adamant about staying, Dr. Reising gave in on the point.
Her evaluation of the patient’s mental state was not optimistic. At all. She indicated that the deep layering of traumas, one right after another, had caused his mind to attempt to shield itself. She said that, if she was pressed for a prognosis, she would have to say that Crave should be kept clean and as comfortable as possible, but that it was unlikely there would ever be a change in his disability.
Serene had returned to Newland with bandages on her face and a sadness in her eyes that would never go away. She’d missed Carnal’s funeral rites and hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
Free looked twenty years older. Charming had lost his boyish demeanor overnight. He stood by his parents in support, unconsciously having taken on attributes of both his brothers in an impossible attempt to compensate for the loss.
Dandelion stood to the side in sober silence and listened as Dr. Reising delivered that news to Crave’s remaining family: his mother, father, and younger brother. She respected that Dr. Reising was knowledgeable, experienced, and an expert on the subject of mental health. But she didn’t know Crave. Not like Dandelion did. No one knew Crave like she did.
During the day there was a constant stream of traffic in and out of the crazy male’s building. Carnal’s crew had continued taking on responsibility for his care, without being asked. They gave Crave food and water and hosed him down every day, while he roared and screamed and fought the water like it was the Rautt come to torture him again.
When he was placed in the new facility, he’d been dressed in cotton scrubs, but the clothing had been as offensive to him as the furnishings. He preferred nakedness and, short of using the straightjacket that Dr. Reising had described, a person can’t be forced to wear clothes unless they are restrained. Or unconscious.
The cell had been equipped with a six-inch round drain in the middle of the floor. Though it was designed to accommodate refuse and human waste, Crave wasn’t interested in using it for that purpose. He left food scraps wherever he dropped them. He defecated wherever he pleased and, worst of all, when Dandelion was asleep he would guide his penis through the bars and try to urinate on her sleeping figure. If the spray didn’t reach her, the smell did.
She never held back letting him know how she felt about his deranged antics. She treated him as if he was sane, which meant yelling at him like he knew what he was doing.
“That’s the most disgusting thing yet, Crave. Are you trying to win a prize? Now you’re going to be alone while I go clean myself and my bedding. And it will serve you right. You just stay here and think about what you’ve done!”
She would say that as if he had a choice about staying where he was. He would growl in return while maintaining the hateful glare that had become his default facial expression.
They’d tried experimenting with different dosages of the medicine Dr. Reising left. If they didn’t give him enough of a sedative, he would beat against the walls until his hands were bloody and pull at the iron bars until he collapsed from exhaustion. If they gave him too much, he would sleep so much that he wasn’t eating or drinking enough to stay alive.
After a couple of weeks they’d perfected the dosage. When he wasn’t vocalizing his protest of having others within his sight, he was pacing around his cell in a circle.
Dandy learned to keep her things, including the book she was reading, out of pee range. After dinner, when everyone else was gone for the night, she would read out loud by candlelight. The Lion and The Wind. Like so many other things she did, she hoped that particular book might jog his memory.
Crave would sit with his back against a corner and participate to the extent that every breath in and out drove a low-level growl across his vocal cords. To someone unfamiliar with Exiled, it might have sounded like an extremely loud and rumbling purr. But Dandelion heard it for what it was; a resentment so deep and wide that it was a promise of malice, should he ever be freed.
She ignored it and continued reading, certain that the ritual would eventually reach into his heart and ignite a response. One day when she returned to the holding facility with fresh bedding and clean clothes, she brought a dandelion that she had picked near the door. She placed it on the floor just inside Crave’s cell and backed away quickly, knowing that he was irritated when anyone approached his space.
Seeing that there was something new and different, Crave got to his feet and walked toward the flower, never taking his eyes away from it. Crouching he fell into a squat and studied the little yellow bloom while Dandelion quietly watched well out of reach.
He lifted it to his face and studied it, cocking his head to the side. The novelty held his interest until Dandelion moved slightly. The movement caught his attention and, when his eyes shifted from the flower to her, he was again possessed by the demons that plagued him. He bellowed his outrage and tore the flower into little bits. Seeing that some of the pieces fell within his cell, he proceeded to pick up each and every tiny bit, whether petal, leaf, or stem, and throw them through the bars one by one.
When he was finished, she quipped, “So you’re not fond of dandelions anymore.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Nine years earlier.
Crave spent more time with Dandelion than he did with his friends, a fact for which he took more than his share of teasing. It wasn’t that he didn’t love playing scruffal or exploring the surrounding terrain with other boys. It was simply that nothing was better than being with Dandy.
He’d begun calling her that a few weeks after they’d become friends and soon after, everyone else had followed suit. Even her own parents gradually began calling her by the name more commonly used.
During the nine months out of the year when dandelions thrived and blossomed around Newland, Crave made a point of picking one to present to Dandy whenever they were going to meet. She never failed to reward him with a smile as fresh and bright as if it was the first time he’d thought to bring a yellow flower namesake.
Crave had instantly related to Dandy’s feelings of insecurity about her lack of athleticism. In time he’d shared with her that he was behind in learning to read. They divided their time together between Crave trying to teach Dandy scruffal, laughing and teasing all the time, and Dandy patiently working on improving Crave’s reading. She kept the book, The Lion and The Wind, in her pack and pulled it out whenever they had free time and were sure nobody would see what they were doing.
Crave’s dreams were plagued by the horrors that had branded themselves on his subconscious mind. He’d survived hell, but not intact. Rumors of an afterlife with uninterrupted weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth were no more macabre than his life in the Rautt camp.
Once he’d contracted pneumonia, although he couldn’t have known to call it that. He’d embraced, even welcomed death and was ready to succumb. But he lived.
Sometimes he would contract dysentery because of the filthy conditions of living in his own toilet, but again his body repaired itself and refused to die.
Once a month the Rautt took him out into the desert at midday, stripped him of clothes , harnessed him to a laden cart and used a three pronged whip to force him to pull until his pale skin was burned and peeling away. Sometimes they would chain him in the middle of the village and encourage the children to throw stones or beat him with sticks or leather thongs. As time wore on, the faces of the people he loved began to fade from memory as did his own identity, his name, his heritage, and the combined experiences that made him Crave of the Exiled.
Nature abhors a vacuum, whether physical or in the mind. Crave’s mind was filled with an unreasoning hatred so complete, so consuming, that there was no room for anything else.
Crave woke with a jerk from a nightmare about pain and helplessness, and looked around, expecting to see darkness and feel sores or gashes on his body. Instead he saw a pair of eyes blink at him.
He was lying on his right side facing bars. A tormentor was just outside the cell lying on her left side watching him. He bared his teeth and snarled at her, but she didn’t look away. So he growled louder. Still she didn’t look away. She opened her mouth and made noise challenging him.
In reality, she’d said, “It won’t do you any good to act like a wild animal, Crave. I’m not going away and that’s that.” Unfortunately he was beyond hearing the love and loyalty that were behind the sounds the female made.
The only time he was completely quiet was when he could see boys playing scruffal through the windows. He stood at the iron bars, unconcerned about his nakedness, each hand gripping a rung, and watched. She didn’t know if he was entertained, but the game did occupy his attention.
One day he caused her to jump by barking out a single note of laughter in reaction to something he saw on the playing field beyond. When he felt the intensified energy behind the tormentor’s constant watchful gaze, he refocused on her. With a gleam of hatred returning to his eyes, he threw his body at the bars in front of her with a ferocity that matched his snarl.
She laughed. “Too late. You just revealed that you’re still in there. Somewhere. And I’m not going away.”
If Crave had been able to articulate his personal policy, it would be that he would never let her speech stand as the only sound in the building. He made sure that her unpleasant sounds were accompanied by his snarls, growls, and roars in instances when he wasn’t motivated to drown her out altogether.
Every day Crave’s family came. Serene and Free together in the morning. Charming by himself at night.
Every day they asked Dandelion for a report. ”How is he?” or “Anything new?”
As the weeks passed, Serene’s bandages grew smaller and thinner until they were removed altogether. What was left behind were angry red marks across her face where the slash of a Rautt short sword had opened her flesh. Somehow she managed to be regal in spite of it.
Dandelion had asked her to bring things from home that had belonged to Crave, things that might help spark a memory. And the collection had begun to grow in the corner opposite the hearth, near the door, safely outside the path of urine spray, but visible. Sometimes, at night by candlelight, Dandy would pick out an object, hold it up, and talk about it while Crave behaved as if the sound of her voice was the worst thing imaginable.
If there was a bright spot in Dandelion’s day, it would have been Charming’s visits. He behaved like a good and dutiful friend, always as concerned for her wellbeing as for his brother. Their dialogues were strange, the two of them sitting on the floor, trying to talk quietly while a naked Crave stood at the bars and growled. But it became a little like a lifeline for Dandy. Occasionally she thought that her own sanity might recede if not for Charming’s nightly visits.
He always came after dinner time, bone-weary and soul-tired. His father wanted the move and integration into Farsuitwail to continue as planned, but he no longer had the heart or the will to oversee the endless number of details that had to be addressed before a task of that enormity could be accomplished.
Free simply didn’t want to leave Serene’s side. What that had meant for Charming was that, one day he was a boy training to follow his brothers into warrior service someday. Then the next day, after the Rautt battle, people were looking to him to speak for his absentee father. As the younger brother of two larger-than-life males with personalities that he would have called overbearing, it had never occurred to him or anyone else that anyone would ever look to him for direction.
The first time he’d made a suggestion about the move to Farsuitwail, he was amazed that people had stopped what they were doing, taken him seriously, and then actually rushed to follow through. When he drew conclusions about the best ways to overcome challenges, people nodded solemnly and looked at him with the sort of respect that had been reserved for Free. He marveled at this as he rode by himself to and from the city each day, at the same time learning the first lesson of leadership, which is that feeling alone comes with the job.
He didn’t know what to make of people looking up to him. In fact, it seemed categorically wrong. He just knew that, until when and if his family resumed some path of normalcy, he needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other and putting the needs of Exiled before his own. It was what Free used to do. It’s what Carnal would have done. Crave, too, if… Well, if.
CHAPTER FIVE<
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One afternoon, thirteen weeks after Crave had been given a cell for a home, Dandy stood and said to Crave, “I’m going out for a couple of hours. I’m going to the waterfall. That will give you a chance to be alone and decide if alone is what you really want.”
He remained seated, his eyes fixed on her, and growled softly in response.
Eight years earlier.
Dandy and Crave had taken the hike up the western mountain to the waterfall pool. Everyone knew where it was, but few people went because the effort to get there was worth mention. Exiled trained hard, but didn’t exert themselves for recreation, choosing to save their reserves for battling the Rautt.
The pool was small, only fifteen feet across, but the water was beautiful and clear. It was also cold since it began its journey higher up as snow melt. Crave thought it was the prettiest spot in the world, surrounded by pink granite outcroppings, aspens and evergreen trees.
They’d removed their clothes and jumped in, Dandy shrieking about the cold while he pretended to be immune, laughing at her. They swam and splashed, but after a time ended up holding onto a rock, each with one hand, while kissing and exploring each other’s postpubescent bodies with the other.
In many ways Dandy thought those first shy touches were the most erotic things that would ever happen to her. It was then and there that Crave had also declared.
“I love you, Dandy. You’re my Promise.”
She laughed. “You can’t just say I’m your Promise, Crave. You have to ask me. Don’t you know that?”
He looked a little hurt, but started again. “Dandelion. I love you. Are you going to be my Promise or not?”
CRAVE (Exiled Book 2) Page 3
