“I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” Sally said. She looked at Sissy and winked, and the little girl smiled at her. “Ain’t no way to know what sun does to them until we try it.”
21
Draven’s body began to heal a bit each night, a painfully slow process. Wounds from wood took some time to heal. His body hurt in ways he never imagined possible, and he remained weak and hungry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Internal injuries healed more slowly than his skin, although to the humans his body looked as if it had repaired itself when his skin closed. This only gave them a greater desire to continue inflicting pain upon him.
Attempting to inform the one who talked to him, and some of those who didn’t, had proved useless. They didn’t want to hear that what they did would not kill him. They thought Superiors deceitful, and claimed he lied about being alone on his journey. But he knew by the glittering determination in their eyes that they got some sick enjoyment from coming up with new tortures. The sunburn hadn’t been so bad. The rest were much worse.
They’d taken him out as Sally had told him they would, but after five or ten minutes of watching him squeeze his eyes closed, they had brought him back to the steel cage. He did not tell them that if they had kept him in the sun longer, he would have sustained a more severe injury from the exposure. They expected something instant and spectacular. They didn’t want to stand about for an hour to watch the intensity of his sunburn grow. After that failure, they had taken him back and left him, and he’d slept intermittently, as he had since the first night.
Lack of food left him weak, and for recovery, he needed sleep almost as badly as food. Since he had many opportunities for sleep, he took them when he could. He imagined the humans would eventually deny him sleep as a new means of torture, so he tried to sleep often while he retained that privilege.
Sometimes Sally sat in the chair and read, other times she talked and knitted. Draven didn’t know if she was speaking to him, as sometimes he slept and woke again to find her still talking like she had never ceased. One night when he stirred, she stopped rocking and looked at him.
“My finger hurts real bad where you bit it,” she said. “I wish you wouldn’t’ve done that.”
“As do I,” Draven said. “I was out of my mind.”
“I guess.” She began knitting again. “It hurts real bad to knit. The needle hits it just so, where it hurts. Did you put something in there?”
“No.”
“I got these two little lump thingies where you bit me.”
“Yes. I told you to let me heal them.”
“You really meant that?”
“Yes.”
“Well dang me or hang me. I sure as shoot thought you was gonna bite me again.”
“No. If a Superior bites you, and doesn’t seal off the wound, your body protects itself by making a small bead around the trace of anticoagulant. Otherwise, it would put poison in your bloodstream.”
“For real?”
“Yes. Closing the bites prevents that from happening. If you had allowed me to heal the marks, I could have sucked the trace out and sealed your skin. Your kind would not even notice a scar.”
“Geez Louise. Why didn’t you explain all that to me when you bit me?”
“I had a stake in my throat. It was difficult to speak.”
Sally stopped rocking and looked at him. “I think you made a joke.”
“Quite an amusing one.” Although Draven never moved his body when he spoke to Sally, his eyes settled on her face or what she held in her lap that night.
“So you can’t do nothing for me now? I ain’t complaining, but just asking.”
“I could…but it would hurt you.”
“I ain’t scared of pain. I thought being bit would hurt, and it wasn’t nothing. Course you didn’t get me good, did you?”
“It never hurts much. Your people exaggerate their tales greatly.”
“Yeah, I’ll say. That’s really all there is to getting your blood sucked?”
“I did not draw. I only punctured the skin. Your finger is not an ideal location. If I drew from you…it would last a bit longer. It would hurt a bit more.”
“Huh. So you gonna fix these here lumps in my finger?”
“I fear I cannot.”
“Aww, what? Now you’re gonna try to bargain with me? That’s it, ain’t it? You think ‘cause I talk to you that I’m your best bet, and I’m gonna let you out.”
“I don’t imagine you will.”
“Then what you want? I can’t kill you, neither.”
“I asked nothing of you.”
“So what’s the problem? You need some kind of tool for it? ‘Cause I bet I can get it.”
“No. I would have to bite you again, and I cannot…I would not want to stop. I’ve not eaten, and I’ve lost much blood. It is quite difficult to control myself when your people touch me and come close to me.”
“Yeah, they’re gonna see if you can starve to death.”
Draven did not speak. He wondered when they would succeed in killing him. In time, they would find an effective means of killing a Superior. Something more spectacular than slowly starving him to death. They liked theatrics, great assemblies. He’d read about this habit in humans, how in the past they had done this sort of thing—public executions as warnings. But his did not serve as a warning, because his people would not be present to witness. Bloodthirsty mobs had lynched men long ago, dragged them through the streets, stretched them to death, impaled them, pulled them limb from limb. People had gathered and cheered at public hangings, burned herbalists in front of entire towns, and fed each other to hungry animals. The practice of barbaric methods of torture was nothing so new, not to the human race. They had an endless capacity for vengeance and bloodshed.
Superiors had evolved past this, and they kept homo-sapiens confined so this type of mob violence didn’t occur. But it seemed that when they lived on their own, they indulged in their primitive bloodlusts. Draven wondered about the only human he knew somewhat personally. He wondered if anything could induce Cali to revert to this kind of behavior. He had thought her intelligent, civilized. If she’d been part of this society of vigilantes, would she have staked him? Or would she have hung back, like Sally?
“What you thinking ‘bout?” Sally asked, startling him from his thoughts.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“What you mean, you don’t know? How can you not know what you’s thinking about?”
“A girl.”
Sally laughed. “For real? Dang. Just when I think you’re so different from us, you go and say something like that. This the girl you had with you before we done found you?”
“I did not yet have her. I was on my way to retrieve her.”
“What’s she like?”
“Perhaps one night I will tell you.”
“Hey, I got all night. Sometimes I get tired of my own voice. ‘Sides, I’m a lady. I like romance.”
“You would like her. She’s very kind.”
“You trying to get something out of me again?”
“Would you give it to me?”
“What you want?”
“I’m quite cold.”
“What? I thought you was cold-blooded.”
“I am also nearly naked, and it is winter, and if my body freezes, it may break if someone moves me.”
“Ugh, that’s disgusting. You best not tell anyone else, or they’ll do it just to see if you can live through it.” Sally came around the front of the cell and slid back the door. The cage was rectangular, a few meters one way and about one and a half the other. Draven could have lain flat if not for the chain that held him to the bars so he could only sit. “I reckon you can use my coat ‘til I leave,” Sally said. “This blanket I’m knitting covers my legs, anyway.”
“Don’t come closer,” Draven said quickly when she drew near enough that he could reach her. She held out the jacket like she would wrap it around him, but when he spoke, she st
opped. “Unless…?”
“You think I’m that nice? I don’t think so.” She threw the jacket at him, and he maneuvered his stiff arms into it while Sally returned to her rocking chair and resettled herself. The jacket held the warmth of her body, a blessing, but it smelled of her, a curse. It made him ravenous.
“If I could heal your finger, would you bring me food so I can control myself?”
Sally scoffed and set down her knitting. She looked at him a long time. “You think that’s gonna work?”
“It’s your hand.”
“You’re a…bastard. I’d ruin their plan to starve you to death. Can you even starve to death?”
“No.”
“’Cause y’all live forever, right?”
“Theoretically.”
“What if you was here for a hundred years?”
“I’d be quite weak and in pain for some time, and then I’d go into a sort of…dormancy.”
“How would you know if a person was there if you was sleeping?”
“Our bodies conserve energy by shutting down, but once food comes within reach, we wake.”
“Would you be too weak to eat if some food come along?”
“I’d be quite quick, and strong for long enough to get what I needed.”
“How fast?”
“Fast enough to catch whatever came close to me.”
“Dang.”
“Will you bring me food, then?”
“Don’t you ever think about nothing else? Don’t seem very ‘evolved’ to me.”
“If you had not eaten for a month, would you dwell on the meaning of eternity?”
“I ain’t never thought about that nohow, but I get what you’re saying. What you want me to bring you? I can’t exactly fix you a plate. You got a kind of restricted diet.”
Draven smiled. “I had food, in the backpacks. Packets of dried sap.”
“Dried blood? That’s disgusting.”
“Quite.”
Sally laughed. “Well, at least you admit it. Hey, how long you been a bloodsucker anyway?”
“I don’t recall the exact number of years. Perhaps a hundred, a bit more or less. I could count, but it would take a bit of time to recall every year.”
“Holy Shepherd of Judah. You’re the oldest person I ever met.”
“Very likely.”
“So how much of this stuff you need ‘til you won’t bite me?”
“As much as you can find. I had quite a bit. Save it for me, in case they keep me alive much longer. Please, Sally.”
“All right, all right. But I don’t feel good about it, okay?”
“You only do it to gain something from me. Not out of kindness. No need for guilt.”
“You got a way of putting things. I’m a kindhearted woman.”
“Yes.”
“All righty then. I’ll bring you some food tomorrow. But I’m bringing a stake with me.”
True to her word, Sally brought Draven three packets of dried sap the next night. He took them through the bars and turned away from her, not wanting her to see how his hands shook. He didn’t let himself think the thought that had been at the edge of his mind all day.
What if she doesn’t bring them?
He opened the first packet and poured the powdery flakes into his mouth at once, and then the second packet, and then the third. Although he hadn’t had food in over a month, he didn’t stop to savor it. He couldn’t allow her time to her change her mind, or let someone come in and discover them before he had a chance to eat. So he ate them all at once, like an animal. After a bit, the mouthful of dried sap began to dissolve. Sally sat in her chair, and when he turned and pointed to the jar of water on the floor beside her, she simply looked at him. He made a motion as if drinking from a cup.
She only looked at him with that same blank expression. “You can drink water? I thought you could only drink blood.”
He shook his head and pointed. He didn’t want even a tiny flake to escape his mouth, and he knew if he spoke, an entire cloud of sap powder would burst forth. Sally sighed and handed him the jar. “This better be worth it,” she said. “You’re a whole bucket of trouble.”
He took the jar and drank all the water. Although he wanted more, needed more, he didn’t ask. If he asked for too much, perhaps she would no longer return and talk to him, show him her small gestures of kindness. She was the only good thing in this place, in his life now. His only link to anything resembling hope. He couldn’t lose her.
“Let me help you,” he said when he’d finished the water. He had eaten six rations. Two days worth. He’d missed twenty times that much, and lost so much blood. It didn’t even begin to quench his thirst. But his head had cleared, and he’d grown more alert, more focused. More aware of his hunger.
“I got me a stake, and iffen you don’t let go of my hand, I’ll stick it right in your eye.” Sally held her hand through the bars, and he took it. How had he ever found the warmth of a sap repulsive? He wanted to drag this one through the bars and roll in her. Nothing had ever felt so much like relief, like life.
“Do not scream,” Draven said softly, holding her gaze and drawing her closer. “It will hurt.”
Clamping his teeth on her finger, he slid them through the skin. The moment they entered, he had to fight the urge to yank her to the bars and pierce her jugular. Instead, he pulled hard on the pellets until the bitterness swelled into his mouth. But he didn’t spit it out. It provided nourishment, no matter how distasteful.
A finger provided a small sip, nothing very juicy. But after the initial bitterness, he drew on her finger, trying to get as much as possible before she realized his intention. He didn’t draw much, but a bit flowed into his mouth. Enough to whet his appetite that much more.
After a few moments, he closed her skin and licked every trace of sap from it. He raised his eyes to hers, keeping her hand in his. He held her gaze a long minute. Although she didn’t speak, her heartbeat came faster than usual. He could hear the rush of her blood, overwhelming in its attraction.
Keeping his eyes on hers, he lifted her wrist to his lips. She didn’t move. Blood pulsed in her wrist, through the bundle of veins rushing with sap, with life. He bowed his head and sank his teeth into her wrist and pulled. All the while, he waited for the stake to sink into him, and he thought it would be worth what she gave him. She didn’t stop him, though, only crouched on the other side of the bars and let him drink until his mind began closing down. He pushed her away, harder than he’d meant, and twisted as far from her as he could inside his bonds.
“Why’d you let me do it?” he asked, looking from her to the door in alarm. “Why’d you let me? I could have killed you. I never wanted to stop.”
She stood from where she’d fallen and dusted herself off. Then she fed her jacket through the bars. Still she stood too close, so he let the jacket fall to the floor. If he reached for her, if he had her again, he wouldn’t stop.
She settled herself in the rocking chair and picked up her knitting. After a while she said, “Yeah, but you did.”
22
The days grew longer, and Cali and Shelly looked out on their balcony with longing. One evening after he’d eaten, Master returned to the room. Cali and Shelly both looked up, and, without awareness, shifted closer together.
“I was talking to an acquaintance the other day,” Master said, as casual as if he came and talked to them every day. “An acquaintance is like, a friend, of sorts,” he continued in the same absent way. He looked at the window with the bars while he talked. “And this…person…reminded me that you need names. I have called you ‘male’ and ‘female’ up until now, but I’ve paid for you both in full, so I suppose I should name you.”
“We…have names,” Shelly said in a tiny voice.
“Is that right? I guess you do. What were you called?”
“My name is Shelton, but I’m called Shelly. And she’s Cali.”
“All right, Shelton and Cali. I’ve made arrangements,
or plans, I guess you would say. I forget to be simple with you sometimes. I’ve made plans, and we will be staying here a while. I would like you to produce a child. In the summer, I would also like for you to produce some food for yourselves. I know you don’t know much about what is...uh, available. Do you know this word?”
“Yes, Master,” said Cali, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice. Did he think they’d gone brain-dead?
“Well then. If you let me know what you’d like to grow for yourselves, and I’ll see if it’s available at the local sapien supply store.” Master walked to the door beside the window and unlocked it. “Here’s your garden area. You may come and go through this door as you please. Outside is secure.”
“Thank you, Master,” Shelly said. He looked at Cali with as much excitement as she felt. A garden. Their shared passion.
“Yes, well, seeds are cheaper than buying you food. You don’t earn your keep any other way.” Master turned abruptly and walked out, closing the door behind him.
Cali and Shelly looked at each other, and then they both scrambled for the outside door. The temperature hovered below freezing, but it wasn’t painful that night. They stood on the crust of snow and looked out onto the city, twinkling with lights. They could see much more from there than from the window. The garden space covered a narrow balcony that ran along the building for about two human lengths and stuck out almost a length past the door. Around the balcony, the same iron bars that covered the window kept them from attempting escape or suicide. The same bars lined the top, but it lay open to air and sunlight and water like the sides.
“It’s small,” Shelly said after a minute.
“It’s wonderful,” Cali said.
“Isn’t it, though? Sweetie, we are gonna have so much fun out here. You just wait and see.”
They stayed outside until they started shivering. Finally the cold got to them, and they had to go back inside. While Cali showered she marveled, as she did every night, that the shower here had warm water. She used the full two minutes of warm before getting out. Shelly, now in a good mood, paced around while planning their garden.
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