The Warrior

by Kay Camden

  I reach deep into my stash of Bevan hate. The knowledge of what they’ve done to my family, what we’ve lost because of them. Instead of it flowing hot into my bloodstream, I hit a dry bottom. There’s nothing there.

  Sloane Bevan did something to me, and she’s going to pay.

  Powered by the injustice of it, I flip us so her back is against the ground, held by my knee on her stomach and my forearm across her shoulders. She goes limp like she knows it’s futile, it’s over. With my free hand, I slip a finger under the band on her arm, slide out her weapon: a straight razor. I open it with my teeth. Press the blade against her neck where her pulse beats strong.

  “This is how I end your kind.” Blood and drool string from my mouth onto her cheek. “Your father is next.”

  She’s watching me, breathing hard, but serene like that damn lake behind my house. No anger, no fear. Resolute in knowing she’s about to die. Or pretending she’s not.

  “Scream,” I say. I need something, anything, to prompt me to dig this blade in.

  I feel the pull of that lake sweeping against me. The perfect rhythm of its unsteady beat. Like the gradual slowing of her pulse under the razor in firm opposition to the precise tick of my watch. That tick feels wrong against my own wrist’s pulse. Like if I had something new to sync to, things would be right again. I see the canopy above us reflected in her eyes. I see my own face, my bloodied mouth, my shorn hair that makes me a stranger. I see how she sees me. Angry. Misguided. Broken. Used.

  I want to let her go, get up, get away, but I’m glued. I can’t not kill her.

  I can’t kill her.

  “Finish this!” I yell, an order to myself. I hear it echo through the woods then it’s gone, like the part of me that wants to end this the way it’s meant to end.

  A tear swells in the corner of her eye until it spills down her temple. She’s not crying for herself. She’s crying for me.

  Instead of seeing all her family has done to mine, I see all my family has done to me. There’s a thickness in my throat I have to swallow down. She’s moving underneath me. My strength over her has been compromised by something out of my control. Then the straight razor is in her hand, not mine, and she’s closing it and tucking it back in her armband.

  “You’re wrong about me,” I say, knowing it’s a lie, wishing it wasn’t.

  She raises two fingers, presses them against my chest right over my heart as I involuntarily recoil. The prod reaches something primitive, something so long untouched I shove away from her and jump to my feet. The knee she kicked buckles. Dislocated. I put space between us even though my knee is trashed. She gets up from the ground where I had her pinned. Brushes herself off. Gathers up her tangled hair and twists it, leaving that extra-long braid hanging loose. Then she squats to write something in the dirt I don’t look at until she turns her back to me.

  I can fix your knee.

  The glare on my face must be nuclear. She goes to the water, hoisting her pants up past her knees before wading in. I watch her search the bed of the stream until she plucks out her amulet and returns to where she left her boots on the shore. I’ve swallowed so much of my own blood I could consider it my missed breakfast and lunch. I feel around for missing teeth, find it’s not just my mouth bleeding but also my nose, so I take off my shirt and wad it against it. Over the black fabric, I see her bend and puke into the weeds, studying it for a long time before she wipes her mouth. Then she’s straightening her clothes, pulling on socks and boots, and standing up to appraise me.

  I give her the finger.

  She gives it back.

  Several yards upstream she stops to admire a tree trunk, picks something off it, and pops it in her mouth. If she knows what to eat out here, damn it all, I need her. Hunger is the one thing that will sell me back to that house. If I get some calories into my system, maybe I can find it in me to finish this.

  “Hey!” I holler. Of course she doesn’t hear. To be so oblivious of the demands of others? Must be nice. And I’m going to ignore how hoarse and spent my voice sounds.

  She moves farther away, silent in those soft elf boots, the chaos of birds and insects and the gurgling stream covering her every sound. I hobble to the water and rinse my mouth. Wash my face. Drink. Cold water fills the chasm of my stomach. I glance at my torn arm and have to sit down. It looks like it’s been maimed by a rabid dog. Lacerated skin, ribbons of muscle—is that bone? Oh shit. I shake out my shirt and wrap the wound, tying it with the help of my teeth. Shadows gather at the edges of my vision, and I pat down my pockets for my pill case, knowing it’s too soon to take another but I can’t fight this exhaustion on my own. I’m more in need of a pill to sleep but I can’t leave myself vulnerable like that. I’m vaguely aware of leaning onto my good arm, then I’m on my back glimpsing blue sky through tree branches.

  *

  I wake up cursing. Tree branches above me stand out dark and featureless against a muted purple sky. I dig knuckles against my eyelids and open them again. Around me the forest is dim. I check my watch—after eight at night? I sit up fast and get punished by a nauseating spin in my head that takes way too long to subside. And guess what. There’s Sloane Bevan across the stream watching me.

  The note she wrote in the dirt earlier about fixing my knee has been amended: and your arm. Which means she was that close to me while I was out cold, and she didn’t kill me. This is bad.

  I was prepared to lose against her, to die. A disaster, yeah, for both me and my family. But a possible and acceptable outcome. I never imagined there could be anything worse, but somehow I’ve found it.

  Chapter 5

  Sloane

  Rainclouds gather slowly enough that when Rex collapses again to sleep I’m not concerned he’ll die from overexposure just yet. Not that I care. But maybe I should, since I’m the one who’s supposed to be killing him. Does it count if I do nothing when the rain comes down? Soaking wet might do a guy in who already has a hideous wound. Crippled by that dislocated knee, he can hardly help himself. Am I his killer if I watch him die from infection or hypothermia?

  My moths fled when the bats moved in to feast on the mosquitoes trying to feast on me. So I appeal to the bats to act as my ears and alert me when Rex stirs. They seem to know me, or my kind at least. I wonder if they’ve inherited knowledge of my grandma from their parents and grandparents. I don’t remember her telling me about bats in her time here, but she sure has a comradery with them at home. I curl up on my bed of ferns and return to sleep, content in knowing the bats have my back.

  It’s hours later when I’m roused by the tickle of bat wings on my face. I sit up and check Rex but he’s still flat against the ground. Maybe he’s dead—no, the bats wouldn’t bother waking me if he was. He stirs and I thank the bats. They take to the sky, leaving me alone with him.

  First I notice the power building behind each gust of wind. Then I sense the chill riding on it. I squint up at the sky and see the rain clouds have grown. The moon still fights to shine beyond them but it will soon be obscured. Temperature is dropping. All my battle wounds from Rex have already healed, but even I’m at a risk for overexposure once that rain hits.

  It takes a few minutes for Rex to fully wake and sit up. Now here we are, staring at each other across the stream. The current still plays in the moonlight as if unaware how dark this forest will soon be once those clouds roll all the way in. I need to build a shelter now. I just don’t know if I should build it for one or for two. On my side of the stream or on his.

  Saving him would be crazy, right?

  I can’t stop seeing him as a scared, injured animal I need to tame so I can help it heal. That he’s this vicious only because he’s afraid and not listening to me. If not a wild animal, he’s an animal at the pound—neglected, abused, trust wholly broken. He’s never seen a compassionate soul, never encountered a helping hand. And all I have to do is lure him with patie
nce and sympathy and a bowl of good food.

  He’s looking up at the sky now. Probably feels the same sinking feeling I do. If our positions were reversed, he’d have already killed me. I should get up and hike away. Find the breach in the fence my dad told me about and get myself home. I’ll have days on the road to decide if I should take credit for his death because if I leave him now, he will die. His arm is overdue for treatment. His knee needs to be fixed so he can start home and get inside before the rain comes.

  I should leave him, but I can’t do that. I’m not a Moore; I’m a Bevan. The least I can do is fix his knee.

  He makes no move when I take off my boots and wade across the stream. I don’t trust him after he tricked me last time but it’s pretty much irrelevant now. He’s in such bad shape he’s not a threat to me anymore. I go to where I wrote in the dirt, circle the part about fixing his knee, and look to him for an answer.

  For a long moment he simply regards me. He’s trying to decipher my motive. He doesn’t understand why I’d offer to help. It’s called being human, I sign to him before realizing he won’t understand it. Not enough sleep has left me groggy.

  He swivels his disabled leg toward me and nods. I get a rush—it’s not that I didn’t expect him to accept my help, I just didn’t think that far ahead. Now I’ll have to get close to him. I give him a hard look that vows pain if he tries any stunts. His eyes are cold but carry a note of resignation that looks so out of place on a buzz-cut sadist wearing military surplus. Now’s my chance.

  I straddle his leg and pop the knee back in before he can resist. Back on my feet, I turn to see if he survived it. He’s dropped his head back to scream at the sky. Cursing, for sure. I know it when I see it. Each word looks like it’s being hacked off by the next one pushing in.

  Because I’m not sure how much survival training he’s had while living in his Disney palace, I write a new message in the dirt for him: Overexposure can happen at 70 degrees. There’s no room to add all the things that make it true—dehydration, fatigue, wet clothes, neglected wounds. He pretty much has it all.

  Fuck you, he says. Emphasis on the you.

  It bothers me more than it should. I stare at his face, the mottling of bruises, the split, gored-up lip, the eyes narrowed to slits. I see what my help looks like from his side. Pity from a Bevan must sting. We’re well aware of their skewed view of us but it’s only been unfounded up until now. It’s never caused my pulse to quicken like this. It’s never made me want to really hurt one of them.

  I step back because I want to step forward, and I know that would be wrong. The raw flush that made me vomit earlier rises in me again. I swallow it down. It nestles next to that tarry lump I took from Rex, doubling its presence. If I gave in, I’d be throwing up again right now. It’s a bad move. I can’t let myself get dehydrated out here.

  Keeping an eye on Rex, I return to my side of the stream. He tries out his knee while I’m gathering my bed of fern fronds. Then he stalks off. I head in the direction the bats flew. Not much later they swoop down from above, so I follow them to their cave and find a clean spot to make a bed and a fire tiny enough to not disturb them too much. With my back against the cool cave wall, I feed twigs to my fire and revisit that last encounter. It left such a strange vibe over me. His hatred seemed almost falsely overdone, like a show that had been performed so many times it was losing its mojo.

  He’s in pretty bad shape, though, so I’ll give him a pass on his sorry level of Moore sadism. Tomorrow I expect him back to normal. A little prodding will probably help, and if he detests my help as much as he appears to, he’ll have a perfect reason to get more cranky. Tomorrow I’ll be fixing his arm.

  When the storm hits I lie down, lulled by the pulse of thunder in the earth. For the first time I invoke the memory of my family. Marcas’ little round head and big gap-toothed grin. Dad’s crushing hugs. Mom’s gentle fingers rebraiding my braid even when it’s already perfect. Nicky’s velvety hound dog ears. Buzz’s wild wagging tail and chin on my lap. Dillon promised the Moores wouldn’t hurt them if I cooperated. I believed it to be true because I couldn’t allow thoughts of anything else. Those thoughts are here now. I’m no longer cooperating.

  I close my eyes and build a mental bridge home. I conjure the highway that brought me here. The imagery out my window. The soft roll of the Appalachians. The flat farmland of the Midwest. The even flatter Great Plains. Back to my craggy mountains and my home nestled between them. Across my river to Aunt Tara’s house, to Winnie, who can tell me everyone’s safe and take my message back to them saying I’m okay.

  *

  I wake up being cooked in the sun. Its morning angle shines right into the mouth of the cave, and I must’ve slept in the beam for a while because I’m sticky with sweat and glued to the cave floor. I shuffle into the shade, feeling hunger and thirst like a sharp pain. A dip in the stream would be nice too. Then I need to work on figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing here to call the Moores off my family—

  Winnie. I plop onto the ground, our conversation dropping on me fast and hard. She’s okay—they’re all okay. She wanted to know if I’d killed Rex yet, and I couldn’t tell her how badly I failed. I’m working on it, I told her. She wanted to know how, but I had nothing to add. Dislocating then fixing his knee? Healing his arm? They wouldn’t understand. So I told her I’d befriended the Moores’ pack of attack dogs, and she laughed—how I miss her laugh. The way her eyes tear up, how she holds her side and smacks at Will if he starts laughing because it only makes her laugh harder.

  Marcas sits in the driveway waiting for me to come home every day. She didn’t want to tell me, but she slipped and I saw it. She said he’s okay, he’s a big kid. And I know he’s a big kid. But he’s also so little, and he cares too much about things he can’t control. He takes it all on when he has no business to. Like his dad, Mom always says. I wipe my face on my shirt. I miss him so much.

  Where are you, Rex Moore? I have an arm to heal.

  On my path back to the stream I eat a breakfast of mushrooms, grateful for my awesome luck at being stranded here in the middle of summer when the forest is a smorgasbord. The heat, though, I’m not cut out for. Just walking drains my energy; I’m melting in this jungle air and longing for my mountain breeze. A serious thirst builds with every step. I wish there was a way I could carry water. I wish I could have a veggie omelet and my favorite organic chocolate milk Dad always buys for me. I wish some wise, ancient Bevan—or Farrelly, really, since that was our previous name—would materialize between the tree trunks and tell me what I’m supposed to be doing here. Why they chose me.

  Scratch all that because it’s stupid to daydream right now. What I really wish for is some way Uncle Christian could come here, but he hasn’t been back to this house in so long they probably wouldn’t trust him to let him in the door. Aaron, though, he could come. I know he’s here a few times a year to visit his mother and Rex. How in the world are he and Rex brothers? Half brothers, really, and it’s that dissimilar half that made one normal and the other a sadist.

  My moths join me. I’ll take their company any day. I raise a hand to be a perch, and one flutters down, sticking easily to my open palm and folding her furry tree-trunk wings. I shouldn’t tell her I spent the night in her predator’s lair. I’m bouncing between two enemy camps, but I doubt either would think I’m a traitor. Nature doesn’t play those games. Maybe if the Moores hadn’t stepped so far away from nature, they wouldn’t be playing their games and I’d be home with my family.

  Around a bend I walk right into a huckleberry jackpot. I transfer my moth to my shoulder so I can load my shirt and take some back with me to enjoy by the stream. Then I find the largest tree nearby and make note: fifty feet due north of the towering sycamore is the highlight of my lunch and dinner. I’ll gather more mushrooms near the cave, and I can also hike back to those old stone buildings. I saw chicory and a million dandelions
there. While there I can search the rest of the buildings for tools or something to cook in. If I could get some water over a fire, I could boil some chicory root and eat like a queen.

  Okay, not really. A queen would be eating a veggie omelet, but I can pretend queens eat chicory root as a delicacy and it might taste better—actually no. It will still taste like crap.

  I pick some honeysuckle flourishing in the sun at the edge of a small glade and gather yarrow and dandelions from the middle. The honeysuckle and yarrow will be perfect for Rex’s arm, and the dandelions … well, they’re edible but they taste heinous. So if Rex is hungry I’ll offer those to him. Who knows? He might like them. He is a Moore. Heinous is their brand. It’s what they’re built on and powered by.

  When I reach the shore of the stream, I lay out some oak leaves for my berries and dandelion greens and make a pile of the honeysuckle and yarrow. I glance around, seeing no sign of Rex or anyone else. What I’m picking up from the moths seems like normal forest life on a steamy sunny day. There’s more of a buzz of activity after last night’s storm, but other than that it’s all routine. A hawk circles overhead. I could sure use his eye, but I’m afraid calling him would frighten my moths, and they’re much more loyal than he would be. I have nothing to give them in return. Although this weighs on me, I need them now, and if they’re willing to help I’ll gratefully take it.

  A bath in the stream was a great idea before I was here facing the openness around me and the glare of sun from uncovered sky. The moths must pick up on my discomfort because they split into two groups, one heading upstream, the other heading down. Now alone, I’m more vulnerable than I want to be. It doesn’t last long. As the moths flutter back unconcerned, I strip to my underwear and bare feet, wade in, and dip down. It’s heaven to wash off the caked-on sweat and dust from the cave floor. I use the current to untangle and comb my hair. I’d swim for hours but now that I’m half-naked, Rex’s return feels imminent and threatening. I wade to the shore and wring out my hair, taking an eagle-eye glance in all directions. Then I race out of my underwear and back into my long tee. My leggings are filthy. Now that I’m clean, the thought of squeezing into them in this wet heat? Gross. My T-shirt is long enough, so I’m good. I rinse the leggings in the stream and hang them and my underwear in a tree to dry. The moths swarm close, diving down. I gather some fern fronds to make a seat on the ground so I can keep my state of cleanliness as long as I can. The moths turn frantic. I spin around.