The Renegades (The Superiors)

by Lena Hillbrand

  He gripped her body against his, ignoring the stab of pain it sent through him. Already he could feel her heat spreading outward to dispel the cold, her warm sap flowing into him and replenishing his strength and life. She was cold on the surface, hot inside. A sound escaped his throat, some expression of his animal enjoyment of her, jolting him back to reality. Quickly he reached behind her and unzipped the bag all the way down in one movement, letting her spill onto the ground.

  “Get out,” he said.

  Cali looked stunned, and a bit hurt. She recovered quickly, scooped Leo into her arms and struggled to her feet, shooting Draven a well-deserved look of chastisement. He zipped the bag once more and rolled to his stomach, cursing the strange stirrings until they dissipated. He’d been hungry and in too much pain to think clearly. Once he thought of it rationally, the incident struck him in its ridiculousness. He sat up, wincing as he did so, and slid out of the sleep sack. The cold air hit him and instantly sucked at the stored warmth he’d kept from it for the last day.

  He rolled the sleep sack and deposited it atop the tracker’s backpack. At least now he had a few of the essential supplies he’d lost to Sally’s family.

  He began scraping the leaves from the opening of the shelter until he had cleared an area for the fire. After lighting the fire close to the mouth of the shelter but not blocking the entrance, and making sure his human companions had warmth enough for comfort, he returned to the fire near the river. It had burned out while he slept, and animals had done away with the remaining traces of the trackers. For a moment, after killing the tracker, he’d imagined drawing from him to reclaim the strength the tracker had taken from him. But the idea turned his stomach, and he could not get past the horror of it long enough to seriously consider it.

  The one who had drawn from him had died for that act. Draven would have avoided killing the tracker if he’d had the chance. He’d thought, even while he fought the man, that if he could disable him for a moment, he would retrieve the chain. But when he’d felt the strength draining from him, he’d panicked. In his hundred years, he’d never been so frightened, not even when Sally’s people had tortured him. The certainty that they would eventually kill him had made him crave death, not fear it.

  Now he had no wish for death, but instead, a fierce urge to protect his stolen sapiens. He had a responsibility to ensure their survival. In order to do so, he’d killed another man, and not out of obligation. This time he hadn’t been under contract—he had done it by his own volition. Unlike his previous kill, the choice had not been so clearly the choice to die or to kill. Trackers did not kill their captives. Perhaps this tracker had only meant to weaken Draven so he could return him to Princeton. There, Draven would have stood trial for theft and for the other tracker’s death. He would have faced execution if convicted. But his decision to kill the tracker instead of facing trial seemed an act of premeditation as well as cowardice—or it would have if he’d planned it.

  First he had reacted too strongly to the tracker, and then strangely to Cali. He shook his head in an attempt to quell his disquieting thoughts, but they continued circling his mind along with the nagging concerns over his dwindling strength.

  His body had fared no better than his mind. When he’d examined the knife wound above his hipbone, he’d found it fairly clean. He’d wrapped a shirt tightly around himself to stop the bleeding and prevent contamination, so it would heal well. The next wound he examined, he’d incurred when the tracker had thrown him into a tree. A branch had gouged his lower back and run a jagged track to his shoulder blade. Though he could not see it, he knew the wound covered a much larger area than the puncture in his side. It hurt much more than the other wound, as well, although experience had taught that it would heal more quickly than the deeper wound in his side.

  The bite on his forearm, which looked horrific, would heal rapidly. He’d licked it thoroughly before he slept, and now he did so again. Already it had lost the gruesome appearance of the previous evening.

  He had survived the battle, wounded yet in possession of his two stolen saps. Though he doubted the baby would live much longer, he’d had these doubts before. The boy was more resilient than Draven had imagined a sapling could be. Perhaps his incessant wailing would drive both Draven and Cali mad, and he’d outlast them all.

  Certainly Draven had never envisioned this life when he’d stolen two sapiens. But he had known simply stealing one made him a traitor to his government. Now he had killed for her, for Cali. And though she had killed as well, that murder lay in his hands as surely as the one he’d committed himself. After all, he had made the knife. He’d shown Cali how to use it. He’d put her in the situation where she’d need to use it. And he’d put it in her hands. He’d told her to kill, and she had. He’d armed a sap against his own people—the greatest possible betrayal of the Superior race.

  This act forced him to consider the saps’ worth. Were they worth all he’d gone through, all he’d done? Killing a Superior to save a sapien—likely the first time anyone had committed such a ludicrous act. He could not fathom a greater act of treason. But in truth, he’d already decided their worth. In arming Cali, in teaching her to kill a Superior and instructing her to do so, he had elevated her importance above the entire Superior race. He could never go back. He no longer had a place in the Superior world.

  After a time, he returned to the shelter and sank down across the fire from where Cali sat holding the sapling. “How is your child?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He sleeps most of the time, and when he’s awake, he screams nonstop.”

  “That must be difficult for you.”

  Cali gave him an odd look before turning her attention back to the sleeping child. “It’s okay.”

  “I should have turned you over to the trackers.”

  She glanced up sharply. “Why?”

  “You would have a better life. I promised you something better, but look at yourself. You’re cold and hungry and injured. I’ve brought you only danger and harm.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess that’s true.”

  Draven stood. Of course Cali would not disagree. He had not given her a better life. “I’ll find you some food.”

  “Wait,” she said. “I mean, what you said is true, but I think…well, at least here I’m not in a cage getting…bred. It’s almost like I’m free.”

  “You’re not.”

  Draven fetched the net and set off to the river to set it up.

  Afterwards, back at the shelter, he sank down on the sleep sack, still weak. When he bent, a streak of pain went shrieking down his shoulder and back where the branch had gouged him. He bit his lips closed to refrain from making a sound that would alert Cali to his condition.

  He heard her movement before she entered the shelter. In the small space, even sitting against the far wall, her heat reached out timid fingers to tickle him. “You’re hurt,” she said quietly.

  “Not very.”

  “Your shirt has blood all over it. Did one of the trackers do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it bad? Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  “Please let me do something. I’ve only gotten in the way. If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t even be following you. Just let me see if you have splinters,” she said, and this time the timid fingers that touched him belonged to her body, not just its heat.

  She waited until he’d had a chance to speak, and when he did not, she drew his shirt up. The fabric had sealed into the flesh beneath, and Draven had to grit his teeth when Cali broke the bond. She studied his wounds in silence. After a few moments, he pushed himself up and pulled his shirt over his head. It seemed every new shirt he wore wound up stained with blood. He couldn’t remember ruining more than one or two previously in his entire Superior life.

  Cali made no comment. He did not want her pity, and only accepted her aid when he had little choice. Already he depended on her for food. And though, like all Superiors, he’d always
depended on saps for food, it had never made him feel vulnerable until now. He’d never felt indebted to them, or as if he were at their mercy—and never guilty for it, either. Of course he regretted hurting them when he ate, but it could not be avoided and had bothered him but little, just as the pain bothered saps but little. He made every effort to lessen their pain, and thought little of causing what pain he could not prevent. But having to draw from Cali after he’d asked her to give up her mate and run away with him, only to make her walk when she clearly lacked strength or endurance, and having failed so completely to deliver the life he’d promised, left him awash in guilt.

  He cursed himself for his weakness as Cali’s warm fingers trailed over him. When she leaned forward to study his wounds, her hair swept across his skin, and he tried to focus on the soft, tickling sensation instead of the painful one swelling in him as she began to explore his injury. After a time, she switched on the flashlight and continued to prod at his wound. With each splinter or shard she removed, his skin seemed to sigh in relief. Satisfied with her work at last, she moved from the fresh wound to some of the splinters still embedded in him courtesy of Sally’s people.

  He dozed, allowing the coldness of the air on his bare skin and the warmth of Cali’s fingers to lull him into a place near sleep. A halt in her movement brought him back to awareness. Her flattened palm rested on the small of his back. After a moment, she ran her hand up his back, slid a finger under the edge of his bandage, and began to work her fingers to loosen it. He rolled away but captured her hand before she could withdraw. For a moment, their eyes caught. Then he pulled her down on the sleep sack with him and scooted her onto her back. A flicker of alarm crossed her face.

  “Thank you,” he said, and bent to draw from her. He kept his arm around her, his hand under her back, stroking her arm with his other hand, the way he sometimes did to soothe saps while he drew. Focusing on the old habit of measuring a ration settled his mind. Things would have to change. He could not remain strong enough to defend her by eating only once every few days. Like any good animal, she would adapt to the change.

  “Good girl,” he said when he’d finished two rations and sealed her neatly. “Now I will bring food to you.”

  He returned to the creek and waded in to retrieve his net. It contained only five or six fish, all very small. As he made his way to shore, he slipped on the shifting stones. He caught himself and looked down at the net in disgust. He’d lost all but one small fish, and soaked his clothing in the process. It seemed that, despite the best intentions, he could never properly care for a human.

  Although the pathetic offering was more likely to offend than appease, he carried the fish back and cleaned it. For the amount of nourishment it would provide Cali, it was hardly worth the effort. Certainly not worth two rations of sap. Cali seemed not to notice the meagerness of his offering. Upon seeing the foil parcel Draven placed in the coals, her eyes lit up, and she sat close to the flames, never taking her eyes from the food as it cooked. When Draven judged it done, he drew it from the fire and flaked it apart with his knife before delivering it into Cali’s eager hands. She ate quickly, licking her fingers thoroughly following each bite, and used her tongue to clean the foil afterwards. Finding her unabashed enthusiasm both fascinating and somehow obscene, Draven turned away, suddenly a bit disgusted by her animal enjoyment of food.

  The trackers had come prepared for the return trip, and they had both sapien food and dried sap packets. Draven drank one now, having first diluted it with water from one of the foldable plastic bottles they’d also carried. If he could say nothing else of the situation’s improvement, at least he had secured the trackers’ supply packs before animals had gotten to them. Added to his own inadequate supplies, he now had a lightproof tent, two foil-lined mummy bags, two tarps, food, water bottles, a steel cable and cuffs, a solar charger, rope, a knife, and several lighters.

  Draven retrieved a box of corn crackers from a tracker’s backpack and presented it to Cali when he’d finished drinking the packet of reconstituted sap. Cali ate the crackers slowly, stopping after she’d eaten five or six. “Are we going to die?” she asked.

  “Eventually.”

  “Soon?”

  “I will do what I can to prevent it,” Draven said. He noticed the shudder that went through Cali’s body. He smiled a bit. “Are you frightened at the thought?”

  “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

  “It comes and goes.”

  Cali looked at him a moment and then burst out laughing. “You say the funniest things,” she said when she’d done laughing. “I wish Shelly was here so I could tell him about all the funny stuff you’ve said.”

  “It is well that I amuse you,” Draven said, still smiling. “You also amuse me.”

  “That’s good,” Cali said. “If I couldn’t laugh, I think I’d go crazy sometimes.”

  “Then I hope you’ll have many occasions to laugh at me.”

  “I’m not really laughing at you,” she said, leaning back on one hand. “Not in a mean way.”

  “I’d not object. It does not hurt my feelings.”

  Cali leaned back further and laughed again, this time harder. Finally she stopped and wiped her eyes. “No,” she said, trying to maintain a sober face and failing terribly. “I wouldn’t want that.”

  Draven watched, only a small smile on his lips, because this time he did not understand the joke. “We will stay here tomorrow,” he said, changing the subject when he imagined she’d enjoyed enough laughter at his expense. “We will leave at nightfall. I must rest and heal.”

  “Sorry,” Cali said, sobering. “I wasn’t laughing at you. Really.”

  “We will soon leave the mountains altogether.”

  “Okay. But what if more trackers come while you’re asleep?”

  “I don’t imagine they’ll dispatch more for some time.” If they discovered what he’d done to the two they’d already sent, they wouldn’t send more trackers. They’d send head hunters.

  “Yeah, okay,” Cali said.

  “Are your wounds healing?”

  “They’re fine. It doesn’t hurt anymore except when I touch it, and then only on the outside.”

  Cold on the outside, hot on the inside…

  “Indeed,” Draven said. He shook his head, as if he could shake off the strange thoughts inside.” I feel quite odd. Perhaps I’ll take sleep now.”

  “Okay…” Cali said in a small voice.

  He stood and retrieved the box of crackers from the ground beside her. “What is it?”

  “I’m just really cold.”

  “Right, of course.” Draven instructed her on how to properly maintain and control the fire. When she seemed confident in that task, he went inside and laid out the other mummy bag for her and Leo, showing Cali how to work the string that zipped it from within.

  “Will you require anything further?” he asked.

  “No, I think that’s all.”

  “Very well. Awaken me when you require sleep. One of us should keep the watch. Wolves in particular do not care for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Awaken me when you are ready to take your sleep.”

  “Okay,” Cali said. “And Master?”

  Draven turned to her. “I’m not your master.”

  “So…what should I call you?”

  “Draven, I imagine.”

  She smiled beatifically. “Okay. Well then, thanks, Draven.”

  “Right.”

  Draven rolled out his sleep sack and slid inside. Cali slid into hers as well, then lifted Leo and brought him to her. The instant he woke, he began to scream. Cali shot Draven a guilty glance before scrambling from her mummy bag and ducking out of the shelter. Though Draven tried to sleep, for quite some time he could not, so he lay listening to the leaves crunching under Cali’s feet and the dying wails of her baby.

  Chapter 35

  Meyer stood in the doorway of his helicopter, the cold air blasting his face while the so
und of the chopper blasted his ears.

  “Down, down,” he screamed over the noise of the propeller. “We’ve got humans here.”

  The chopper dipped and he almost fell, the thrill of flight filling his throat until he could hardly stand it. He waited, though, for the sapiens. When he could see the individual twigs on the trees, he took Little Michelle (now not so little) around the waist and swung out the door. She clung to him, hiding her face in his shoulder. He quite liked having someone larger than him at his mercy, even just a human someone. With his arm secure around Little Michelle’s middle, he slid down the rope, his legs wrapped around it and his gloved hand letting it slide by. Even through his pants, the rope burned his thighs.

  A few people had come out of the houses, some of them holding children and some of them holding guns. He waved, released Little Michelle, and began to climb the rope. The slick gloves made the task difficult, but he managed. He’d put a knot in the rope every few feet, both to slow his descent and aid his ascent. Upon gaining the chopper doors, he collected Jay, and then returned for Bip.

  “Cheerio, Molly,” he yelled to his pilot. “Pick me up in an hour or so.”

  When he reached the ground with Bip, he stood and watched the rope slide back into the chopper before the craft swung around and moved off down the mountain. Meyer straightened his trousers and nodded to the crowd of gaping onlookers. One of the babies cried at the loud noise, and he wished the mother would calm it. He loved saplings, but their crying was enough to drive even the hardest man completely bonkers.

  Meyer opened his arms to the small crowd. “Where is my Herman?”

  Herman approached through the crowd, arms outstretched. He bowed deeply before standing to hug Meyer as tightly as a sapien could. Even though Meyer only reached Herman’s barrel chest, he always knew he was the bigger man. He enjoyed receiving the embraces of all his humans, even those who had reached adulthood, and he liked to think they appreciated his affection, too. He didn’t treat them like possessions, and they didn’t treat him like a master. Still, he knew they all worshipped him and could see his power and greatness, unlike his own people.