Though she’d been running, the Superior had caught her up like she stood still. She hadn’t been able to pull the knife out of her pants then, not until she lay next to Draven in the trailer. Still, she fully expected their captor to snatch the knife from her hand before she struck, twist her arm off. While she’d planned, while her heart hammered with nervousness and her ears roared with the rush of blood in her head, she hadn’t thought any further than this moment. Now the whole world had stopped in its tracks as efficiently as Cali had when the man caught her. Everything waited, waited to see what she’d do next, and she couldn’t think of a single thing but RUN RUN RUN.
Draven’s voice cut through the shock, at once urgent and calm. “Cali,” he said. “Reach into his pockets and find his keys. One will unlock me.”
Half her mind screamed for her to just leave him, while the other half abhorred the thought. After all, he’d saved her hundreds of times. But all she wanted to do was get as far away as she could, as fast as she could. Still, he’d always told her the right things, even when he’d lied and when things hadn’t turned out like he’d promised. But he had kept one promise, the most important one—he’d kept her alive.
She crouched next to the cold body on the cold ground and began to pat at his pants with none of the respect due a Superior. Her hands shook as she thrust one in his pocket, ignoring the urge that ran through her bones into the very marrow.
RUN RUN RUN
Her fingers closed around a slick sheaf of cards. She wrested it from the pocket and scrambled into the seed-shaped canister where Draven lay. He was her master, after all. She should protect him just as he’d protect her.
But then she paused, the fan of transparent cards with their metallic organs displayed under the iridescent shells glimmering up at her. She glanced from the cards to Draven. Had she turned into one of those brainless saps who obeyed as blindly as a dog?
Her eyes met his. In that moment, she knew her internal debate showed through as clearly as those internal workings of the key cards. She didn’t spend time dissecting the look on his face when he realized she might leave him there. Instead, she tucked it away for later contemplation and forged onwards. She knew she had only minutes to decide, if that. When someone spotted them, she would lose her chance to decide anything, probably for the rest of her life.
At least she had a little freedom with Draven, even if it wasn’t as good as she’d dreamed. Without him, she would have died months ago. And if she left him here and ran, she wouldn’t live long without his protection. Even now, after months with him, she didn’t know how to live out here. He’d done everything for her. She had let him, because he’d wanted to. If she thought honestly about it, she’d wanted him to, as well. The hard and painful things that she doubted she could do at all, he did with apparent ease. It was easier to let him.
But if he died now, she would die, too.
“If I get you out, you have to teach me how to live,” she said. “If I’d made it out of the endlot, I would have died.”
“I will,” he said without hesitating. “Let me see them. Yes, fine. The blue one. Slide it through the slot on the wall, here where my hands are.” He indicated a slit in the wall, lost amid the grooves of the paneling. Cali would never have noticed it at all, but he found it without trouble, even with his back turned. Directly below it, a shiny metal cable snaked from the wall to Draven’s bound wrists. At the memory of her own chain, Cali’s hesitation melted away. Draven didn’t treat her like a slave, or a servant, or even a meal. He ate only when he had to, less often than she did. He fed her. He talked to her, really talked, and told her things, and listened to her, and laughed with her, and kept her warm so many times. She couldn’t leave him chained up and waiting for execution.
Once he’d taken her chain off and set her free. Now she would repay him.
She slid the card through the slot in the wall, which began emitting an eerie blue color. The edges of the clear card pulsed with a soft electric-blue glow. A smooth silver device that resembled a large bead secured the metal cord that bound Draven’s waist and hands, and as the key card returned to its normal colorless state, the bead snapped open and the metal cord around Draven’s waist loosened. He pulled it over his hips and wriggled free, then turned to extend his bound hands to Cali in a strangely supplicating gesture.
“Cali,” he whispered, seeing her moment of indecision. His eyes shone darkly, a glimmer of light reflecting on the surface of two pools of black oil. She didn’t want to look in his eyes anymore, to see the mixed emotions flitting across his face. If she looked, she would do what he wanted, not what she wanted.
How could she let him go? She would be giving herself, her freedom, to him. He was one of them. If she released him, he would always own her. She had a chance her most of people only dreamed of. How could she not take it?
But she had decided. She would not waver now.
In one swift motion, she swung the card downwards, slicing through the smaller silver bead that nestled between his wrists, still cuffed with metal cable.
Nothing happened.
She started with shock when the Superior outside let out a rasping, quavering wail, as quiet as a kitten. Again she ran the card through the bead’s slotted curve, this time moving slower, her hands trembling so hard she could hardly find the slit. Nothing. Her eyes darted up to Draven, and back down. Her mind, set only moments before, began to waver again. If someone caught them now, knew what she’d done…if the Superior outside closed the door on them…Why hadn’t she run?
Why didn’t she run now?
“Unlock the cuffs,” Draven ordered, his voice low and firm. Not demanding, but undeniable.
“I’m trying. It’s not working,” she said. If only her voice would come as steady as his.
“Merde. Let me see the cards again. Try the yellow.” His words ran together in haste.
“They all look the same to me.”
“The third one down. That one.”
After a moment she said, “It doesn’t work either.”
“The red, the red. Try the red one. The next one. And hurry. He could rise any moment.”
“Okay, okay, don’t yell at me. I don’t know how to work these things, and he’s dead now, anyway.” For one ridiculous moment, she thought she might cry.
“You do. Come now, hurry…” With a clamping sound, the bead snapped apart at the slit, and the cord holding Draven’s wrists fell away. “There we go,” he said, drawing his hands apart. “You did it,” he said, grinning at her. She’d grown so used to him that she hardly noticed the long teeth anymore. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a human.
She forced her mind away from the irrelevant details, focusing instead on the current crisis. She’d killed someone. It had been so easy she still hadn’t fully absorbed what she’d done. It didn’t seem real. The Enforcer had never suspected a mere human would be a threat to him. He hadn’t even searched her. Superiors were all so confident, so arrogant. And why not? If Draven hadn’t told her, she’d never have known how to kill one. Superiors had to assume no one would be brainless enough to go around arming the enemy with the knowledge and weapons needed to kill them.
In an instant, Draven had unlocked his ankle cuffs and slipped from them. He dropped down from the trailer without the slightest sound. The absurd notion that she’d like to be so graceful flitted through Cali’s mind, which really should not be her main concern when she’d just killed someone. A Superior someone.
She’d simply stepped out of the trailer, and the man had reached to help her down, just being nice. Gentle, almost. For all she knew, he would have treated her well, even better than Draven. She hadn’t thought of that. She’d been too filled with fear. So she’d kept one hand around the knife while she put her other hand in his, letting him steady her. Distracting him. The knife had gone through him so easily, like coring a tomato or some other act she’d performed for years without thought. One minute her heart had been going wild,
and she’d been sweating under her clothes despite the cold that left her hands stiff and numb, and the next, she’d been standing over a dead Superior.
“He’s alive,” Draven said from outside.
Well, maybe just a Superior, then.
“Come,” Draven said. “Quickly, he’s nearly recovered his senses. Yes, fine. Stand right here.” Draven gripped the handle of the knife and twisted. The Enforcer’s eyes flew open, then rolled back until she could see only the whites through his madly fluttering eyelids. He thrust an arm upwards, which Draven easily evaded. Instead of further defending himself, the Enforcer only gasped in a sharp breath, then gave a weak cough, producing a droplet of blood. Mucus-like, it sputtered from the corner of his lips trailed by a string of saliva, which slid down his cheek and settled in his ear, leaving a crimson streak across his face.
Draven snatched the blade from the Enforcer’s chest after the gruesome twist, lifted the Enforcer and heaved him into the trailer in much the same way the Enforcer had done Cali half an hour before. Draven pulled the door most of the way closed. “Listen, this is important,” he said, as if she needed reminding at a moment like this. “Hold this here, like so, but whatever you do, do not let it latch. Hold it open just a bit. If you release it, I’ll be locked in with no way out, and you’ll be alone out here. Understand?”
“Yes, I understand. I’m not brainless.” Or maybe she was. But he always acted like she couldn’t grasp the simplest instruction. She knew urgency when she heard it in his voice. He didn’t have to tell her it was important.
Draven had already ducked in. He crouched at the doorway. “Do not open the door, regardless of what you hear.” He pulled the door closed until its edge settled into Cali’s hand. She kept the door from falling closed and turned away. She didn’t want to see what he did to make the man scream like that. Hearing it was more than enough to convince her. The Enforcer hadn’t screamed when she’d stabbed him, so whatever Draven did must hurt awfully bad.
As she stood waiting, once more she debated leaving him. Maybe he was just like the others. Maybe he only seemed different from other Superiors, but really he thought of her as property, something to own and control, to feed from and do whatever else he liked. For all she knew, he was more vicious and cruel than the Enforcer who had not hurt her, the one whose screams filled the trailer and burst through the small opening she’d left for Draven’s escape.
All she had to do was let go. Let go of him, let go of the door, let it slip into place and seal him inside to fight to the death with their captor, the one she had knifed. She would have done it a year before, maybe even a season before, when Draven had first taken her. But now she knew how naïve she had been to think she could escape Superiors. To think she could escape the enemy without the help of the enemy. It was the closest to freedom she could get. No matter how incomplete that freedom proved, it was better than the captivity she had known her whole life. Maybe it was even closer than most Superiors came.
After what seemed the longest minute of her life, the door jerked in Cali’s hand. She had the sudden impulse to slam it shut and run. But then Draven stepped out, holding a bundle against his bloody shirt. Despite a burst of queasiness, her curiosity took over and she peeked past Draven. In the brief moment before he closed the door, she couldn’t see much in the shadowy darkness inside the trailer. What was in the shirt—the man’s heart?
By now she knew that Superiors, like people, were not all good or all bad. Even one who treated her well most of the time, like Draven, could do something so brutal he wouldn’t want her to see. He would probably cut out someone’s heart if he felt he needed to. Maybe even hers.
“Go around the front,” Draven said. “Wait for me.”
She began to obey, but before she’d even reached the door, Draven had finished whatever hidden business he had, slipped around his side and into the seat with the control panel. He’d already started the car when she got in. Her door snapped shut like a live trap, startling her. Draven drove fast, without talking. Cali snuck a glance at him, noted his locked jaw and the way he kept glancing at the black square on the dash between them, and she thought she should offer to help.
“What’s that?” Cali asked, nodding at the blank screen.
“It’s a…it tells things,” he said.
“You said you’d tell me how to live.”
“That’s not important to life. Not yours, anyhow.”
“I want to know.”
“Look away.”
Reluctantly, she turned away, but she let her eyes drift to his hands as he tapped on the screen. He wiped the bundle on the black square several times, shaking it a little and trying again until the screen turned blue. When he was done with the bundle, he settled it in his lap, pulling the fabric over it, fussing with it until it rested how he wanted. Then he went back to messing with the screen.
“What things does it tell?” Cali asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Cali stared at him until he glanced at her.
“What?” he asked, a little smile twisting the corner of his mouth.
“What does it tell you?” she asked again.
He sighed, but she could already see he was more relaxed now that he had the screen on. “Right now it directs us and indicates the exact location of nearby vehicles.” He pushed a button with three symbols on it, which he said stood for “Navigational Guide Piloting,” and turned his attention from the road to her. Cali had no idea what that meant, but she didn’t want to seem completely ignorant, so she didn’t ask. Instead, she pointed to a red rectangle moving among the blue ones. “What’s that?” she asked.
“That’s this car. The blue ones are other vehicles. This shows our direction, what road we’re traveling, intersecting streets...” Cali watched, fascinated, while Draven showed her how to tell when they approached the city’s edge, and how he could come in close and show the car or go out for a far view and see the whole city, the red dot of the car blinking to show their location. He didn’t even have to tell the car what to do, it just moved through traffic by itself. Then Draven tapped on another car, and seemed very interested in reading about the person whose picture popped up.
“Where are we going?” she asked after he’d read about a few people in the other cars. “And why’d you bring that man with us?”
“If we left him, he’d talk. Still your mind. He will heal. He can’t report us, and if we are lucky, no one will report him missing for a few days. I was able to gather the blood from the snow, so we left no evidence. There was only a bit, as you left the knife in. That was clever.”
Finally she’d done something right, even if she hadn’t meant to.
“So we’re just going to keep him back there? What’s he going to eat?” Draven glanced at her in answer. “What? No. I am not going to let him feed off me. It’s hard enough feeding you. You’re really going to make me feed him?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s great. You’re just going to make me feel bad for starving him. I see. That’s really nice of you.”
“Nice. Yes.” Draven cleared his throat. “Listen, about what I said before…When we stopped…”
“Yeah, I know, you thought you were about to die and all. I know you didn’t mean it. I mean, I know I’m your…pet.”
He cleared his throat again. “So, ah, we’ll have to stop soon and discard some things that would make us easy to track. We’ll also have to drop the trailer in a few days, because it can be traced. I imagine we can keep the car for a bit longer if I can determine how to disable the smart chip.”
“What’s that?”
“It maps the location of our car and the surrounding obstacles,” he said. “It also shows everyone else our location.”
“So we have to get rid of this?” she asked, pointing at the screen. It was the most intriguing thing she’d ever seen. Though she’d seen a few of the screens in cars before, like when she’d been in Draven’s car, she hadn’t known what the
y did. Now that it made sense, it had captivated her.
“Yes. I’ve to stop at the endlot for a moment.”
“Why? What if someone else is there?”
“They won’t send someone else so soon.”
“Are you sure?”
“We need our things. I need a bit of it, but your survival requires much equipment. I will retrieve our equipment as well as your food and clothing. Perhaps we will move south, to somewhere warmer. Or perhaps they will expect that. We should go north.”
Draven used the screen to direct the car to the endlot, where he stopped. Cali waited in the car, every moment fearing someone would drive up and see her, steal her while Draven was gone. But after what seemed like hours, he came back, dropped the two packs in the backseat and got in the car. They drove until daylight filled the sky and Draven had to squint his eyes almost totally shut. Finally, he pulled onto a rough, cracked side road and parked behind the crumbling remains of a building in the crumbling remains of a city. He retrieved his shades from the backpack before he began dismantling the magical car. He started by pulling up the floor mat, cutting the carpeting from the floor beneath and pulling it back. Cali watched as he pried up a panel on the floor with his hunting knife, and she thought she’d never, ever be able to live as well as he did. He knew things she couldn’t even comprehend. She’d never imagine anything hidden under a carpet, never think to wonder what lay beneath the floor of a car.
Draven slipped back into his seat and turned to her. “I must take sleep now,” he said. “Please stay in the car. I would not risk anyone seeing you. It is daytime, but we’re just off a main road. Someone may happen by.”
“Okay,” Cali said. “I will. That sounds good.” She climbed into the back seat. Draven started to lift her bag for her, but she stopped him. “No, let me do it,” she said. “I mean, you said…” He nodded and released the backpack into her hands. Its weight took her by surprise, and she let it thump to the floor. She glanced up at him, shrinking back automatically. Part of the reason she’d let him do everything for her was that she didn’t want to make mistakes. If her last master had taught her nothing else, he’d taught her not to anger a Superior.
The Renegades (The Superiors) Page 37