Deviants (The Dust Chronicles)

by Maureen McGowan

  “You saved me.” I take a step toward him.

  His jaw shifts. “I hurt you.” His voice is low and broken. “I’m a monster.” He raises a hand toward me.

  I jump back, instantly ashamed by my behavior, but Burn scares me and now that I’ve seen what he can do, what he becomes, my fear’s much worse.

  “What triggers your”—I stop myself—“your gift.”

  “Rage,” he says, low and hard. “At least based on what others have told me.”

  “You’re not sure?” I ask, wondering if his curse will shed light on mine. “Can you feel it coming on?”

  He stays silent for a while, and then turns toward me. “How did you learn to control yours?”

  I shake my head sharply. “I told you, I can’t control it. I can’t control anything.” An understatement these past days and I realize my previous sense of control over my life, over Drake’s safety, over anything, was illusion. Our survival these past three years wasn’t due to my precautions. It was dumb luck.

  “I’ve seen you control it.” He stands but keeps his distance. “I’ve seen you hold back. I’ve seen you stop.”

  I spot my mask on the ground, pick it up, and pull it tightly to my chest. “It doesn’t feel controlled.” Burn’s brow wrinkles and there’s such deep pain in his eyes.

  “Did I”—he looks down—“did I kill anyone?”

  I nod slowly—at a minimum Phadon and probably the guard he used as a shield. Maybe more men when that tank exploded.

  Burn’s shoulders lurch forward like someone punched him hard in the gut.

  His imposing figure exudes danger and malice, but all I see in his eyes is anguish. Even if he’s not very good at expressing himself, he’s deeply sorry that he hurt me, sorry he caused anyone’s death. If he could have gotten us out of that fort, saved me in any other way, he would have.

  “Killing the general was an accident. You didn’t mean to. You said yourself that you can’t control it.”

  “That’s no excuse.” He looks down and stomps, shaking his head like he’s arguing with himself. “I never, ever want to turn into that monster again.”

  “You saved me,” I say softly. “If you hadn’t stopped him, I don’t know what General Phadon would have done.”

  “I do.” He grunts and his eyes narrow, but then he looks overhead. I don’t want to talk about this anymore, either. Thinking about the general yanks emotions to the surface, sparking the backs of my eyes. If Burn thinks I have a modicum of control, he’s wrong.

  “What is this place?” I change the subject. “What are these?” I put my hand on one of the thick-stemmed plants we saw earlier.

  “Pine trees.” He gestures around us. “We’re in a forest.”

  I look up and spin. “I’ve heard of trees, and I know there are plants in the farms and the air-scrubbing factories inside Haven, but I never imagined…They’re so tall.” The tallest must rise forty feet. I look down and realize the ground is covered by bits of the trees that have fallen.

  “Did these come from the trees?”

  He nods. “Needles. They turn brown and fall off to make room for new ones to grow.”

  Ignoring the ache in my ribs, I bend and pick up a handful of the brown pine needles.

  “How did the trees survive the dust?” Every living thing outside Haven—whether man, animal, or plant—perished when the dust fell. That’s what I learned in GT, but in the past twenty-four hours I’ve learned how much I don’t know.

  “See these?” He lifts an oddly-shaped brown thing off the ground. “It’s called a cone, and it contains the seeds. When it’s in danger, it closes up and only opens when it’s safe for the seeds.”

  Just like my little brother, I think but don’t say. Instead I rub my hand on the surface of the tree, then over a grouping of needles. The lovely scent definitely comes from these trees. I can’t imagine a more glorious place and wonder if Drake’s been here, too.

  “How soon until we find my brother?”

  “If we walk through the night, we might catch up with them tomorrow.”

  Joy spreads inside me.

  “What’s it like?” Burn leans against a tree and looks down.

  “What?”

  “Having a family.”

  “You don’t have one?”

  He shakes his head, and I remember how he told me that he doesn’t even know his birthday. “What happened to your parents?”

  He doesn’t move.

  “My brother is the most important person in the world to me.”

  “That’s why you took care of him after your parents…” his voice trails off.

  “Yes,” I say quickly. “Drake is funny and smart and a really talented artist, and even though he has so much to complain about, he almost never does.”

  “He’s lucky to have you as a sister.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “I’m lucky to have him.” But my joy hardens. Family is a loaded concept for me, the bad hidden in the good like a terrorist’s bomb.

  Still, I can’t wait to find Drake—even if it means facing my father.

  We’re slower with my walking, but Burn hasn’t offered to carry me, and frankly it’s a relief. We move without talking, our progress only interrupted when Burn hears something and raises his hand to signal me to stop. The light from the real moon is prettier than the fake one in Haven, and Burn explains why the moon’s such a funny shape, like someone’s taken a bite from a circle.

  I’m not sure what I expected, but the world outside Haven is varied and vast. We leave the pine forest soon after dark, pass through other areas much like the ruins near Haven and then enter another pine forest even larger than the first. After the forest, we follow a deep rocky path that’s almost like a road. Burn says it used to carry water down to the big lake near Haven, but that doesn’t seem possible.

  Just thinking of water makes my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. Drake was carrying more than his share of our water, and the last of the three rat-skin bladders I had is now nearly empty. At least the sunlight’s not so hot when it’s bouncing off the moon.

  Burn holds up his hand. I stop, then move closer to him. An eerie howling fills the air, followed by snorting. Rocks roll down the banked surface to our right.

  “Behind me. Get down.” Burn reaches into his coat and yanks out the bigger of the two guns he stole from the guard. He drags part of the gun against itself and it clicks. Then he waits and waits and waits. My muscles twitch, desperate to run.

  A hairy monster jumps over the edge of the bank. Scrambling down on four legs—like a rat—it’s much bigger and covered in dirty, matted gray fur. Nearly yellow eyes spark in the bright moonlight and I suck in a sharp breath. I saw an example of this supposedly extinct animal once as a child. It’s a dog or a wolf. But opposed to the stuffed version in Haven’s history museum, this wolf has foam around its snarling teeth and several huge gashes caked in dried blood on its body.

  Burn fires the gun and the creature flies back, half of its head blown off. Then it rolls down the rest of the hill and lands with a thud, about fifteen feet away. Burn retrains the weapon on the hilltop, as if convinced another will follow.

  He’s breathing quickly. His shoulders rise and fall with each shallow breath as he holds the gun aimed and ready. After what feels like ten minutes, I raise my hand but stop short of touching him. We haven’t touched since our escape from the fort. Not really.

  I slide my hand onto his back.

  He jumps, then relaxes and lowers his gun. “Shredder dog,” he says without turning. “Even worse than the humans who turned Shredder. Pack animals didn’t need dust madness to give them the instincts to hunt and kill.”

  “Are there many animals out here?” I try to remember the other beasts I saw stuffed in the museum, some much bigger than wolves.

  “Not many.” He finally puts the gun away and turns toward me. His face is slick with sweat.

  I step toward the carcass and my stomach pinches. “Can we ea
t it?”

  “Too dry and tough.”

  I cringe, thinking of the chunks of flesh that flew off the Shredders the Comps shot, and how little blood there was. “If there are Shredder animals, are there Deviant ones, too—like us?”

  He shakes his head. “Not that I’ve seen. No normal ones in the wild, either. Any born must get killed.”

  “Born?” I try to speculate how this is possible. I never thought about why the Shredder population hasn’t died out. “Can Shredder dogs—can Shredders—have babies? Normal ones?”

  “Yes.” Burn’s short answer is so cold and dark, I’m afraid to ask for more details. I try to focus on a less-terrifying, less-repulsive subject than Shredder sex.

  “How much farther until the meeting point?”

  He looks down and doesn’t answer.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I step into his path.

  “We passed the meeting point four hours ago.” He looks me directly in the eyes and I glance away quickly, his words swirling around my head and stealing my balance. I stagger to the side.

  We passed the meeting point. They weren’t there.

  I’ve lost Drake.

  If my father hasn’t already killed him, he’ll be tortured by Shredders or torn apart by one of those wolves.

  “Let’s go.” Burn starts walking.

  Then I remember. Burn mentioned a Settlement. “We can still find him, right?”

  Burn stops and points down. “Look.” He steps to the side and points down to the rocky surface of the riverbed.

  I rush to his side. “What am I looking at?”

  “Footprints,” he says. “We’ve been following them since the meeting point. They look fresh, so if we hurry, we’ll catch up with them before day breaks.”

  My heart swells and my eyes open wide. I lean over the supposed footprints. “How do you know it’s them?”

  “I just do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  BEFORE THE SUN rises, the sky turns pink. The second sunrise of my life and it’s even more miraculous out here in the open. We’ve been walking for over fifteen hours, but every time Burn asks if I need to rest, I quicken my pace. My side aches and the bruises have grown darker, but I refuse to even look at the small caches of dust I’ve seen stuck between rocks. So close to finding Drake, we can’t afford to stop, and I’m terrified of dust madness.

  The trail of footprints disappeared miles back, but we’ve been walking over rocks and through forests and can’t even spot our own footprints behind us most of the time.

  “Why isn’t there more dust around here?” I ask Burn.

  “Not much for the dust to stick to. It all blew away.”

  I nod. He’s right that not much sticks to these rocks, and I marvel at the determination of each grouping of trees we pass, finding something to cling onto in this beautiful but rugged world.

  We cross through a narrow band of trees and then the rock surface ahead seems to round off and drop into nothing. Getting closer to the edge, I see it plunges about a hundred feet, and beyond that—it looks like water.

  The sunrise strikes the water, painting its deep blue surface with a coating of shimmering pink. My jaw drops.

  “It’s a lake.” Burn sits on the edge of the rock and stretches his legs. “Water used to come up to there.” He shows me a line on the rocks about twenty feet down, where the surface changes color.

  “What happened?”

  He turns toward me. “Earth got hot after the dust. Changes in the upper atmosphere. Plus with the quakes, cracks opened up and a lot of lakes went dry.”

  “Can we drink it?” I shake my water bladder—it’s down to its final drops.

  “Sure,” he says. “But we’ll lose a lot of time getting down to it. The Settlement is another full day of walking, if we’re fast.”

  “Do you really think Drake is already there?”

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  “No?” My throat tightens and my heart rate increases. “What happened to him?”

  “I think they’re somewhere around this lake.” He leans out, shields his eyes with his hand, and looks to each side. “Problem is, I don’t know which way around they took.”

  About half of the lake is ringed by trees, but the far side is barren rock which must drop off, because beyond it I can’t see a thing.

  Finding them seems impossible, then my heart lifts. I have an idea. No matter which direction my father took around this nearly circular lake, assuming he’s following its edges—and why wouldn’t he?—he and Drake can see down to the water as easily as we can. If I head down there, into the open, Drake will spot me.

  Walking out to the edge where Burn’s sitting, I look down. It’s not quite as steep as I first thought. The rock’s not entirely smooth. There are places to put my feet.

  I can do this. I know I can. Without even mentioning my plan, for fear he’ll stop me, I sit and slide down the top of the steep edge, keeping my center of gravity back and using the heels of my shoes to slow me.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Burn grabs for me but misses.

  “I’m going down near the water!” I shout back. “Out in the open, so Drake can spot me.”

  “If there are Shredders around, they’ll spot you, too.”

  That thought gives me chills, but Burn doesn’t sound convinced. My plan’s worth the risk. If Drake’s being carried by my father around the perimeter of this lake, he’ll see me.

  I’ve descended about twenty feet when Burn catches up. He glances over as he passes. One side of his mouth quirks up in what could only be called a grin. “Good plan. Low risk of Shredders here, anyway. Not enough dust.”

  It takes a moment to process this as praise. My heart flies as we continue to scramble and slide down the rocks. When it becomes flat enough to stand, he reaches for my hand to help me up but I ignore him. I can walk over rocks.

  Reaching a particularly big gap I regret not accepting help, but gather my strength and leap, landing safely on the other side. I jump down from the last big rock to what, if I’m to believe Burn, was once the pebbled bottom of this lake.

  I race forward then spin. Shielding my eyes when I turn to the sun, I scan the row of trees and rocks high above us.

  “Might as well get water, now that we’re down here.” Burn trudges forward across the pebbles, pulling water bladders out of coat pockets.

  I proceed slower, searching above us for signs of Drake. When I turn back toward Burn I gasp. The water containers all filled, he’s removing his clothes.

  “What are you doing?” I raise my fingers to my lips, realizing I pretty much shouted.

  He turns back. “Washing. Got a problem with that?”

  I step forward slowly, marveling as each layer of clothing comes off his broad body until he’s down to his bloodstained shirt. He pulls that off, too, and all I can do is stare as the sunlight glances off the planes and ridges of his back, his shoulders, his arms. He reaches back to test the nearly healed wound on his shoulder, then drops his shirt into the water. Crouching at the edge, his back muscles flex as he kneads the shirt, then lifts it and rings it out.

  He unclips the elastic cord that holds up his oversized pants. They drop to his ankles. He doesn’t have anything on underneath, and I suppose it would be hard to find underwear that would both stay up when he’s normal size and not tear to shreds when he gets angry.

  He kicks off his boots, steps out of his pants and crouches to rinse his clothes. My breathing grows fast and shallow, completely out of control, and I want to look away, but I can’t. I’ve seen drawings of the male body nude, but never imagined the strength and power and beauty. It’s the beauty that shocks me. The hard curve of his buttocks, the slope of his back, the ripping of his muscles as he kneads his clothes under the water. I’m mesmerized, studying the lines of back muscles, how they connect, how they flex under his smooth skin.

  Finished, he twists in his crouch to toss his wet clothes back onto the pebbles. H
is eyes meet mine and his lip quirks. I look down, embarrassed, cheeks hot. Hearing splashing, I raise my eyes as he runs, water spraying up around him. When the lake gets deeper, he slows. Just as it reaches his upper thighs he dives, disappearing under the surface.

  I almost scream. What if he’s swallowed up by the water and I’m all alone?

  But he breaks out, arms first, and leaps into the air with a whoop. He spins and streams of water fly from his hair and body. His smile transforms him into an entirely different person. I can’t help but smile, too. How funny to learn that Burn can transform in two completely opposite directions.

  “Come in.” He traces his arms along the surface of the water and it sprays toward me.

  I’ve never seen anything like this. Never imagined it.

  Not only have I never seen so much water in one place, it never occurred to me that one could enter such a pool. Stepping up to the edge, I bend and touch the surface. My fingers send ripples radiating outward. I look up and Burn is on his back in the water, his chest and head above the surface, and he’s kicking and moving his arms. While I’m scared, I’m also excited and can’t strip my clothes off fast enough.

  Leaving on my T-shirt and underwear—they need washing anyway—I remove my shoes and tentatively stick one foot into the water. The underwater surface is pebbled, not as slippery as I expected, and I slowly move forward, taking each step with care until the water licks the tops of my knees. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite so marvelous.

  “Come on!” Burn shouts. “It’s easier if you get in quickly. Run.”

  He rises up from the water, its surface licking just below his waist, and his chest glistens like it’s been glazed. Raising his arms above his head, he gestures for me to move forward, so I drop my fears and run. The water slows my progress, nearly tripping me, but I laugh, assuming I look like a small child running for the first time as the water splashes up the sides of my body.

  “Dive,” Burn says and puts his hands up over his head to demonstrate.

  “No way.” The water laps my underwear with glorious coolness.