“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“To find something we need.”
“But there’s food here.”
“Something for me.”
“You can draw from me again, if you need to.”
“No. I’m going out to find…” He met her eyes squarely. “A woman.”
“What for?”
“Because I want one.”
“Well…okay,” Cali said, as if reluctantly granting permission. “You look pretty,” she added.
“Oh?” Draven frowned and glanced in the mirror.
“Yes. You look good.”
It may have been the nicest thing she’d ever said to him. The most like…but no. He’d never expected her to want him in return. It would always be one-sided. His thoughts would turn away from her soon enough.
“Thank you. Do not go outside while I’m gone.”
“Okay. I’m going back to sleep, anyway.”
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She lay back, and Draven stood frowning at her, wanting something but not sure what. Then he shook his head, turned, and left the bedroom. It was the first time he’d drawn from her and not found satisfaction.
CHAPTER eight
After Draven left, Cali lay in the soft, comfortable bed, marveling that she was warm inside and out. At times that winter, she’d doubted that she’d ever feel her toes again, ever stop aching with cold all the way to her bones. Now the cold seemed far away, though it was just outside. The shower had been hot, and she was finally, blessedly, clean. Her hair was clean and felt light instead of weighing down around her, clinging to her scalp. The dirty smell was gone. She hadn’t felt so good in months, had forgotten it was possible.
But the house was big and empty and quiet, and she felt strangely alone and exposed. What if the owner of the house came back while Draven was out? He hadn’t even told her what to do. Maybe he trusted her to figure it out herself. Or maybe he’d forgotten.
The thought of what he was doing brought a frown to her face. She wasn’t stupid. She knew he was going to find someone to mate with. She couldn’t do anything about that. But she didn’t like it. To keep her alive, he gave her everything he could find and steal. He brought her food, warmth, clothes, and everything else she needed. She wanted to be everything he needed, too. She resented this other woman who could give him something he needed, something Cali couldn’t give him. Not that she wanted to. It had scared her when he said he was thinking about sex while he looked at her.
She sat up and stretched. She wondered if he’d been thinking about sex before he saw her. Maybe he wanted it, and when he saw her, it made him think about finding a woman. Or maybe he hadn’t been thinking about a woman at all, maybe she’d made him think about it, made him need to find a woman. The thought both scared and exhilarated her. Could she have that much power over what a Superior did, without even trying? The thought pleased her. Though she didn’t look perfect like they did, the outfit made her feel good.
Maybe she really did look pretty, like those women who sold sex. Maybe that was why Draven had thought about it. She got up and stood in front of the mirror again, but it was too dark to see now, and she didn’t know how to turn on the lights. Back in bed, she huddled into her warm spot and wondered where Draven was, if he’d found a woman. She hoped he hadn’t.
Of course he’d do what he wanted, and if he needed a woman, she should be glad for him to find one. But he was hers now, in some way. What if someone found out who he was, what he’d done? What if he was arrested? Did he really need a woman that bad? Cali rolled onto her back. Would she ever need a man? If she did, would Draven find one for her? She ran her hands over the ridges of her ribs and into the dip of her stomach. She’d gotten awfully skinny. She doubted if any man would want someone who looked so unhealthy.
What did Draven need a woman for, anyway? Didn’t he know how to satisfy himself? The men at the Confinement did it all the time. Draven could have done that, too, and he wouldn’t have to risk going out.
But he’d looked awfully nice. He could probably find a woman easy as that. And Cali would never be able to be everything for him. So why was she so bothered by his excursion?
Then she smiled. Maybe she couldn’t give him everything that a Superior woman could, but the woman couldn’t give him everything, either. Cali could feed him, and no Superior could do that. He still needed her more than anyone else. So she couldn’t please him in every way—so what? He couldn’t please her in that way, either. And she didn’t need to go out and put herself in danger to do it. He may not know how to satisfy himself, but she knew how to take care of herself. And Superiors thought they were the ones who were so evolved.
Cali rolled over onto her stomach, trapping her hands under her body, and pushed her face into the pillow. He could do it his way, complicated and dangerous and involved, and she’d do it her way, without ever having to leave the warm bed. If he didn’t need her for this, well, she didn’t need him, either.
cHAPTER NinE
Without much effort, Draven found a bar without a bouncer at the door. He slid into the seat next to a woman with perfectly shiny blonde hair. When he smiled at her, she smiled back but pulled her glass of sap closer to herself.
“Hello,” he said. “I am Draven.”
“Eva,” she said. “If you’re going to try to get a drink out of me, you won’t. Don’t waste the time.”
Draven laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t mean to be rude, but you look hungry.”
“I am,” he said. “But that’s not what I wanted.”
“Oh really.”
“Yes. What do you do, Eva?”
“I’m a PR girl for Furr-Bines Industries. The company that makes the fancy wind turbines.”
He smiled. “I’ve heard of them. The ad pops up on my screen with a catchy little tune.”
“That’s the one,” Eva said. “It’s a pretty good job, if you like people. Of course I do. And I got my very own Furr-Bine for free.”
“Is that so? Which one?”
“It’s black with white polka dots, and when it spins, it looks like a spiral winding out. Do you have one?”
“No, and if you’re going to try to get a sale out of me, don’t waste the time,” Draven said.
Eva laughed. “That was rude. I’m sorry. Can I buy you a drink?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I want to. To make it up to you for being rude.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.” She pushed her ration card across the bar. She’d been using her five rations a day for the past year, while he’d been eating about five a week. She wouldn’t hurt from missing one ration. “I’m drinking regular sap,” she said. “A male in the third stage of life, AB I think. That okay with you?”
“Perfect.”
The bartender turned to fill a glass for Draven.
“I hate that flavored stuff,” Eva said. “It tastes so artificial, I can hardly tell what it is.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Draven accepted the glass from the bartender, but he held himself back from guzzling it all in one, long draught.
“If you’re not out here begging for drinks, what are you here for?” Eva asked.
“To meet you.”
“Well, isn’t it my lucky night?”
“I imagine it will be.”
Draven sipped his drink while Eva shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You know what the problem with men is?”
“I didn’t know we had one.”
“That’s one of the problems right there. But let me ask you, do you know any Second Orders who tell stories about how things were before we came to power?”
“Perhaps,” Draven said, drawing back from her.
“There’s a guy at Furr-Bines I work for, a Second who owns part of the
company, and he’s always telling stories. Did you know that back then, people—sapiens, I mean—ate meat three times a day? Three times. Now they’re lucky if they get it once a month. What about you? How often did you have it when you were…one of them?”
“That is quite a forward question for someone you just met.”
Eva shrugged. “I’m a forward person.”
“I had it some.”
“And was it all fancied up, looking nice, at a restaurant with trimmings?”
“No.”
“Can you imagine that once humans ate at restaurants, had all types of food. It must have been so complicated.”
“And this has to do with the problem of men?”
“Oh, right. That. This Second, he says that he used to love this really good part of a cow called the steak. It was the best piece of meat on the whole animal. And when you got the steak, you had to put it in a bag with a bunch of spices and pound it with a hammer to make it tender.”
“I see…”
“No, you don’t see. Men never see. But that’s what you men all think women want, to be pounded like a piece of meat until we’re tender. Even when I was nothing but a dumb sap working in the cornfield, I had better sex than I do today. At least then it was about something. There was a feeling there. Now it’s just about power. Even when a man bothers to see that I’m satisfied, it’s not because he cares, but because it makes him get that smug look on his face, like he’s proud of himself for having the power to bring me satisfaction. I never get that look on my face when I satisfy a man.”
“Perhaps you should.”
Eva’s indignation seemed to slip, and she laughed. “I can’t be proud of something that easy.”
“Why not? It will be easy for me to be gentle while I lay with you, and if you like it, I’ll be proud.”
“You sure about that? Because you don’t talk like a gentle man. You talk like a man who gives it all he’s got, whether the woman likes it or not.”
“I could do that, too, if you like.”
“Aren’t you cocky.”
“When I’ve earned the right to be.”
“You know who you are? You’re the guy who makes promises and doesn’t mean a single thing he says.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I imagine I mean some of them.”
She laughed and stood. “Okay then. Let’s see which ones you mean.”
Draven paused before sliding off the stool. He could chat all night, but in the end, he wasn’t in the mind for it. He’d come here trying to forget Cali, and subconsciously or not, he’d chosen a woman who looked and even talked a bit like Cali. That was all he could think about—how much she reminded him of Cali. Eva was the kind of woman Draven would once have adored, but now she seemed a poor substitute. He was stuck with his desire for the impossible, unable to find satisfaction elsewhere.
“Are you still hungry?” Eva asked when they stepped out into the chill night.
“Indeed.”
“Do you want to go somewhere with me? Somewhere we can eat.”
“I’ve used my ration card for tonight.”
“You don’t have papers, do you?”
“Why would you say that?”
Eva counted off reasons on her perfectly manicured fingers. “You didn’t try to get anything at the bar, and you’re always hungry, and you don’t have your ration card…”
“Of course I have papers.”
“Let’s see them.”
“Let’s not.”
“I’m not going to report you. Anyway, this place I’m taking you is free.”
“How is that possible?”
“Are you going to report me if it’s not fully legal?”
“No,” he said, holding his hand close to his body and raising three fingers. “Honor of Thirds.”
“Good. And I’m okay with your paperless status. It happens. Then you can’t work, you don’t have money for new papers, you’re shit out of luck, as my boss says. I know all about it.”
“Oh?”
Eva patted at her hair, curled in large loops inside thin silver netting that sparkled under the city lights. “I lost my papers about twenty years back. I’d lost my job, didn’t have money, couldn’t make money, lost my apartment, sold my papers to eat. You know how it goes.”
“But you have a job.”
“I do now. Because someone helped me. I was stealing sap from people’s livestock, and this woman caught me at her farm near Texas. Instead of turning me in, she gave me an old card, and I’m going to give it to you now.”
“A card.”
“Yes. That’s it. Just a card. This guy runs a charity organization getting papers for people who lose theirs.”
“And what does he ask in return?”
“Nothing. It’s charity. Unless you’re too proud to take charity.”
Not too proud, but too illegal. As soon as this man scanned Draven for ID to get new papers, he’d see that Draven was wanted by the government. The man may have been charitable, but he wouldn’t help a criminal.
“I guess I am,” Draven said, pushing the blue coded card back at Eva. She looked at him a long moment and then slid it back into her bag.
“I’m not trying to mind business that’s not my own,” she said. “He helped me a lot, though. Got me new papers and even gave me a job. If you ever change your mind, his name is Meyer Kidd. He lives here in Moines about a third of the year. Ask around, lots of people know about him. He’s famous for all his money and charity work, and he’s a really great guy.”
“Perhaps one day I’ll inquire after him.”
“You should. Just don’t stare when you meet him.”
“Why would I stare?”
“Let’s just say, he doesn’t look exactly how you’d expect a very rich and powerful man of the Second Order to look.”
“What does he look like?”
“You’ll see for yourself when the time comes,” Eva said. “Come this way, and we’ll eat. And be quiet now or someone will hear us.” Draven followed Eva, wondering all the while if she was leading him into a trap. But he was so hungry he hardly cared.
CHAPTER ten
Draven reached for Eva’s hand without awareness. The coldness of her skin momentarily startled him. Though he’d once shuddered at the warmth of saps, he’d grown so accustomed to it that he no longer noticed Cali’s warmth—except to appreciate it. He hadn’t touched another Superior in an intimate way for so long that the lack of warmth felt foreign rather than familiar.
Eva surveyed the street before leading Draven down a set of concrete stairs under a crumbling building, likely a military station from the Hundred Year War.
“What is this place?” he asked, glancing about as they descended.
Eva pulled at Draven’s hand. “It’s an old air raid shelter.”
He followed, though reluctant to enter a building without knowing what it held. He’d been a captive too long to trust someone he’d just met. He remembered the flaming wooden stakes searing through his flesh and pulled his hand away. “I don’t know if I want to enter.”
“Still your mind, we’re here, anyway,” she said. “It’s free food. I know how hard it is to eat without papers.”
Draven’s hunger got the better of him, and he took the last few steps to the bottom of the stairs and waited while Eva retrieved an old-fashioned keycard from behind a crumbling brick and unlocked the door.
“Come back whenever you want,” she whispered. “You know where the key is. But this works by the honor of Thirds. If you kill or steal one of the saps, I have friends in high places, and they can find you.”
Draven doubted that. After all, if the Enforcers couldn’t find him, he didn’t imagine that just anyone could. Not without getting a dagger in the chest, he thought, with some pride in Cali’s grisly accomplishments.
Eva pushed open the thick steel door. The stench that burst forth knocked Draven back a step. He nearly gagged, but prevented it by covering his face with his forearm to
block the scent. He cut his eyes towards Eva.
She waved her hand in front of her nose like she could fan the odor away. “I know,” she said. “It’s awful. You’ll get used to it, but until then, stop your breath.”
She entered the room and, after a moment’s hesitation, Draven followed, leaving the door ajar. The room was cavernous but low-ceilinged, which created a strange echo as they walked across the peeling linoleum floor. Towards the back of the room, the stench increased and Draven could make out the sapiens from which it arose. He had savored that odor before, when Cali had gotten an infection in an open bite mark. The reek of infection here was not as strong as when he’d held her infected arm to his mouth, but here, it permeated the whole room, sickening and faintly sweet.
The sapiens lay on bare mattresses, a few covered with nothing more than tattered woolen blankets, the rest naked, emaciated, and filthy. A hobble marked each exposed heel. Their chests rose and fell with their rapid breathing, as if the very weight of their straining rib cages was almost enough to crush the air from their lungs. A few were missing limbs.
“What is this place?” Draven whispered, unable to take his eyes from them. They were hardly more than breathing skeletons with skin stretched over them.
“It’s where we keep the runaways,” Eva said. “It’s better than a blood bank.”
“How?” Draven had been in a blood bank. This did not look better.
“Because,” Eva said. “We asked them all if they wanted to go here or the blood bank, and they all chose here.”
“Did they see this place before they chose?”
“Of course they did. They’re lucky we caught them and not the catchers.”
“What if I’m a catcher?”
“You don’t have a job.”
“What if I turned them in?”
“We’d find you.”
“Who is this ‘we’ you refer to?”
“Some people I know,” she said. “Come, we’ll eat and leave. They’re all here on their own accord. They could go back anytime they wanted.”
The Fugitives, A Dystopian Vampire Novel: Book Four: The Superiors Series Page 5