The Fugitives, A Dystopian Vampire Novel: Book Four: The Superiors Series

by Lena Hillbrand

  “There was a war. They needed men for it.”

  They began down another hill. Cali squeezed him tighter but didn’t speak while he ran. Now that she knew there was so much of her in him, or so much of him in her, she guessed she might love him, too. As ridiculous as it sounded, they were the same. He’d been changed, and now he was older and smarter and Superior, but they shared a longing to be free and the desire for something better.

  At the bottom of the steep hill, they came to a collection of boulders with a small stream weaving through them. The moon glinted off the gurgling water. When Draven set Cali down, she sank to the ground and drank the cold water from her cupped hands. Her legs refused to support her when she tried to stand, so she sat on the bank of the stream, waiting for the prickling sensation to spread from her feet to her legs.

  “Do you want a carry?” Draven asked.

  “Do you mind if I stretch my legs a little?”

  “You can walk anytime you like.”

  As they walked, her legs regained feeling completely. Draven took her hand a few times to help her onto boulders and down again, and she held on longer than she had to. When he lifted her down from one, his hands around her waist, she found them face to face, and she wished… what? What did she wish for? He was a Superior, and she was only a human girl. And he’d had women, many Superior lovers. Still, she wished he’d stay a moment longer, standing so close to her. She wished he’d notice that she looked up at him instead of down to where her feet were, where she could get footing.

  She felt silly for these wishes. After all, he’d kissed her once, and what had she felt? She’d felt nothing.

  More accurately, she had felt nothing good. Only fear and shock and reproach. She didn’t want a kiss now, either. Maybe she only wanted an acknowledgement, for him to say he understood her and felt akin to her the way she now felt akin to him. But then, he’d known it all along, and he wouldn’t feel any closer to her than he had.

  After falling behind, she scrambled to catch up, slipping on the thick carpet of wet leaves underfoot, ashamed of her clumsiness. He moved with such ease. She stood beside him in the moonlight that glinted off the rocks and tree trunks, lighting up the sky, the few fast-moving clouds, and the forest around them. She squinted into the area of darkness in front of them where the moonlight did not shine.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A cave.”

  “Can we stay here?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t savor anything living here. Do you want to go in?”

  “Sure, of course.”

  Draven swung the backpack off his shoulders, found Cali’s flashlight, and handed it to her. She wound it while he situated the pack again. Then they moved into the cave. The walls were wet and slippery, as was the floor at the opening. Deeper inside the cave, damp and powdery dirt covered the floor, along with many loose, flat stones.

  “We should make camp,” Draven said. “In the morning, we’ll explore further and decide if we want to stay.”

  “Why can’t we go now?” she asked, sending her flashlight beam into the impenetrable darkness of the narrow crevice opposite the opening to the cave.

  “It takes time to collect the wood and light the fire. We can’t light one further in or the smoke will have no escape. Here, the ceiling is high, so the smoke will find its way out.”

  He always thought of everything. She would have gone as deep as she could, to the end, before lighting a fire. Instead, she sat with the pack, holding the knife across her knees, while Draven went to gather wood. Soon he returned and went about making the fire. They each busied themselves with their usual tasks to prepare for the morning. When Cali came back from relieving herself, Draven was putting a shriveled clove of garlic from his jar into the pan of steaming water on the fire.

  “In case he comes,” he said.

  Cali shivered.

  After she’d eaten, she noticed Draven reading the paper he carried with him, the letter he’d folded so many times that the creases were tearing and it was almost two letters now. Though she’d seen him read it dozens of times before, suddenly she didn’t like him reading this letter from another human woman. If it was a Superior, she wouldn’t have minded. But she was his sapien, and he shouldn’t care so much about this other’s letter.

  “What does it say?” she asked.

  Draven glanced up quickly. “This?”

  “Yes. What does it say? You read it all the time. You must know every word of it by now.”

  He smiled. “I like to make sure.”

  “Well, it doesn’t change, does it? What do you have to be so sure of?”

  “It tells me how to take care of you.”

  In her surprise, she forgot her pout. “That’s what you read all the time?”

  “Yes,” he said, looking at her strangely and folding the letter. “What did you think it said?”

  “I don’t know. You never told me. I thought it was a…I thought you loved her.”

  “I did,” he said. “I do. She gave me the garlic and other things, and she told me how to use them to take care of you. Why did you imagine I read it so often?”

  “I don’t know.” Cali busied herself with licking the last bits of oil from the pan that had held the meat, garlic, and some leaves he’d collected.

  He made that warm chuckling sound in his throat. “Do you imagine I love her more?” His voice was gentle, teasing. “Don’t worry, you’re my only little pet. See?” He dropped the letter into the fire.

  Cali started forward, wanting to snatch the paper before it burned, but the flames devoured it before she could. “Why’d you do that?” she asked.

  “You were right,” he said. “I know what it says. I wouldn’t want to make you jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous,” she said. “I was just curious.”

  “And now you know, my jaani. Everything I do is for you.”

  “I want to thank you somehow,” she said, moving around the fire to stand behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders and squeezed. “Let me do something for you.”

  “You do something for me nearly every day. You feed me, yes?”

  “Well, yes, but you do everything for me. Why can’t I do everything for you?” She didn’t know what she wanted to do for him, what she could do. But he did this for her sometimes, rubbing her shoulders or her back when she lay down to sleep, and it made her relaxed and happy. So she dug her thumbs into the tendons on his shoulders and began to massage them. After a minute, he leaned his head back against her belly and let out a long sigh.

  “Do you only love me because I need you so much?” she asked.

  “Do you only need me because I love you so much?” he said quietly, his eyes still closed. She wondered about that while she rubbed his shoulders and between his shoulder blades. Sometimes she thought he only kept her so he could eat when he was hungry. Other times, he looked at her with such hunger it made her squirm. Sometimes he was nice, and she thought he loved her, and sometimes he was short with her and made her want to cry.

  She needed Draven for a hundred reasons, not just for survival. She needed to be loved, and he was the only one around to do it. She needed to feel free, and he’d let her. In a way, she loved him for not telling her that he knew that about her. She also loved him because he loved her. She had known all this time that she needed him to love her, that she needed him to draw from her so she’d be touched. She’d just never thought that she needed to love someone, too.

  She bent down, warm and happy and sad at once, and kissed his forehead. “I love you, too,” she said.

  He moved so fast, she didn’t have time to straighten up before he’d whipped an arm behind him, caught her around the waist, whisked her around him and down onto his lap in one movement. She was still wide-eyed and laughing with surprise before she realized he’d already bitten her. He pulled once and then withdrew his teeth, turning her towards the fire so he could lick the blood he’d drawn on the back of her shoulder. His mouth clo
sed and opened on her skin until she felt all cold and shivery. One hand held her hair up and the other held around her middle, pulling her against him. He was breathing slow and deep, like a sleeping person.

  She leaned back into his kisses, letting him trace along her shoulder and up her neck. It was wonderfully nice and comforting to sit in his lap and let him pet and love on her, to give in and let him take care of her. And to love him for it. Just as she was about to let herself doze off in a haze of happiness, she shifted around to get comfortable on his lap. Suddenly shocked fully awake, she leapt from him.

  She glared at him with accusing eyes, and he looked back at her like a kid who’d been caught going into the meal house between meals.

  “What—why—how can you—,” she stammered, her face flushing with confusion and embarrassment.

  When he stood, she tried not to let her eyes move down his body. She knew what she’d felt.

  “You’re going to be the death of us both,” he said, moving around the fire to pull the mummy bag from the backpack. He offered no explanation, no excuse for himself. Nothing. He told her to eat more when she was hungry, and then he slid into the bag, zipped it over his head, and lay still, not even his chest rising and falling.

  Cali sat on the rock where he’d been sitting. It was almost square, with one side a little higher than the other, so she sat askew. Her mind reeled, trying to hold every piece of information, every memory and thought and feeling, so she could replay it. He couldn’t want her that way. That was the first thing to remember. He was a Superior and she was only a sap, as he reminded her constantly.

  But he’d told her before that sometimes he forgot. It must have been that. He’d had his eyes closed while she was rubbing his back. Maybe only lovers did that, not pets. Not sapiens. But then he’d drawn from her, which was definitely something he only did to humans. He’d said he couldn’t draw from a Superior, that it was cannibalism, like her eating another person. And then he’d kissed her neck, but he’d done that plenty of times after he ate. She’d sat in his lap lots of times. She’d slept beside him every night. When he’d held her while she slept, and while he slept, she had thought it was all part of being his little pet. He loved her and fed her and petted her and kissed her because she was his pet.

  But that had definitely never happened before.

  CHAPTER thirty-five

  Draven woke in the dark of the mummy bag, unzipped it, and slid out. Cali had slipped away, and he was alone. He stood and stretched, letting his blood flow from where it had pooled as he slept. Cali had used all the wood he’d collected, though several branches still lay smoldering in the fire pit. Upon leaving the overhang, he immediately stumbled on a deadfall, which he began breaking into burn-sized pieces. As he worked, he watched the sky. The sun had already set, leaving only a crimson slash through the dusty blue clouds that lingered on the horizon. Otherwise, the sky was clear, the color of cornflowers, and the quarter moon shone a bright, glowing silver against he muted backdrop of sky.

  He scented Cali and turned just as she climbed back into the cave. Silently cursing himself, he gave the trunk of the deadfall a swift kick. He’d let his control slip, frightening Cali. He had to be constantly vigilant, to hide his desire at all times. But he forgot more and more often, forgot the reasons one by one, until the only one left strong enough to stop him was that he would kill her.

  When dark had swallowed the last of the day’s light, he returned to the cave. Cali sat next to the fire with her knife in one hand and her flashlight in the other. “It is only I,” he said, slipping into the cave. “Have you eaten?”

  “I ate earlier.”

  “Do you need more?”

  “Not yet.”

  She set down her instruments, circled the fire, and stood before him. “Hug me,” she said.

  He hesitated before slipping his arms stiffly around her.

  “Stop patting,” she said. “Just hug me.”

  “Are you alright?” he asked. “Are you sad?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I love you, and you love me, and I wanted you to hug me.”

  “And I have.”

  “Okay.” She ran her hands down his back. “You have burrs.”

  “I imagine I do,” he said with a smile. “I passed through some plants. I’ll pick them off while we’re walking.”

  “Can I do it?”

  He paused. “If you wish.”

  She circled him and began pulling them from the back of his shirt. In silence, they worked on removing the burrs for a few minutes. Cali threw a small handful into the fire, and he did the same. When she’d finished, she rested her hands on his hips and pressed her thumbs into his back. She seemed to have taken to giving massages. As long as he remembered himself, he could enjoy it. It would be easier now, when he’d recently awakened and his mind shone with clarity, not yet tired and drunk with a whole day of her.

  “Did you get these when you were human?” she asked, pressing her thumbs into the pellets under his skin.

  “Yes,” he said, twisting away.

  “Do they still hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know they’d hurt. I thought you might not feel them anymore.”

  “I feel everything you do, magnified.”

  “So they hurt more now than when you were human?”

  “Yes. But I’m used to it. You learn to tolerate pain better.”

  “Why don’t you get them out?”

  “Ah,” he said. “I may be Superior, but I haven’t yet learned to bite my own back.”

  “Right,” she said, looking as if she felt quite foolish.

  “If you like, you can take them out for me,” he said, giving her a toothy smile.

  She went very still for a moment, and then she said, “Would I have to bite you?”

  “No. You’d cut them out. I cut out the ones I could reach long ago.”

  “I’d have to cut you? Wouldn’t that hurt?”

  “I take out yours. Consider it revenge.” He slipped his folding knife from his pocket and handed it to her. “Unless you’re afraid to hurt me.”

  “How deep do I have to cut? Will it bleed a lot?”

  “Not a lot. They’re just under the skin.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “No. In truth, I thought you’d be disgusted by the suggestion.”

  She smiled. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  He sat on the square stone with his back to the fire. Cali unfolded the knife, but she stopped there. “Let them be,” he said finally. “I hardly notice them anymore.”

  “No, you’ve helped me a hundred times.” She pressed the tip of the blade to his back until it punctured the skin. “Oh, you’re right,” she said. “You don’t bleed very much.” Then, as if that had been her only reservation, she began digging. She’d make a small incision, squeeze to bring the cut open, and flick the pellet out with the tip of the blade. “Oops,” she said after a while. “I think I…uh…stabbed one of them.”

  “It won’t harm me,” he said. “To you it’s poison. To me, it’s nothing. Superior saliva does not affect Superiors.”

  “Okay, I think it’s all done,” she said with the air of someone finishing a night’s work.

  “Three more,” he said, lifting his arm at an awkward angle and pointing them out with his thumb. Cali removed the six pellets, left by three bites, with the same efficiency she’d done the others.

  “Okay, now it’s done,” she said. “Did I cut too deep? How much did it hurt?”

  “No, you’re perfect,” Draven said, turning to face her. “Thank you, my pet. I’ve been waiting a hundred years for someone to do that.”

  “Wow. I didn’t think of that.”

  He donned his shirt, gritting his teeth when the fabric touched the cuts. They were shallow and would heal within the day. And he’d be free of that souldamned nagging pain forever—well worth the immediate pain. The other nagging pain, the one that began in his hand and rang in h
is head, remained. He scratched at his wrist with his teeth.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t have more,” Cali said.

  “Indeed.”

  “Well, do you want to go explore the cave?”

  “May I draw from you first?”

  She stood beside the rock seat, but when he tipped her chin up to draw, she pulled away. “No, sit down,” she said. He sat and took her onto his lap as he had the night before, but this time, he kept himself in check as he drew from her neck. While he ate, she lay her head back to let her hair fall down behind her, slipped an arm around his neck, and began squirming about on his lap, making things much more difficult than they need be. When he finished, he closed the marks and sat back. She shifted on his lap, and he shifted her away. She shifted. He shifted her away again. She shifted. He sighed.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I want to feel it again.”

  He pulled back. “Pardon?”

  She wiggled maddeningly on his lap. “You know what. I want to feel it again.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” he asked slowly.

  “Because. I know what it is, what it means. Why is it different today?”

  “Because I’m thinking clearly, and it appears you’re not.” He lifted her off his lap and set her on her feet, then stood as well.

  “I am thinking clearly,” she said. “I just wanted to know if it was me.”

  “And now you know.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Now I know it wasn’t.”

  He chuckled. “You’re the silliest little sap.”

  “Why? Lots of people do it. I thought maybe…you know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “You know. I thought maybe you wanted to.”

  “Cali, that would kill you.”

  “You asked me to the first time you came into the restaurant.”

  “You have a good memory for a sap. And that wasn’t me. Rather, it was, but I was doing a job. I wasn’t asking because I wanted to.”

  “What job?”

  “One of the things I had to test restaurants for was illegal prostituting of humans. So I asked because it was my job to ask.”