CRAVE (15 page)

“People are going to miss you.”

She looked into his eyes. “That was a nice thing you just said.”

He grinned. “Yeah. It was, wasn’t it?” He looked around at the new building. “I’m still not sure we should have left these kids alive. I have a horrible feeling that’s going to come back around and bite us in a few years.”

“I understand why you’d think that. But we’re not baby killers.”

Serene carried three steaming cups on a tray. “Drink up. Lunch is in an hour and the place gets rowdy.”

Yellow gave her a lopsided grin. “What are we having?”

Serene smiled. After raising three boys, she was used to male appetites. “You can’t tell by the smell? Pig and cabbage wraps.”

“Okay. I’m in.”

Serene turned to Dandy. “What do you think?”

“I’m looking forward to being busy. Put me to work.”

That answer clearly pleased Serene. “What do you want to do?”

“Serve food?”

“We don’t really serve food. We have the kids pick up a tray from that big window over there.” She pointed at a large counter with an opening to the kitchen. “But we really need somebody to manage the whole dining operation. Plan menus. Order supplies. Keep discipline.”

“Keep discipline?”

“Yeah. Sometimes the kids get out of hand. The older ones, well, their lives were violent. They’re not accustomed to civilized behavior.”

“They’re Rautt. What do you expect?” Yellow added.

Both women looked at him, but neither replied to his outburst.

“I think you’d be good at that, Dandy. You have a lot of experience in managing a food and beverage establishment.”

“I’ll try it if you think that’s where I fit best.”

“Only you can say where you fit best. Why don’t we start there and see if you like it? After a while we’ll assign you a group of kids. For now you can sleep in one of the rooms we have for overnight guests. After lunch I’ll get you settled. We need to work fast because I’m going home tomorrow and won’t be back for a few days.”

Yellow spent the afternoon helping the builders even though he’d joked about wanting to get out of work. When it was time for him to go, he sought Dandy out to say goodbye. As she walked him to his bike, she said, “Thank you again for bringing me, Yellow.”

“Anytime. If you want some male company,” and he made it clear by his smile that he meant intimate relations, “send word that you want to see me and I’ll be here right away.”

Dandy was a little scandalized by the offer. “I’m promised, Yellow. You know that.”

His smile fell. He reached up and put a stray strand of hair behind her ear and sighed. “I know. Standing offer though. Just in case.”

He started his bike and gave a cavalier wave as he sped out into the wasteland. Dandelion stood on the hill and watched until she no longer saw the dust plume he churned up in passing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dandelion found that her move to the Rautt Camp, renamed Fosterland, was the best thing she could have done principally because the work and the children kept her too busy to dwell on how things had turned out. Of course her thoughts turned to Crave at times, particularly at night, when everyone was asleep. Even then she was sometimes busy tending to a child’s sick tummy or someone experiencing a night terror.

She’d been assigned a group of eleven-year-olds and it hadn’t taken long for her to begin feeling more than just responsible for them. The biggest difference she could discern between Exiled children and Fosterland children was in education and culture. And Exiled personnel were hard at work trying to superimpose a different perspective of the world and hoping to the gods it wasn’t too late to ‘take’.

The Rautt children hadn’t been taught reading or even the basics of good hygiene, but they were smart enough to catch up and young enough to be pliable. They seemed to be making an emotional adjustment to their new situation and an intellectual adaptation to a new culture.

Serene was planning a field trip to Farsuitwail for the older kids, including Dandy’s group, in another couple of months so that they could see the city. And humans. Dandy thought it would be interesting for her and educational for them. Serene’s hope was that if they visited the city from time to time and focused on things that would be of interest to children, like the playground equipment at the park, there would be less apprehension and perhaps even some excitement when the time came to make a permanent move. Serene had already claimed an entire building for the orphanage near a cluster of centrally located schools. Not all of the Fosterland children would be ready to integrate with human young, but some of them would.

Dandy began to make friends with Trace and some of the other staff. It seemed that it was easier for her to relate to other people after Rosie Storm had opened that door.

Minute by minute, day by day, she found that she was beginning to carve out a new life for herself. She kept her expectations reasonable. She didn’t believe she would reap the happiness or fulfillment that had come from belonging to Crave, but she liked seeing the potential residing in the bright and hopeful gaze of each and every child she cared for. Satisfaction settled around her like a cloak at the end of every day she rocked a baby with an ear infection, or broke up a fight between young and overly aggressive males, or caught a horned frog for the children to pet and admire. The evidence of her contribution was all around her and she was glad for the choice she’d made to cross the desert and seek distraction in a vocation of nurture and caregiving.

There was less stress, knowing that she was not going to see Crave by chance. She still wondered about him, worried about him and loved him. But she found that it was easier to do that on the other side of the desert. She was sure she’d never be able to scrub away the vision of Crave and Midnight. It was a bell that couldn’t be unrung.

She was startled by Trace.

“Come on and have lunch with me, Dandy.” Seeing Dandelion jump, she laughed. “Oh, sorry. Lost in thought again? Where do you go when your mind wanders off?”

Dandy smiled. “Nowhere you’ve been. What’s for lunch?”

“Root vegetable soup from the garden. The kids harvested enough potatoes, carrots, and onions for lunch and they’re excited about getting to eat what they grew. There’s a little chicken in there, too. The ten-year-olds have been taking care of the chicken coop and some of them are unhappy about eating their chickens for lunch. One little female won’t stop crying about it. She must have gotten an extra big helping of human in her makeup.”

“I guess it doesn’t hurt for them to learn early that life is hard and full of disappointments. And death.”

Trace lost her smile. “I don’t know. They lost all their parents, the people they knew and life as they knew it. I think adding chickens to that is, well, it’s overkill.”

Dandy chuckled. “Overkill? You’ve got a dark sense of humor, Trace.”

“I didn’t mean that to be funny and you know it. Change of subject. I’m hungry. Let’s go have some authentic Fosterland soup.”

Crave had been feeling more and more restless. They’d finally let him take on some of the mechanic work at the Bike Barn, but it wasn’t nearly enough to fill his time or use up his energy.

He’d gained back the weight he’d lost. He knew that because he was filling out the clothes he’d been given and told were his. Dr. Reising had reduced her visits to once a week and then once every two weeks. He still had no interest in socializing apart from the sexual release he found with Midnight and a few of the other unpromised females.

One day, when every bike that needed attention or cleaning had been repaired and shined, he double-checked to make sure nothing was left undone and then stepped out into the sun.

The warmth felt good. After the unseasonable cool spell they’d had, summer finally gave up visitor status and settled in to stay until September. He stood with his face turned up to the sun, soaking it in, and decided that a good stiff run and a good hard sweat was just what he needed to burn off some energy.

Newland was quiet in the middle of the day. Everybody was either working in the city, at the Commons kitchen, or in the school. He could head out through the gate and no one would be the wiser. Besides, the reason why he’d been restricted to Newland was because they were afraid he was unpredictable. And the past weeks had shown that he was the definition of predictability.

In fact, no one could be more boring. He stayed up late. Slept late. Worked on bikes. Went to the Commons. Then did the same thing again the next day.

That was what every day had looked like for a long time. But this day was going to be different. He trotted toward the gate, slowing down halfway there because he was distracted by an unusual sound. He stopped and looked up. It was a wind chime hanging from an old hook outside a second story window on the side of a house and looked like the same one that had been in the jail. He liked the tinkling noise, found it strangely comforting and familiar, like he was connected to it in some way he couldn’t quite figure out.

A noise behind him broke the spell and he resumed his jog toward the gate.

He was about to go through when he saw a human boy walking up the road. Since humans never approached Newland, it was nothing less than remarkable. Crave realized that his wish was coming true. The day had already qualified as not boring.

To make the odd occurrence even more interesting, the boy smiled and waved. Crave decided to stand still and wait. When the boy neared the gate, Crave said, “What do you want, human?”

“Oh, when I waved back there, I thought you were Carnal. You look like him. I’m Max. Carnal said that, if I ever needed anything, I should come to Newland and tell someone to find him.”

Crave’s brain and body froze. When he tried to repeat the name the boy had dropped, it got stuck in his throat. His mind was flooded with a rush of images like a dam had burst. Crave’s knees wobbled under him as the memory replayed, the shock of a mortal wound on his brother’s face. He’d glanced down to Carnal’s chest and seen the tip of the blade that had been shoved through Carnal’s back from behind protruding from his heart, with blood soaking his shirt in an ever-widening stain.

Carnal had reached out to him and said, “Crave,” but Crave hadn’t known his brother. So he didn’t respond. The scene continued to replay in his mind. He watched Carnal fall in a heap at his feet. When he turned he saw people charging toward him. He didn’t know them, thought they were Rautt, and he was determined not to be taken alive again.

So he shoved Carnal over, pulled the knife out of his back, and slashed it, with brutal force, across the face of the first person to arrive at the scene; the person who brought him into the world and had sacrificed so much to lovingly care for him every minute of every day. His mother, Serene.

Crave’s head went back when his lungs filled with air and he let out a roar of anguish that frightened Max, understandably. But because Max’s experience with Exiled had been good, he was as much concerned for the male who resembled his friend, Carnal, as he was scared. So he ran ahead through the gate to find help.

Since everyone within a mile had heard Crave, they already knew something bad had happened and several males moved quickly past Max, looking at him with curiosity, but not stopping to find out why he was there.

When Flora hurried his way, she did slow down to hear what Max had to say. “Someone’s in trouble.” He pointed to the road where it stopped at the gate to Newland.

“What do you mean, child?” she said.

“There’s a big guy who looks a lot like Carnal who’s having, I don’t know, a seizure or a heart attack or something.”

Flora nodded and hurried toward the gate.

The males who had run to see what alarm had caused such an outcry, squatted around Crave and looked lost as to what to do next.

She knelt in the dirt beside Crave. “What’s happened, Crave?”

He looked up at her with haunted eyes. “Flora?”

Her breath caught. “You remember,” she whispered. “Let’s get you home. So you can have some privacy with your family.”

She pulled on him, urging him to his feet. He stood shakily, but noticed the boy was standing by. “Why’re you here?”

“Carnal told me that he owed me a favor and that, if I ever needed anything, to come here and have someone fetch him.”

Understanding shone from Flora’s eyes. “Ah, Carnal. He was special. He’s gone now.”