Humanity (16 page)

It felt like he had just laid bare my
soul, even though it was
him
who was
confessing. In some ways, I felt angry – angry that he had seen right through
me, angry that I had been so easy to read. In other ways, it made me feel safe
all over again. Gideon had always been there for me, ready to support me in any
way I’d allow him. He understood me.

He kissed my ear, then my cheek, then my
eyelid. He wrapped his arms around me and I let him hold me for the longest
time.

We didn’t say much more that day; we just
walked, and kissed. As the sun was setting I remembered a part of my physical
body that had been forgotten in the kisses and butterflies: my stomach. It
growled so loudly that Gideon’s head snapped around to look at me.

“Food,” he murmured, eyes wide.

I raised my eyebrows. “Have you ever forgotten
about food before?” I asked.

“Not in a long time. And the weather
scared off the wildlife, so there hasn’t been anything to remind me. And I’ve
been pretty distracted.” He leaned in to kiss me again, then frowned, looking
around. “There should be some wildlife coming out around now, since the sun’s
going down. The only reason for there not to be is if another storm’s coming.”

“
Is
another storm coming?”

“I doubt it. There’s absolutely no clouds
to create one. I think if we just walk silently for a while, something will
come up.”

So we didn’t talk. Eventually, a rabbit
crossed our path. Gideon shot it on sight, and then we found a place to camp.

“Your leg seems to be doing well,” I
noted as we ate. “You seem to hardly be limping. And we walked all day.”

Gideon scowled. “We took a lot of breaks
– a
lot
of breaks – and I feel a
little less weighed down than usual, too.” He nudged my leg with his knee.

I wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t just
getting better, but I didn’t say anything else about it. After we’d finished
eating and had cleaned up, we laid down beside the fire; I curled up in his
arms.

“This won’t be ending ever, correct?”
Gideon asked, tightening his hold.

“Never,” I affirmed. “Though . . . er, we
might have to do something about that shirt.”

“What’s wrong with my shirt?” he asked,
though it sounded like he knew what I meant.

I reddened, but he wouldn’t have been
able to tell in the dark. “It’s a little thick. I miss feeling . . . more of
you.”

He shifted around. “Agreed. I will put it
on my to-do list: get a thinner shirt. As an alternative, lose my shirt
altogether.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I
cautioned.

“No worries; I understand what you mean,
though. I miss having less layers, too.”

He leaned in, and we did more kissing.

~ * ~

Several days later, I awoke to find an
amazingly warm sun on my face. It was as if all traces of winter had
disappeared. I didn’t know for sure, since it was Gideon who had the map in his
head, but we must have been getting close to our destination.

“An orange grove?” I asked later that day
as we walked.

“Yes. We don’t have to spend the entire
winter there, of course – there’s a lot of south U.S. territory we can explore
– but I thought you’d enjoy staying in one place for a while.”

“It’ll be weird,” I said wistfully.

“And there should be a healthy supply of
oranges that we can supplement with hunting trips – I’m sure wildlife will have
overtaken the grove quite well by this point. They’d already started to last
time I was there.”

“What will we do after that?”

“Head east? Stay put all winter? Jump the
Mexican border? Whatever you’d like.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve other
people, right?”

“Preferably. But, you know what? I’d do
anything to make you happy. Even if people were involved, I might just say yes
anyway.”

I smiled up at him. “I’ll still try to
keep your preference in mind if I decide I want to go somewhere.”

“Do you have anywhere in mind?”

“No, but I’ll tell you when I do.”

“Good. Let’s be quiet for a moment – I
thought I heard something over there.” He gestured to our left, stepping in
front of me as he took his gun out.

I assumed he meant an animal, but we
couldn’t be too sure. An animal might mean lunch; anyone else might mean
trouble.

We waited; a bush rustled from several
yards away. Gideon moved toward it, and I carefully followed behind, gun ready
just in case Gideon needed backup.

Something moved from behind the bush,
then a bobcat with deep brown eyes emerged, skulking forward as if
he
were the one hunting
us.

I saw Gideon’s hesitation as he looked
into the animal’s eyes, seeing its instinctive desire to kill us. The bobcat
was doing what he needed to do. But Gideon had needs, too.

He shot the cat directly in the throat,
thanks to its close proximity; the cat dropped to the ground, lifeless.

Gideon walked forward, frowning down at
the body. “I hate it when I can see their eyes,” he muttered.

I took his hand, then lifted mine to
touch his shoulder comfortingly.

Without warning, Gideon shoved me over
the cat and into the bushes; gunfire began almost simultaneously, directed
right at us.

“
Run
,”
he told me, pushing me along. The gunfire continued.

Then Gideon let out a cry of pain.

Chapter 15

No, no, no, no,
no
! “Gideon!”

“Keep going! I’m right behind you!” I did
what he said, relieved that he was still moving; I noted the way he fired back
over his shoulder.

Eventually, the bullets stopped. Gideon
crashed down against a tree, breathing heavily.

My hands were on his face, on his chest,
looking at his clothing, searching for blood, searching for holes. “Where are
you hurt?
Where
?” I demanded, not
impressing myself with my panicked tone.

“I’m fine, Candace.”

“Tell me! The faster we get to
it, the faster - ”

He grabbed my wrists, pushing them away
from him and staring at me until I frantically met his eyes. “I’m fine,
Candace. I’m not shot.”

“
What
?
Then why did you cry out back there? You were hurt!”

“I twisted my ankle; it was my injured
leg, and still hurts, but I’m not dying.”
 
He watched my face as I slowly digested this, then he smiled. “It makes
me happy to see you so worried about me.”

I finally relaxed, then forcefully pulled
my wrists out of his hands. “You are so infuriating,” I told him.

He raised his eyebrows. “Because I’m not
dying?”

“I just. . .” I rubbed my eyes with the
palms of my hands. “I was really worried, that’s all. It wasn’t meant for you
to
enjoy
.”

“I didn’t mean to mislead you about my
state of health. I’m sorry.”

I sighed, looking up at the sky. “I guess
this means no lunch.”

He shrugged. “Whoever that was must have
needed it more than us.”

“I hope so, because I’m starving.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think I can walk
much at the moment.”

“What if I carry you?” I suggested.

He smiled. “How about we just rest for a
while?”

“What if the shooter comes back this
way?”

“They’ll be busy with the bobcat for now;
we’ll worry about them in a bit.”

I settled beside him, and his arm snaked
around me; he rested his nose against my cheek. Soon, the smell of cooking meat
began to reach us.

I groaned. “I bet they won’t expect
another attack from us now.”

“How about let’s not risk that.”

“Is your ankle better yet?

“Are you desperate?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is, but not enough to hunt. Just
enough to get away from the smell.”

“I’ll settle for that for now.”

We walked a quarter of a mile before
crashing again. I settled back under his arm.

“What is it like, having company like me
after so many years alone?” I asked him.

“It’s both strange and wonderful. At the
beginning, it was really weird to be spending so much time talking.”

“We didn’t talk that much.”

“It was way more than I was used to. I
had been alone for years, with only sparse encounters with other humans, and
then there you were wanting to play “I spy” and “Twenty Questions.”

“Do you ever think about whether you only
fell in love with me because I was the first chance you’d ever had to fall in
love?”

“Undoubtedly; it doesn’t make me loving
you any less true, though.”

“Well, what if another pretty girl came
along?”

“In what situation would this happen?”

I thought about it. “She stumbles into
our camp with a broken ankle; you want to take care of her, and then she tries
to seduce you.”

“Wouldn’t work. I’m blind.”

I scowled. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I’m blinded to anyone but
you. You’re the only pretty girl I’m ever going to see.”

“Wow, how did I fall for anyone so
cheesy?”

“Please, let’s not talk about cheese.” He
rubbed his stomach.

I grinned. “Sorry.”

~ * ~

“How much further till we get to the
grove?” I asked, shielding my eyes against the sun as I surveyed the land in
front of us. It had been a week since the bobcat incident, and we’d only had
successful kills three times, with only a few edible plant encounters to help
this along. We weren’t in the forest anymore, and had been traveling southeast,
assumedly parallel to interstate 5. We could usually see buildings close by,
but never ventured near them.

Gideon frowned at my question. “Actually,
I think we should have hit it by now. I’d been wondering for a few days, but
now I’m feeling more certain that we missed it.”

“How’d we miss it?” I asked, puzzled.

“Candace, I know my mental map is mostly
reliable, but it’s been
years
since
I’ve been here.”

I guess I’d started thinking his ability
to direct us places was infallible, but he
was
human after all. “Maybe we should get directions,” I suggested.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “From
whom?” We were alone, though I did hear a few birds chirp as they flew above
our heads, too out-of-sight to try and shoot.

“We need to get to a main road,” I said.
“What way would that be?”

“I hardly would trust my judgment, since
I caused us to miss our destination, but I’d hazard a guess at
that
way.” He pointed due west.

His guess was logical, considering the
grid of freeways the U.S. government had designed. I nodded. “Agreed.” We
turned that direction, feeling our way out of the trees.

It was another hour before we met the
road.

“I think we should go north now,” I
suggested. “Since we’ve already missed the grove, we don’t want to end up
getting further away while looking for someone who knows what we’re talking
about. And maybe that way we’ll come across it before actually needing to ask
about it.”

“Very optimistic,” Gideon pronounced.
“Let’s do that.”

“You don’t think we’ll happen across it?”
I asked as we turned north and began walking along the road.

“I doubt it; it was off a rougher road
than this – all gravel, and nowhere near a freeway.”

“Well, I guess that won’t happen. But we
still won’t get any further away than we already are, correct?”

“I certainly hope not.”

We camped beside the road that night. The
next day, in the late hours of the morning, we came to an exit sign, directing
nonexistent traffic to a ramp.

I stopped, looking up the ramp and
craning my neck so I could see as far as possible.

“You think we should take this exit?”
Gideon asked, noting my craned neck.

“Can you see anything that suggests
people are here? A collection of buildings, or anything?” He was taller than
me, so his line of vision stretched just a little further.

“Yes, there are a group of houses at the
far end of that road.” He pointed, frowning.

I grabbed his hand, pulling him toward
the ramp. “Let’s go there. Houses suggest the potential for people to gather.”

“So they can start a garden? Why would
they do that if there’s an orange grove nearby? If there’s anyone in one of
those houses, then they probably don’t know about the oranges.”

“Some people don’t like sleeping on dirt
all the time; they like a roof over their head. Besides, I don’t think anyone
would choose to
only
live off oranges
for an entire winter if they could help it.”

“Do
you
want a roof over your head?” Gideon asked.

“It’s not important to me, but I do like
feeling clean; that doesn’t happen much out here.”

He frowned some more, probably thinking
about whether he really wanted to go near other humans just for the sake of an
orange grove.

“Come
on
.
We won’t be there for long.”

“Fine,” he relented, moving forward and
allowing me to drag him along. “Just a short visit.” His last words sounded
almost as if he were comforting himself.

“Yes. Just a short visit.” We walked up
the ramp, then along the road. I could tell the neighborhood had once been a
nice one, but now the trees had overgrown their beds, and the flowers had been
choked out with weeds. The paint on the houses was chipped, and many of their
fences were falling apart.

I eyed each of the houses, looking for
one that seemed occupied. It was abnormal for people to inhabit a building
long-term without others as a part of their group; they wouldn’t be able to defend
their territory without a large number. Because of this, the most likely
scenario in which we found someone would involve sentinels at the entrance.

We turned a corner, and there they were.
I gripped Gideon’s hand in excitement, though I could feel his tension. As the
guards caught sight of us, they straightened and raised their guns. I placed my
gun in my pocket and held up my hands; Gideon didn’t put his own weapon down.

“We need directions,” I called to them,
drawing closer with Gideon at my back.

“Your friend either puts his gun down or
stays back,” one called back to me.

I looked at Gideon questioningly; he
nodded at me and stopped walking, though he kept his gun flickering between the
two men.

The way the men looked at me was the way
men had always looked at me: like I was a meal they wouldn’t mind consuming.
Though these men seemed more weary of checking me out too closely. Why was
that? Was I different than before? It couldn’t be because of Gideon, because I
had almost always had a protector with me before – and men had looked at me
even in my father’s presence.

Or maybe it
was
Gideon.

I glanced back at him before continuing
towards the guards. Gideon
was
much
larger than my father ever was, and the way he was watching me now seemed more
possessive than the way my father had watched me in the past. I was
his
, and not in a father-daughter sort
of way.

I met the guards. “We’re looking for an
orange grove that should be close to here. Do either of you know where that
might be?”

The shorter man scratched his scruffy
jaw. “Yeah. If you get back on I-5 and walk two more exits north, you’ll be
close; take that exit, then turn left. Keep walking till you hit the trees, and
you’ll be there.”

I grinned. “Thank you.”

“Careful, though,” the taller one
inserted. “Most of our group here doesn’t like going there on account of the
bear problem.”

“Bear problem?”

“Yeah. They like the trees.”
“Are there more bears there than in the other trees around here, though?”

The man shrugged. “Dunno. Just telling
you what I heard.”

“Well, thanks.” I nodded at each of them
in turn, ignoring the way their eyes followed me.

I turned to face Gideon, but his eyes
were no longer watching the guards. They were raised upward, focused on a
window on the second floor of the house. I walked to him, and he never stopped
looking at that window. I turned and looked, too.

The window was open; a man stood there,
silhouetted against the sun. His features were clear, his hair jet black. His
face was thin and gaunt; the skin stretched against his cheeks, making him look
haunted and almost dead. But something seemed strong about him, and a fire
burned in his wrinkled eyes.

“Gideon?” I asked, turning away from the
window to look at him.

Gideon blinked, then looked down at me.
His eyebrows had a slight furrow in them and he seemed dazed; his eyes looked
faraway, and his mouth was turned down in a frown.

“Are you okay?” I asked, puzzled. I knew
he didn’t like humans, but we’d been around humans before and he’d never acted
quite like this.

He looked back at the window, so I did,
too. The man was gone.

“Let’s go,” he said urgently, his eyes
clearing; he grabbed my arm and propelled me through the gate.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded, allowing him
to pull me along.

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I want
to focus on getting away from here as quickly as possible. Can you run?”

“Of course I can run. The question is,
can you? I don’t know if your injury is healed enough to try. You might end up
hurting yourself worse.”

“It’s been two and a half months.”

“It’ll take you much longer than that to
be back to full strength – or as close as you’ll get, anyway.”

“How about one mile at your running
pace?”

“Why are you so desperate to get away?”
“
I’ll tell you later.
Let’s run.”

I sighed, but broke into a jog. When he
kept up with that for a moment or two, I moved faster. “One mile,” I breathed,
reminding him.

“Agreed.”

It felt great to run, but all the time I
worried about Gideon by my side. His breathing didn’t sound good, and I
urgently wanted to know why he was in such a hurry.