The Vigilantes (The Superiors) (4 page)

Draven had bought all the things he thought he might need for his car trip and for a few days camping. He hadn’t bought snowshoes, or skis, or anything to help him cross a two-foot layer of snow. For a few moments, he let himself feel the self-pity and frustration that had built in him since he’d encountered the obstacles on the road. He only indulged himself for a moment on that snowy evening. He didn’t let himself despair.

After going so far, he couldn’t let anything stop him. When he’d left his home, he’d told himself that he’d never give up. Even that morning in the snow, when things looked hopeless, he intended to stick to that promise. So he packed all his supplies into the two backpacks, cursed himself for spending nearly two hundred anyas on a solar car-charger, and got out of the car. Then he hoisted a pack on his back and one on his front and set off in the thigh-deep drifts of snow.

When he set off on foot, he kept to the road at first. He hesitated to enter the forest. Simply looking at all those trees filled him with a dark sense of foreboding. Everything around him appeared menacing and dangerous. For the first time since his human days, his surroundings frightened him. He’d grown so accustomed to the safety of the city, of steel and glass and people, that the forest gave him an apprehension he’d forgotten in his
Superior
life. In the woods everything frightened him, filling his mind with irrational terror at inanimate objects.

He wondered if saps felt that way all the time—like each small thing around them had the potential to end their lives. Lots of things could kill sapiens. Perhaps they grew accustomed to it. Perhaps they no longer feared because they simply had too much to fear, and they couldn’t think of all the ways to die. Draven didn’t remember being afraid of many things as a human—only Superiors. Now almost nothing frightened him. Except wood.

Like all Superiors, Draven had a great fear of wood. Once a sap had stabbed him with a wooden shard and he’d almost died. He himself had killed a man with a wooden dagger. In one of his jobs, he’d spent years confiscating illegal stashes of wood that sapiens sometimes collected. He’d searched for contraband items and routinely found little scraps of wood that seemed to materialize out of nowhere and find their way into sapiens’ possession. Most of them didn’t know what it could do. But Superiors knew.

His greatest nightmare engulfed him the morning he entered the forest—wood. As far as he could see in every direction, thousands upon thousands of trees, forming the forest that surrounded him. When he had so very little to fear in his life, the one thing that frightened him had grown to impossible proportions in his mind.

What if he fell through the snow onto a broken tree limb? What if the ice and snow weighed down a branch, and it broke and plummeted downward, impaling him in the process? What if he slid into a tree and impaled himself? What if…

Draven pushed the thoughts away, steeled himself, gathered his determination, and waded forwards through the snow. He kept his hands close to his body, but he didn’t dare keep them inside his clothes next to his skin. It would help keep them nearer his body temperature, but he couldn’t afford to have them so inaccessible once he’d entered the forest. He must have them ready in case he tripped, or slipped, or had to knock a falling branch away.

While he walked, he thought of his prize, of
Cali
. When he’d had her, for a brief illegal stay, he’d treated her well. Hadn’t he? He had let her sleep in his bed, had talked to her, calmed her when she grew frightened. He’d thought she would appreciate him for that, but she hadn’t. She was petulant, and unpredictable, and difficult. And delicious, amusing, vivacious, and fascinating. He was certain she would remember him when he reached her. After he’d introduced himself to her, told her his name, she must remember. On top of breaking that taboo and telling a sap his name, he’d bought her things to eat, good things, and healed some of her wounds that Byron had left open.

He thought of what a rash and foolish thing he’d done. Leaving home, coming so far, disobeying a Second, and for what? For a sap who hated him half the time.

His journey through the mountains was slow going, with two packs and nothing in his possession meant to withstand the temperature or snow. Draven’s hands began to freeze, as well as his feet. The snow didn’t melted much on his clothes, since he wasn’t able to stay warm, but after a while it had soaked through his jeans and made walking difficult. He changed trousers often, walked kilometers without seeing anything but trees and snow and rocks, and sat in the snow to eat his packets of dried sap. After a week or so, he’d eaten it so often that he’d become accustomed to the awful taste. And at least the snow ensured that he never ran out of water to go with it.

When first he set out, he couldn’t tell if he made any progress at all. He didn’t even know for certain that he traveled in the right direction. But Byron had said north, so Draven went north. He studied his maps, his topography maps and the ones marking the towns, overlapping them to try to determine which smallish city would need an Enforcer. He could have called Byron again, given up his pride and asked for the specific city. But he didn’t want to arouse his friend’s anger, didn’t want to risk Byron saying no to his visit. So he walked on, feeling the heaviness of solitude sink down upon him. No one knew Draven’s whereabouts, where he had gone, his destination. No one would come looking for him. He found a strange peace in the realization.

Chapter 7

Cali
was sleeping when the trailer stopped. She had warmed herself with some exercises before she slept, and she didn’t wake at first. She couldn’t tell night from day inside the trailer, and she didn’t have much to do in the daytime anyway. Once, she’d gotten up and paced around the cramped space until the trailer hit a bump. She’d fallen against the wall and split her forehead open. After that she had been more careful, but she couldn’t stand just sitting still all day and night, doing nothing and going somewhere. She didn’t know where they were going, but she knew she’d never see her family again.

It seemed too cruel that she’d gotten back to the Confinement only to lose her mother and then get sold away. She almost wished she’d never gone back. At least then the hurt stayed old. Now she had to miss her family all over again.

When she woke in the trailer, she expected to get bitten right away like usual. Instead, two shapes blotted out the meager light that came through the doorway. Something looked wrong about the outside world, about the strange brightness in the night, but she didn’t have time to worry about it. She sat up, pulling the blanket tighter around herself, and tried not to get too scared. For the most part she succeeded.

“Get in there,” her master said. He pushed the figure and it came stumbling towards
Cali
. For a second she couldn’t decide if she should be relieved or afraid. She couldn’t tell in the dark what the man was,
Superior
or human. “There’s one of you already in here,” her master said, clearing up the question in her mind. “You should get along just fine. Once we’re settled you can start making me more saps.”

Master handed a cup to each of his humans. “Now get me a good amount, I’m going to be hungry soon. No need to sit here waiting while you run some sap out. Just put it in these cups, and I’ll stop in a while to get it.”

He came to
Cali
and bit her, and then bit her new companion, who let out a high yelping sound. When Master had gone,
Cali
sat cross-legged on the floor and held the cup under her arm, squeezing the way Master had taught her. She couldn’t see the blood running out or hear it drip into the plastic cup, but she could feel it running over her cold arm. It felt so hot against her skin she could hardly believe it came from her vein.

“What am I supposed to do with the cup?” her companion asked.

“Hold it under the bite, and squeeze on your arm to make the blood come out in the cup.”

“Isn’t he gonna close up the bite mark?” The boy sounded young—and incredulous.

“No,”
Cali
said. She’d gotten so used to Master that the thought of him closing up a bite was laughable. “He never does.”

“But it hurts,” the boy said, dismay clear in his voice.

“Yeah, it does. Better get used to it. Did he buy you, too?”

“I don’t know, I guess so.”

“Were you in a Confinement?”

“A what?”

“You know, where all the people live. The humans. And the Superiors come and drink our blood and buy us and stuff.”

“Oh, no, that sounds just awful,” the boy said.

“It’s not so bad. I had a garden, and we all helped out and stored the food for everyone to eat. And the Superiors sold our extra blood so we didn’t always have to get bit five times a day. I liked it.”

“It sounds just awful to me. No, I was in this little bitty town, you know, or that’s what I was told. I never saw it, of course. But that’s what I heard. A man owned me.”

“He sold you?”

“Yeah, well, he owned a bunch of us, like twenty maybe. We worked for him, and he rented us out, for labor during the day or for feedings. He was working on getting a bunch of the females bred, you know, so he could sell the babies when they get bigger.”

“Are you serious? That’s so awful.”

“It is?” he asked. “Well, I don’t know about that. I heard lots of places farm out the babies and all. I mean, my master was a businessman. He had to earn money somehow, you know.”

“So you liked him, I guess.”

“Oh yeah. Sweetie, he was the best. He was a good-looking one, too, and just so nice to us all. We were all just in love with him.”

“In love? With a
Superior
?”
Cali
laughed, but the boy didn’t.

“Oh yeah. You would’ve been too if you’d seen him. Girl, let me tell you, he was…mmm. Any of us was happy to call him Master any time of day, or night.”

“Really? You were really in love with your master?”

“Oh, sweetie. Course we were. Most all the girls, anyway. He treated us real nice. It happens all the time, you know.”

“I didn’t know that. I can’t imagine loving one of them. I mean, they drink our blood. They hurt us all the time. How can you love one?”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, girl. Some of them are…mm mmm mmm. So good I’d drink their blood if they’d let me.”

Cali
laughed at this bizarre idea. She didn’t think she’d ever want to drink anyone’s blood, last of all a
Superior
’s. She tried to think of the best one she’d met, maybe the one with soft hair who’d told her his name. Draven. He was nice, like a lot of the others. But none of the others, no matter how kind, had ever talked to her the way Draven had. Like she was a real person instead of his animal. Like he really wanted to know what she thought, and like he took what she said into consideration.

She’d talked to some Superiors, and some had talked to her, but no one else had ever told her his name before. And when she talked to Draven it felt different, almost like they were having a conversation. None of the other Superiors ever cared enough to heal up a bite mark they didn’t make. Why couldn’t she have been sold to one of the nicer ones, like him or her companion’s master? But then she thought of plenty of times when Draven had treated her mean, and she thought maybe she didn’t want one like him. But a nicer one than the one she’d gotten, for sure.

“I’m
Cali
. What’s your name?” she said after a few minutes.

“
Shelton
. But everyone just calls me Shelly.”

“You are a boy, right?”
Cali
asked, just to make sure. She hoped he wouldn’t get offended.

He laughed instead. “Girl, you are too funny. Course I’m a boy. What do I sound like?”

“I don’t know, I just had to make sure. It’s not like I can see you.”

“True. But I know you’re a girl without asking.”

“So. If your master was so great and all, why’d he sell you?”

“I hadn’t succeeded in producing any offspring yet, so that might be why. Plus, you know, he’d rather sell off the young males and keep the females to keep having babies, and just a few males. I guess your master liked my smell. But I sure hope he’s not mean. I’m not very good with pain.”

“Oh, that’s not good.”

“Girl, don’t scare me that way.”

“I’m not trying to. He’s just not the most…gentle…master. Or he isn’t to me. Maybe he’ll be nicer to you,”
Cali
said, but she didn’t believe it. She knew more about Superiors than most people her age from all the ones who had fed off her when she’d worked at restaurants. Her master didn’t seem like one to have favorites, or at least to treat them better. She was his favorite, and he didn’t exactly treat her like a treasured possession.

When the motion of the vehicle stopped again, Shelly moved over to
Cali
and grabbed her arm in his cold hand. “Oh, goodness. I’m so scared,” he said, huddling close.

Cali
waited for the door to open and held out her cup. Shelly did the same with a trembling hand. Master took both cups and poured them together and tasted from it.