CRAVE (24 page)

Crave was coming.

And he was returning to her as a male who felt redeemed.

Around midnight she heard someone approaching in the darkness. She could make out the half-grown figure of one of the orphans. Judging by the size, she guessed it might be one of hers. Since they were the oldest of the children, they were also the biggest.

She could tell by the way he walked that it was a male. She didn’t call out, but waited silently to see what would happen. When he came closer, she saw that it was Dread. Of all the Rautt orphans who might be future trouble, she’d name him the most likely suspect, not because of causing trouble, but because of his silence and the way he stared, taking everything in, giving nothing away.

The Rautt were hybrids like Exiled, but they weren’t engineered the same way. Whereas, the Exiled were mostly human-feline, Rautt were something else. Possibly human-canine. Their coloring was different from Exiled, and their were slight differences in their posture, carriage, and overall attitude.

Dread’s hair was a mixture of black and gray, sort of attractive in Dandy’s opinion. His eyes were gray and piercing with what she thought could be spite, hatred, perhaps malice. He didn’t speak, but watched everything around him with an alert intensity that conveyed intelligence.

He stopped next to her and held something out in his hand.

“What’s this?” she said, as she reached for the offering.

“Tea,” he said in a surprisingly gruff voice, surprising because she’d never heard him speak before. “Hot.”

She smiled, feeling a little amazed. “You brought me tea?” He didn’t answer. Even eleven-year-olds can recognize rhetorical questions when they hear them. She opened the top of the thermos and sniffed. Thoughts of poison did flit across her brain, but intuition told her it was safe. She took a sip. “Thank you, Dread. It’s good.”

He didn’t reply. He also didn’t leave.

“Do you want to sit down?” He hesitated, but she could tell he was debating. “It’s cold. You need to either share these blankets with me or go back to the dorm.”

He sat down next to her.

Sensing that he’d be uncomfortable with too much closeness, she pulled the top two blankets from the pile around her shoulders and draped them over him.

When he was settled, she said, “So. If you’re staying for a while, why don’t you talk to me and help me stay awake?”

He fidgeted next to her for a minute or two and then said, “Why are you out here?”

“Do you know what love is?”

“Not really.”

“Well, there are different kinds. I mean the kind of love that happens between mates when they’re meant for each other. When a male and a female are perfect for each other, they want to be together and there’s nothing better in the world.

“When I was just a little older than you are now, I found that I loved somone like that. The war caused us to be separated for a long time. Then he lost his memory for a while. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know anybody. Didn’t even know his own name. I was sad. So I came here to be with you and the other children. And that made me feel better.

“Now my special somebody has his memory again. He knows what we are to each other, but thinks he needs to prove to me that he still feels the same. So he’s on the way here. Crossing that desert out there on foot. It’s very dangerous and very, very hard. I don’t think anybody has ever done it.

“I can’t help him do this thing he feels he needs to do, but I
can
sit here and wait for him. I don’t expect you to understand. Even the other grownups don’t get it.”

Dread shifted uneasily next to her and was quiet for a while, but broke his silence at length. “I understand.”

“You do?”

“When he comes, your male, are you going to leave?”

“Honestly, I haven’t thought about it.”

She was aware that he was fidgeting in a nervous sort of way before he said, “I don’t want you to go.”

That simple statement caused a flood of emotion to wash over her. She knew it must have been hard for someone like Dread to make that admission.

When she’d come to Fosterland, her goal was to stay so busy during the day she didn’t have time to think about Crave, and to be so tired at night she had no choice but to sleep.

She hadn’t expected to become fond of the children. Or to feel needed. It was a strange ball of sensations that took root and tangled around her heart. She made her decision on impulse, but nothing had ever felt more right.

“I want to. I can’t promise because I have somebody else to take into consideration, but I hope to stay. Thank you for telling me how you feel. It means a lot to me. And I know you wanted an honest grownup answer. So that’s what I’m giving you.”

They stared out at the darkness for a long time in companionable silence.

“Do you want me to go get him for you?” he said. Dandy was still unused to the sound of Dread’s deep gruff tones, so incongruent with his size. Her mind had to process what was being said while trying to reconcile the strangeness of the delivery at the same time.

Dandy suppressed a laugh, but allowed herself a smile. It seemed it was a night for learning that people besides Crave held her in affectionate regard.

“That’s the most heroic thing anyone has ever said to me, Dread. And I’ll never forget it. But Crave has to do this all by himself.”

“That’s his name?”

“Yes. Crave.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s strong and handsome. Like you’re going to be when you grow up. But that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that he’s fiercely loyal. No one is more ferocious in a fight, or so I’m told. But he’s gentle and caring with those who are not as strong, like me and the young where I’m from in Newland. He’s liked by his friends. He’s good at games. And there’s a possibility that he is the most stubborn person ever born.”

It clawed at Dandelion’s heart when she heard Dread ask, “Will he like me?”

She thought about her answer. Truthfully, she didn’t know how Crave would feel about the children of his tormentors.

“If he doesn’t like you, then he’s an ass.”

Dread threw back his head and barked out a joyful laugh. And Dandy thought it was the most precious gift she’d ever received, next to having been given Crave’s heart when she was about the same age as the boy sitting next to her.

“It means so much to me that you brought me tea and came to keep me company on my watch, but now, speaking as your monitor, I want you to go back inside. Go to bed. Get your sleep. Because tomorrow is another day.”

He began to shuffle a little. “I know how to build a fire. It would keep you warmer.”

“That’s a really tempting offer, but the light would interfere with my night vision and I wouldn’t be able to see him coming.”

“He’s lucky,” Dread said before returning the blankets by laying them over Dandy’s shoulders as they’d been before.

That two-word phrase almost broke down the barrier she’d built against tears because that was what Crave used to say.
I’m lucky to have you, Dandy.
Nothing ever did more for her sense of self-worth than hearing that from Crave.

She listened to Dread’s retreating footsteps and wondered how he’d managed to slip past Sabre. She must either be a really sound sleeper or the kid was stealth personified.

She took a few more drinks of the good stuff, feeling the warmth slide down her esophagus and heat up her belly. She didn’t know if she could send her thoughts across space from the Fosterland promontory, where she sat cross-legged, to Crave’s heart, but she hoped he felt the love that had never, for a moment, stopped burning for him. Not even when it was a painful, third degree burn.

Near daylight it was so cold the band of Exiled following Crave were shivering. Those who had less fat on their bodies were shaking from the cold in spite of the alcohol’s warming agent. Add to that the fatigue and desire to sleep and some of the bikes were weaving. Crave decided that it was time to give everybody something else to think about.

Having a reputation for a strong and beautiful singing voice, he was the perfect choice to lead the group in song. Those who could sing opened their mouths and joined in. Those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, recited the words in their head. But everyone responded, allowing the music to open their hearts and they thrilled in the solidarity of Exiled overcoming tribulation together.

On the day of reckoning

By the angel’s hand

Came the Exiled to freedom

In a place called Newland.

They lived and loved

As children of gods

And fought great battles

Defying all odds.

On the mountain of Tebbe

By the Snow River’s waters

Came they to freedom

Their sons and their daughters

Generations will know

Down through the ages

Storytellers and elders

And poets and sages

That the people of Exiled

Are free and proud

Sing it here. Sing it now.

Sing it far. Sing it loud.

The saga in song continued for many verses which every member of Exiled knew by heart.

After all the liquids, Dandy knew she couldn’t wait to pee any longer. She wasn’t looking forward to baring her ass to the cold, but there was no way around it. She walked away from Fosterland, careful about her footing in the dark, and peed on some rocks. Her teeth were chattering by the time she covered herself again and she hurried back to form a new cocoon of blankets.

A few times during the hours that followed, she caught herself nodding off and jerked upright. The last thing she wanted was for Crave to make it across the wasteland and find her asleep. She’d take another hit of spirits to stave off the shivers then she’d resume watch. But sometime during the night, sleep did claim her. Maybe it was the depletion of energy. Maybe it was partly due to the cider’s anesthetic agent. In any case, she slept. She didn’t know for how long, but something woke her.

A breeze had begun to pick up with sunrise less than an hour away. Since it was coming from the south, it was blowing a chill right into her face.

When she first opened her eyes, she thought she’d heard voices, like a chorus singing on the wind but she listened hard and didn’t hear it again. She supposed it was a strange dream, the sort of joke the gods loved to play on people.

Her body had grown so stiff from sitting in the same position for so long in the cold, she decided to stretch her muscles. She stood, holding the pile of blankets around her. They fell to her shins which meant that she had to give up the extra layers between knees and ankles. The difference in temperature was significant.

Several juicy swear words circulated in her mind, but she didn’t vocalize because the wind was blowing in the direction of the sleeping children, and hybrid kids had exceptional hearing. Some of the curses that felt most appropriate at the moment would be hard to explain to their young charges.

She adjusted the blankets around her as best she could and turned her attention to the horizon. That was when she saw it.

The three and a half feet of height she gained from standing made her feel colder, but it gave her a vantage point that allowed her to see further. She didn’t know what she was looking at, but there were dozens of lights in the distance hovering close to each other and moving very slowly. Her mind ran through several scenarios trying to speculate on what it could mean. The only thing she came up with was that a lot of Exiled, Crave’s family and friends, had decided to tag along and make sure he made it.