Ann Aguirre: Enclave

“Maybe she’d make some for me?” Once the stinging stopped, it felt better. I felt it cleaning and tightening the skin. I’d take clean scars over seeping wounds any day.

“I don’t see why not. I’ll introduce you.” The warmth in his tone said he liked Banner, unlike the rest of us.

I frowned. First Thimble, now Fade. I should meet the girl, if only to find out what was so great about her. And request some of that salve too. I didn’t kid myself this was the last injury I would suffer. Assuming we lived.

I cut another strip from my shirt. His fingers brushed mine when I handed him the cloth, and his touch was gentle when he wrapped my shoulder. Part of my hair had come loose from its cord, and Fade brushed my hair away, keeping it out of the knots he tied. I felt strange, like I should move away right now , but he did it for me. I watched without meaning to, without wanting to, as he put the salve away.

By that point, I felt almost too tired to eat. I went to lie down, but he said, “No way, new blood. Eat. Drink. You have to stay strong, because I’m not carrying you.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” I muttered.

Growling mentally over nearly making such a basic mistake, I got out my provisions. I went about it mechanically. He ate with a little more enthusiasm, but he’d been patrolling longer than I had. No amount of training could substitute for actual experience. I’d get stronger. I had to.

“We should both be able to sleep,” I said. “If they find us, we’ll hear them trying to get in.”

“Agreed. And if we don’t get a full night’s rest, it will cost us down the line.”

In reflex, speed, and stamina, certainly. I didn’t want to think about other costs. “Will another day of running get us there?”

“It should.”

“What will we do then?”

He shrugged. “Impossible to say until we scope things out.”

A moment later, he delved into his bag a second time and produced a silver square. Fade flipped the top of it, rubbed his thumb along the side, and a thin flame shot up. I scrambled back. “What’re you doing ?”

“Remembering.”

“What?”

“Before.”

My patience ran thin; I didn’t care to drag his past out of him. “What is it?”

“A lighter.” For the first time, he volunteered information. “It used to be my dad’s. Like the watch.”

I paused amid dragging my blanket out of my bag. “You remember him?”

“Yeah.”

That rocked me. In the enclave, we barely knew who our sires were. Most of them died before we got old enough to recognize their faces, and it wasn’t like it mattered. All Breeders looked after us until we were old enough to take basic brat schooling.

“Fade,” I began.

“That’s not my name.” He sounded angry, but not at me.

“It is now. Maybe somebody gave you a different name before, but you earned this one. That makes it true.” With every fiber of my being I believed that.

A sigh escaped him. “Yeah. I guess. What did you want to ask me?”

“Where are you from, really?”

I figured he’d name one of the distant settlements. Most people thought he’d gotten lost and somehow managed to survive on his own in the tunnels until our patrols found him. I didn’t expect him to say:

“Topside.”

“Fine,” I muttered. “Lie to me. I don’t care.”

Nobody lived up there. Nothing grew. Water fell from the sky and scored everything. We’d all heard the stories from the Wordkeeper. Disgusted, I rolled up in my blanket on a bench that ran parallel to the exterior wall. From this spot, the Freaks wouldn’t be able to see me from the outside. They might smell us all around this car, but they wouldn’t see us, and they weren’t very bright as a general rule. I ignored Fade pointedly until I fell asleep.

This time, oblivion brought no bad dreams. I went where everything was dark and quiet, and I stayed there until I awoke naturally. Fade appeared to be asleep as I pushed the hair from my eyes. It had fallen out of the tail I wore to keep it neat.

His voice stilled me, no more than a thread of sound. “Don’t move.”

“Why?” I breathed.

And then I didn’t need to hear an answer. Movement outside told me all I needed to know. Freaks prowled around outside the car; I couldn’t tell how many from the motions, but they suspected our presence. They smelled us.

I jumped as one slammed against the glass, trying to see into the shadows within. I willed myself smaller. Another thud — a Freak climbed onto the roof. How many? I needed to know the odds if they started pounding until glass splintered everywhere.

Maybe if we’re really still, they’ll go away.

The moments felt endless while they snarled and growled and yelped outside. I resisted the impulse to cover my eyes like a baby brat in hopes the scary things would go away. Instead I listened and tried to gather information. Based on the noise and the movement, there had to be fifteen of them out there. Maybe more.

And we were trapped.

“I’ve never seen so many of them together,” I whispered.

I shouldn’t have spoken. Though I’d thought my words were so quiet as to be barely audible, one of the Freaks heard me. It went wild, slamming repeatedly against the glass until it began to splinter.

“Up!” Fade shouted. “They know we’re here. Get your weapons.”

There was no room for the club, much to my dismay, so it would have to be daggers. Thanks to Thimble, they fit my palms perfectly. I rolled to my feet as the glass broke. The Freak pushed its torso into the car and I went for the jugular. Twin slashes opened its neck and its disgusting blood jetted out. Then it hung in the broken window like a grotesque blockade, until other Freaks began to tear at it. A few of them fed; others were obviously trying to remove it to get to us.

“How much trouble are we in?” The one on the roof started to jump, as if its weight could break through the metal.

“Depends on how smart they are.”

“Have you been in a situation like this before?”

Incredibly, he smiled. “I doubt anyone has.”

Why did Silk have to put me with a crazy partner? So many solid, experienced Hunters to choose from and I got Fade. Life wasn’t fair at all.

The stench hit me like a club; the Freaks had torn the one in the window apart. At least half of them entered a feeding frenzy. They knelt and shoved the bloody gobbets of meat into their mouths, their razor-sharp teeth and claws shining red even in the dark.

“As long as they don’t start breaking other windows, we should be fine,” I said.

And then they attacked the other side of the car. Fade vaulted over two rows of seats to position himself, daggers in hands. I had to stay where I was and guard this opening. I didn’t let myself think what would happen if they spread out farther.

Another Freak threw itself at the opening. I missed the neck this time, but I caught it with a side shot, vital organ territory, as it struggled to clear its legs. Like the other, it hung, wretched and dying, while its kin ripped at it.

Fade was doing fine on his end, employing the same tactics. The dead bodies served as an excellent distraction. While Freaks wouldn’t attack their own kind while they lived, if they were dying, it became a different story. Meat was meat.

Their screams and snarls made the hair of my arms stand on end. We held our ground, guarding the two breach points, until they went to work on another window. Two Freaks pounded repeatedly on the glass until it stressed. While killing another, I watched the growing web of cracks with dismay and then fear.

We were going to be overrun.