Ann Aguirre: Enclave

I caught a claw in the side. The pain astonished me, but before the Freak could fully rip into me, I stabbed it through the hand, and it wrenched back, worsening my wound. But not as bad it could’ve been. I still had my guts in place. I ignored the pain and sank my other knife deep into its chest. Punch and pull, as Silk had taught me. The monster fell, but two more took its place.

Tiring, I fell back, slipping in the blood and guts. They came at me from both sides, and I took them with twin downward slashes, just as Stalker had taught me. I had no doubt the extra training saved my life. I turned to see how they were faring, only to watch Stalker and Fade drop the last Freak, cutting into it in unison. They were fierce, beautiful, and oddly complementary, like the moon in the night sky. For a moment, I studied Fade’s darkness and the fair gleam of Stalker’s hair, and I ached .

I covered my injury with one hand as we stumbled toward Tegan’s hiding place. She sat up, her face tight with pain. “Did we make it?”

“Yes,” Fade said. “I don’t think another tracking party can catch up to us.”

I wasn’t so sure, especially now that we were all covered in blood, and two of us wounded. To make matters worse, we all desperately needed a rest, and if we stopped here, now, they’d pounce on us while we slept. But I recognized that Tegan needed reassurance. I let the lie stand, but when Fade’s eyes met mine, I called him on it silently. He lifted his shoulders in a quiet shrug of acknowledgment.

As the sky lightened, I dug in my bag for my sunglasses. I still couldn’t see as well as the others during the daytime; maybe I never would. I’d do my best to compensate with hearing and smell. My bloody fingers left smears on the sidepieces, and my hands trembled as they fell. I pressed the right one to my side again, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it felt. I remembered how the Wolf had died on the steps of the library. I didn’t want a quick and merciful death — what was more, I didn’t want to see how easy it would be for Stalker to do it.

Keep moving, I told myself. Just like the tunnels.

Stalker took the lead this time, and Fade swung Tegan into his arms. I stumbled after him, knowing both of us needed our wounds tended, but there was nothing but this dusty, silent road, leading endlessly into the distance. The fields around it stood empty and quiet, only the lone tree occasionally breaking the rise and fall of the land. It was green and lush and lovely, damp with what Stalker called morning dew, and I wondered if it would be the last dawn we ever saw.

Still, I walked on.

Stalker found us shelter in the overhang of a ravine. Despite the bandage, Tegan passed out, her skin taking on a pale and sickly sheen. When I checked the wound, I saw she had been bleeding; the fabric was soaked. If we didn’t get it stopped, she would die, no question. Bonesaw would’ve taken a needle and thread to it, but we had none. So I knew of only one thing we could do.

“Get some wood,” I told Stalker. “And build a fire.”

Though he must’ve been exhausted too, he rose and went to do as I asked, gathering the scrubby grasses, leaves, and fallen twigs he could find first, and then he ran off toward a distant tree. Breaking limbs would create a smoky blaze, but it couldn’t be helped.

Fade sat with her quietly, her head in his lap. I recognized in his nature the Hunter instinct; it drove him to be fierce and protective of those weaker than him. Maybe that was why she drew him. She needed that part of him because she had no matching instincts. In that sense Stalker was right; she was a Breeder, but I no longer thought that was a bad thing. If not for them, our world would not go on, even in its limping way.

I scraped one dagger clean as best I could. The flames would do the rest.

“You think this will work?” Fade asked. He knew what I was planning, of course.

“Don’t know. But if we don’t seal that wound—”

“I know.”

Before long, Stalker returned with his arms full of wood. I arranged it and then we started the fire, using the twigs and leaves first, and encouraged the green wood to burn. It caught slowly, but with continual attention it stoked up. The smoke would signal any Freaks in the area to our location, but sometimes you had to make the hard choice.

I cut away the fabric from Tegan’s thigh. “Water.”

Since we’d been traveling along the river until this point, we didn’t have a lot to spare. I used it lightly, wiping away the worst of the blood, so I could see how deep it went, and where the ragged flesh opened up. It was bad, maybe crippling. If she walked again — if she lived —she’d limp far worse than Thimble. I rinsed off my hands as best as I could, and then I coated them with Banner’s salve. I applied that liberally to the injury, then put my dagger blade in the fire. I held it there until it glowed. Stalker watched me in silence. I glanced at Fade.

“Want me to cover her mouth?” he asked.

I nodded. Even if she was out, she still might scream. With one hand, I sealed the edges of the torn skin; with the other, I branded her. It was all we could do. We didn’t even have Bonesaw’s limited supplies.

She did cry out, a terrible wail of pain that ended in Fade’s hand. Tegan bit him hard, fighting to get away, but I didn’t stop until I could see it had worked. I pulled the knife away then, and put it back in the fire to burn it clean. The wound could still get infected; her leg might swell. If she took a fever, well, I’d never seen anyone recover from that down in the tunnels.

My hands shook. I closed my eyes for a long moment and dropped my head back against the rock-and-dirt wall behind me.

“You did your best for her,” Fade said softly. “That’s all we can do.”

Stalker’s expression said he’d just leave her. He wouldn’t have cared much about the brat, either. He embodied the Hunter tenet about strength and survival. Sometimes I admired that about him. Not right now. Tegan was my friend, even if she’d come between Fade and me. It wasn’t her fault he found her softness more appealing.

“I need someone to do me now,” I said, lifting my shirt.

Fade’s breath came in a hiss when he saw what I’d been hiding. I couldn’t actually see where the claws raked me, but by their expressions, it looked ugly. I glanced between the two, waiting to see who would reach for my dagger. It had to be sealed. I ran the same risks as Tegan: infection and fever. Freak claws weren’t clean.

Stalker said, “I will,” and plunged the knife in the fire.

He copied what I had done with our precious water and then applied the ointment. On my raw torn flesh, it burned like nothing ever had before, like fire before the white-hot knife. In a way it prepared me for what came after. I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth, and said, “Do it. Don’t give me any warning.”

He didn’t. The dagger seared me, felt like it cut nearly to the bone, so far past my pain threshold that I bit my lip until it bled. I choked my screams, clinging fiercely to my Huntress mettle. Don’t let them see you weak, Silk ordered me. I taught you better than that. You were my best, Deuce. Don’t you ever forget that.

Now I knew I was dreaming. Silk never said anything like that to me. She didn’t praise; she gave cuffs upside the head, orders and backhanded compliments, like, You might be decent, if you weren’t so stupid.

When I finally opened my eyes, I found myself somewhere else. The fire was gone. Fade was gone. No Stalker, no Tegan. Everything was black and white, like one of the pictures I’d seen in the ancient, yellow papers at the library.