Butler, Octavia - Fledgling

“Because I bit him, he’ll obey me,” I said. “He won’t hurt me if I tell him not to.” He fingered the place where I’d last bitten him and stared down at me.

I took a deep breath. “I think you can still walk away from me, Wright, if you want to,” I said. I wet my lips. “If you do it now, you can still go.”

“Be free of you?” he asked.

“If you want to be free of me, yes. I’ll even help you.” “Why? You want to get rid of me?”

“You know I don’t.”

“But you want to help me leave you?” He made it a flat statement, not a question. “If that’s what you want.”

“Why?”

I took a deep breath, trying to stay alert. “Because I think ... I think it would be wrong for me to keep you with me against your will.”

“You think that, do you?” Again, it wasn’t a real question. So I didn’t bother to answer it.

“How?” he asked. “What?”

“How can you help me leave you?”

“I can tell you to go. I think I can make it . . . maybe not comfortable, but at least possible for you to go and have your life back and just . . . forget about me.”

“I didn’t know what it would be like with you. I didn’t know I would feel . . . almost as though I can’t make it without you.”

“I know.” I closed my eyes in pain. “I didn’t know what I was starting when I bit you the first couple of times. I didn’t remember. I still don’t remember much, but I know the bites tie you to me. That comforted me—that you were with me. But now, maybe you don’t want to be with me. If that’s what you’ve decided, tell me. Tell me now, and I’ll try to help you go.”

There was nothing from him for a long time. I felt as though I were drifting. My body wanted to go to sleep, demanded sleep, and somehow, I did doze a little. When he put his palm against my face, I jerked awake.

“I’m going to take you to one of the chimneys,” he said. “I’ll make a shelter for you there.”

“If you want to go,” I said, “you should tell me now.” I paused. “I won’t be able to stay awake long. And

... Wright, if you don’t take this chance, I don’t think you’ll be able to leave me. Ever. I won’t be able to let you, and you couldn’t stand separation from me. I know that much. Even now, it’s probably hard for you to make the decision, but you should go if you want to go. It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right,” he said. “Wright, it is. You should—”

“No!” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me that. Do not tell me that!” He grasped my face between his hands, made me look at him.

“What shall I do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to lose you.” “Freedom, Wright. Now or never.”

“I don’t want to lose you. I truly don’t. I’ve only known you for a few days, but I know I want you with me.”

I kissed his hand, glad of his decision. It would have been hard to let him go—perhaps the hardest thing I could recall doing. I would have done it, but it would have been terrible. All I could do now was make things as safe as possible for both of us.

“Okay, then. Choose a good spot and build a shelter around me—something that won’t let the sun in.” He walked around the ruin, stumbling and cursing now and then, but not falling. Eventually he found a

reasonably intact little corner with two wall fragments still standing. That was better than a chimney

because it was less of a potential trap. There was no part of it that I couldn’t break through if I had to. It might once have been part of a closet. I drifted off to sleep while he was cleaning the debris out of it. I awoke again when he lifted me and put me in the corner.

Once I had found a comfortable position, he walled me in with stones, pieces of charred wood, tree branches, and pipe. After a while the little shelter he was building was perfect for keeping the sun out. When he finished, he reached in through the small opening he’d left and woke me up again.

“Go home,” I told him, and before he could protest, I added, “Come back Sunday morning. I’ll have found something to eat by then. Deer, rabbits, something.”

“Just in case, I’ll bring you a steak or two.”

“All right.” I wouldn’t be wanting the steaks, but it had finally occurred to me that getting them and bringing them would make him feel better.

“What can we do to make you safer from this idiot?” he asked about the still-unconscious shooter. “Take the gun. That will be enough.”

“He could knock this shelter down at high noon while you’re asleep.”

“If he does that, I’ll kill him. I’ll have no choice. I’ll get a nasty sun-burn, and it will take me a little longer to heal, but that’s the worst. Let me sleep, Wright.”

I listened and heard him leave. He didn’t want to, but he left.

Two or three hours later, the man who’d shot me finally woke up. He coughed several times and cursed. That’s what woke me—the noise he made. Because I didn’t dare confront him yet, I kept quiet. He got up, stumbled fell, then staggered away, his uneven steps fading as he moved away from me. He didn’t seem to notice that his rifle was gone. And he didn’t come near my little enclosure at all.

I slept through the rest of the night and the day. By the time the sun went down, I was starving—literally. My body had been hard at work repairing itself, and now it had to have food. I pushed away the wall of rubble that Wright had built and stood up. I was trembling with hunger as I fastened the jeans that Wright had pulled up after he examined my leg but had left loose for comfort. I took a few deep breaths, then first limped, then walked, then jogged off in the one direction I didn’t smell human beings.

Hunting steadied me, focused me. And hunting was good because it meant I would eat soon.

I wound up eating most of someone’s little nanny goat. I didn’t mean to take a domestic animal, but it was all I found after hours of searching. It must have escaped from some farm. Better the goat than its owner.

Relieved and sated, I began hiking back toward the ruin to wait for Wright. Then I caught the scent of other people nearby. Farms. I had avoided them while I was hunting, but now I let myself take in the scents and sort them out, see whether I recognized any of them.

And I found the gunman.

It wasn’t midnight yet—too early for Wright to have arrived. I had time to talk to the man who had caused me so much pain and nearly cost Wright his life. I turned toward the farm and began to jog.

I came out of the woods and ran through the farm fields toward the scent. It came from a one-story, gray farmhouse with a red roof. That meant I might be able to go straight into the room where the gunman was snoring. There were three other people in the house, so I would have to be careful. At least everyone

was asleep.

I found a window to the gunman’s bedroom, but it was closed and locked. I could think of no way to open it quietly. The doors were also locked. I went around the house and found no open door or window. I could get into the house easily, but not quietly.

I went back to the gunman’s bedroom window—a big window. I pulled my jacket sleeve down over my hand and closed my hand around the sleeve opening so that my fist was completely covered. This was made easier by the fact that the jacket, like the rest of my clothing, was a little too big. With one quick blow, I broke the window near where I saw the latch. Then I ducked below the windowsill and froze, listening. If people were alerted by the noise, I wanted to know at once.

There was no change in anyone’s breathing except the gunman’s. His snoring stopped, then began again. I waited, not wanting there to be too many alien sounds too close together. Then I reached in, turned the window latch, and raised the window. The window opened easily, silently. I stepped in and closed it after me.