A good portion of the enclave occupied that role. It kept our numbers up. Far fewer became Builders or Hunters, and the new blood always heard about our Breeder heritage from the older ones. Maybe you should be a Breeder after all, they’d say. It did no good to point out, but nearly everyone comes from Breeder stock. Defending the claim only threw fuel on the fire, and there were always those elite few whose sire and dam had been Hunters before age rendered them unfit.
So I said nothing. The brat was crying again, but this time Fade didn’t comfort him. He stood beside me, silent for his own reasons, and I had the unmistakable feeling—it buzzed about me like an insect—that I’d disappointed him. I felt sad and sick and scared, because tomorrow we had to go to Nassau. I didn’t think Silk expected us to survive. I might’ve been the best of the last group, but I wasn’t irreplaceable. She wanted me to know that—and if I lived, to come back cowed and ready to follow orders, no matter what.
“Are we dismissed?” Fade asked.
“Yes. Be on time tomorrow,” Silk said smiling.
He took my hand in a painful grip and dragged me through the warren of partitions. I didn’t know where we were going, until we stopped at a random living space. By the way he stepped inside, it had to belong to him. One simply didn’t treat anyone else’s home with such disrespect.
For that reason, I stood outside the curtain until he said, “Get in here.”
It wasn’t the politest invitation I’d ever received. Frowning, I stepped in. His space looked more or less like mine. We all had the same amenities. “What?”
He dropped onto a crate, elbows on his knees. His face held an emotion I couldn’t read and had never seen, but it hit me in a raw place. My skin prickled. I needed to go wash up and take care of my weapons; my club especially needed a good cleaning. I was in no mood to spend another minute with him. He’d been nothing but trouble since the first moment Silk stuck me with him.
“They’re going to kill him,” he said hoarsely.
And how I wished I didn’t know that—or care. As a Huntress, I wasn’t supposed to. I should care about the greater welfare of the enclave. My job existed to keep our citizens safe. Protection didn’t extend to brats we found in the tunnels, unless they were like Fade, strong enough to survive on their own. We couldn’t afford to feed and care for weaklings.
“I know.”
“That could be me.”
“It couldn’t,” I pointed out. “You’re not defective.”
He glared with black eyes that burned like coals, lunging to his feet. “That’s disgusting.”
When he stepped into my space, I didn’t back away. “Then why do you stay? I’ll tell you. Because it’s better than being out there.”
“Is it?” he asked. “How would you know?”
I flushed at the implication that I was ignorant and inexperienced, but I didn’t back down. A Huntress wouldn’t. “If you had anything better waiting, you’d be long gone. You hate it here, and you hate all of us too.”
“Not all of you. At least, not until today.”
“Because of the brat.”
“Get out,” he said, wheeling away from me. “I was stupid for thinking I could talk to you, for thinking you’d understand anything.”
Grinding my teeth, I shoved through the curtain and out into the warren. A passing Builder leered at me. “You know you can get in trouble for visiting a boy’s personal space. But if you do something for me, I won’t tell anyone.”
Oh, not today. Yes, I’d broken a minor rule by going in without a chaperone, but I was in no mood for this. “I wasn’t in there long enough for anything to happen. If you shut up and walk away, right now, I won’t shove your nose through your face.”
When I reached for my club, the boy ran. Apparently he had some brains. Sure, he’d probably report me, but it was my word against his. And since I was heading off for Nassau tomorrow—and might not make it back—minor disciplinary action for uncivil behavior didn’t bother me much.
After stopping in my space for clean clothes, I went to the female facilities, a part of the enclave curtained and off-limits to males. A constant trickle of more or less clean water came from the metal tubes arrayed in this area. We didn’t know who had planned this place, but we were glad for the running water. Anything we drank, we boiled, but this was clean enough to wash in.
At this hour, nobody else was around, and I honestly preferred it that way. I didn’t like the way some girls compared bodies. My body was a machine, plain and simple. I worked it to stay strong; I fed it to keep it running.
I got undressed. It was cool in here and the water was cold too, which made it worse. Taking a scoop of soap from a pot on the floor, I washed up quickly beneath the unsteady trickle. If I turned the wheel, I could get more at one time, but then I’d hear about it from Twist, who monitored our resources.
By the time I finished my shower and dressed in my spare outfit, my anger had cooled slightly. It wasn’t fair to be angry at Fade; he couldn’t help his crazy outlook. As we were told from the time we were brats, where you were raised made all the difference. The people in Nassau had some wild ideas for sure; they didn’t have a breeding schedule like we did, so they looked … strange when their trading parties visited, and from their smell, they didn’t care much about cleanliness either. We always offered to let them wash up in our facilities, but they’d smile with black teeth and say, “Why bother? We’re just going to get dirty again on the way back.”
But it had been a long time since we’d seen any of them, apart from the brat.
And Fade came from even farther away. At least, I assumed he did. It wasn’t like he’d told me—or anyone, as far as I knew.
I just wished he hadn’t involved me. If only I’d refused to follow him, if only I’d stayed in the back ways, where we’d been assigned. We never would’ve found the brat, and we wouldn’t be going to Nassau tomorrow. But the second Hunter tenet wouldn’t let me do that, either. First, it was, “the strong survive.” Second, it was, “trust your partner.” My bad luck to be stuck with Fade.
No point dwelling on it—I had chores to do. First, I washed my filthy clothes and hung them up to dry. By the time I finished caring for my club, cleaning and polishing it, so the Freak blood wouldn’t stain the wood, I felt almost resigned. We could’ve been punished worse for disobeying orders. At least we had a chance of surviving this run, so long as we were quiet and careful.