Fledgling(50)

“We’ll start tonight,” I said.

He nodded. “What about Celia? She might know something.”

“She needed to sleep. We’ll tell her when she wakes up, and I’ll find out what she knows.”

“We need maps,” Wright said. “I don’t know the way, except that we’ll be going south, probably on I-5. We’ll make San Francisco Airport our destination, so when we reach California, we should stick to a coastal route—probably U.S. 101—until we reach the airport or until Brook recognizes something.”

“We should go back to your cabin first,” I said, “or if you don’t want to do that, you can let me out a few blocks from there. I need to talk to Theodora and see whether or not she should come with us.”

He nodded. “I need to talk to my uncle anyway, to let him know that I haven’t just disappeared on him and that I want my job. I want him to be willing to hire me again when this is over. I want to get some of my stuff, too. Hell, I was all packed to leave anyway.”

“Let’s go now,” I said. “We’ve got hours of darkness left. By daybreak, we should be well on our way.”





Fourteen

Once we got back to Wright’s cabin, I went to visit Theodora. I slipped into her bedroom by way of her balcony, woke her, and told her what had happened and what we were going to do. Her scent was still mostly her own so I knew I could leave her, lonely but safe.

“I want to go with you!” she protested.

“I know,” I told her. “But it will be better if you wait. I can’t protect you now. I don’t even have the prospect of a home now, and I have no Ina allies. It was only luck that none of us was hurt or killed at the Arlington house.”

“You protected them.”

“Luck,” I said. “They could so easily have been burned or shot. Wright could have left the television on, and I might not have heard the intruders until it was too late. I want you with me, and you will be. But not yet.”

She cried and wanted me to at least stay the rest of the night with her. I bit her a little—only to taste her—then held her and lapped at the wound until she was focused on the pleasure. She was like Wright. She had some hold on me beyond the blood. At last, I knew I had to go so I told her to sleep. She resisted briefly, took something from the very back and bottom of the middle drawer in her night table, and put it in my hand. “You might need this,” she whispered. “Take it. I’ve got more.” Then she kissed me and let herself drift off to sleep.

She had put money into my hand, a thick roll of twenty-dollar bills with a rubber band around it. I took it back to Wright’s cabin. He was in the main house, talking to his uncle. He and the two women had each had a shower. By the time Wright came back, I was having one, and the women were eating the meal they had prepared. We were all wasting time, and I knew it, but I enjoyed my shower and let them enjoy their microwaved mugs of vegetable soup, slabs of canned ham, and dinner rolls heated in the convection oven—simple, quickly prepared food.

They finished, cleaned up, took out the trash, and made sandwiches of the last of the ham and some cheddar cheese Wright had had in his refrigerator. Meanwhile, I put Wright’s two suitcases and the canvas travel bag he had given me for my things into his car. Wright already had a book of maps called The Thomas Guide: King and Snohomish Counties— we were in Snohomish—and a map of Pierce County. We would get whatever else we needed as we traveled, although, according to Wright, all we really had to do was get on 1-5 and stay on it until we got to California, then switch over to U.S. 101. None of that meant anything to me. I meant to look at the relevant maps in The Thomas Guide while we traveled. I needed, for my own comfort, to have some idea of where we were going.

Wright came out ahead of the two women, and I put the money Theodora had given me into his hand. “Take this,” I said. “If I get separated from the rest of you, you take care of Brook and Celia. All of you would have to find other Ina as quickly as possible.”

His hand closed around the money, then he looked at it in the light from the back door of the cabin. His mouth dropped open. “Where did you get this?”

“From Theodora. She said we might need it, and we might.”

He put the money in an inside pocket of his jacket and zipped the pocket. “I’ll use it to keep us all as safe as I can,” he said. “But don’t imagine I would just drive off and leave you, Shori. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”

“I hope it won’t be necessary. But if it is necessary to keep you safe, to keep Celia and Brook safe, you’ll do it. You will do it!”

He drew back from me, angry, wanting to dispute, yet knowing he would obey. “Sometimes I forget that you can do that to me,” he said.

“I do it to save your life,” I said.

After a while he sighed. “You’re a scary little person,” he said.

I had no idea what to say to that so I ignored it. “Theodora wanted to come, too,” I said. “I couldn’t let her, even though I wanted her to. The only person I want more is you. I need you to be safe, and I need you to keep Brook and Celia safe.”

He shook his head, then put his arm around my shoulders, his expression going from angry to bemused. “That is the most unromantic declaration of love I’ve ever heard. Or is that what you’re saying? Do you love me, Shori, or do I just taste good?”