Given to the Savage(14)
“Up,” Silas said to her.
She looked at him, then at the loaded wagon. Surely he couldn’t mean that she should sit while he walked with the load and her own weight on top of it.
“Up,” he repeated, this time taking hold of her and lifting her to sit on top of the largest sack there.
She did not understand this man. One moment he was almost kind to her, but the next, just as cold as the rest of them. No one spoke as the gates were opened and Silas took up the wagon and pulled. Rowan hugged her cape tight over her shoulders and looked up to meet the shadowy faces of the breeders who watched from behind their windows. One waved a hand as a tear slid down her cheek. It was her friend, Lis. Rowan raised her hand to the girl who would come of age in two months’ time. She wondered what would happen to Lis and wiped at her own eyes as the heavy gates of the colony closed behind her.
* * *
Silas pulled the wagon along the dirt road back toward his village. It was heavy but manageable. He glanced over his shoulder at the girl who sat quietly watching the surroundings as if for the first time. Well, it most likely was her first time. When she caught him looking at her, she dropped her gaze every time. He didn’t know what to make of her yet. The two times he had asked her if she was hungry or thirsty or if she needed to stop for anything, she had simply shaken her head no and averted her gaze. She was most likely afraid of him. Well, maybe that was a better way to be than any other. Neither of them had a say in what was happening. Neither of them had any choice. For the foreseeable future, they were bound together, but it wasn’t forever. She shouldn’t get attached to him anyway.
He had watched her face when Commander Norrin had explained what would happen to her, why she was being given to him. He had seen her when she’d been told her children would be taken from her. Breeders did not live in the settlements outside of the colonies. All that was known of them was that they had strange, almost feline eyes and that it was a sign that they were not wholly human and therefore could not have any human emotions. That was what the colonists were taught as well. That and to fear them—that this gene that gave them the power to bear children, that shifted the look of their eyes, also gave them another power, one to harm any who dared look straight at them with a simple thought.
Silas didn’t believe the latter and wondered how much emotion this particular breeder could bear, how much suffering. He had borne witness to her humiliation, her degradation during that very public examination. If she truly did not have the capacity to feel, she would not have reddened so, she would not have cared and what she’d not been able to mask in her eyes when told of her fate, especially when it came to her future children, would not have been there at all.
Silas looked up to the sky and cleared his mind of these thoughts. He had to remain focused, there was an end goal in sight for him. There was the safety of the village to consider first, but there was more than that, there was another reason he was doing this. One only he and Commander Norrin knew.
“The sun will set within the hour,” he said. Then the winds would begin. Ever since the asteroid had struck and since some time before that, the climate of earth had been changing. Every day the temperatures would reach almost unbearable highs and by night, would drop to below freezing. Rain would come at intervals but not enough, never enough, making the settlements fully dependent on the colonies for water supplies, among other things.
He paused and looked around. At this rate, it would take them two full days to arrive at his village with the much-needed supplies and, most important, medicines. They had to stop though, it would be impossible to travel in darkness and they needed shelter from the cold wind. He looked at his companion who looked back at him now, her expression more worried than it had been when they had been moving. Silas understood her fear.
“We will take shelter here for the night,” he said. “Have you slept out of doors before?”
She shook her head and said the word ‘no’ but it came out choked. She was probably thirstier than she let on and he could hear her stomach rumbling. He wondered how long it had been since they had fed her.
“Over there, just beyond those rocks we can build a fire out of the wind. Come,” he said, walking toward her.
She turned to scramble off the sack she sat upon and hugged the fur cape to herself. He took a step toward the wagon and she scooted to the side. He didn’t say anything, instead took the container of water and opened it. She looked at it and swallowed. He handed it to her. “Drink,” he said. “There is enough for our journey.”
She hesitated for a moment but reached out for it, and, making sure no part of her touched him, she took the container from his hands and brought it to her lips. He watched her take a long swallow before she handed it back. He drank as well and put the lid on before rummaging through the bag that contained their food for the trip. Minimal food: they had some smoked meat and one loaf of bread.