Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Only a day has passed since I’ve been in the stone house with the Drailer. He hasn’t attacked me or dropped any hints that he was a threat I should be wary of. Actually, he has barely looked at me the last twenty four hours. He sits there and stays alert, but he does not move except to eat or go to the bathroom. I don’t understand why he doesn’t tear me apart like the other Drailers would. I’ve never seen a Drailer have so much control over himself. Because of him, I’ve been second guessing myself over what I’ve been taught about the Drailers and what I think I know about them.

                Those feelings quickly fade, though, when I think of what his kind did to my family. To my friends. To the United States. Whether it was their fault or not, I hate them.

                He’s holding a gun in his lap. He taps his sharp talons on the ground a few times. I cringe at the sound. It reminds me of what the she-Drailer had done when she was ready to kill me. He sees this out of the corner of his eye and stops. I cannot breathe with his cat like eyes looking at me. They just bring back too many bad memories of what his kind did to my family, to the people I love the most.

                I begin to feel that slow, molten anger raging through my body.

                His body moves to stand up. I cower against the wall as he walks over to me. He crouches right in front of me. I swallow hard and hug my knees to my chest. The Drailer starts to reach out to me. I stare at him though bleary eyes, frozen in fear. His burning hot skin touches mine and my heart jumps into my throat, the heartbeat’s pace quickening. He c***s his head.

                “I need to bandage your wounds,” he says.

                I shake my head. “No.”

                He sighs. “You’ll die if we don’t wrap your wounds up.”

                My lips trembled with hate. “I’m not taking off my shirt.”

                The Drailer chuckles. “I’m not going to look.”

                My head shakes. “No. I’ll do it myself,” I spat.

                He rolls his eyes. The Drailer hands the bandages to me and sits back. “Be my guest. I wouldn’t want to poison your skin with the touch of a monster.”

                I feel guilt rack me. Surprised, I flinch as I take the bandages and glare at him. “Turn around.”

                He laughs as he turns around and drums his fingers on the ground. I also turn around, just in case, and pull my shirt off. I put my hand on the end of the bandage and hold it to my lower back and start to wrap the bandage around my entire torso. I soon find I cannot wrap it myself. My hands are shaking too much. I try this again, one last time, and feel his hands over mine. I yelp, severely startled and jump a little in the air. My head whips around and he’s not smiling like I thought he would.

                “Let me help you,” he says.

                I rapidly pull my shirt back on and whirl around, mortified. The angry and terrified tears jump to my eyes and I just stare at him, blankly, not daring to move.  

                “You are not like other humans.”

                I can’t bring myself to speak. I just stare at him. Different? I’m frozen in fear just like every other human being out there. Does he not think I hate him?

                “Most would try and kill me while I sleep or run away.” He moves his hand to my wrist and picks my arm up. “Or at least try and get as far away in this house as you can from me.”

                I open my mouth to say something but all that comes out is a funny sound. I push his hand away but stay put like a deer in front of headlights. He smiles, showing his razor sharp canines. I can feel my body turn to jello when he puts his face in mine. He puts his hands on his knees.

                “Why don’t you trust me?”

                He seems to find me not being able to talk amusing. The Drailer gives me the gun and says, “Would you shoot me if I was going to kill you?”

                I blink twice as he drops the gun in my lap. My body’s shaking. I don’t touch the gun, instead I just sit there, staring at him. The terror still has full control of me, and that won’t be changing anytime soon.

                “What’s your name?” he asks. The Drailer picks up the gun and puts it next to me. “My name was Ryan until the Federation named me 8484.” He smiles briefly then closes his mouth.

My eyes say everything to him. The Drailer sighs in disappointment and backs away from me. He sits against the wall opposite of me and closes his eyes. I never know if he’s sleeping or not, so I don’t do anything except lay down on the ground and try to get some badly needed sleep.

 

I wake up and find myself wrapped in a blue blanket. I jump up and look wildly around. The Drailer is still asleep. A scratching on the wall makes my pulse race. I crawl over to the Drailer and shake him. My fear of what’s outside is greater than my fear of him. He moans and hits me with his hand in his sleep. I slap him. He bolts upright, pushes me to the ground, and straddles me. I struggle underneath him. He realizes it’s me and shakes his head.

                “Don’t sneak up on me.” He chuckles. “It’s not good for your health.”

                I glare at him. “I didn’t. I was trying to wake you up.”

                The Drailer gets off of me and stretches. “What do you want?”

                “There was a scratching on the wall,” I say.

                He smiles. “It’s just another Drailer. It smells you, but it won’t be able to find a way in. Trust me.”

                I give him a look full of disgust. “I don’t trust you.”

                The Drailer nods. “Sure. But you’re going to have to if you want to live,” he says. “If you leave, they’ll kill you.”

                I purse my lips and back away from him quickly. “Don’t you mean you’ll kill me?”

                He shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling. “Look, iIt’s the others you have to worry about.” He glances at my bloody body and face. “We need to clean you up. If you won’t let me I’ll hold you down and wrap you in bandages. You can’t do it yourself.”

                I glare at him, ready to fight a losing fight, but I cannot find the words in my vocabulary to refuse the monster again. “Fine,” I whisper, my hands at the hem of my shirt. “Fine.”

                He closes his eyes and grabs the bandages. I turn around and wait for him to bandage me up. I hear him slide behind me and he starts with wrapping my torso from my lower back to below my shoulders. His hands pass around my stomach. Once his hand and arm pressed against my back. I tensed and he grunted.

                “Don’t touch me,” I say. “Just don’t touch me.”

                He does the rest of me without so much as skimming me and ties the bandage. He backs away and grabs my shirt. I raise my eyebrows at him, my mouth dropping open. He shakes his head.

                “You can’t wear it. It’s bloody and it makes me want to eat you and it attracts the other Drailers.”

                I cover myself with the blanket after that, even though the bandages do a good job of it. He doesn’t try anything after that, doesn’t try to make peace or get me to talk. He just sits there, staring into space at nothing in particular. It’s a little unnerving to see him able to sit there like a stone.

Frankly, he scares me.

Ryan wakes up late that day. I’m almost with him twenty four hours and he says maybe two words: need meat.

                I have to go outside and catch a stray cat. I feel horrible about killing it so I bring it back to Sean and Ian to kill. Sean is still out of it and thinking about the two deaths I try and block out so Ian has to kill the cat and prepare it for the fire.

                The atmosphere in our stone house is gloomy and reeks of the thought of death. Seeing Ryan like this, a bloody mess, had wounded all of us. It wasn’t just that one of the men in our midst had betrayed us after we saved him, but the Feds had tried to annihilate us because we were different. We had a Drailer with us who had learned emotion and self control. The world would try and domesticate the Drailers if they knew.

                If word got out in the world, the Feds would no longer be in control.

 

The next days start to blur together. Time is no longer in my mind. Death has finally caught up to me. The Feds are going to come and take us all away. Sean can feel it, Ian knows it, I assume it. They are going to be here any day now. They don’t wait too long to capture their prey.

                All we do is protect ourselves from the wild Drailers and wait for them to come. The wounded are getting nervous. Their faith in us has dwindled, but hey, it’s four of us against an empire or two. Give us a little credit.

                Ryan is still recovering. He’s awake almost all day now, falling asleep for the night and to the cries of the devil.