He pulls a wrapped package out of the pack and tosses it in my lap. I stare at it dumbly for a moment before Shaw mutters, “breakfast. Unless you’re going back to starving yourself. And anyway, I thought Similians are supposed to be agreeable. Isn’t your attitude against the law?”
I grimace, ripping into the package which turns out to be a nutrition bar. I take a large bite, the crumbly texture odd against my tongue. “I’m not in Similis anymore,” I reply tartly though a mouthful.
Shaw’s eyes flash. “No, you’re not,” he agrees, his voice low. “Why is that?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Usually those outside the Boundary were forced. Outcast, I think you call it. But they leave with nothing. Not even the clothes on their backs,” he runs his eyes from my head to my toes, leaving a heated trail in their wake. “And you appear to be fully clothed.”
I scowl at him, my cheeks heating. Attempting to keep the horror from my face, I fidget uncomfortably. Outcasting members of the Community has always been touted as necessary, a benevolent punishment intended for the greater good. But leaving someone outside the Boundary with no clothes or supplies only seems cruel. Especially when I have witnessed firsthand those who wait outside it.
“So, the question is then, what made a small, unskilled Lemming scurry from the safety of her home? From a world that feeds her, clothes her, and thinks for her?”
I hate him. I’ve never even thought the word ‘hate’ before, not even in the depths of my shunning for being an Outcast’s daughter, but it’s all that’s appropriate for the man who’s kidnapped me and then belittled everything about my existence. “No one thinks for me,” I reply through gritted teeth.
Shaw’s face breaks into a wickedly decadent smile. “You didn’t answer my question,” he points out. “Why did you run?”
“Why did you blow up the Boundary?”
“To give you a way out.”
His face is utterly unreadable as we stare at each other. Shaw couldn’t have known of my brother’s plight and even if he did, there was no way he could know I was going to escape.Ihadn’t even known I was going to leave. There is more to this than he lets on and I resolve to figure it out before I free myself of him.
At that moment, Calloway appears at the edge of the clearing, his cheeks flushed with exertion and his bow strapped across his back. “Looks like a storm to the west. We can probably avoid it if we head north, but I think we should leave sooner rather than later so we can make it to Havay and gather the horses…”
His voice trails off as his russet eyes settle on me. “Oh, Mirren! You’re awake. How did you sleep?”
It’s an odd question, considering the fact that he’s holding me hostage in the middle of nowhere and that we all slept on the cold, hard ground, but I appreciate the polite exchange nonetheless. It feels familiar, something that tethers me to a world that now seems so far away. “Well. Thank you, Calloway.”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Call me Cal.”
It feels intimate to call him the same name his friends do, but Dark World definitions of intimacy are markedly different than mine. Like the way my skin sparked when Shaw held my hand before the Boundary hunters found us, but he didn’t seem to notice at all. What a strange way to live, being so accustomed to things like touch and private names that you don’t pay them any attention.
“Thank you, Calloway, but I’d prefer to use your given name. We aren’t friends, after all. I’m here against my will.”
His eyes are grave as he nods and glances at Shaw. Something passes between them, something spoken without being vocalized. They did that a lot on the journey here, spoke without speaking at all, as if they can read each other’s minds.
“You’re completely right,” Calloway agrees, his face pained. Guilty. I tuck that away, to be used later. “But as Shaw said, we have no intentions of hurting you.”
I don’t meet his eyes, choosing instead to focus on my hands. “Unless I try to run.”
The color leeches from Calloway’s face. Whether it’s horror at what he’s been a party to, or horror at the truth laid so bare, I will never know as Shaw chooses that moment to interrupt us.
“Go get Max. Let’s get on the road. We need to reach Havay before sundown. I don’t relish the idea of being on the old road after sunset this time of year, especially with no horses.”
Calloway gives Shaw one last meaningful look and disappears into the trees, swift as a gazelle.
“For someone so concerned with manners, that wasn’t very polite. He was trying to be kind to you.”
I frown, my fury rising once again. “I have no use for kindness when freedom is what I need. And I’m not going to be polite to someone who has tied me up and stolen that.”
Shaw’s eyes flare. “Cal wasn’t the one who tied you up,” he says neutrally.
I raise my chin. “He watched you do it and said nothing. Some would say that standing by and doing nothing while evil is committed is just as evil.”
I expect Shaw’s anger. I do not expect the appraising look he fits me with, as if I have somehow passed a test I didn’t know I was taking.
“Some would,” he echoes, before turning to gather his supplies.
