FOUR

A gang of boys, up from the sewers, had found Caitlyn. Distracted her from hunger. Last food she’d had was hours earlier, during a break from cleaning rooms in the Pavilion. Vegetables and crackers and luncheon meat from a barely touched room service tray.

“What is it?” The boys pointed upward.

Although one of the small boys below her had whispered, his question reached Caitlyn clearly. She was a gargoyle, hunched on a building ledge a couple of stories off the ground. She remained in a squat, arms around her knees, the hunch of her back against the wall, head tucked down for protection. She’d never felt this alone. Nor this lonely. Not even in the days after her father had first abandoned her in Appalachia. But she did not feel sorry for herself. Loneliness was something to be endured, no different than rain or wind. Or yet another attack.

She’d hoped the relative darkness and shadows would protect her until the night was so late the streets would be deserted. But the boys passing through this side street had been too sharp-eyed, the glow of the main streetlights too far-reaching.

When they had gathered below her, she didn’t expect mercy. Illegals, whether as adults or as orphaned children of these street canyons, lived by their own rules. No face tattoos for them.

“Let’s see if it moves,” another one of the boys answered. Seconds later, a stone bounced off the building’s concrete, just to her left. Then another. And more, until a few struck her arms.

Caitlyn flinched. No self-pity. But anger. At the boys. At life.

When she moved, the boys began to jeer. Then pelted her with more stones.

“A brick,” one of the boys said. “Here’s a brick.”

Enough, Caitlyn told herself.

She stood. Balanced on the edge. That quieted the boys for a second.

“It’s a person!” one laughed. “Get him!”

More stones. A gang mentality, formed in the very young. One boy tried flinging the brick, but he was not strong enough to get it more than halfway up. When it crashed, all the boys laughed.

Amusement and diversion.

She wasn’t afraid of the boys. The oldest could not have been more than nine. She found herself grateful for the distraction. Anger at her situation was a better sensation than loneliness. Fighting in the rain took your mind off the rain.

A bigger boy found the brick. She didn’t want him throwing it; it could inflict serious injury.

All right, she thought, I’ll give them something to talk about. Beneath the cloak, she once again pulled the outer layer of her microfabric bodysuit down to her waist. Again, she spread her arms and, in so doing, unfurled the appendages on her back that formed the hideous hunch.

She allowed herself to fall forward.

She became a giant shadow, swooping down on them like a bird of prey.

They scattered, screaming at this supernatural monster. Nothing like this had they seen ever, in or out of the sewers.

As Caitlyn reached the ground, she passed just over one of the boys and gave a loud, hideous growl.

He yelped and somehow managed to increase his speed, then disappeared with the others.

On the ground, she found herself smiling. The growl was a nice touch.

Her smile ended when someone stepped out from a crevice between buildings. Someone taller than she was. Wider at the shoulders. The glow of the distant streetlights didn’t allow her to see the person’s face. Or even guess at gender. Until he spoke.

“Great trick,” the male voice said. “How did you do that?”

“Go away,” Caitlyn answered.

She gave her answer no thought, and it surprised her.

In a flash of introspection, she realized that circumstances had changed her. She was not the quiet Caitlyn she’d been as a child, growing up as a freak and an outcast, clinging to the father she adored and to his love, isolated by small communities in the hills of Appalachia in his ultimately futile attempt to hide her existence, and isolated within those small communities because she was so different.

Thinking of the attack on the rooftop, she knew the former Caitlyn would not have calmly rearranged her clothing before yanking a knife out of a man’s belly.

What had happened to her?

She’d survived the hunt that had driven her Outside. Endured her solitude in the city. Facing this unknown man in the alley, she realized she’d become strong and unafraid of the unexpected. In learning who she was, she was no longer broken and ashamed of her freakishness, but proud and defiant, choosing to push aside all emotions except cold anger at what Jordan Brown had inflicted upon her.

The man was still standing in front of her. She was keenly aware that beneath her cloak, the microfabric was barely more than an extra layer of skin over her upper body and that the second layer was still pulled down, leaving the hunch of her wings exposed except for the cloak.

“Go away,” she repeated. Her right hand was behind her back, on the hilt of the knife in her sheath, sticky with blood that hadn’t quite dried. If her life had been reduced to survival, she knew how to face the challenge.

She watched him for a threatening move. After all, he, like the boys, was on the streets past curfew. No facial tattoos. He too was an Illegal. Unlike the boys in the gang she had terrorized into fleeing, he was beyond his teens. His arms and legs seemed odd. Longer than normal. He was thin, like her. Almost, yes, freakish.

“They call me Razor,” he said. “I’m fast. I’m sharp. I’m dangerous.”

Caitlyn didn’t like cocky. Most nights she dreamed of Billy Jasper. Who, in Appalachia, had knocked a man off a horse to save her, had later waded into a raging river to keep her from drowning. Quiet, shy. And smarter than he believed he was. Unaware of how much comfort there was in the contrast of his strength and gentleness. “Add stupid to your list.”

“Stupid?”

“Fast. Sharp. Dangerous. Stupid. You don’t understand simple English. Go means move. Away means any direction, as long as you put distance between us.” She tightened her grip on the knife. Continued to watch him closely.

Caitlyn had always been an observer, never a participator. She had a keen eye for detail. It struck her that while Razor was slender and handsome, he was off kilter in a way that wasn’t obvious. Not only the longer arms and legs. His chest seemed slightly misshapen, as if his body had once been like putty, slightly stretched and twisted.

“I need to know how you did that flying trick,” Razor said. “I’ve got a few of my own. Maybe we can trade. You learn from me. I learn from you.”

“Go. Away.” She’d just stabbed a man to save her life. She didn’t want to find out she was now willing to pull a knife because of irritation.

A sound like scuttling rats made him look over his shoulder. Back toward the streetlights at the end of the alley. The boys had returned. With bigger boys. A mob, maybe twenty of them. Caitlyn didn’t have to wait until they were closer to check for facial tattoos. This time of night, they could only be Illegals. But bigger and more dangerous.

“There!” came a cry.

“Don’t run,” Razor said. “They’re like animals. They chase anything that moves. Besides, there’s no place to go. You’ll only be trapped. Our best chance is here.”

The boys fanned out and moved toward them.

Caitlyn ignored the warning and spun on her heels. From her ledge, before swooping over the boys, she’d already planned her escape. Down the alley. To a drainpipe to climb. She was light. Had freakishly strong arms. High enough up, she’d cross over from the drainpipe to a steel fire escape on the exterior wall. And from there, a climb to freedom.

But Razor was faster than she’d expected, almost beside her. “I’m telling you, don’t run.”

At the drainpipe, she leapt and caught it with both hands.

And felt herself yanked down by her cloak. She barely managed to land on her feet. By then, the pursuing boys had closed the gap. Razor had pulled her down.

“Idiot!” she hissed. No time to make it up the drainpipe.

Razor had turned his back to her. Guarding her against the gang that pressed closer. Maybe four or five steps of space. But now that they had Caitlyn and Razor trapped, the Illegals were leisurely in their caution. Some carried short lengths of pipe. Others, knives.

“Think we’ve got some Influentials slumming it?” one of the taller boys asked his companions.

“One of them’s the one that dropped from the ledge,” came a high-pitched voice. “That’s all I know.”

“Back off,” Razor told the tall one. “You’ll be the first one hurt.”

“Here? We own this place at night.”

“Think so?” Razor reached into his pocket. He snapped on a small flashlight and pointed it at his face and grinned wolfishly.

“Razor!” their leader said.

“Fast, sharp, and dangerous,” he answered.

“We didn’t know. Don’t do nothing, all right? We were only having fun.”

Razor made a shooing gesture with his hand. They began to move away, without turning their backs on Razor.

Then a strobe of red and blue filled the alley, and the slow movement of the Illegals became full flight again, leaving Caitlyn and Razor trapped in the headlights of a fast-approaching Enforcer vehicle.

It screeched to a stop. The doors were flung open. A cop on each side leaned over the doors, each pointing a shotgun at the two of them.