Night Road Read Online Free Page B

restraint. The Colony hemes weren’t lazy; he knew they all did their share—more than their share—of running the Colony. And he knew that most of them—no, all of them except Frederick—tried to feed mostly outside the Building. But their feeds were more like grazing, contentedly and easily like cattle, and if the grazing seemed as though it might get difficult, they came here rather than sort through the difficulties. It probably hadn’t occurred tothem that a new heme would need structure and guidance.
    Sandor—Sandor, who was responsible for the kid—was soft in different ways. He lived on the road, like Cole, and was sharp in that respect. But he had a heart like a marshmallow. And he had not done right by this boy.
    Cole gave the pale face a silent appraisal. The kid was very young. Physically, about the age Cole had been when Johnny had created him.
    But mentally, emotionally? Worse than a child. He couldn’t even care for himself.
    What had Sandor been doing for him?
    Now Cole took his time reading the clues on Gordon’s face. There was a haggard look about him, and the deep-set eyes—which were hazel, damn it, not black, not like Guerdon’s at all, so why did they give Cole the feeling he already knew this kid?—had dark circles under them. The kid had not been sleeping well.
    I just want to go home, he’d said. He was unhappy. Having trouble adjusting.
    “Would you like a glass of water?” Cole asked, making an effort to be kind.
    Gordon didn’t even bother to look up. “Do I drink water?” It was the nonresponse of a sullen teenager.
    Cole was relieved; kindness apparently wasn’t called for. “Every living thing needs water,” he said, his voice curt now. “Are you a living thing?”
    “You tell me.”
    “The answer is yes. Yes, you are a living thing, and therefore you do drink water. Weren’t you sweating just now? Don’t you urinate?”
    “Yeah. But it’s blue,” Gordon said, angry.
    Lashing out, Cole thought. Because he doesn’t like the situation he finds himself in. It was useless behavior at best. Also rude—and very omni-like, in Cole’s opinion.
    “Some advice,” he told Gordon. “Some good advice, and if you’re wise, you’ll take it: Don’t dwell too much on your feelings just now. It will help you get used to things.”
    “I’m not going to get used to blue pee.”
    “Believe me, you will.”
    For answer, Gordon put his head in his hands. They sat there for a moment. Finally, Gordon said in a muffled voice, “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
    Self-pity . The boy probably had been wallowing in it for some time. He’d been indulged and pampered, when what he’d needed was a heme boot camp.
    “There’s no room for ‘mean to’ in the life of a heme,” Cole told him.
    “I don’t understand this place,” Gordon said into his hands. “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. She said to take her to the edge. Isn’t that what she meant?”
    “You went past the edge.”
    Gordon lifted his head, but he wouldn’t look at Cole. His face and body proclaimed that he was still immersed in his own misery. “I thought since I wasn’t hungry—”
    “You don’t get hungry, ” Cole said coldly. “ Nobody gets hungry. We feel Thirst —and you shouldn’t even feel that if you conduct yourself with any sense at all. In any case, you are not an omni anymore, so stop talking like one. And we’re all very lucky you weren’t feeling Thirst, because you would have killed her.”
    “But I kept my hands off her. I thought—”
    “That was the only smart thing you did. If you’d been holding her, she wouldn’t have fallen like that; and none of us would have known anything was wrong untilit was too late. So you can feel fortunate you did exactly one thing right.”
    At that moment Sandor came in, holding the swinging door carefully so it made no noise.
    Sandor was powerfully built. He looked like someone who had been in a lot of brawls, but Cole knew that