9. Walk
Walk
Pearl let her pursuers chase her all the way up the valley. When Steve arrived, it was over. She heard his whistling call and knew he had one in his sights. The shot rang close behind her, and she called and doubled back.
They left the bodies where they lay, too tired to deal with them now.
“Thought you were for sure dead,” Steve said, grabbing Pearl’s shoulder. She covered his hand and squeezed. “How’d you get away from that beast?”
“I got her to put me down.”
“I’ve never seen one so close, and don’t care to again. It came back and…I’ve no idea why, but it freed us. Must be some sick game. At least it bleeds red.”
“What d’you mean?” Pearl asked sharply.
“I shot its wing. Woulda done more, but it got away. Rave stopped me, the idiot.”
Pearl’s gut clenched. The thought of Steve shooting Driz after she’d rescued him left a new sick sensation. Because Pearl had stabbed her for the same reason.
And now Driz was out there somewhere, wounded and probably furious.
“How’re the others?” Pearl asked, picking up her strides.
“We lost Tom,” he said quietly. “Rob’s injured but alive, and Rave and I are fine.”
They didn’t speak again until they reached the camp. Rave had stoked up the fire. A quick search of the bushes revealed a stack of paint cans they’d ordered from the city. They also found freshly turned earth.
With heavy hearts, they started to dig. But they didn’t discover what they feared. Not bodies, but boxes of bullets. This party of bandits had been planning to come back. They wouldn’t be. And their stash became their grave.
Pearl hunted for the old white salt bags, bunched and stuffed in a box. Only a trace amount of blight lingered, caught in the weave of the fabric. They’d soak what they could from them, but these bandits had apparently already discovered their secret. Good thing they were dead already.
The exhaustion of the last days wore on her, the lingering effects of the blight mishap weighing down her limbs.
And she couldn’t shake the heaviness at the thought of Driz.
Pearl stopped frequently to scan the darkness for a sign of her, checking for shapes in the air or on the ridge.
How badly was she hurt? Could she even fly?
“That goyle saved us,” Rave said somberly. “It let you go, Pearl?”
“She did.”
“It probably thought it’d be more fun if we tried to run,” Steve grumbled, but Rave shook his head.
“It spoke to us. Said to go up the valley, where Pearl was. I think it was trying to help us.”
“And why’d it do that?”
“No idea. But if it wanted to kill us, it woulda. And it was wearing clothes. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Stop calling her an it,” Pearl snapped and both men stared at her.
“Don’t tell me you got frisky with a goyle, Pearl. Is that how you got her to let you go?” Steve asked.
Pearl seized him by the collar. Everyone tensed and she bared her false teeth in his face. “What if I did?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, I was just kidding…”
Pearl shoved him away roughly. “I’m going for a walk.”
Rave called after her, but she ignored him, heading into the broken bushes where they told her Driz had disappeared.
A spatter of blood darkened the earth. The heaviness grew into a leaden weight in her gut.
It was stupid to pursue an injured, aggravated beast alone at night. But Pearl was feeling stupid.
She did her best to follow the vague trail through the darkness. She soon lost it, but pushed on, up the other side of the slope that helped contain the valley.
“Driz?” Pearl called softly. No one answered.
She should give up and turn back to the camp.
She reached the crest of the hill. A rocky outcropping jutted nearer the entrance to the valley, and Pearl made her way toward it without a better idea of where a goyle might’ve gone. She called out occasionally, finding another dark splash on a light patch of dirt.
Movement caught her eye up ahead. A figure shifted and disappeared around the rocks.
“Driz?”
Pearl waited until the outline of a shaggy, horned head appeared, peeking at her.
“Come on out. I wanna talk to you.”
“Are you going to shoot me?” Driz asked, her gravelly voice quiet.
Pearl held her empty hands up and out, showing them. “Nope.”
“Are you going to stab me?”
Pearl’s sore gut tightened. “No.”
Driz eventually emerged. She walked forward, shoulders hunched, the end of one wing dragging on the ground as she held the main joint close against her body.
“You alright?” Pearl asked, even though it was clear she wasn’t.
“Do you care?”
Pearl released her breath. “For some reason, yeah. I guess I do. I’m sorry they hurt you. That I hurt you. And I never said thanks. For your help. That could’ve gone worse.”
Driz didn’t answer right away, and Pearl couldn’t see her well enough to determine expression. “You did not come this morning,” Driz said, her voice still quiet, like a scatter of pebbles down a slope.
“I know. I got delayed. Did you see the pie? I left it.”
“I saw.”
“It’ll be spoiled now. I’ll get you another one.”
“Will you?” Driz sounded unsure, and a little hopeful. She didn’t trust Pearl anymore, and Pearl didn’t blame her.
Pearl approached cautiously.
Driz took a single step back.
“May I see your wounds?” Pearl asked.
Driz didn’t answer in words but slowly released her wing, which she had wrapped protectively around herself.
The bullet had gone through the leathery velvet webbing near the upper bone, leaving a tear.
The wing twitched under Pearl’s fingers as she brushed gently near the hole, the texture softer than she expected.
It had stopped bleeding, and she had no idea what to do for a wing injury.
So she refocused on the other wound on Driz’s body. The one Pearl had put there.
Based on the shininess of the streak coating the previously cream shirt, that one was still bleeding. She reached for the buttons, undoing the top few. It shouldn’t have been intimate under the circumstances.
Pearl sensed Driz’s intense gaze as she exposed Driz’s sternum and the upper swells of her breasts. Pearl recalled how they’d pressed into her own body, though she hadn’t been in any state to appreciate it. She still wasn’t.
She’d wondered that morning if Driz would be hard and cool like the stone she resembled and embodied. But she wasn’t. Her skin was warm. She felt very much like a woman.
Irritated with herself, Pearl shoved those distracting thoughts aside as she drew the fabric down and away from the wound, which was about at eye-level for her.
She’d stabbed into the front of Driz’s shoulder.
Pearl pulled her handkerchief from a pocket and also unwound her scarf from her neck.
She’d been going through them recently. When she pressed the handkerchief to the wound, Driz’s wings twitched again.
It seemed to be an uncontrollable reaction. Pearl didn’t bother asking if it hurt.
“Can you fly?” Pearl asked instead as she tied the scarf around Driz’s shoulder. There wasn’t much left to tie.
“If I had to. But I will find a place nearby for today.”
“You’ll be alright?”
“I heal quickly.”
Pearl tugged the fabric of the ruined shirt back up, and her fingers accidentally brushed against the skin beneath as she redid the buttons.
She noticed far too much. Steve’s comment must have gotten in her head.
“I should get back,” Pearl murmured, withdrawing her hands and retreating. “We’ll be gone by tomorrow night. But I’ll bring you that replacement pie to the ravine. It may take me a few days.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
“Then I will wait each night.”
Pearl’s belly fluttered. It should have been out of fear at the prospect. She needed to leave.
She turned and headed back into the valley.