Page 111 of Suncatcher

“I was kidnapped. I had most of them already,” Pearl insisted.

But not all of them. Driz gently curled a shaking hand over Pearl’s shoulder, mimicking the shape of the marks there.

Driz had done that. Driz had hurt her. And she hadn’t even known.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Pearl said, seizing Driz’s wrist as she reeled away. Pearl went with her, wrapping herself around Driz’s front. As if she could somehow prevent her from leaving. “You protected me. You saved my mother. Don’t you dare blame yourself.”

Pearl was so fierce and beautiful, and Driz couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t handle her touch. Couldn’t be here. “I cannot…” Driz couldn’t even explain. “I have to go.”

She tried to untangle from Pearl, but Pearl wasn’t having any of it. “Then I’ll come with you.”

“Please, Pearl.” Tears dampened Driz’s cheeks. “Please let me go.” A building panic was twitching her wings, along with a need to do something she didn’t comprehend. The ground was trying to swallow her. She had to fly away and escape.

Pearl stared at her. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“Maybe I should.” Driz ripped away from Pearl as softly as she could, every bruise on Pearl’s skin an accusation. A warning. “I am meant to be alone.” The pain of those words shook her. “I could not stay away from you, and I hurt you.”

“Don’t be stupid. You helped me. Us. I’m trying to explain that to you.” Pearl reached for Driz again, but Driz stumbled backward.

“Who did I kill? Were they your friends? I do not even know.”

“I don’t either,” Pearl admitted. Driz tensed to fly away, but Pearl ran toward her. “Wait!”

“You belong here. With your mother. With your people.” Driz turned. “I do not.”

She launched into the air, the strain of it on her damaged wing making her snarl. But it was a focus. A distraction. She pushed unsteadily upward into the growing night.

She didn’t know where she was going until she landed on the rocky plateau of the old, abandoned Meeting place. She clambered up onto the perch the speaker had always taken and surveyed the world. The broken, lonely world that she was utterly alone in.

A welling mix of emotions brewed and bubbled and could not be contained. They burst from her as she roared. She stretched her jaw wide and screeched into the night. Over and over until her chest and lungs ached. A call.

Pearl and her people had calls, except Pearl’s people answered.

The goyles were already gone. They’d left, as they’d said they would. And if they hadn’t, they didn’t respond. Not to her.

The sky remained still and dark, and Driz bowed her head.

The faint whoosh of wings had her looking back up.

Through bleary eyes, she watched an old goyle land unsteadily on the lip of the rock. He was the same one who had spoken about the railroad at the last regular Meeting.

She stared at him, and he stared back.

“You called,” he said. “Why?”

It took Driz a while to answer. “I do not want to be alone. Why have you not flown west?”

“I do not want to leave my home.”

“I do not either.”

They watched the stars as a beetle approached and crawled over Driz’s foot. She let it go tonight.

“Am I truly cursed?” she finally asked.

“Do you feel cursed?”

“Yes. And no. I cannot tell.”