Page 77 of Solivagant

He brought it to his face. The pained expression on his face soothing as the flower turned to threads once again, connecting to his own eyes as he absorbed it.

The wound on his neck started to close.

“I… you…” I swallowed. I didn’t know what the fuck I was witnessing, but it was somehow helping him. “You need more.”

I turned, seeing Bradley’s bleeding corpse. Would that work too?

I grabbed him by the boots and dragged his body to Tusks, leaving a trail of red in the grass.

Tusks was still heaving ragged breaths. Still bleeding. But he weren’t shaking as much. His hand extended to Bradley’s face the moment he was within reach.

Again, gold threads started to pull from unseeing eyes. They formed an even bigger and brighter flower. Tusks repeated the process, bringing it to his face so that the light could pour into his eyes, and again the open wound mended. Bradley’s flower healed him more than the deer had. Almost enough to close it entirely.

“I’ll get you more, just hang on. Please.”

I didn’t want to leave him again, not for a single moment. But he was hurt, and there was a chance that I could help him.

I grabbed the new rifle from where I’d kicked it away, knowing this one definitely worked, then I was running through the woods in search of anything that moved. Could he pull flowers from all of them? We were going to find out.

Grouse, rabbits, ducks, a squirrel. He was able to pull flowers from all of them, and all of them helped him to heal, though none of them as much as Bradley’s flower had. The wound had closed. The bleeding stopped. I wasn’t at risk of losing him anymore, but I still insisted Tusks stay put, stay comfortable, and leave the hunting to me.

Bradley had probably come looking for Jim, for Dale… fuck, he’d probably also come looking for me. Dad likely had new missing posters up in town with my face all over them. Now there was another body. Another person missing. More people would come.

There was going to be a search party if there weren’t already. No one could ignore this many missing people. What if a whole group found this place?

I couldn’t kill all of them. Maybe Tusks could, but that wouldn’t solve our problem. The more people who went missing, the more who would search, until helicopters and other reinforcements were brought in from outside of Hollow Creek.

I’d seen what one bullet did to Tusks. It was a shot that would have killed anything else, but he’d survived it. Though he’d been hurt. He’d bled. Which meant even he wasn’t indestructible. More hunters would bring more guns. More bullets.

Was there anywhere we could go that they couldn’t find us?

I crept through the woods, remaining as quiet as possible so as not to scare off any animals. I wished there were a way to preserve the meat until we could use it all, but they were necessary sacrifices regardless. Each one of them helped him, kept him here with me, and I was realizing there were a lot of things I’d do, things I’d kill, in order to keep him here with me.

I was missing pieces of my mind, pieces of our past, but I understood well enough now why he wouldn’t let me leave. There was something here, bigger than both of us. We’d both been waiting for each other, longing for each other, all this time. He was afraid of losing me again. I understood that now.

It probably should have scared me more, how fast everything had changed. But it felt like I’d been waiting so long just to find him, so moving ahead with him now was not only right, but inevitable.

We just had to find a way to do that.

Movement caught my attention. A yearling deer alone as she drank water from the creek.

She’d be heavy, but I’d probably be able to get her back to camp myself.

I watched her closely, slowly raising my rifle before a slight shift in my stance caused a twig to snap and her head shot up as she looked in my direction.

Our eyes met, then she ran.

Fuck.

I lowered the rifle, walking through the brush in the direction she’d sprinted off in.

We were, I realized, following the path Tusks had blocked me from days ago.

He hadn’t wanted me going this way, I still didn’t know why, but I believed we’d established some measure of trust between us since then, and I were only going after the deer anyway.

I followed.

If I could catch her, it would probably be the last flower needed for him to be completely healed up.