CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Starr’s head still throbbed from the blows Bernard had delivered. A new line of blood made its way through her hair and onto her neck. Before the attack, what had she been doing? The knife in her boot. Was it still there? Starr drew her feet under her, closer to her hands.

She could hear Holder and Bernard outside the cave, their voices raised. It sounded like they were scrabbling over rocks, both searching for the gun. She might have time.

“We ain’t going to do nothing!” Holder shouted. “You’re the answer to my problem here. I kill you because you killed them. Self-defense. That’s what I’ll tell the cops, and—how ’bout that?—my problems with those damn beetles, with the mayor, with these two gals, all of it will be solved.”

Starr cranked her shoulder, grimaced at the pain and used two fingers to pull the knife from her boot, where it clattered uselessly to the stone floor. She leaned and strained, and finally felt her fingers close around steel. She pulled it to her and used both hands to work open the blade.

“ ‘The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone, / that makes to dream the birds upon the tree,’ ” came Bernard’s lyrical reply, “ ‘and in their polished basins of white stone, / the fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.’ Paul Verlaine. You know—French poet?”

Starr could hear Holder say something, unclear even though the night had grown still.

Starr locked eyes with Chenoa. She’d seen the blade. Chenoa scooted closer to Starr, who worked the blade through the tie on Chenoa’s wrists.

“Now take the knife. Do mine.” Starr shook her wrists, and in a moment the knife was out of her hand. Chenoa sawed through the ties on her own ankles instead.

“Okay,” Starr said. “Okay. That’s fine. Now my wrists.” She could be patient. Chenoa was probably in shock, and Starr knew from her experiences with crime victims that panic made it nearly impossible for them to follow complicated directions. “Now my wrists. Cut through the ties on my wrists.”

Starr willed herself to stay calm, meter out simple instructions.

“Chenoa,” she said. “Take the knife. And cut the ties on my wrists.”

Starr watched as Chenoa held the knife in one hand and massaged her blood-starved feet.

Over the roar of blood in her ears Starr could hear Bernard outside the cave, and a new sound: the knife clattering onto the cave floor beside her. Chenoa was gone.

“Fuck,” Starr said, throwing her body toward the knife and wrangling it into her hands. The blade sliced her fingers, which became slick with blood, making it difficult to work the knife up and across her palm. Once she felt the solid surface of the handle, Starr pressed the sharp end against the ties binding her hands.

Outside, Holder’s voice was a running stream of promises punctuated by threats. Starr ignored him entirely, her fingers cramping on the bloody grip of the knife. Finally, her wrists sprang free.

Starr wiped her wet hands on her pants and ripped at her ankle ties, then bent low to work the blood back into her legs. When she stood, vertigo set in and she stumbled, cursing at the way her body let her down. She looked toward the exit, where Chenoa had gone, where she had followed Bernard and Holder. She had to get to Chenoa before—

A muzzle flash singed her vision, instantly blinding her in the low light of the cave. The report followed, the sound cracking in her ears. Starr clutched at her head and felt her way out of the cave, her eyes still sightless.

The nearby sound of something large clambering over the rocks that lined the bottom of the ravine made her senses come alive. Starr moved quickly toward the sound, but the slick and uneven surface of the rocks sent her spilling onto them, the knife slipping from her hand.

She froze when she heard the unmistakable click of a gun. But no shot. Silence. She allowed herself a moment of pure relief. The gun had jammed. She scrambled to her feet, launching forward to find anything solid to put between her body and the shooter.

She was too late. Someone knocked Starr to the substrate. Bernard. And he had something sharp. Her knife.

Starr tried to deflect Bernard’s swinging hands and the biting blade by pulling her knees up to her belly and bracing them under her attacker. She could feel the knife rake across her shins, and hoped she had created enough distance to give her a split second to grab his wrists and stop the onslaught of strikes.

For a moment their faces were so close that they locked eyes in the light of the moon. Bernard ran the blade into her left side, again and again.

Then he stopped, stood and calmly walked back toward the mouth of the cave.

Starr pressed the damaged fingers of her right hand to the sting under her left armpit, where she knew the blade had found its mark. I’ll be okay, she thought, once I find Chenoa. Starr stood as best she could, then faltered. She could hear the hollow clank of hoof on stone. She leaned on the rock wall, its pearly face soaking in moonlight.

There was a new, keen-edged pain in her left side, above her beltline, only now reaching her consciousness. She touched the wound with her hand. As soon as she felt the slick liquid, viscous like motor oil, she knew she was in trouble.