She is our extinction. But perhaps we deserve it.
Eventually, the Bonecleaver waves me away, and begins to inspect her, turning Pearl so that we can see the bloom of blood between her shoulders. “Shot here,” he says. “Right side. Scrapes and bruises from the fall, but nothing seems broken. Which is unusual but not unheard of when it comes to a fall. Shot hasn’t gone clean through...” The man hesitated, then tugged white strips out of his pockets, and began wrapping them around her gunshot wound. “Lost a lot of blood… will need to remove that bullet, and body is probably in shock.”
“Wait,” I croak, staring at him in disbelief. “Body in shock?”
The Bonecleaver nods. “She’s alive. If barely. Bullet’s impact wasn’t as heavy on her. If this idiot had shot her a few yards closer, aimed a little more to the left, she’d be dead. As it is, it’ll be touch and go.” He wipes at his nose with his sleeve.
Alive. She's alive.
Galvanized into action, I bark for her to be carried back up, as gently as possible. The gentle is difficult because the climb is, but we manage to support her and jostle as little as possible. I don’t see how she’s alive, but when I watch her for long enough, I see her chest rise and fall. Tiny, slow breaths. The body breathing on its own, fighting to survive even as parts of it shut down completely. The man responsible for her condition is silent and gaunt, knowing that an unpleasant fate lies in store for him. My father probably won’t kill him. But there’s no way he can do something like this and not get punished for it. Not when it’s the lord’s own son, with an endangered wife.
“Fool girl was wearing her jacket and sash,” my father growls, and I nod as well. Her jacket has the colors of her clan on it, and she was wearing her sash around her belt, and a discarded bandanna on the side with a vivid streak of yellow in it. To an outsider looking on, she would have resembled a Hartson raider perfectly. People loved wearing their clan symbols, loud and proud. It was an unspoken rule among all the clans that you wore your allegiance when you raided, so there would never be any confusion.
“That still doesn’t mean she should have been shot at,” I say, while Henry pales further. He knows this heat is for him. That if I was left alone with him long enough, he’d never see the light of day again. “She wasn’t exactly riding in the normal direction of a raider. And people should know that the marriage means we can’t go around killing Hartsons anymore. Anyone with a lick of sense and no alcohol in their system, I suppose.”
I keep glancing at Pearl, letting sweeps of nausea go through me whenever I do, because she really looks as if she’s not long for this world.
“Sometimes,” Bobby says, clearing his throat, “people’s emotions get the better of them. That’s the simple truth of it. You can’t expect people to behave normal all the time.”
I growl, but don’t say anything more. Escorting my critically wounded wife to the medic’s home, five minutes north of our estate.
Hopefully not five minutes too far.
12
Pearl
Colors swim before me. My head is stuffed with cotton wool. My thoughts come slow, taking time to creak into cognizance. It takes a few moments more to register my new position. One memory breaks through like light through a crumbling wall.
Pain to the back. Blazing pain. It’s all I remember. Retrieving any extra memories is a struggle, and I eventually stop straining. Glancing around the room, I see immaculate surroundings, as if someone has tossed several buckets of bleach everywhere to kill the germs. It somewhat resembles a disused classroom, and there’s even a whiteboard on one end with some obscure scribbles that I can’t make heads or tails off. In the corner is an anatomy dummy, with its plastic insides glimmering in the sterile bright light. How strange.
Staring down at myself, I grimace at the yellowish-purple bruises covering my arms. Several plasters are stuck over parts of my flesh, and for a moment, I just gape.
Why am I here? Why am I covered in bruises?
A stranger in what appears to be scrubs steps into the room, takes one look at me, and lets out a yelp of surprise. They scurry out without a word, and about ten seconds later, someone else strides in, adjusting huge and cobbled-together spectacles. She wears her hair in a fierce ponytail, and looks far too excited for a supposed doctor to be.
“Excellent,” she says in a clear, carrying voice. “You haven’t died. We can all breathe easy again.”
I blink, and her words take a few seconds to settle in. “What happened to me?”
She stops at the edge of my bed, clutching a small notebook. “What do you remember?”
“Not much,” I admit. “I’m not sure why I have these bruises. This is a hospital, right?”
“Sort of. More of a private education center and medic bay for the Claymores. Drat. Trauma can induce problems in the short-term memory. A lot of victims don’t tend to remember the circumstances around extreme trauma…” She’s scribbling into her notepad as she speaks, more to herself than to me.
Claymore. A spike of fear goes through me, before I remember that I’m married to one, and everything else associated with it. Wow. I’d somehow blanked that out. Armed with an increasing avalanche of memories, I sift through the soup of my brain for answers to my condition. To that single moment of excruciating pain.
Crack. “Gunshots. I was shot, wasn’t I?”
“Mm, yes. Once in the back. Missed your spine and lungs, you lucky thing. With more luck, all you’ll have is some stiffness in that arm after it’s healed up from the scar tissue. You also didn’t break any bones, despite the fall you took. Quite miraculous, really. Someone must be watching over you.”
The fall. Right. I remember everything spinning. Sounds of objects breaking. The splash of dirt, the taste of copper in my mouth, the heavy scent of a damp forest and the rain soaked in soil. Sheer panic.
The decision I was struggling to make. “I was taking a ride,” I say quietly. “To clear my head.” After Paul tried to rape me. I don't mention that, though. “I thought about running away – but knew I couldn’t do it. I was going to return. Just after I looked at dusk falling over the path.”
“I’m glad you were planning to return,” comes a new voice, and I jerk in surprise to see Desmond Claymore walking through the single blue side door. I hadn’t heard him come in at all. His lips are curved in a small smile. “We have a few men betting otherwise.”
I grin when I see him, before letting it vanish. The doctor is staring at us in an entirely too knowing way, and it irritates me for some reason. “Yeah well, you guys didn’t make it an easy choice. I could stand to be able to walk through a house without people wanting me dead for once.” Or stabbing me in the back, like Paul.
His expression falls slightly at my words, but considering the fact I was just shot and took a nice tumble down a ravine, I’m not exactly in the best of moods. In fact, it’s only just beginning to sink in just how close I was to death. It’s not a pleasant thought.
“How do you feel?” he says softly, now kneeling by the bedside, as there is no chair. He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it, enjoying the warmth it offers, and the shiver of connection between us. How far we’ve come since we started.