49
“Well, I’m sure glad that’s over,” the prisoner said. He watched as the sheriff opened the cell door for Molly and waved her out. “I’ll be gods-awful glad to get free of this joint.”
Sheriff Browne turned to him. “What in hyperspace does a lick of this have to do with you robbing a buggy dealership?”
The prisoner scratched his beard. “I was hoping you could tell me!”
“Not a damn thing, that’s what. Now sit down and shut up. Next time I shoot you, it won’t be with my fingers.”
The prisoner shot a finger of his own up at the ceiling, but backed away as he did so. The sheriff turned and regarded his dead deputy. “Looks like your pet done finished what you started last night.”
“How did you do that?” Molly asked. She looked from the deputy to the Wadi on her shoulder, suddenly fearful to be reminded of what her pet could do. She flashed back to the fight on the Drenard shuttle when she’d last seen its ferocious side and tried to tease out what the two events had in common.
“I’ve always had a way with animals,” Sheriff Browne said. “A way that tends toward trouble.”
“So, am I free to go?” Molly glanced at the office door and thought about dashing out of there, just to get away from the residual tension she could feel coursing through her body. It was hard to believe she’d wanted to come there.
“Way I see it, this is now animal control’s jurisdiction.” The sheriff smiled at her. That smile faded as he looked back to the mess on the office floor. “But who’s gonna clean this up if the Callites keep going missing?”
“The Callites,” Molly said. “That’s why I came to see you. Some of my friends are in trouble.”
“Hardly surprising.” The sheriff looked down at his poor deputy. “Trouble seems to follow you around, don’t it?”
Molly frowned. “I think they might be in big trouble. Like I said before, another shuttle is supposedly going up today, and they might be on it.”
The sheriff stepped around his deputy, casting the body a forlorn look. He threw open one of the shutters and peered outside at the bustle on the busy street. “Never could stand what they were doing there at immigrations, even before the damned things were being shot down. But I had no right to inquire. The law is the law.”
“Just because it’s the law doesn’t make it right,” Molly said. She held the Wadi to her chest and went to the door. She opened it up to let in some light and let out some of the stuffiness created by the dead body.
“Then again,” the sheriff said, “if legals are being shipped off, like Cripple for instance. . .”
“Will you at least come with me and check? Because I’m going either way.”
The sheriff leaned on the windowsill and peered out through the haze of sunlit dust, his shoulders pressed up around his ears in a frozen shrug.
“Is it hard to think about going outside?” Molly asked.
The sheriff turned to her and laughed. “He meant it as a figure of speech. Whadya think, I sleep in here? I get out twice a day, to and from work. Hell, I arrested you right over yonder.” The sheriff pointed out the window to the sidewalk a dozen paces away.
“So you’ll come with me?”
The sheriff nodded. “I suppose so. As long as you don’t mind riding on the back of my Theryl.” He pulled his hat down snug, patted his holster, took one last look at his dead deputy, then turned to the door.
“Theryl?” Molly asked. “What in the galaxy is that?”
????
A monstrous horse-like animal, apparently. The sheriff led the large creature out of its stall and into the alley. He clucked at it affectionately, and the animal turned and looked down to survey Molly with its single eye.
“Hello,” she said, waving. “Nice Theryl.”
“Her name’s Clementine,” the sheriff said. He patted the animal on the neck. “Come back here and I’ll give you a lift.”
Molly hurried around to the other side of the sheriff and moved the Wadi to the back of her neck. The sheriff reached up and engaged a switch on the saddle. The rear of the leather seat opened up, and a second, smaller seat extended out its back as another pair of stirrups unspooled. “Up you go,” he said, creating a basket with his hands.
Molly let him boost her up. She threw a leg over the small saddle, and the Theryl shifted beneath her. She held on to the handles to either side of her seat and wondered how the sheriff was going to get up. She leaned to the side and watched as he stepped into a lowered stirrup, which began sucking up into the saddle, lifting him into place.
“And away we go,” the sheriff said. He clucked his tongue, and Clementine sauntered down the alley. At the end, the animal turned left, its hooves clomping loudly on the wooden sidewalk.
“Not today, old girl.” The sheriff pulled gently on the reins, turning the Theryl the other direction. “Bit of business for us oldtimers left to do.”
With that, he snapped the reins, and the Theryl threw her head back. She let out a whistle, a trilling call more like a bird’s than any mammal Molly knew of. Her front hooves left the sidewalk for a moment and waved excitedly in the air. And then they were off—tearing down the dusty street, weaving through traffic, with Molly and the Wadi holding on for dear life.
The sheriff and Theryl moved as one, leaving Molly to move awk-wardly as something else. She let go of the useless little handles and wrapped her arms around the sheriff’s waist. She managed half a yelp as they picked up speed, the Wadi’s tail wrapping around her neck and squeezing off the rest of her outburst. All around her was the thunder of Theryl hooves and the strange and sickening rise and fall of its peculiar gait.
Molly concentrated on the rhythm of the beast and tried to move with it instead of fighting it. Each corner they rounded threw her timing off as everything leaned to one side or the other. After dozens of blocks flew by, the sheriff yelled something, and Clementine pulled to a halt in a staccato of clocking hooves.
“There,” the sheriff said. He pointed to a squat building at the end of the road, out on the edge of town. A tall fence studded with lookout towers ringed the structure; inset into this was a small guard station, which seemed to offer the only access through.
“Flank!” The sheriff’s arm came up, his finger tracking something rising from behind the building. The roar of the shuttle’s thrusters hit them moments after the realization they’d arrived too late.
“No!” Molly yelled. She tried to scream more, but the sheriff nudged the Theryl forward, and she had to hold tight to his back. The animal moved at a furious pace, making the previous jaunt seem like a stroll by comparison. Even the roar of distant thrusters couldn’t match the raw fury roiling beneath them.
Holding fast, Molly wondered if they weren’t better off heading back to Parsona and giving chase in the atmosphere. What good was the sheriff expecting to do? Arrest the department of immigration? That would be too late for her friends. She peeked under his armpit and saw the world ahead in brief flashes each time his hands came up with the reins. He steered right for the guard gate, urging the Theryl to dizzying speeds with loud “ha’s!” Ahead, the wall of steel wire and coiled razor jounced a dozen meters closer with each glimpse.
Molly tried to yell for him to stop, but the Wadi and the raw speed clutched her breath. She visualized all of them smeared across the fencing and wondered if the sheriff planned something as foolish as ramming the thing down—
Suddenly, the Theryl’s gait stuttered, almost as if it had come to the same realization. Its hooves skipped, its back sank down, and it took two strides that felt different. Then the rear legs of the animal flew up, lashing out straight to either side so quickly that Molly felt her stomach sink as her chin was pressed down to her chest. She grabbed her own wrists around the sheriff’s waist and squealed as the Theryl jolted into the sky, the rough gallop gone in a buzz of whipping wind.
Opening her eyes a crack, Molly caught a brief glimpse of the Theryl’s four legs spread to either side, a thin flap of skin stretched out between them and catching the air. Below, the coils of razor wire passed in silence, the Theyrl’s leathery wings waving at the fence with mock indif-ference.
The gliding seemed to draw out forever before the legs reached for the ground, the flap closing up over its belly, and the thunder of hooves on packed dirt resuming. Molly felt her spine compress with the landing; her teeth clapped shut as her jaw hit her sternum. She fought to secure her grip on the sheriff and peeked through his armpit with her tear-streaked eyes. She saw the squat building looming directly ahead, the fence having been cleared with an impossible leap.
“Whoa!” the sheriff yelled.
Molly leaned back as he pulled the reins; the thunder faded to drums and then to a steady knocking. The sheriff threw one leg over the Theryl’s head and jumped off to the ground. He turned and held out his hands as Molly slid down after him.
“A little warning next time?”
He smiled at her as he rubbed the large animal’s neck. “First time on one?”
“First and last, I hope.” Molly truly meant it. The Theryl turned and snorted at her, its wide whiskers making it seem sage and comical at once.
“Alright,” the sheriff said. He glanced back toward the guard gate, which was suspiciously lacking in the activity department. “Let’s poke our heads in and ask some questions.” He looked up at the fading roar of the shuttle, the white hull perched atop a column of thick smoke. “Maybe we can convince them to turn that thing around—”
The sheriff fell silent; he shielded his eyes to look up through the glare of morning sun. Molly did the same and immediately noticed the odd gap in the shuttle’s exhaust, the dash of blue sky between puffs of interrupted smoke. The shuttle stood high above, sideways, its thrusters dark and quiet. The craft grew larger as it began its slow descent—its plummet to the prairies of Lok.
“Hyperspace!” the sheriff cursed. He drew his pistol and continued to watch the shuttle fall toward the horizon. Molly wondered what he thought he was going to do with the weapon, if it was just a reaction to danger, or perhaps a desire to put something near death out of its misery.
“We’re too late,” Molly said as the Wadi cowered against her neck, its scales scratching her like course sandpaper.
The sheriff glanced at the nearby entrance to the building and reached inside a saddlebag. He pulled out a dozen long plastic strips, the same kind Molly used to secure hoses in the thruster room.
“If there were legals on that shuttle,” he said, “that gives us the right to arrest them.” He handed the strips of plastic to Molly. “Consider yourself deputized.”
Molly swallowed hard, an image of the last deputy flashing back in her vision. Before she could object to her new role, the sheriff strode off, walking to the door with a stride of purpose and vigor she hadn’t seen in his carriage around the office.
“Hey, wait,” Molly said, hurrying after him. “Shouldn’t I have a gun or something?”
“No, you don’t need a gun.” The sheriff paused at the door and peeked through the glass, cupping one of his hands by the side of his face. He grabbed the knob and turned to Molly. “Just stay behind me. We’re here to arrest them, not kill them.”
Molly nodded. She looked at the quickcuffs he’d handed her and figured she’d still feel better with a gun.
“Let’s go,” the sheriff said.
He pulled open the door and stepped inside. Molly followed him into a dimly lit foyer; she let the door slam shut behind her. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw an empty reception desk at the end of the hall with a set of double doors beyond it. The sheriff strolled across the room and glanced behind the desk. He placed one hand on the set of doors and turned his head to the side.
“Let me do the talking.”
Molly nodded once more.
With that, the sheriff pushed open the doors to the immigrations building. He and Molly stepped inside, expecting to find a labyrinth of cubicles, or perhaps a maze of tiled hallways studded with fluorescently lit offices. Either option would’ve felt familiar and would’ve matched the cliché of a large building built on bureaucracy.
As the doors yawned wide, however, the sheriff cursed out loud at the sight that greeted them. It wasn’t the office building Molly had expected. And yet, it was a sight more familiar. More sickeningly familiar.
“Flank me,” Sheriff Browne whispered.
Before them lay a room of high beds, most of which were occupied by prone figures. What Molly was drawn to, however, were the bags. Rows and rows of them hung from the beds, many of them already full of blue Callite blood.
“Holy shit,” she said.
She was so focused on the bags, on all the blue spirals of blood flowing from strapped arms and through the tubes that she was barely cognizant of the flurry of activity. About ten workers, their aprons splattered blue, cried out in alarm and rushed toward Molly and Sheriff Browne. The first gunshot startled her out of her shocked reverie. Molly flinched and dropped the bundle of plastic strips. One of the men running their way spun around, his arm flying akimbo, a bright, wet wound flashing out on his shoulder before he fell behind a gurney.
BLAM!
Another shot, and another man twirling from the impact. Browne held the gun straight ahead and lined up for another squeeze of the trigger. He fired again, and Molly found herself ducking from the noise, her hands going to her ears. Two more rapid shots, and Browne started backing up, yelling something to Molly, but her ears were ringing from being so close to the gun’s report.
One last loud bang, and the sheriff lowered his gun and started fumbling with it. Molly glanced through the smoke from the shots, the smell of spent gunpowder tickling her nose. Slowly, gradually, the world around her came back into focus. She watched Brown’s lips move beneath his mustache, saw him cursing at his gun. She watched him drop a handful of shells; they spun toward the floor and bounced and rattled there.
Molly looked back up at the remaining workers running their way. They came around the last row of gurneys topped with draining Callites, yelling and jostling and full of rage. Molly’s ears continued to ring. She remained frozen in place, watching events as if through another’s eyes. Her gaze fell to a nearby Callite, who was lifting her head and looking Molly’s way.
It was Cat. Her lips were moving.
“Run,” she was shouting.
Molly could hear it, now. Could match up the ringing in her ears with the movement of Cat’s lips.
“Run.”
But the men were already upon them.
????
The first man headed straight for Sheriff Browne, tackling him before he could reload. He crawled on top of the older man and began pummeling him senseless. Molly moved to help—she felt the Wadi fly from her neck—when a figure reached her at a dead run, his fist a blur.
Molly ducked and twisted out of the way just in time, letting the man fly past; his splattered denim coveralls barely registering in the back of her mind as something she should recognize.
Two more men scrambled around Cat’s gurney to join the fray. There was a shout from behind her, and Molly turned in time to see her Wadi slung by its tail and thrown down against the tiled floor. The creature went limp, and the man, his neck bleeding, went back to pounding on the sheriff.
Someone slammed into Molly’s back, sending her flying forward. She landed near her limp Wadi and was unable to take her eyes off it. She felt a rage coursing up inside, filling her up. A man stood over her, his boots planted to either side. He reached down to seize her, to drag her up, and Molly let him. She let him pull her up by her collar while she kept her body limp and half balled-up. As soon as her feet came under her, she kicked off the floor, jumping straight up as hard as she could, sending her head into the man’s nose.
His screams seemed to frighten off the ringing in her ears. The world returned to a normal speed as it resumed making noises. The man over a limp Sheriff Browne turned and realized the fight wasn’t over. He stood to join the others as Molly backed toward Cat’s gurney.
“I got this!” the man with the bleeding nose said, but the other men kept creeping forward. Molly finally recognized one of them as being Pete. She watched him spit through a sneer as she circled Cat’s gurney. She reached for the straps across her friend and started fumbling with them. The man she’d attacked lunged forward and grabbed at her wrists, forcing her to stop and pull them back.
“Nose!” Cat yelled.
Her head lifted off the gurney and turned to Molly.
“Now!”
The man was still leaning over Cat, his hands on her straps. Molly reared her fist back and threw her shoulders into the punch. She cracked the man on his already bleeding nose and felt a jolt of pure pain shoot through her knuckles and waver up her arm.
“Palms!” Cat said. “Use your palms!”
Molly obeyed and threw her left palm after the last punch. She struck him with the heel of her hand, using her armbones like battering rams. The blow slammed into the man’s face as he was already falling forward from the last blow. His head bounced off Cat’s stomach and flew back; his body crumpled on the other side of the gurney. Molly shook her right hand and watched as the other three men strode forward.
“Fight their joints,” Cat told her. Her voice was solid and unwavering, despite her condition.
“What?” Molly looked around for something to wield as a weapon, or someone to help her, but it was just a sea of still bodies and blue bags.
“You aren’t fighting them,” Cat said. “Just their joints. Pick a joint and fight it.”
One of the guys rounded Cat’s table and swiped at Molly. She bobbed her head under the blow and circled away, all the while pondering what Cat was saying and trying to remember everything she’d learned in her Naval combat classes.
The figure yelled something to the other two, keeping them at bay. He lashed out with a spinning kick meant to decapitate Molly. She fell into a crouch as his boot whizzed by, then lunged forward with her own foot. She caught him on the side of the knee as hard as she could and watched him wobble backward.
Molly turned to see what the other two men were doing—
“Forget them,” Cat said. “They’ll come one at a time.”
“Why?” Molly yelled. She danced to the side as the enraged worker shot forward, his attacks angry and telegraphed. As he passed by—his fists attacking the space where she just was—she threw the ball of her knee into the side of the same leg she’d already attacked. The man roared and fell to the ground, clutching his leg. Molly lined it up like a Galaxy Ball and kicked his knee as hard as she could with the steel toe of her flightboot. The man gurgled with pain, but a kick to his chin cut the sound off.
“Why? Because they’re men,” Cat said. “They don’t prove themselves in groups.”
Before Molly could work on the straps across Cat, one of the workers shoved Pete in the chest, pushing him away from the action. The figure came forward in a boxing stance, his hands high as he bounced on the balls of his feet.
“What now?” Molly asked.
“Can you wrestle?”
The man bounced forward and his hand disappeared. Molly felt it crack her cheek, and she saw sparks. She jumped back, but two more swift jabs landed in a flurry, one to her nose and another to her ribs. The man hopped around and showboated with his fists while Molly held her nose, bent over, blood leaking through her fingers.
“Get off your feet!” Cat yelled.
Molly glanced over and saw Cat straining against her restraints, her arms tensed and popping with wiry muscles. She had her head turned to the side to follow the fighting. The man darted forward, his hands coming up in front of him to unleash another blistering combination—
Molly dove at his waist and wrapped her arms around him. She brought one foot behind his heel and kept pressing forward, putting her weight and momentum into his thighs. The boxer waved his arms in the air, but couldn’t keep himself upright. They both went back and crashed into the floor, his head cracking the tiles loudly.
“Elbows!” Cat yelled.
Molly pulled herself up to the guy’s chest while he busied himself clutching the back of his head. She bent her arm in half, keeping her fists up by her shoulders. She twisted back at the waist, then unloaded with an elbow across his chin. The man’s eyes rolled back. She hit him with another, just to be sure, and his arms fell to the side, limp.
“Enough!” Pete yelled.
Molly stood up from her latest victim and turned around. Pete stood behind Cat’s table, a silver blade twinkling against the Callite’s neck.
“Thought I told you to stay put,” Pete said. “Now get your arms behind your head before I spill what’s left of her blood.”
Cat met Molly’s gaze and smiled. One of her eyes scissored shut in a Callite wink. “After he kills me, kick his ass,” Cat said.
“Shut it,” Pete said. His arm tensed, and Molly could see the blade bite into Cat’s neck.
Cat’s smile broadened.
“Attack the joints,” she said. “Concentrate on the wrist with the knife.”
“I said shut it!”
The knife bit deeper and blue leaked out with force.
“And don’t you come closer!” Pete yelled at Molly. “Get your hands behind your head!”
Molly didn’t know who to listen to. She put her hands in the air, not willing to be responsible for Cat’s death. “I’m a sheriff’s deputy, Pete. Think about what you’re doing. Think about the next Pete.”
The man at her feet groaned as he came to. Molly stepped away from him, which made Pete flinch. “Stay where you are,” he told her. “Hey, Mickie, you okay? I need you to check the others.”
The man rolled over and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. “What happened?” he groaned, his hand coming up to the back of his head.
“You got your ass kicked by a chick, that’s what. Now get up and see how Ryan’s doing. He ain’t moved at all.”
“Don’t let him up,” Cat told Molly. “You’ve got the numbers, now. Don’t lose them.”
“Shut it!” Pete yelled. He pulled the knife away and held it over Cat’s chest, vertically. Molly watched as his other hand came up and gripped the hilt, both arms high over his head.
“Do it!” Cat yelled. She screamed, a long, piercing scream that shivered through Molly’s bones.
Molly watched in horror as the knife plunged down, the silver flash of steel disappearing in Cat’s chest up to the hilt. The man on the floor was on all-fours, groping for his senses. Molly threw her flightboot into his chin, making his search a little more difficult. As he collapsed into another silent heap, Molly dashed toward Cat, only she and Pete still standing.
With much effort, Pete wrested the blade out of Cat’s chest, pulling a fountain of blue with it. Molly slid under the gurney, feet-first, and aimed for his knees, impacting with a solid crunch. Pete yelled and tumbled straight down on top of her, his weight forcing her flat. Molly tried to twist her hips out from underneath him, tried to push up on his shoulders, but he wouldn’t budge. He threw a forearm across her neck and leaned into it, squeezing her airway down.
Molly gurgled and pushed at his shoulders. The knife came up, hovering behind Pete’s purple-glazed snarl. Molly’s body tensed in fear as it slid through the air and buried itself in her chest. It hit with a bang, with a sonic explosion, and Molly could smell spent gunpowder in the air.
????
Pete sagged down, his grotesque body limp with death. Molly tried to push him off, but her one arm was numb and useless. She shoved at him with her other one, grunting with effort, when his weight finally shifted. As Pete’s head rolled away, Molly saw Sheriff Browne’s on the other side, his face busted up, but the barest of smiles showing beneath his bloodstained mustache.
That smile sealed up when he saw the knife sticking out of her chest. Molly opened her mouth to say something, but all she could do was gasp. The pain was like a tunnel of cold air rigged up inside her, a hollow ache that pulled on her senses. Browne knelt by her side and placed one hand on her chest, the knife between the crook of his thumb and finger. He grasped the hilt with his other hand and pulled and pushed at the same time, sliding the weapon out.
Molly grunted from the pain and fought back the blackness swirling around her vision. The knife made a slick, sucking sound and came out coated with a purple mix of bloods. Her head fell back as Browne put pressure on the wound. She watched through heavy, slow-blinking lids as he tugged his bandana from around his neck and tucked it under his palm.
“Can you hold this?” he asked.
Molly nodded weakly, but she wasn’t sure if she could. Browne took both her hands and placed them over the bandage. He disappeared from her vision and staggered toward the tables. Over her throbbing pulse, Molly could hear leather straps flap back and metal buckles click together. She craned her neck to see what he was doing, but everywhere she looked, she saw with the tunnel vision of the half conscious. The world moved on the other side of a pinhole. Sheriff Browne flashed across the other side of that hole, moving from Cat’s gurney to another one further away.
Cat slid from her table to Molly’s side, her face filling Molly’s vision. Cat’s hands wrapped around Molly’s and pulled back the bandage. She put it back and helped apply pressure. “You’re gonna be fine,” she said. Cat looked up and scanned the room with a frown.
“My Wadi,” Molly whispered.
Cat looked over her shoulder. She patted Molly’s arm and moved away. Molly grunted and forced herself to one elbow, then struggled to sit up. She glanced back and wiggled toward one of the gurney’s legs, propping herself up to better see what was going on. She concentrated on pushing the blackness into the corners of her vision.
She regretted her efforts immediately when she saw what Cat was doing.
The Callite crouched over the Wadi with the blood-soaked knife. She had one of the creature’s arms splayed out—the blade resting against it, the palm of her hand flat against the dull side, as if about to apply pressure.
Molly managed a weak “No” as Cat shoved down on the blade, severing the limb. The sight of it nearly finished what her own wound had started—Molly could feel her consciousness try and slip away, could feel the black surge toward the center of her vision. She tried to call out to Cat, but managed just hoarse whispers as the Callite wiped the blade on the animals stump and leg before pressing them back together.
“What are you doing?” Molly croaked.
She clutched the sticky bandana to her chest and leaned forward, moving to her knees. She crawled closer to Cat and the Wadi, limping along with one hand.
“What have you done?”
Cat shook her head. When she turned, Molly saw tears dripping out of the alien’s eyes. Her lids scissored shut rapidly, but not quick enough to keep up with the flow of sadness.
“Shoulda seen it all along,” Cat muttered. She continued to hold the Wadi’s wound fast as she turned and surveyed the room. Molly crawled up next to her and looked down at the lifeless Wadi.
“So flanking obvious,” Cat said.
Molly fell to the side, resting on her hip; she turned and looked across the room. Sheriff Browne continued to move deeper through the sea of tables, leather straps swaying beneath the gurneys of those he’d already freed. Several Callites moved about as well, often clutching surfaces as if dizzy or weak. Molly saw more than a few straps hanging limp beneath bodies that did not stir at all.
Molly shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Ain’t about votes,” Cat told her. “Weren’t never about votes.”
Molly looked down at the rag in her hands, soaked purple with her blood and Cat’s. She glanced over at Pete’s still form, the sheen of purplish grease coating his skin and splotching his apron in long streams.
“It’s a drug,” Molly said. “They’re making a drug!”
“No. It’s worse than that. And I’m a flanking fool for just now seeing it.” Cat shook her head. “It’s no wonder the stuff reeks of death.”
“What? What is it?” Molly asked.
“This is what you’ve been looking for.” Cat held up the knife, which was coated in their combined blood. “This is Lok’s version of fusion fuel.”
Molly sat in numbed silence, her wound and head throbbing. She heard Callites crying in the background amid the staccato of their desperate footsteps. She heard the mixture of relief and grief, both wailed in sadness, as loved ones took stock of who had made it and who had not. Her mind reeled with what Cat was saying. It didn’t even register when one of the Wadi’s arms twitched.
“Look,” Cat said.
A tail swished feebly, and Molly’s breath caught in her throat. She gasped and reached with both arms, forgetting her own wound. Cat passed the animal to her, saying something about being careful of its leg.
Molly nodded and cradled the animal, holding it against her chest. She felt the tears well up as it nuzzled against her, stirring in a confused awakening. “I thought I lost her,” Molly cried. “Lost her before I even got a chance to name her.”
Cat squeezed her shoulder and stood up. “I need to see to the others,” she said.
Molly sniffled and nodded. The Wadi reached out and gripped her shirt with its tiny claws, holding itself close. Twin tongues flicked out, both of them wavering in the air.
“It’s okay,” Molly told the Wadi.
“Everything’s gonna be fine,” she lied.