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“Let’s go home.”
“I don’t really have to be home at ten thirty, I just wanted a reason to leave early if I wanted. Can I stay at your house?”
Saber laughed.
“For sure.”
That night, the island seemed darker than anywhere she had ever lived. Back home there were streetlights, far fewer trees, and she had never seen a mist like the one that settled on the roadway, glowing in her headlights ahead of them as she drove. The trees, stately and charming in the daytime, became formless voids of light this time of night, darker even than the dark. Saber drove slowly, practically leaning forward to see the center line, and Lozen teased her lightly about her old-lady driving.
“I’m not used to driving like this,” she murmured.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Tonight felt so weird,” said Saber, “like a kind of…”
“Anti-climax.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess that’s better than getting wrapped up in some weird conspiracy.”
Lozen laughed a little and gazed out of the window.
Then, silence for a moment, before Saber slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to the side over wet asphalt, and screamed.
9
“What the fuck!” Lozen said, her head snapping forward and her hands flying up, as if to brace herself.
Then she saw.
“Oh my god!”
They both got out and rushed to the pale figure lying in the road, a woman, in a pale pink velvet dress that was hiked up to reveal two long, white, disturbingly splayed legs.
“Are you ok?” Saber asked before she was near enough to see the woman’s face. “Ma’am, are you ok?”
Lozen got to her first, but just as they were almost to the woman, she sat up, her blond, curled hair a mess around her face, and looked around with bleary eyes, blinded by the high beams of Saber’s car.
“My eyes,” the lady groaned, and Saber stepped in front of the car lights to shield her and knelt down.
She was young, early twenties, and was wearing gaudy jewelry in addition to the velvet dress. She smelled strongly of alcohol and cheap perfume and her skin was mottled and irritated looking, like maybe she’d been in the cold for a long time.
“Are you ok, ma’am?”
“I’m fine,” the woman said, but she looked pale, waxen even, and her head lolled. “We’re all just having fun.”
“You’re alone,” Lozen said. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman said, her voice slurring. “I’m fine. I tripped and fell while we were playing hide-and-seek. Better not let him catch you!”
Saber noticed a smear of dried blood on the woman’s thigh. Lozen apparently saw it too.
“What the fuck,” Lozen said, looking at Saber.
“Ma’am,” Saber said. “I think you’re hurt or maybe you have a concussion. I think—”
Just then two men emerged from the trees, startling Lozen and Saber.
“What’s going on?” one of them called, raising his hand to his brow to see. “Maggie, is that you?”
