Page 73 of Suncatcher

“I do not know,” Driz rumbled. “We smelled the smoke—”

“We?” Sheriff Oak spat.

Driz flinched and flicked a glance at Pearl. She was so obvious, Pearl could have throttled her for it. It was like she’d never even tried to lie before. And perhaps she hadn’t.

Pearl wanted to cry. They were so different.

“Pearl,” Sheriff Oak said, her voice deadly. “Tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

“It doesn’t,” Pearl said easily.

Driz might not lie, but Pearl did. And if she confirmed what she was certain her mother was piecing together, she would shoot Driz. Pearl knew she would.

So Pearl focused on her mother instead of Driz, and she lied. “I was out meeting with a woman. I smelled the smoke and came to investigate. This goyle appeared and agreed to help. I might’ve mentioned my name. I don’t remember.”

“Did it start the fire?” asked someone.

“Why would she do that and then remove the explosives?” Rave countered.

“Everyone shut up,” Sheriff Oak ordered, and everyone did. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Driz. “Did she give you the necklace, Pearl?”

“No,” Pearl lied. “I don’t know her.” She glanced at Driz and wanted to die at the bewilderment on her face.

“What d'you want with Pearl?” Sheriff Oak asked Driz, her voice horribly calm.

“I…” Driz stumbled again. One of her feet appeared badly burned.

Pearl blinked away the searing tears, but she didn’t acknowledge them. She choked on the icy razor in her chest, but she didn’t crumble to it. “Stop this,” Pearl said, keeping her focus on her mother. “There’s a fire. Think of the town. Let her go.”

But her mother was beyond reason. Pearl wasn’t certain she was even with them in that moment. “I should’ve ended this decades ago.”

Pearl threw herself toward Sheriff Oak’s arm.

She knocked it enough that the blight bullet, which Pearl was certain was aimed somewhere deadly, only hit Driz’s wing. It ripped through it with a smoking force.

Driz tumbled backward, slipping off the edge of the steep slope and disappearing. Her shriek echoed, accompanying the skitter of rocks and dirt and gravel. Then a dark shape lumbered upward and away.

Driz bellowed, the visceral sound of pain compressing Pearl’s lungs. Pearl had seen her fly enough to tell how labored it was. She made it to the next ridge and crashed into it, scrambling over the lip and out of sight. A few more shots rang out, but they were wasted bullets. Driz was too far now.

The dam of emotions in Pearl’s body gave way. She couldn’t hold them back anymore. Violently throwing off the hand that landed on her shoulder in an attempt to stop her, she turned to her horse.

She heard her mother saying her name. Pearl didn’t listen. She didn’t care about the fire anymore. Others could handle it. Or let it burn.

She didn’t remember the ride, just found herself suddenly standing in her room. She looked around, dazed and empty. It was better than feeling all the things that clamored silently, overcrowding her chest and mind. She grabbed the saddlebags that hung on the wall.

She finished ramming a few rations inside when Sheriff Oak burst through the door.

“Pearl, talk to me.”

Pearl shoved past her and headed back toward the stable. The town was at once too awake for the lateness of the night and too quiet as most everyone rushed toward the mines to put the fire out. That was where Pearl should have been. And most definitely where the sheriff should have been. Pearl told her as much.

“I’m not the sheriff right now, Pea.”

“That’s all you are.”

“Tell me what happened between you and…”

“What d’you wanna hear?” Pearl threw back, the anger and pain turning to meanness too easily. “That I fucked a goyle?”