by Logan Fox
Then Tina let out a short laugh, dropped her hand, and gave Pearl a playful punch.
“You’re so easy. Come on, let’s go see if we can sneak into Tanner’s room. I hear he keeps some premo dope stashed away in there.”
Tina’s shoulder knocked into her as the girl pushed past Pearl. She grabbed Pearl’s wrist, tugging her along as she skipped into the library.
Pearl eventually found her voice. “You fucking bitch,” she said, but it lacked force. “You gave me a heart attack.”
“Whatever.” Tina threw her a smile over her shoulder. “You still got that card?”
Pearl dug in her shoes. Tina came up short, making a surprised sound when her cargo became immovable.
“Tina—”
The girl spun around to face her. “Ah, come on, Pearl. I’m bored out of my skull at night. This place is so quiet. And it’s too creepy to explore alone.” Tina shivered theatrically. “I’m sure it’s haunted. I see these—”
“You’re full of shit,” Pearl cut in, not wanting to know what the girl saw. “And I swear I’m just going to bed. That guy had me in there for hours.”
“Not true.” Tina shook her head. “I heard you going at it. Didn’t know it was you, of course, I thought it was Adam. He comes into our den a lot, keeping us out of sleep.”
“Not you, obviously,” Pearl commented dryly.
Tina crooked an eyebrow at her. “Yes me. Just not tonight. Thought it was him and Celeste, but obviously I was wrong.”
Pearl drew a deep breath and then downed the rest of her water bottle.
“There was someone,” Pearl said. “When we came in.”
“Seriously, though. Why our den?”
Pearl glanced away from the girl. She didn’t want to discuss this here, a few feet away from where Seth had… hallucinated the kitsune. She cocked her head, and Tina gave her a small, tight smile.
“Yeah?” came the girl’s breathless prompt.
“Yup.” Pearl gave her head a shake. “Although I know I’m going to regret it.”
She led Tina through the library and into the smoking den alongside. Crowding in beside her, she tugged the girl closer to whisper in her ear.
“I’m getting out of here. Tonight. Well, today. Whatever the hell time it is.”
“It’s just gone three or so.”
“What?” Pearl pulled back, searching the girl’s face for the trace of a lie. There was none: Tina stared back at her with wide-eyed innocence.
“Yeah. Guess it comes with the territory—” Tina tapped a bright-green acrylic nail against her temple “—keeping time and all.”
“You’re sure?”
Tina nodded. Then she frowned and glanced down at Pearl’s shoes.
“Wait… like out, out?”
“Out. Away. Gone.” Pearl pushed back her shoulders. “And if it’s really three, then I’m already late for my lift.”
“Your lift?” Tina called out as Pearl strode away.
Pearl cringed, throwing a hissed, “Shush!” over her shoulder.
Tina shrugged apologetically and began trailing behind.
“You’re sure you should be—”
Pearl glared at the girl over her shoulder until Tina stopped speaking. The smell of cherry blossoms trickled into the air. Pearl strode past the miniature tree, giving it a sidelong glance.
Cheers, buddy.
She paused at the door. Tina stood beside her, watching with wide, hungry eyes as Pearl took off her shoe and levered up the sole. The girl said nothing as Pearl leaned against the wall with a hand to slide back into the sneaker. She didn’t bother tying the laces — she just tugged them tight, bundled them up, and shoved them under the shoes’ tongue.
Her heart was pumping too fast again. The thought of running — of escaping — was making her sweat again.
“I can’t go with you,” Tina murmured, looking down tat herself. “I’m not really dressed—”
Pearl swiped the keycard over the door’s panel. She waited to hear the faint snick of its mechanism opening, and then pressed her fingertips against the stained glass as she turned the knob.
The door opened an inch.
“Here.” Pearl handed the keycard to Tina who took it with painstaking care. “I don’t need it anymore.”
“Are you sure?” Tina’s eyes were round. “What if you—”
“Don’t need it.” Pearl gave her an unsteady smile. “It was nice knowing you, Tina. Have a great fucking life.”
18
Caden’s Arrangement
The cold was sudden and disturbing. Pearl drew a deep, icy breath. She’d been outside what, a few days ago? Okay, not this late at night, but still… it felt like the difference between a summer and a winter’s night. She hugged herself, glanced at the Fox Pit one last time, and hurried down the wide steps leading up to the door.
Her sneakers crunched loudly on the gravel. Pearl cringed, her skin tightening in anticipation of someone shouting her name, or the sound of footsteps running after her.
But no one called out, not even Tina. She didn’t hear the girl closing the door, either — but that was probably because of the noise she made as she raced over the gravel.
She passed the fox fountain — staring at it in surprise when she realized it wasn’t on tonight — and then she had tall firs rising up on either side of her. Keeping close to the brick siding that ran down either side of the gravel drive, Pearl jogged away from the Fox Pit.
As the drive took a languid curve to the right, Pearl had an almost overwhelming urge to look over her shoulder. But she would always remember the Fox Pit: how it looked, how it smelled, what the air tasted like. Looking back now would just mean admitting some kind of defeat. Would mean that she wanted to remember, that she wanted a trace of her time to remain with her. Perhaps, if she didn’t look back, these memories would fade.
There was no sound outside. She’d expected a few crickets, nocturnal birds, the soughing of wind through the firs. But there was no wind. No birds. Nothing moved or stirred except Pearl. Panting, determined — frightened — Pearl.
Her footfalls were too loud. She jumped to the right, landing on neatly trimmed grass. Now she was almost as silent at the night — the only sound her own furious exhalations. How long was this drive? She couldn’t remember taking so many turns to reach the Fox Pit. Then again, she couldn’t remember this trip at all, anymore.
Darkness slowly closed around her. At first, the gravel had glowed like a beacon. But now… now it was barely visible against the black grass.
Her footfalls slowed. If she kept running, she might crash into something and lie here concussed until someone found her. She glanced around, trying to locate a landmark — something to tell her how far she’d come or how far she still had to go.
Firs obscured everything except a curving strip of the star-dashed sky. There was no moon tonight and stars cast down surprisingly little illumination of their own. Instead, they simply made the spiky tops of the firs look more imposing. The trees loomed up right beside Pearl, the gap of the drive cutting through them looking narrower and narrower the further she moved away from the Fox Pit.
In the distance, an animal called out.
The sound made Pearl jerk and hug herself. She peered in the direction of the sound, her feet moving mechanically under her. But the impenetrable darkness didn’t reveal anything — it kept whatever creature had made that strange, strangling wail secret.
Just like it kept her secret.
Her and all the others like her, those that had tried to run.
She shook away the thought, tightening her lips and the grip she had on herself. Thinking like that wouldn’t do any good. In fact, it might just make her turn around and head back to the warm, brightly lit embrace of the Fox Pit.
A small breeze touched against her cheeks, sliding over her skin like iced satin. She shivered and glanced over her shoulder. Darkness ahead, darkness behind. At least she would know if she ventured too far from the
gravel drive: she would walk straight into a tree. The thought made a smile flit over her mouth.
She looked up and stopped walking. The trees were splitting apart. Pearl glanced down, frowning. The gravel drive had reached an intersection of kinds, branching into three different roads.
With slow, careful steps, Pearl walked into the middle of the crossing. She twisted left and right. The angles between the convergence of the three roads were all the same. None seemed to be wider, more prominent. There was no way to tell which was the road that would take her out, and which headed in a completely different direction. Back to the Fox Pit, perhaps. Or to the stables and the sports fields.
That same animal called out again. A laughing, barking sound now. Close. Very close.
Pearl spun around, her feet throwing out tiny bits of gravel.
She swallowed down a cry of surprise, trying her best not to retreat. If anything, she had to keep facing the same—
Pearl turned slowly, eyes growing wide.
The three roads branched out like before. But which one had she been facing? She turned a little, but the new angle looked exactly like the one she’d been facing.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Another laughing bark, further away now. The fucking animal had thrown her off her course. She took a hesitant step forward, heading for the right-hand road and then stopped. Her shoulders sagged.
Why the hell hadn’t she brought a flashlight? A goddamn map? A fucking cellphone with GPS, where she could be directed in annoying, androgynous voice telling her that she had to make a u-turn at the next available opportunity?
No. She’d bumbled out here, full of Indiana Jones-style adrenalin and adventure without a fucking clue about how she was supposed to find her way in the dark.
Because of course the Fox Pit would turn off all its lights this late at night. There might be some on the perimeter, but that was a fuck long way off still, and she wouldn’t be able to see them through the dense trees infesting this land like choke weeds.
Her breath had become an inferno again. Panic tightened bands of superheated steel around her chest. She pressed both hands to her face, trying to wring calm into her mind.
Just pick a road, Pearl. Either way, it would end. And if it was the wrong one, then she’d just retrace her steps and choose another. Even if it took all night, she’d get to the right gate.
But how long would Greg wait for her?
Would he even wait at all?
He’d said three a.m. How long had she been walking? Fifteen, twenty minutes?
Her feet began moving under her, shuffling through the thick gravel. A few moments later, she began to jog.
Please, let him be there.
Fuck, please let him wait.
Please just wait. Please, please, please.
The frantic litany rang hollowly through her mind as she raced over the gravel. Her sneakers crunched through the stones with hypnotic intensity. She could feel every jar of her feet landing on the ground. Every breath as it tore in and out of her.
Her arms pumped at her sides, pistoning her forward.
The drive curved again. A suggestion of shadow — and with it the realization that shadows needed light to become distinct. Her heart was hammering in her chest, as if it could propel her forward every time it slammed against her rib cage.
She turned the corner, legs slowing into a floppy, jagged walk as she saw the fountain.
It was off, but the pair of lights fixed to the tall, ornate gate were on.
They glowed like lighthouse beacons: bright, undeniable. Pearl bent over, huffing at the gravel under her feet as she fought for breath. Obviously, running once a week was no form of exercise. And, apparently, pole dancing didn’t really count as cardio.
She straightened, grinning defiantly at the gate.
It was beautiful.
And tall.
And locked.
“No!” Pearl grabbed a grate in either hand and yanked at the icy metal. The gate didn’t rattle. It didn’t even shift or move or attempt a friendly, Christmas-y jangle.
It just stood, laughing silently at her, as she wailed at it.
She pressed her face to the cold metal, peering through the gap between two of the uprights. Outside, a black tar road.
Empty. Unlit.
The only illumination came from the lights on either side of the exit — light bulbs imprisoned in old-fashioned lamp posts.
She’d have to climb over. The realization formed into a cold ball of lead in her stomach, heavy enough to drag her to the jagged gravel. She put her face in her hands, digging her nails into hairline.
What was the point? He wasn’t here.
Greg — A. K. A. knight in shining fucking armor — hadn’t come for her.
Or… he had. And he’d waited. And then he’d left, thinking she hadn’t made it out.
It was okay. If he’d left, they’d just have to try again. She could ask Jarred to speak to him — to arrange another session with her and Greg. They could work out a time period. She could tell him to stay until dawn. Until he’d fused to the seat in his car. Not to fucking leave without her, no matter who came to investigate. No matter who followed him. Who…
No matter who threatened him.
Pearl lifted her face from her hands.
He’d said they’d followed him. Tailed him until he’d headed home.
What if he never made it home on Sunday? What if he’d tried to figure out his route, only for a pair of guards to trail him. To report him to Caden. To say that one of the wolves was poking his nose into Fox Pit business.
What would Caden have done?
What would Tanner have done?
Pearl shot up, gripping the gate behind her as she slammed the back of her head into the cold metal.
“Shit!”
Again, stars flashing across her vision.
“Fuck, Greg. No. Shit!”
The tears came then, driving her down, whipping her into a huddled, quivering bundle of regret and pain. She curled in on herself, trying to collapse into her own body, trying to fold herself into nothing.
It didn’t work.
The pain was still there.
The crashing waves of terror.
Had she killed him? Was she the reason he wasn’t here right now? Because he was in a shallow grave somewhere, dirt tossed over his open, unseeing eyes?
The silent fountain mocked her. She’d been right about the statue: it was another rendition of calm-as-fuck Aphrodite. The chiseled woman gloated at her with dead eyes and a mocking curve of a mouth as she fed a pair of eager foxes. Pearl tore her eyes away, blinking away her brimming tears and releasing the sob that so badly wanted out.
A flicker of movement.
Pearl swallowed, sobbed again, and swiped furiously at her eyes. Everything wobbled, distorted through those salty tears. A blink cleared the world for a moment, put everything up right and straight again.
The kitsune stood at the mouth of the drive.
It was a tall, slender thing. A bunch of thick, waving tails moved sinuously behind it. Pearl sucked in a ragged breath, cringing into the gate behind her.
She blinked.
Tears flooded her eyes, smudging the fox-woman into obscurity.
Pearl blinked again.
The kitsune’s face was inches from hers. Snarling. Fur stiff with blood. Canines still dripping. Breath as fetid and sulfurous as the pits of hell surged up Pearl’s nose.
Pearl screamed, throwing herself to the side. Gravel nipped at her palms and dug into her knees as she scrambled away. Her breath had become strangled in her throat, rendering her efforts at yelling for help, for aid, null. Her legs felt leaden and stiff, but she pushed them into a run.
Her ankles twisted as she raced over the shifting gravel, pain twanging up her legs and through her feet.
She managed a breath. It escaped milliseconds later as a low scream before she could draw another.
There was nothing to hear over the
crunch-hiss-crunch of breath and gravel. But she could feel the creature behind her, could feel that oily, heavy presence drawing closer. Pearl’s skin was so tight, it felt as if it would split with every breath. Her legs ached, and her heart stung with each furious contraction.
Her lungs were bellows. Her breath, fire.
And her mouth, its tinder-dry furnace.
The Fox Pit loomed from the shadows like a whale breaching the surface of a midnight ocean. Pearl reeled, stunned by its appearance. How fast had she run? How had she—
She spun around, hands in claws, ready to fend off the pouncing kitsune.
But there was nothing behind her.
Just firs.
Just the stars.
Just the gravel, hacked into troughs by Pearl’s dragging feet.
She struggled for breath, backing up until her knees bumped into the silent fountain. A crazy thought — the kitsune hid between the playing foxes behind her, ready to pounce — made Pearl spin around with a barely controlled scream.
Nothing but concrete foxes. Frozen. Unmoving.
Pearl sank to her knees. Her arms draped over the side of the fountain, her fingertips dipping into the icy water. Pressing her forehead against the smooth stone, Pearl let out a huge, rasping sob. Then another.
Soon, there was nothing left to cry out. She was utterly depleted, wrung out and eviscerated.
The slow crunch-crunch-crunch of footsteps made her shiver. She would have lifted her head if she’d had an ounce of strength left in her, but instead she hung like a rag doll tossed aside by a bored child, body limp and limbs dangling.
“Pearl?”
Tina’s voice. A small mercy. The kitsune’s impish attempt at lifting Pearl’s spirits, only to tear her down again.
Pearl let out a low laugh. It emerged hoarse and broken, and the footsteps stopped.
“Are—what’s… what’s wrong?”
Another laugh — possibly hers — and then a word. “Nothing.”
“Hey… let’s… what about we go in, huh? Pretty fucking chilly out here, isn’t it?”
Nervous, hesitant crunches over the gravel. A warm, tentative hand against Pearl’s head.
