Holding me has left him open to the second bird, which slashes at him repeatedly. With each swipe of its talons it opens up another gash on Asher’s body. He winces every time, but doesn’t let go of me, or the reins. He just continues to press Starshine to run faster. I’m still no use. I’m just too slow. My arms don’t want to cooperate. It’s as if I’m trying to swing out underwater.
But then the bird slices across Asher’s neck with its talon and, when I see the blood run down Asher’s throat, there’s this click inside of me. Just like before.
Everything seems to disappear except that gash. My blurry vision clears. My hearing is better, and even though I can still hear the slash of wings against air, the thunder of the horse’s hoofbeats, and the birds’ screeching caws, I’m able to differentiate one from the other. They’re no longer just a mess of noises. But the most important change is the strength I feel in my arms and legs. I don’t feel ill anymore and my muscles are no longer spaghetti.
As if on instinct, I grab the horn in front of me and push myself up on my arms. Asher removes his arm from around my waist and I kick my legs around so I’m completely turned around in the saddle and facing Asher, who stares at me wide-eyed for the shortest of seconds before turning his attention back to the trail in front of us and hooking his arm around my waist again.
I reach out to snatch the bird that’s yanking on my hair. It wrenches out a good amount of hair and my vision swims for a minute as each strand disconnects from my head, but I don’t let go. Instead, I adjust my grip on it like I had with the bird earlier, so I’m holding it with one hand on its head and the other around its body. Then I twist and yank.
There’s a loud cracking, snapping sound and soon the bird is in two pieces. Without so much as a wince, I toss it to the ground and go for the second bird. Unfortunately, it saw what I did to the first and won’t be as easy to grab. The good part is, it’s got its full attention on me now. It dives at me instead of Asher this time.
I miss, but not because I couldn’t get my body to cooperate—it flies just close enough to strike out at me, but never close enough for me to grab it. Then, after the fifth dive, I see my opening. Right before it tries to claw at me again, I twist my body to the side and lunge forward, practically falling onto the ground, but I’ve got the bird and Asher has me.
Again I rip its head off and toss the halves over Asher’s head. Even through the horse’s hoofbeats, I can hear the parts thump onto the ground.
Satisfied, I search the air to make sure there’s no other, but it doesn’t appear that any more have followed us. That only relieves me for a minute as I glance at Asher. For an instant I have the strongest, strangest urge to … kill him. To take his head between my hands and twist so I can watch his lifeless body hit the ground with a thud.
Just as quickly as I think it, I force the thought away, shaking off the shock. That’s disgusting. Why would I possibly want to hurt Asher, let alone kill him? The hate and anger I feel toward him completely fades as I glance at his neck and the slashes over the rest of his body, then mine. We’re both entirely lucky that we survived that. And if two were this hard to beat, I can’t imagine what Gavin was—is going through.
There’s so much adrenaline pouring through my veins, but my whole body is tense with anger. Is this something normal for me? Am I usually this angry? If … when I get my memories back, will I even like myself?
It’s no use, though. As clear as my mind feels right now, I still can’t recall anything. And the worst part is I don’t know who I’m most angry with: Gavin for forcing me to leave, me for not fighting harder to stay, or Asher for taking me away.
However, anger is as useful as tears, which is to say not at all. So, I force my mind away from Gavin and focus instead on what I did to the birds. I have no idea how I was able to do what I did, but it didn’t feel wrong. It felt right. Like that was how I was supposed to be, and I’ve just been living in a fog all this time. It’s the first time I’ve felt right since I got here. I sneak glances at Asher trying to determine how he feels about what I did.
Asher only looks at me a few times, but I don’t see disgust or any of the other things I imagined would be in his eyes after what I just did. Things I feel about what I just did. In fact, he seems impressed—the wonderment in his eyes speaks volumes—and not at all surprised that I did it. Or even that I could do it. It’s as if he knew, which is odd, since I didn’t even know I could do that.
Without warning, because I can’t see where we’re going, we burst out past the trees and into the full sunlight—and heat—of morning. I wince and shadow my eyes with my hand, but even then we don’t stop. In fact, Asher pushes Starshine to run even faster.
I glare at Asher, but he won’t look at me. Won’t even let me turn around to sit properly. Instead, I’m stuck facing him, facing where Gavin got left behind.
“We have to go back!” I yell.
“No.”
“But Gavin needs us!” Needs me. I can’t leave him.
“He’s smart. He’ll figure out how to get out of that and find us. If we go back, we’ll just get hurt.” His eyes meet mine for a moment before focusing back on the path. “You’ll get hurt. I’m not taking that chance.”
“But look what I did to those birds! I could help him!” Even though what I did to the birds disgusts me, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again to save Gavin.
He shakes his head. “That was only two birds, Evie. Not a whole flock.”
“But—”
“I’m not going back, Evie!”
His jaw is tight as he clenches his teeth and I know beyond a doubt that no matter what I say or do at this point, I’m not going to get him to change his mind. He thinks Gavin is dead. That much is obvious, but I refuse to believe it.
Gavin’s not gone. He can’t be.
If he doesn’t want to go back to find Gavin, I’ll force him. I sit up as straight as I can, and then in one quick movement I bring my arms and legs up to my chest and wedge them between Asher and me. Then, as hard and as quick as I can, I push. Asher’s mouth forms a little “o” of surprise as he flips over the back of Starshine to land on his butt on the ground.
Starshine starts to slow, but before Asher can get back up, I spin around so I’m facing forward, grip the reins as I settle my feet into the stirrups, and tug on the reins as Gavin taught me. Starshine circles around, stomping her hooves, so we’re both facing Asher. He’s back on his feet now, brushing at the dirt on his pants and wincing.
I dig my heels into Starshine’s sides and she bolts forward again, this time back in the direction we came from. Asher jumps out of the way just in time as we thunder past, but before we get more than a few meters—just inside the tree line—I hear a shrill whistle.
Starshine stops so quickly that she ends up standing straight up on her back legs and I find myself dangling from my fingertips. She leans a little to the left and I’m horrified to see she’s going to fall directly onto me. I let go of the reins and fall to the ground with a thump. Somehow, Starshine manages to stay upright before dropping her hooves to the ground again with a thud that shakes the ground.
I scramble to my feet and climb onto her back again, but before I can kick her into action, Asher jumps onto her back behind me. He grabs hold of me, pressing my arms tightly against my sides. Even though I’m struggling, I can’t seem to call up the strength I had earlier. He manages to twist me around, so I’m facing him again, somehow keeping my arms by my side and wrapping his own tightly around me, so I can’t manage to get even a finger between us. But I continue to fight, struggling as much as I can.