Drink, Slay, Love

Chapter Eleven

Ignoring the shouts of the coach and the other girls, Pearl pounded through the parking lot. She ran directly over the cars in three strides each: trunk, roof, hood. Her boots dented the metal roofs. As she impacted on the hoods, car alarms blared.

In seconds she reached the trees. She scrambled up the bank and through the underbrush. Branches snagged her hair and scratched her skin, but she ignored them.

"Okay, Mr. Sparkly-and-Pointy, which way did you go?"

Stopping just inside the woods, she held still. She deliberately slowed her breathing and listened. Behind her across the parking lot, she heard the coach rounding up the other girls on the field. Ahead beyond the trees, she heard a truck rumble down a street. Above her, she heard cheerful birds chirp and coo. She focused on each annoying, perky, daytime sound, identified it, and then discarded it. Sorting through the noises, she heard a faint rustle that didn't have an obvious source. Feet soft on the pine needles and dirt, she crept forward.

Rustling again, a squirrel darted out of a bush and up a tree.

Pearl glared at it. "C'mon, roadkill. You saw it too. Which way did it go?"

The squirrel chittered at her from high on a branch. Even rodents were more brazen in the daylight. Pearl extended her fangs and bared them at the squirrel.

It yelped and dived into a hole in the tree.

"Respect the food chain, rodent," she said.

She heard a soft whisper, and she turned her head so fast that her ponytail whipped her cheeks. She spotted a flash of white in between the pine trees.

In a soothing voice, she said, "Stay, horsey. Shh, I won't hurt you . . . much." She barrelled toward it, knocking into branches and tearing through the underbrush.

Just ahead, the unicorn danced between the trees. She saw its horn sparkle like a spray of golden water droplets as the unicorn cantered away from her.

Chasing it, she tore through the trees faster than any human could run. When the unicorn broke out of the woods, she was only a few steps behind. She lunged forward. Evading her, it raced across an empty road. She pelted after it. It jumped over a fence, and she vaulted over just behind it.

It disappeared into another patch of trees.

She plunged in between pine trees and birches. Green and white flashed past her in streaks. But as fast as she ran, the unicorn was faster. Every time she thought she'd lost it, she caught another glimpse of silvery white.

It's toying with me, she thought.

As she had the thought, she saw the unicorn again—this time, it slowed and looked back at her, as if it wanted her to catch up. Its eyes were brilliant black, swirling with a thousand colours all at once. Caught in those luminous eyes, Pearl stumbled on a root.

The unicorn surged out of the woods and into the backyard of a house. It clambered onto a low roof over a garage and then vanished over the other side. Seconds behind it, she threw herself onto the garage roof and climbed to the peak—

On the other side, the unicorn was nowhere to be seen.

She scanned the cul-de-sac with its TV-show-neat lawns and decorative mailboxes. . . Mr. Sparkly-and-Pointy was gone. Slapping the roof tiles, Pearl let out a yell that could have rivalled Aunt Fiona's screech.

She collapsed on the roof and tried to calm herself.

On the plus side, she was certain now that the unicorn was real. She could say "told you so." On the negative side, she still couldn't explain why it had stabbed her—or more interestingly, why it hadn't killed her. She'd been out for the count. A toddler could have staked her. So why hadn't the unicorn finished the job? And who had brought Pearl back to her house? So many questions, and the stupid, shimmery, speedy glorified donkey had escaped without coughing up one single answer!