Trevor secured Fake Blaspheme, and waited for her to wake up. Rafferty brought Real Blaspheme up to speed, and checked on Cody and Sheridan. Sheridan had banged her head hard on the ground when Blaspheme's wire had detonated. Cody kept asking about Fang Otter.
Every time Rafferty looked at Fake Blaspheme, she looked a little less like the gunslinger. It wasn't Rafferty's captor. She was taller, and her braids were a deep black. The final time Rafferty looked over, she was gone. This started an argument with Trevor, a loud one. Both claimed to have looked only a moment ago, and neither had seen or heard anything. But it didn't matter. She was gone.
And so was her knife, which had been tucked in Trevor's belt.
They searched the grounds, but they didn't find her, or anyone else.
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Instead, they found trails of footprints at the edge of the park, leading out into the Breaks. There was lots of them, including a set of paw prints, with odd drag marks behind them. All of the prints stopped abruptly a few hundred yards beyond the park.
They met up with the others. There were hugs. There were questions. There weren't lots of answers.
Trevor tended to Colin's hand. Sheridan retrieved her broken bow. Oscar and Lena packed up the truck. Nobody said much.
When Blaspheme asked why the hell they had bothered to come here, no one spoke up.
It took Rafferty quite a while to find her sword. She finally found it, stuck through one of the uneven elephants. A blue one. The kind that tipped.
On her way back to the group, she saw a message, sprayed onto the side of a brick building.
HEY BEAUTIFUL.
I DON'T THINK YOU'RE GOING TO FIND YOUR GIRL.
BUT WHEN IT'S TIME I THINK SHE'LL FIND YOU.
LATER
S.
Rafferty didn't mention it to anyone else.
As they walked out of Wonderland, there was another sign. The bear hoped all of his Benson-buddies would come back real soon.
Blaspheme shot it as they went by.
They piled into the truck. Rafferty was sitting next to Colin this time, and he caught her staring at his mangled hand. She said she was sorry. He shrugged.
Lena turned the key, and drove them away from Wonderland.
Only then, finally, did it begin to rain.