Fury burned through her. It was all she could do to keep from dismantling Joan Stonicher on the spot, and only the knowledge that Pleasure needed her kept her even remotely under control.The woods were swarming with people, with medics and deputies and highway patrol officers, with onlookers, even some reporters already there. Pleasure was accustomed to crowds, but he’d never before been shot, and pain and shock were making him unruly. He’d wheeled at Maris’s whistle, and his lightning reflexes had saved his life; Joan’s bullet had gouged a deep furrow in his chest, tearing the muscle at an angle but not penetrating any internal organs. Now it took all of Maris’s skill to keep him calm so she could stop the bleeding; he kept moving restlessly in circles, bumping her, trying to pay attention to her softly crooning voice but distracted by the pain.Her head was throbbing, both from Pleasure’s skittishness and from her own desperate run through the woods. She’d heard him moving through the trees, and in a flash she’d known exactly what had happened, what he would do.
