Through the tears of the storm lashing the desert, the sky turned black, giving way to a cold and lonely night. The wind pushed hard against Bonnie, but she lowered her head and kept riding across the flatlands on her mare Capella.
Several hours had passed since she'd fled the main city of Warlock County, and both she and her horse were running on empty. Capella dragged her hooves through the wet sand while Bonnie could barely hold on to the reins—her clothes were soaked through, she was cold, exhausted, starving, and fighting to stay awake.
Every now and then she glanced back, half-expecting to see those riders still coming for her through the dark fog of the night—but the truth was that there was only her, riding with no clear direction through the darkness, trusting nothing but Capella's instincts to keep them from stumbling off a ledge.
Bonnie buried her fingers in Capella's long black mane.
'My arm hurts… It really hurts.'
The wound had been bleeding for a good while, but at some point it had stopped—it was shallow enough that the bullet had only managed to tear away a strip of skin. That didn't make it hurt any less, though, because the raw, exposed flesh burned and throbbed all the same.
She pressed her hand to her arm and winced.
'Where am I even supposed to go now?'
She couldn't go back to Warlock County, and going anywhere near the county under Caleb Graves's control was out of the question—she'd be hunted in both places. And moving to other counties wasn't a real option either, because as the killer of one of the most powerful men in the desert, she'd be considered a high-risk criminal wherever she went.
She didn't even have a clear path to redemption—everything was stacked against her. Maybe if she had stayed at the scene and waited for her father, he could have done something to soften the consequences. But given the way things stood now… that felt more like a dream than a realistic possibility.
Capella stopped and snorted. At that same moment, the rain cut off all at once, and the storm clouds finally broke apart in the distance. The black sky opened up into hundreds of beautiful, vividly colored stars blinking in irregular patterns, while the massive Mineral Moon hung at the top of it all in its perfect circular shape, watching.
It was a completely different moon from the one Samuel had known in his world. Earth's moon was smaller and gray—this world's moon was enormous, its silver surface streaked with soft pastel colors, as though some artist had spilled their entire palette across the vast canvas of that natural satellite.
Bonnie's eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. She already knew what the moon looked like in this world, and yet she couldn't help thinking how beautiful it was compared to the one from Samuel's world. It almost made everything from Earth feel hopelessly dull by comparison—though of course that wasn't really true.
Taking advantage of the rain having stopped and the moonlight giving her some visibility through the darkness, Bonnie climbed down from her horse and led Capella by the reins toward a large rock resting at the side of the trail, surrounded by cacti and dry brush.
"Come on, girl. Let's rest a little," she said, pulling a rope from the saddlebag.
She tied the rope to Capella's reins and secured them to a conveniently shaped stone nearby. After that, she pulled out a few rolled bundles of cloth she'd packed away. Inside one of them were several cans of varying sizes.
'Some food cans and some tins packed with sawdust, cotton, and oil. They stayed dry because they were covered and buried at the bottom of the bag. It's not much—but at least it'll keep me from freezing. It'll work like a small campfire until I can build a proper one…'
She spread a small blanket over a flat rock jutting out of the ground—part of the larger boulder that would serve as a windbreak in an emergency, like a sandstorm.
She sat on the blanket and set four tins in a row. Then she pulled out a silver lighter she'd kept beside the tins. It had a sun engraved on it and the initials B.J.
'I used to use this lighter to light my father's cigars. I never imagined I'd be using it to survive in the desert.'
She lit the wicks on the tins and they caught, each one giving off a small, quiet flame. Then she reached for another can—this one completely sealed, a tin of sweet preserved beans with a poorly drawn cow on the label, for reasons she couldn't begin to explain…
'Huh? I didn't bring a can opener…'
She pressed her hand to her forehead, disappointed in herself.
Bonnie Jones had always been a sharp girl who, despite almost never leaving the house, had the practical knowledge to avoid being completely helpless on her own. Everything already packed in those bags was something she herself had prepared for her escape from home—even before Samuel had taken over her body. Unfortunately, she was still a human being, and human beings make mistakes.
'I packed all these cans and forgot the can opener…'
She couldn't blame the Bonnie of the past—after all, none of this was her fault. Though the current Bonnie was probably guilty of two or three consecutive murders now, so there was that.
'I curse the day I got used to pull-tab cans.'
She reluctantly dug a small knife out of the saddlebag and pressed it carefully into the side of the can. The blade slipped across the aluminum surface and nearly took Bonnie's finger with it—but she yanked her hand back just in time, with a speed and reaction that felt off, because she was not the athletic or perceptive type. She was a lady.
'What was that…?'
Her hand had moved almost on pure instinct. She sat there staring at her fingers, turning it over in her mind—and then she remembered what had happened during the chase, when she'd shot Deputy Collins. Her aim had improved out of nowhere, even though she had never fired a weapon in Bonnie's life, and Samuel hadn't touched a revolver in years.
'Something strange was happening with Capella back then too,' she thought, glancing over at the mare.
The horse was licking water from a puddle that had collected beside a cactus.
"No, Capella! Don't drink that. It's dirty."
She pushed herself up from her seat and grabbed the canteen—but when she pressed her hand against the rock to stand, the wound on her arm sent a sharp jolt of pain through her. She hissed, and Capella immediately turned to look at her rider.
"At least it seems like you care about me. Thank you."
She opened the cap and held it out for the horse to drink a little. Capella licked her lips when the water hit them.
"Don't drink standing water again—it's probably full of bacteria that could make you sick, and I don't know what I'd do if that happened to you."
Thinking about illness, she looked at her arm again. The faint glow of the four tins barely gave her enough light to see clearly, but the raw red flesh visible through the wound sent a chill through her.
'I don't know what I'll do if I get sick either…'
She drank a little of the water herself and used a few drops to clean the wound. It still hurt, but it was necessary—better that than risk an infection, even if a fair amount of time had already passed since she'd been hit. She used the knife to cut a strip from the blanket she'd been sitting on and wrapped it around the wound, wet cloth and all.
'I wish I knew how to do more than this. I guess my knowledge of digital animation isn't going to be much use out here. Though at least knowing how to shoot a gun saved me from… that…'
Her expression darkened. She closed her eyes, sick with pain and revulsion—because in that moment, she'd had no choice but to kill Caleb. There was no other way out, or that pig would have done the worst thing imaginable to her.
'I can't go back to who I was before, can I?'
No longer a bored college student with existential fatigue.
No longer a damsel of the Wild West.
Just a killer and a criminal in two counties.
When she opened her eyes, Capella was right there, staring at her steadily—as though she could understand exactly what she was feeling. And that was more than a little strange.
Bonnie smiled.
"You were always so attentive with me—but lately it's even more than that. Did you figure out that it's not just Bonnie standing in front of you anymore? I think you did. You're incredibly smart, strong, and fast…"
She looked at the horse's legs.
'But you were never especially agile. And I was never especially good at shooting.'
Something wasn't right.
'Could this have something to do with my transmigration—with the cult that summoned that terrifying demon? If it does… how do I make this "power" keep working? If I'm going to keep running, I need to understand it. I want to learn, but…'
In the silent desert.
"We're on our own, Capella."
A damsel turned outlaw, and her faithful companion—Capella the mare.