Page 27 of Gravel and Grit

“Candyisa necessity,” he answered, sounding just as appalled as he appeared.

Mira had a pretty serious sweet tooth, so she wasn’t exactly upset at the thought of having something to satisfy that craving. Still, she felt guilty for taking things she thought they could manage without, even if they were leaving money to compensate for their thievery.

Regardless, Zaek was the one doing all the flying, so if the alien wants candy, you give him candy. Hell, for all she knew, sugar could be a vital supplement for his wellbeing.

With that in mind, she grabbed one of her favorites off the shelf and added it to her bag.

Their next stop was a hardware store where they procured some of the tools Mira would need to work on the device. That store had a more complex security system than the others and took Zaek a few minutes longer to disable, but he managed it without setting off any audible alarms or alerting the police. Just before they finished, she took note of the prepaid cell phone Zaek grabbed up and intuitively added a signal booster to their haul.

Lastly, they went to a clothing store where he directed her to find whatever winter wear they had available, which wasn’t much, considering it was barely the beginning of autumn in Nevada.

She found a reasonably warm jacket, one long-sleeved shirt, a pair of pants, and hiking boots that were a size too big. She also grabbed a small blanket and a backpack to carry it all in. Zaek couldn’t wear it because of his wings, but she could. She wasn’t accustomed to being cared for and wasn’t willing to let him be solely responsible for their survival. The least she could do is have some way to carry some of the supplies, if they were ever forced to walk instead of fly.

Finished, they flew out of town just as unnoticed as they’d arrived.

The next leg of the trip was longer than the short flight to town since they didn’t have an actual destination in mind. They were searching for a safe place, one preferably away from any people, in which to spend the night.

She kept her fingers crossed he’d find something with running water so she could clean up, but after two hours turned into three she was just praying for somewhere with a flat surface on which she could collapse and massage her screaming muscles or curl into a shivering ball and try to recall what being warm felt like. It was barely cool on the ground, but this high up and at these speeds, it was cold.

Why the hell didn’t I think to put on some of those stolen clothes?!

He was doing a lot of the work of keeping her held securely against him with his arms around her back and his tail locking her ankles together, but not all of it and not nearly enough of it to make the ride any more bearable at that point. Mira made a stab at exercising once or twice a week, but she was convinced even a trained athlete would have trouble holding onto someone upside down, as they flew at considerable speed through the air for hours on end.

Miserable didn’t even begin to cover the state she was in. This was a level of hellish discomfort she’d never before known existed. She couldn’t even imagine how tired Zaek had to be, flying with a passenger for hours, especially after being injured during their escape.

Unbeknownst to her, she apparently started making pained groaning sounds in his ear. She only found this out when he removed one of his arms to pat down what he could reach of her body while yelling a demand that she tell him what part of her was hurt.

Mira, like any reasonable person would, sank her claws into his back and

screamed bloody murder when she felt him let go which, in turn, made him unleash an animalistic roar. Whether he was hollering in alarm, in pain at her screeching in his ear, attempting to sink her fingers into the flesh of his back, or possibly in anger at the air for giving her some imagined injury, she didn’t know, but it scared the shit out of her. Her first thought was that they were under attack.

After a panicked look around at the empty nighttime sky, she discovered that was, thankfully, not the case.

When she kept screaming at him to hold her and failed to answer his question, he dove at the ground so quickly she was sure her intestines ended up lodged somewhere between her ears, and her brain abandoned her to save itself by leaking out of her eyeballs.

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MIRA

Zaek touched down with a jarring thud that had Mira’s teeth clacking together, then ran a few feet to bleed off the momentum of the rough landing. Skidding to a stop, he ripped the backpack off her, deposited her none too gently on the hard forest floor, then dropped down over her, straddling her with a knee on either side of her thighs.

Without even buying her dinner first—never mind the stolen food in his bag—he yanked her shirt up, groped her stomach and breasts, then flipped her over and repeated his impromptu manhandling session on her back and ass.

He kept her there, despite her indignant hissing and energetic wiggling, by holding her down with his strong tail against the back of her neck, but he made a grave error when he scooted down her body, groping all the way, far enough for her to get a leg free.

She promptly used that newly freed leg to donkey kick him right in the face.

He fell back with a yelp while she scrambled to hands and knees and spun around to face him, giving him her best glare as she adjusted her clothes back into place.

“Female! Why do you keep attacking me?” he bellowed from behind the hand covering his nose.

“Attackingyou?I don’t know what kind of weird alien custom that was, but I have to tell you, I didn’t like it! You threw me on the ground! Then felt

me up like some kind of handsy creeper!” she accused.

“Felt you up? You were groaning in pain! I thought you were injured!

And threw?!” he shot back. “I would never! I… may have dropped you. Very gently! But I would never throw a female! My dam’s rearing of me was of superior quality than that!”

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