Her head whipped to the side like she expected to see someone. Perry grabbed a fistful of her shirt. She grazed him with a punch to the chin.

“Hold still!” He trapped her wrist and brought the shirt up, drawing the scent in. He couldn’t believe it. “That’s why you left? You left for those berries?”

Then he saw that she was wearing the device over her eye again. Those men could have taken the eyepiece. Then how would he have gotten Talon back? She pulled out of his grasp.

“You slaughtered them,” she said, her lips trembling. “Look what you did.”

Perry pressed his fist to his mouth and stalked away, not trusting himself to be near her. He’d crossed the Croven’s scent soon after he had left her. Perry knew they were heading toward the shelter of the cave. He’d taken another path, had sprinted to get there first, only to find the cave empty. By the time he’d picked up her trail and followed it, he’d been too late. She had brought him right back to the cave.

Perry rounded on her. “Stupid Dweller. I told you to stay here! You left to pick poisonous berries.”

She shook her head, turning a stunned look from the Croven’s dead body to him. “How could you? They wanted to share their food with us . . . and you just killed them.”

Perry was coming off the rush and beginning to shake. She didn’t know what he had scented from those men. Their ache for her flesh had been so potent it had nearly scored his nostrils. “Fool. You were going to be their food.”

“No . . . no. . . . They didn’t do anything. You just started shooting at them. . . . You did this. You’re worse than the stories, Savage. You’re a monster.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is the third time I save your life and that’s what you call me?” He had to get away from her. He jabbed a finger into the dark, pointing east. “Mount Arrow is on the other side of that ridge. Head three hours that way. Let’s see how you do on your own out here, Mole.”

He spun and broke into a run, plunging swiftly into the woods. He pounded his rage into the earth but slowed after a few miles. He wanted to leave her, but he couldn’t. She had the Smarteye. And she was a Mole who lived in fake worlds. What did she know about surviving out here?