Phantom Hollow A blizzard night

In contrast to Pema, Shale enjoyed sleeping out in the rough. He had spent so much of his life in communal dens that the nights, especially the nights after he'd left home but before he'd found Lucy, slept alone in the wild were exciting and liberating.

He nodded as she spoke of the girl; it seemed as if she was doing better. One sentence in particular stuck out to Shale as odd--We still don't really know what happened to her, though.

"Pema," he said, voice low. He drew a ragged breath. "I think she was raped." Shale gave her a long look, wondering if she knew what that meant. Without going into gory detail, he added, so as to provide context clues, "She is bruised, and she smelled of a man. . .and his. . ." He trailed off, looking down. "Seed."

This was not the conversation he wanted to be having with a young, innocent woman, out here in the woods.