Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(5)

He looks back at me, but doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll have it back by morning, I promise.” My lungs go tight and my hands get sweaty, hoping he won’t ask questions because I won’t be able to give him answers.

He turns back to the tool chest and seems to find what he’s looking for. “Alright. Don’t see why not. I don’t drive that thing anyway. It’s got too much of that damn electronic shit for my taste. You gotta be a God damn—"

“But you can’t tell anyone,” I blurt out.

Ben turns around to face me. “You want to tell me what you’re up to?”

I shake my head.

He stands there, and I wonder if maybe he isn’t going to let it go, but then he takes his find from the tool chest and goes back to the tractor and sets to work once more.

“You going to go say hi to your friends anytime soon?” he grumbles, his head buried back in the engine. “Wretched things always hollerin’ for ya every time they hear your damn truck.”

I say a silent thank you, then make my way around the workshop until three plump horses come into view. My weakness, as Shayne calls them.

When I whistle, all three lift their heads from the knee-high grass. Sadie, a little bay mare, offers a soft whinny first, then Chester and Jackpot, both big stout sorrels with flashes of white.

By the time I slip through the wooden fence, they’re already making their way over. Soft, warm muzzles graze along my hands. They nudge me this way and that, then I smile when Jackpot reaches his head around and pulls a carrot from the back pocket of my jeans, a proud look in his deep brown eyes. And Chester—well, he just nudges me until I give him one. He’s sort of a goofball that way. Sadie, the only girl in the bunch, takes hers gently, with droopy eyes.

“How you guys been?” I ask, the words always coming so easy with them.

I stroke Sadie’s forelock, smiling when she leans into my hand. But then I get to thinking about what’s coming for me, and that terror takes hold, flooding me inside, and the smile fades. I bury my face into Sadie’s mane and wrap my arms around her neck. Before I know it, I’m crying.

“It’s all going to pay off,” I mutter against her coat. “It has too.”

I can’t help but sob out a chuckle when Chester and Jackpot nuzzle at my back pocket for more carrots.

Some might think it’s weird to have horses for best friends, but that’s what they are to me. I’d die before I ever let Shayne hurt them.

I can still remember the day he made his threat. I was in high school, and he’d already graduated, but he still kept a close watch on me, as we’d already made our deal by then. I was walking with this nice boy, Billy, after school, on the way to the bus, when he made the mistake of putting his arm around me, just trying to comfort me when I was feeling down about my father. A few seconds later, tires came screeching up and Shayne lunged out of his truck and onto poor Billy. Kid didn’t stand a chance. Within seconds his limp body was on the ground, and I was beating on Shayne, swearing I would run away, that he would never have me. That’s when he grabbed me, shoved me against the truck, and with his hand clamped around my jaw, said, ‘If you run, I’ll kill every one of those precious fucking horses you love so much. And I’ll make sure they all die a slow, painful death.’

I knew it wasn’t just an idle threat. He would make good on his promise, I was sure of it. And poor Billy wound up in the hospital with a broken jaw and his eyes swollen shut. But no charges were ever pressed against Shayne though. Imagine it has something to do with the sheriff being a good friend of the McAllister’s. That, and Shayne’s family owned the building that Billy’s parents leased for their bakery.

I let the memory go, and run my trembling hands over the horses one by one, checking them over, noticing how they’re backs are starting to sway, how the hair around their muzzles is turning grey. My heart breaks when I think of the time I’ll have to be away from them, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

But there is something I can do.

“I’ll be back before dawn breaks,” I whisper. “Then after I pay my debt, that place will be mine, and I can make my dream come true. I’ll be able to rescue all the other horses out there that need homes, just like Helen did with you guys.”

I give them all one last hug, wipe my tears away, then make my way back through the fence and over to the little groomed clearing off to the side, surrounded by a small, white picket fence. I walk through the gate and over to the two, grey headstones and pull a few weeds and clear out a few leaves, then kneel between them and place my hands on the grass, over where they both lie. I never knew Paul, their son, but I feel like I did. Helen would talk about him sometimes. She’d pull out the old photo albums and show me pictures, pointing at him with her knotted fingers and saying in her soft, gentle voice how much he looked like his father. Then her eyes would get all teary and she’d have to put the albums away. It was hard for me, seeing her like that, and she knew it too, so afterwards, she’d always pat my leg and say with a smile, ‘Let’s go make some cookies,’ or ‘Let’s go play with the horses.’

Helen.

I’m not sure how I would’ve turned out if it wasn’t for her. I wish we’d had more time together. She passed on in her sleep, when I was twelve. I often wonder what she’d think of me, given all I’ve done, and all I’m about to do. In my heart though, I know she’d understand. It still doesn’t make the hurt go away. Her words come to me then. Something she told me once, not long after my mom left. ‘You can kick, and scream, and cry when no one’s looking, but don’t you ever give up, Ava. Never give up.’