by Ann Hunter
Alex rolled on to her side. "Things haven't been right in a while, Ash. Even Jess is scared."
Both girls looked in the direction of Jessica, a huge, tough red head who had been transferred from a group home in New York. Normally she'd be flat on her back snoring with the din of an entire sawmill, but tonight she was curled into a fetal position on her corner bed, much too small for her giant stature, and unusually quiet.
"Maybe we should take them all with us," Ashley whispered.
Alex shook her head. "No. That would make things worse."
"I don't think anything's worse than here."
"We only have enough for us two."
Alex looked at Ashley, able to make out her silhouette from the feeble light of a window above them. They had been together since… well, always. Alex couldn't remember a time in her life where Ashley wasn't in it. And they always somehow found their way back to each other from foster homes, as if they were never meant to be parted.
"I only want you, Ash."
Alex could not have loved anyone more than she loved Ashley. Her deep and compelling devotion to her was a source for every other emotion Alex knew, including an over-protectiveness and jealousy when Ashley was around others. Alex was the shield, the protector, and Ashley her shadow, her constant companion, her sword of truth to help make sense of things in the world.
Ashley turned her head and blinked at Alex, then got up to creep across the creaky floorboards.
Alex sat up. "Where are you going?"
"To the bathroom, nosy," Ashley murmured. "I don't want to stop to pee if we're going to be running."
Okay. So maybe they didn't go everywhere together.
A flash of lightning lit up the overcrowded bedroom just enough to frame Ashley in the doorway before she turned and padded up the stairs.
Alex rolled over, trying to punch out the lumps in her mattress well enough to get comfortable, but her best efforts were futile.
Rain pelted the lone window in the room, the lightning projecting veins of running water on the opposite wall. Thunder cracked against the house and a shot split the air…
Alex jolted awake. The darkness in the room disoriented her, and for a moment she was certain she was back at Haven. She scrambled from beneath a sheet and blanket, bumping into a headboard. A damp rag fell from her forehead, heavy with the heat it had absorbed.
Where am I?
There was still some pre-dusk light trickling in through a window to her right, and she began to pick out shapes from the shadows. Sweat prickled her neck, even though the room was not unusually warm. For a brief moment, she realized how feverish and weak she was, but she pushed that aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
She closed her eyes to breathe deeply and steady herself. Okay, Al. Think this through. Another slow breath. Her head was splitting. Pull it together. She worked through the brain fog and thought maybe she could find supplies in the house. I can keep going. I just need food.
A soft light framed a door which was slightly ajar. Alex heard someone talking and made her way across the room. She leaned against the door jamb and tuned into the conversation.
A brunette woman set dinner plates down on the dining table roughly, each one clinking against the wood with an escalating note. "He has no place telling us to take her as our own."
"Calm down, Hills," said a sandy-haired man, "the dishwasher already chips enough of our plates without you chipping another. Besides, it's not as if we're providing for her out of our own pockets. We're just offering her a roof over her head. That room never gets used anyway."
The woman grimaced, her reproachful gaze unconvinced. She and the man sat down at the table with their dinner and were joined by a blonde young woman not much older than Alex.
Another girl about the same age, with brown hair, leaned against the front door. She looked like she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself amongst the bickering, but the family at the table waved her over. "I already ate," she protested.
The woman gave her a narrow look. "Sit. Now."
The girl at the door obeyed and placed a tupperware container on the table, trying to avoid the woman's angry stare. "Yes, Ma'am."
The smell of hot food wafted its way up the staircase and Alex gripped her stomach to quiet its angry snarl. They seemed like decent people. Decent people that didn't deserve to be stolen from. Alex chewed her lip. They had taken her in. Maybe they might help her. But as she listened more closely to what the woman was saying, a dark expression passed over Alex's face.
"I don't understand why she can't live with the Norths," the woman muttered, "it's not like he doesn't have fifty spare guest rooms of his own. If he wanted to take her in, he should have done so himself."
Alex beat the wall softly. It was no surprise that she was not welcome here. They may have shown her enough kindness to keep her alive, but Alex knew when she wasn't wanted. Nobody ever wanted her in the long run.
She wasn't about to stick around to hear the rest. Move on, she told herself. They don't need to be in your mess anyway.
She crossed back through the bedroom to a window. It did not seem too high up. She undid the latches and pulled the window open. The October chill hit her, but she didn't care. She hung for a moment, then dropped to the ground and ran in whichever direction her feet took her.
***
Brooke sat uneasily with the Showmans at their dinner table, processing the farm's latest gossip. Mr. North was always doing something crazy that got the natives talking, and tonight was no different. The events had Dr. Showman hopping mad.
Mr. Showman took his wife and daughter's hands and asked his daughter to offer grace. Laura, half amused and half concerned over her mother's brooding, tried to stifle a smirk as she bowed her head diligently. She grabbed Brooke's hand, then offered thanks for the food and blessings in their lives, and said something no one expected.
"Thank you for this opportunity we have to expand our family. Please open our hearts, especially Mom's. She always tries to see our best qualities and love us in spite of ourselves. Let us do so for our new sister and daughter as well. Amen."
Brooke watched Laura peek out of one blue eye to see Dr. Showman's expression had softened and humbled somewhat. Laura smiled as her dad winked at her.
"Please pass the potatoes," was the only thing the vet mumbled for the rest of dinner.
Brooke tapped the tupperware lid quietly. "Um… who are you guys talking about?"
Laura set down her fork and leaned forward eagerly. "North found some kid on the road by the front gate. She's been out cold all day. You want to see her?" Laura's tone made it sound like it was some sort of new pet.
"Seriously? Where are her parents?"
"North told Mom he's working with the police."
Brooke glanced to Dr. Showman whose stormy expression only grew darker beneath a tight grimace. Laura moved to push back her chair, but her father touched her arm and asked her to sit back down. "Finish your dinner."
She rolled her eyes and wolfed down her food. "Come on!" she said to Brooke.
Brooke got up and slid the tupperware toward Dr. Showman. "Thank you, by the way. Those cookies were amazing."
She followed Laura up the stairs to the guest room where the Showmans had been keeping the girl.
"Doctor came by earlier," Laura told her. "He said her heart is a bit funny. Mom will take her in for an EKG as soon as possible. Doc didn't think it would be a good idea to move her with her being feverish and all. Mr. North was upset when he left. Not angry like Mom, though. More like he'd seen a ghost."
Laura pushed the door open since it was already ajar. The guestroom was dark. The girls crossed to the bed, but the rumpled sheets were empty. Laura darted to the door. "Mom!"
Brooke looked around the room. "She couldn't have gotten far if she's as sick as you say."
Dr. Showman pounded up the stairs. "What is it? Is she awake?"
Brooke noticed the window in the room was open just wide
enough for a person to sneak out. She leaned out and tried to see if she could spot the girl. "You could say that."
"Call North," Dr. Showman ordered, "put everyone on alert. He doesn't want that girl leaving the property."
"But why?" Brooke asked.
The woman looked at the girls with a grim expression that told them to disclose such information had been forbidden.
LOST AND FOUND
I don't need anybody!
Alex braced against a tree to cough and hack. The cool night air seared her lungs like fire. She still couldn't figure out what this place was. It seemed to go on forever, and there weren't many places to hide. Tall lights kept paths well-lit, shadows were scarce.
Even though she couldn't get her breath, Alex pushed on. Long pastures, fenced in by brown boards, blurred by. She swayed and caught herself on one of the fence posts, wanting nothing more than to fall and never move again.
Could she really push on feeling the way she did?
In the distance, a long building with soft golden-orange lights dimmed. Maybe she could find somewhere to hide inside for the night. She made her way toward it.
Once inside, she found young horses, gangly and fuzzy, in immaculate stalls, rustling their hay nets and water buckets. They all seemed to gravitate to their stall doors as she passed, shoving little velvet noses through black iron bars and calling softly to her.
A hit of sweet hay and warm fur complicated her breathing. She stopped in front of the stall of a horse who was taller, and a little sleeker, than the others. His coat was the color of milk chocolate, but his mane and tail were nearly white.
A plate of brass was mounted on his door. There were words, but Alex had never been a good reader. She sounded out the first three letters. "Pro…"
The baby swished his tail and looked at her with intelligent eyes. He snorted and sighed and ambled over to her, forsaking his food which he'd eaten little of anyway.
Alex slipped her fingers through the stall bars and touched his muzzle. She wondered if his bucket weren't full of milk, because his nose and mouth were white, and a thin stripe rocketed up his face. His nostrils flared and contracted as he breathed softly against her hand. Peace washed over Alex, the agony inside falling away.
For the first time, Alex felt fearless. She opened the door and let herself in, carefully closing it behind her. She reached out to him and stroked his soft, plush-like mane. The young horse leaned into her, relishing the contact. Their eyes met for one fleeting moment. This simple act of connecting and not being rejected drilled through the numbness in Alex.
Fever and weakness caught up to her. She wilted against the weanling and used him to slink to the farthest corner of the stall. When she collapsed, the young horse put himself between her and the door, blocking her from view, blocking out the world.
Steven North pushed his peas around his gold-trimmed porcelain plate, leaning his head against his knuckles. His wife had made a marvelous Beef Wellington for supper, but he simply hadn't the stomach for it. He stared mutely at the juices pooling in the center of his meal and sighed.
"Do you think you'll buy that mare you looked at today?" his wife, Amber, asked.
Steven sighed. "She was a nice mare, but not what I'm looking for."
"Seems like you've been having that problem a lot lately." Amber chewed her food methodically. She swallowed before speaking. "Nothing ever seems like it's quite enough. I don't think what you're looking for is out there, darlin'."
Steven thought of the girl he had found at the gates that morning. He took a drink of water from his crystal glass. Her pale face haunted him. "Has Hillary called at all?"
"Not since you spoke to her when you got back from Paducah."
Steven pursed his lips. He laid his fork and knife down beside each other.
"It's that girl, isn't it?" his wife pressed.
Steven inched the bottoms of the fork and knife forward until they were perfectly even. He folded his linen napkin on his lap and glanced up. "She looks an awful lot like…."
"Like your sister's husband, you said."
Steven looked at his sixteen-year-old son, Johnathan, sitting across from him, and the nearly six-year-old girl next to Johnathan.
Amber pulled a petite bite of beef and pastry from her silver fork with her teeth. The muscle beneath Steven's eye twitched. He hated when her lips didn't touch the silver, but he never said anything.
"She's not Angelina," she said between bites. "You can't bring her back."
The tines of Steven's fork did not meet with the top of his knife. When he tried to fix it, the bottoms no longer lined up. The corner of his mouth jerked. He remained silent until his Smartphone suddenly went off.
Amber gave him a look that begged him not to answer.
He rose, rumpled his napkin beside his plate, kissed his wife on the cheek, and left the room to take the call.
Flashlight beams bounced off of giant trees and brown fence boards.
"Who exactly are we looking for?" Brooke asked Laura breathlessly. Laura looked at Brooke from the corner of her eyes as if Brooke had already forgotten. "The girl we found, silly."
"I know that." Brooke tucked a rogue strand of hair behind her ear that had fallen from her pony tail. "What does she look like?"
"Oh!" Laura stuffed her hands in her coat pockets. Her breath floated on the air in a thin white puff. "Black hair, younger than us, about twelve or thirteen. She's sick, but I wouldn't call her frail. She's thin, but she's solid."
Brooke grimaced. "Right. Totally helpful."
"What? I didn't see much of her today," Laura said plaintively.
"So basically look for some kid that doesn't belong here."
"Yeah. Let's do that."
"Great. Got it. She got a name?"
Laura shook her head. "Sorry, didn't catch it."
Brooke and Laura came to a halt between a couple of empty paddocks. Brooke looked around. "Where would we hide if we were thirteen again?"
Laura looked in the direction of the barns. Brooke followed her gaze. "Naturally. Let's go!"
The two girls jogged off. Almost everyone was looking for this new stranger, but nobody had hit the barns yet. Brooke and Laura headed for the barn that the weanlings and yearlings shared. They pushed open the heavy doors and flicked on the lights.
Many of the young horses instantly pressed their nose to the bars of their stalls, wondering what was going on. Others startled and rustled their bedding. A few of them bumped noisily against the stall walls and squealed.
Brooke spoke softly, "Easy, babies. It's just us."
Laura was across the way petting the nose of one of the yearlings.
"I'll take this side." Brooke motioned to her right. "You take that one."
Laura nodded and continued down the same side she had been on, peeking carefully into each stall so as not to upset the horses further.
Brooke was a bit quicker. She knew each horse so well that she didn't spend long looking for anything out of the ordinary. Eventually she got into a rhythm and just as she finished glancing into Promenade's stall, she backed up to him again. "Wait a minute," she said to herself.
Promenade got to his feet quickly and seemed to be blocking something. Brooke slid open the stall door. "What's that behind you?" She tried to peek around him, but the colt pivoted so she couldn't see. She reached out only to get her fingers nipped at. "Hey!" she warned.
Promenade flattened his ears and swished his white tail. He held his head high as if to say, "Back off!"
Brooke rolled her eyes and pushed his hindquarters. "Move your butt, punk."
Promenade tried to push against her, but Brooke was stronger. Promenade stamped his white foot and sulked in the corner.
Brooke stared at a girl curled up in the hay. Black hair covered her face. Her pajama bottoms were tattered and she wore a dirty John Deere t-shirt. Brooke had been told to look for someone who didn't belong here, but somehow the girl did. "Over here!"
ONLY A D
REAM
A flash of lightning lit up the room just enough to frame Ashley in the doorway before she turned and padded up the stairwell to the bathroom.
Alex rolled over, trying to beat out the lumps in her mattress well enough to get comfortable, but her best efforts were futile.
Rain pelted the lone window in the overcrowded bedroom. A flash of lightning projected veins of running water on the opposite wall. Thunder crashed against Haven's walls, rumbling with a blast on the air. Somewhere in the house, a gun had been fired. A thud on the floor above followed.
All of the girls snapped to attention. Bewilderment and confusion lit every face. Alex threw back her covers and admonished her foster sisters, "Stay here."
The old, wooden floorboards creaked as she stepped across them. She turned onto the staircase, gaining speed. The stairs reverberated as she pounded up them.
"Ashley?"
She took the steps by twos now, searching for Ashley. Why isn't she answering? Alex called for her again. "Ash?"
Alex paused on the landing at the top of the long staircase, her breathing rapid. Her heart pounded. She swallowed back the dread pulsing inside. The end of the hall opened to a storage room, with the bathroom nearby. Something dense sprawled on the ground, darker than the rest of the hallway.
Alex raced down the passage, keeping her hand against the grimy wall to guide her in the blackness. Sagging, damp wallpaper peeled beneath her fingertips. An audible drip made its way from the ceiling and pattered on the floor.
When she turned on the bathroom light, it flooded into the hall, illuminating Ashley whose color was fading fast. Ashley stared up at her. "Alex…" Her hands shook as she raised them to her chest. A damp stain of crimson spread over her shirt like a shattered sun.
Alex dropped to her knees, slipping in a small pool of blood. She reached forward hesitantly, flinching, as though touching Ashley might sting. As soon as their fingers met, Alex pulled her close and cradled her.
"Stay with me. We're running away, remember? We're gonna get out of here and start a life together." She held Ashley tight, rocking her. "Just you, and me. Please… please, I need you."