Page 193 of Chaos

Squinting at Applesauce, I find it just a little easier to breathe when I quickly realize he’s unharmed.

“Hey, handsome.” Cursing internally as I realize I dropped my damn flannel somewhere, I cover my hand with the bottom of my tank top—I bite my damn tongue hard enough to bleed when the thin cotton offers no protection, and the molten latch sears my palm as I slide it open. “You ready to get out of here, huh?”

Evidently, Applesauce is not. He won’t. He’s fucking terrified, the poor, sweet thing, huddled in the corner and refusing to move, and it takes everything in me to remain calm, to not burst into frustrated tears, as I try and fail to coax him out. “C’mon. Don’t break my nephew’s heart, okay? Suck it up for Alex.”

Applesauce nickers like he recognizes the name. Hesitantly, he takes a single step towards me, but it’s not enough. It’s tooslow. I have no choice but to hook an arm around his long neck, another around his belly, and half-carry, half-drag his ass out of there, gnashing teeth and flailing hooves be damned.

By some grace of some fucking god, we make it outside before one of those hooves inevitably connects. I collapse with a groan as it finds my stomach, as another trods on my fucking fingers as Applesauce takes off into the night.

On my hands and knees in the dirt, I give myself five whole seconds to breathe in air that isn’t more smoke than oxygenbefore sitting back on my heels. My midsection throbs, my ash-lined throat throbs, my burnt palm and my singed shoulder throb too, but I have to get up. I have to move. I have to go back in and find Finn, help him get the rest of the horses out and make sure he gets out too.

An equine squeal of pure distress cuts through the night.

Swiping at my burning eyes, I squint into the darkness, praying to every entity I can think of that I’m not going to be greeted by one of my beloved horses burning to a crisp.

I wonder, briefly, if what I actually find is worse.

Headlights.

Five figures circling a horse—myhorse.

One grasping at his lead rope, tugging too aggressively, but especially for one like Ruin.

“Hey,” I wheeze more than I shout as I struggle to my feet. “Get away from him.”

One second, I’m breaking out into a lilted run.

And then, I’m not.

It takes almost an entire minute for my mind to catch up with reality. For an extra bout of searing pain to register—for it to become apparent that there’s a piece of my outer upper arm missing.

Just as slow is the vague realization that it’s a graze.

A flesh wound.

So much flesh. So muchblood.

I wobble, my eyes cloudy from more than just the smoke as I raise my gaze.

And then I blink them clear. I recognize the people failing miserably to wrangle my horse. I touch my wound with a shakyhand, and I hiss with pain, and then again with rage with I finally realize what, exactly, caused the mangled graze.

And I shriek, “Did you justshoot me?”

Ricky might not be the one holding the gun, but he is the one who barks, “Don’t move.”

I lift my bloody hand in a single-fingered salute. “Fuck you.”

The sound of a shotgun reloading makes my spine lock, makes my gaze flit back to thepsychopathwielding a weapon. Clint drops the barrel just enough to flash a truly terrifying grin. “Now’s not the time to be a bitch, Lottie.”

A thoroughly unhinged, deeply unamused noise rips out of me. “You just shot me, jackass.Bitchis kinda the default reaction.”

“So vicious,” Carl croons from beside his brother, chuckling darkly. “Always liked that about you.”

My gut roils. Hiswildthing. That’s what he used to call me, I used to like it.You’re a real bitch, he’d say with a laugh, and I was stupid enough, young enough, to take it as a compliment. To hear it affectionately.

I make no such mistake now.

I repeat, “Fuck you.”

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