Page 55 of Chaos

Finn says my name, dragging my attention back to him. I jolt a little when I find him already looking at me, and looking at me… weird. Indescribable, undecipherable to me, because I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me like that. I’m not in any way familiar with even one of the emotions causing his expression to be so intense yet so soft at the same time.

He repeats my joyous declaration, he says, “You rode Ruin,” in the same awestruck tone I did, and keeps looking at me like that as he rises from his concerned crouch and holds out a hand to haul me up.

Bypassing the help, I scramble upright all by myself. “What?”

“You’re smiling.”

I am. I can’t stop. I have to repeat, “I rode Ruin.”

“Yeah, I saw that, you fucking psycho.” Just for a second, Finn smiles too before resuming that ultra-concerned frown. “You sure you’re not hurt?”

“Positive,” I lie. And then I turn to my audience and I lie some more. “I’m all good.”

Lux looks pissed as fuck. Van deHa Ha, Assholelooks pissed. Jackson looks like he’s trying to be pissed, but not quite achieving it. The ranch hands and my little sister don’t look pissed at all. And Finn looks… something else. Something between worried out of his mind and oddly proud and… flustered?

There’s no time to analyze it properly. A whicker catches my attention and I glance aside right as a big, wet muzzle smacks against my cheek, making me smile even harder.

“I know you didn’t mean it.” I slip an arm around Ruin’s neck, another down that broad forehead, my own going to the notch just above his eye. Pressing my lips to his soft, sleek coat, I whisper so quietly that I can barely even hear it myself, “Thank you.”

Five seconds of pride.

That’s all I get before the worst possible thing happens.

Before the unlocked gate screeches open again and a little body flies through it.

“Alex.”

14

Her siblings suffer simultaneous heart attacks.

His heart does something else entirely.

At first,it’s like everything moves in slow motion.

My nephew tears into the paddock, evading his mother and his uncle and everyone else who tries to grab him with a spryness no three-year-old should possess. It’s as if everyone is moving through sludge, too slow to catch him. To stop him from rushing at Ruin so quickly, to hush the high-pitched laughter, to prevent all the things that startle the fragile horse beside me.

And then, it’s all quick.

Ruin rears.

Alex screeches to a halt directly in the path of his descending hooves.

I don’t think. I just move. I cover his body with mine, and I do it just in time.

The pain of a hoof colliding with my back, of my knees slamming against the ground hard, is nothing compared to the frightening shriek of the little boy bundled against my chest.

With my eyes closed, I don’t see the flurry of movement around me, but I hear it. I know someone is trying to calm Ruin down, someone else is yelling, more than one person is running our way. Even before I open my eyes, I know who rips Alex from my arms, I know who’s screaming at me, asking what the fuck is wrong with me in the same breath she asks her bawling son if he’s okay.

“I wanted to ride the horsie like Lottie,” Alex babbles in between sobs, and I almost start sobbing too.

My legs feel like they're made from cement as I struggle to my feet for the second time in as many minutes. “Lux—”

“Don’t touch him.”

The hand I reach out towards my nephew abruptly retreats. As do I when my sister spits, “Get away from him right now.”

I stumble backward. Right into a solid chest, into two hands that curve over my shoulders, that I shrug off almost the very second they land.

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