Bad Boy Brody

by Tijan

  In that moment, Kara was with me.

  We were protecting Morgan from becoming like us. We were doing this because we wished someone had done it for us.

  I said quietly, inclining my head, “You have enough, Shanna.”

  There was a splash of hooves cutting through water, and then Morgan and Shiloh were on our bank, and she was approaching where we stood.

  Shiloh moved forward, and Shanna was backing away.

  She was looking from Morgan’s face, to Shiloh’s hooves, and then to me. She repeated the gesture, going around and around until I was convinced she would make herself dizzy, “What are you doing?”

  Morgan had no words for herself. She cracked a grin. “You’re upsetting Brody. Shiloh’s grown somewhat fond of him.”

  Shanna looked perplexed.

  Kara started laughing. She poked me in the side. “Good thing the stallion doesn’t see you as a threat. He must take pity on you.”

  I looked up to Morgan. “You should maybe go. Shiloh’s going to hurt someone.”

  She was watching the rest of the crew. They were all watching us back, and the braver ones were starting to move closer. They wanted to pet the mustang, but Shiloh wasn’t an animal in a petting zoo. She was wild and dangerous and the only one allowed to ride her was Morgan.

  Her entire body was alert and tense. Power rippled from the mustang, and Morgan was immune to it. I looked up and gazed at her in a new light. She wasn’t immune to it. She was included in it.

  As she sat on top of that horse, she was every bit as powerful as the mustang. The bond was so clear and evident that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see invisible strings attaching the two.

  But Morgan made a decision then.

  She slid off Shiloh, and as soon as Morgan’s feet touched the ground, the mustang sprang away. It was like they had rehearsed it or had a conversation ahead of time, but Shiloh didn’t hesitate. She crashed through the river and then was gone into the trees. It took three seconds to happen.

  It was as she had never been there in the first place.

  But Morgan stayed.

  Brody

  For the rest of our shooting, Morgan was at my side. She waited on the sidelines while I was working and was there while I waited for my time. She even began to help Kara, running lines with her.

  There were moments when she noticed a discrepancy in the script and told Shanna. She became an asset for Shanna. When we would arrive on site, Shanna would pull Morgan aside, and they would consult together. I knew Morgan’s input was invaluable, and Shanna grew more and more excited as the shooting drew to a close.

  I couldn’t say that people started to forget who Morgan was. They just grew more accustomed to her.

  We had two scenes left to do that week and then we were done.

  Completely done.

  There was an excited buzz with everyone. People had already started packing up, but most people were sticking around for the wrap party. The Kellermans were planning it, and there were rumors of kegs, wine, face painting, a DJ. Tents were put on the lawn.

  They wanted to take advantage of the abnormal warm weather. Morgan insisted it wouldn’t last.

  The new scene we were shooting wasn’t a hard one. I was supposed to be on a walk with my “sister,” and she was supposed to be telling me how much of a mistake it was to marry Karen.

  The sister was walking with me. The cameras were moving ahead of us.

  I was just about to deliver the line about how she was wrong, when someone screamed, ruining the scene.

  One of the assistants was helping the horse handlers, but the horse was rearing up. Her hooves were flailing, and the handler was thrown off.

  The actress by me screamed.

  Everyone froze for a second.

  Then, suddenly, there was a streak running past everyone.

  Morgan weaved around those in her way.

  I started forward, “Mor—”

  The actress’s hand clamped on my arm, stopping me. “Look!”

  The horse kept rearing up and down, and the rope had been released. The handler rolled to safety, stood, and started pulling the other horse away.

  Morgan darted around the last person.

  The horse saw her coming, swinging her head around, and even I could see the wild panic in her eye.

  A wheelbarrow had been abandoned in the path, but Morgan jumped, used it as a springboard, and launched herself onto the horse’s back.

  It happened so quickly.

  The horse jumped around, trying unsuccessfully to buck Morgan off. She clambered forward, grabbing onto the reins and sliding into the saddle as her feet found the stirrups. She looked a little awkward in the saddle, but that was because I rarely saw her use one.

  The horse stopped trying to buck her off, only lifting her head in the air and flaring her nostrils. Her ears were twitching all around, then finally settled straight up and alert.

  When the horse stopped completely and lowered her head back down, Morgan kicked it into a soft trot. She looped around, going through the river, and letting her run in some figure eights on the opposite bank. She was letting her run some of her tension out.

  “A snake!” someone shouted.

  The shout broke everyone from their reverie. People started scrambling for safety, but the person laughed, waving his hands. “No. No. It was a snake. Taffy killed it.”

  “Who’s Taffy?” the actress asked next to me.

  And that was when I recognized the horse. I gestured to her. “The horse Morgan’s soothing.” I moved forward, walking next to Shanna toward where the handler was standing.

  The guy had scooped it up and dumped it into the wheelbarrow.

  A few girls ran the opposite direction, but he just shook his head. “It’s already dead.”

  “Are you okay?” Shanna asked the handler who’d been bucked off.

  She nodded. “Yeah, just shook up still. The snake startled Taffy, and then when I fell off, it almost got me. Taffy killed it.” She gestured toward where Morgan was still loping Taffy in circles. “She’s shook up too.”

  Shanna didn’t say anything, but she turned to watch Morgan as the rest of us did.

  I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. Her gaze darted to one of the cameramen, and he nodded, already swinging the lens around to zoom in on Morgan.

  I stifled a growl. “Morgan!” I moved toward the river.

  She looked over, wheeling Taffy back around. “Everyone okay?”

  “Yeah.” And because I knew it would grate on Shanna’s nerves, I waved down the river. “Why don’t you run her back to the barn and bring a different one for the last scene?”

  I heard Shanna let out a sigh of frustration.

  Morgan looked to the handlers. “Is that okay? Do you need her still?”

  The male handler shook his head. “Nah. Run her back. Saves us time from loading her in the trailer.” He gestured to the snake. “I gotta get rid of this anyway. You’re saving me some work.”

  Morgan nodded. She looked at the other female handler. “You’re okay? She didn’t get you?”

  “No. I’m good. She saved me actually.”

  “Okay.” Morgan grinned at me. “See you in a bit.” I heard the excitement in her voice. She loved Shiloh first, but she loved horses in general, and it wasn’t long before she had Taffy turned toward the barn.

  The horse kicked up dirt, speeding away.

  “It’s almost as if you don’t want me to get the extra shots that’ll make this movie a masterpiece.”

  I turned to Shanna. She had remained while everyone else went back to working.

  “I am trying to keep you from using Morgan. There’s no contract saying you can use the footage you take of her. If she gets hurt, are you going to compensate her? She isn’t protected by a union or insurance.”

  Shanna paused, studying me. “I don’t understand you. She’s going to be fine. She’ll stay here. She’ll live out there with her horse. She’s never going
to fully know her own fame, but if she has a kid, maybe they will. Maybe it’ll be good for them. I don’t get why you want to protect her so much unless . . .” A different thought moved in the back of her mind, coming forward until she actually stepped back. She gazed at me with new awareness. “You’re hoping she’ll go with you, aren’t you?”

  Goddamn.

  I turned away.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re hoping to get her to leave with you. Then it’ll be a problem. Then it’ll be too much for her, but Brody . . .” She was shaking her head in pity. It made me grit my teeth. I didn’t need her sympathy. “You can’t force her to leave, and you can’t change her. You know that, don’t you?”

  I didn’t say a word.

  Her hand came to my arm, but I moved out of her reach. I didn’t need to be soothed.

  “Brody, this is going to end badly if you don’t accept her for who she is.”

  I didn’t need to hear that.

  I walked away and did the last two scenes until Shanna called a wrap, and then I went home to where I knew Morgan was waiting for me.

  Morgan

  “You aren’t celebrating like the rest of us?”

  The whole crew was partying and had been since seven that night.

  I glanced down to my lap. I was sitting on the edge of the deck, and I had my hands wedged under my legs. Others had looked up to where I sat, all wearing mixed expressions of fear and awe. It was the same every time I was around them. I was not one of them. They would never forget that, no matter what I did. For weeks, I tried to blend in. I wanted to be in the back scenery. I didn’t want attention. I only wanted to be near Brody. I wanted to watch him do his work.

  I turned around from my perch on the back patio of the house and saw Matthew shutting the door behind him, a glass of wine in hand.

  I smiled. “I feel like Brody would make some remark about you having wine tonight.”

  My oldest stepbrother stifled a small laugh, leaning against the railing that I sat on. “I’m sure of it.” He found Brody where he was sitting by the bonfire, laughing with Finn, Abby, and a few of his colleagues. “Is he drinking tonight?”

  There was a glass beside him, but he had only been sipping it. “A little.”

  Matthew turned his focus on me. I could feel his gaze on my side profile.

  We hadn’t talked about Peter’s part in my mother’s death, but I knew that was a conversation that had to happen.

  “We can’t go back to what we all had, Matthew.” I felt more than saw him go still beside me. “You were a brother to me for four years, but my mother died.” I felt knives in my lungs. “I learned what a person could do to another that day, and I suppose you were right in some ways. I turned off my humanity, and I never really turned it back on.” I gazed around the backyard, seeing them laughing, seeing them enjoying each other’s company. I shook my head. “I don’t understand them. I care for Finn. I care for Abby. I care for you, but it’s more like a trickle of emotion.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, but he remained silent.

  “Not with Brody, though.” I remembered seeing him in that car. I remembered feeling him in his cabin as I ran back to Shiloh. I remembered feeling pulled to him, as if I had no say about the matter.

  I looked at my brother, or someone who I used to consider a brother.

  He was watching me steadily. There was no shock or anger at my words. He was merely letting me speak.

  “I feel alive when I am with Brody or with Shiloh.”

  “Morgan.” He leaned toward me.

  “Don’t!” I spoke harsh, and he moved back again. “You need to hear this, and understand what I’m saying to you. I didn’t want the movie people here, but I am glad they came. My mom was a good mom. She loved me, and she loved you guys. She had horrible taste in men, but she still loved them.” One killed her while the other helped. “I will never be my mother. I will never let a man do to me what was done to her. No one will have that power over me.” My voice grew hoarse. “All I see when I go on the computer is people hurting people. All I see when I watch television is people hurting people. It’s useless and senseless.” I searched the woods, but I knew the herd was long gone. They would’ve heard the humans celebrating. “There are rules and hierarchies in that world, too, but they don’t kill for sport. They don’t hunt each other down. If another stallion comes into the herd, he gets chased away unless he fights. He may die, but that was his choice to stay and fight as long as he could. It’s the way for most of the animals, and I don’t understand why humans hate as they do.”

  There were tears rolling down my cheeks.

  “Before you came, I never cried.”

  “Morgan.” He edged closer an inch. “Can you . . . can you come down from that ledge? Please.”

  I looked at him fully, twisting my body around.

  He didn’t get it.

  I could jump from the patio and land safely.

  I could climb to the top of the barn and sit there as long as I wanted. There were cliff edges I laid on for my naps.

  I could walk miles barefoot in the wilderness and not feel a sliver.

  I could run amongst pounding hooves and embrace the beat that I felt through my feet.

  But more than any of that, I could survive in a land that would kill even the best hunters or campers. They grew up soft, which was why they thought of me as strange.

  “You still look at me like that little kid I was when she died.”

  That was their mistake.

  I was hard in ways they were not.

  They just didn’t want to admit it.

  I looked back to Brody. “He loves me, but he wants to change me. He wants to tame me.” I could not. I would not. If I did, I would die. “He wants me to go away with him, and he won’t accept that I can never leave.”

  Shiloh was like air for me. These lands were like my food.

  “He just loves you, Morgan.”

  That was the problem.

  I said, “He shouldn’t.”

  I had suddenly lost my desire to be around these humans. Without a word, I dropped from the patio. One person gasped, but Matthew didn’t say a word. I felt his eyes as I darted around the crowd and slipped through the barn.

  Tonight, I wanted to be with Shiloh.

  Brody

  I spent an hour searching for Morgan.

  I tried to keep track of where she was, and the last I saw, she was on the deck with Matthew. The next time I looked, they were both gone. I found him later in his office.

  “Have you seen Morgan?”

  He looked up over the computer screen to me. The light illuminated his face, but a shadow crossed his eyes. He stared a second and then shook his head. “I haven’t. No.”

  My eyes narrowed. “She was talking to you last. You know where she went.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, scooted his chair back, and gestured to one of the chairs across from him. “Would you like to sit?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Brody.”

  I relented, giving a grudging grunt. “Fine.”

  I sat, and he continued to stare at me.

  I inclined my head, lifting a hand. “If you have words of wisdom you’d like to impart on me, have at it.”

  “Brody, I—”

  “I meant about where your sister is.”

  That caught his attention. “So you do think of her as my sister now.”

  “I think I have no option. You’re not going anywhere.”

  I was testing him, baiting him. I knew he talked to her. I knew she was gone, and I had a feeling he knew why she left. I wanted him to spill it, and to do it as soon as possible. I was tired, and I wanted to feel Morgan underneath me so badly I was almost aching for her.

  “Brody.” He bowed his head a second.

  No.

  I could hear his sympathy.

  He was going to say words I didn’t want to hear, not from him. No way in fucking hell.

  I
started to stand. “I’m not going to hear this. I don’t give a shit what it is. I’m not listening.” I started to go.

  He shoved his chair back, and as it crashed into the wall behind him, his fist slammed down on his desk. “You will sit, and you will listen to what I have to say.”

  “Why?” I rounded on him, raising my chin in a challenge. “Why the hell should I listen to whatever you have to say? You might’ve known her the longest, but you don’t know her the best. I do. Me. Not you! A few weeks ago, you were the enemy.”

  “You will listen to me because I’m the one she opened up to! That’s why!” His chest was heaving.

  And from deeper inside the house, we heard someone ask about who was yelling.

  His eyes jerked to the door, and a muscle pulsed in his neck. “Can you please shut the door?”

  I didn’t move.

  “Please!” He spat the word this time.

  I folded my arms over my chest.

  I was being an asshole and probably looked like a spoiled, selfish brat, but I didn’t care. I loved Morgan. I knew Morgan. I was the one who brought her back to them. She fell for me, and she grew anchored to me. He wouldn’t even have her in his life if it weren’t for me.

  “Shut the goddamn door!”

  I took two strides, slammed it shut, and then turned around. “Yeah?”

  He let out a curse, raking a hand over his face. He pointed to the chair again. “Fuck’s sake, Asher. You’re almost as stubborn as Morgan herself.” He tried to gentle his tone. “Sit.” He righted his own chair and then sat.

  I followed suit, but slowly.

  My stomach was in knots, and every instinct in me was telling me I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say and it was going to hurt threefold because it was coming from him.

  His hand raked through his hair. “Trust me. This is not something I want to be a part of, but she confided in me just now. Not you.”

  I clenched my jaw. “What’d she say?”

  “She doesn’t feel.”

  “What?” I lifted my head and sat forward. “What do you mean she doesn’t feel?”

  “I mean exactly what I said. She told me that she turned her humanity off when her mother died. She turned it off, Brody.”