by Anne Jolin
I slung my backpack up on my shoulder and started toward the main house. It was almost completely dark out, the long summer nights having yet to begin but when I squinted hard enough, I noticed something across the parking lot.
The side door to the barn was ajar.
That was odd considering I’d locked down the barn for the night prior to the meeting with Grant in his office. Nonetheless, I changed course, heading toward the barn instead of the main house. I had to look down every few steps to make sure I didn’t trip over anything in the dark.
Within a minute or two, I stood in front of the open door and peeked inside. It was pitch black, but as I reached for the handle, I stopped. There was the faint sound of someone—a man—talking, but as I crept closer to the voice, I realized whoever it was wasn’t talking, they were reading.
I turned a corner and my feet halted of their own accord. Sitting on the floor in front of a stall door, with his long legs stretched out in front of him, was Crow. From the dim yellow of the flashlight he was using to read, I could just faintly make out the edges of his body.
He was wearing black, as always according to Glitch, the same ripped jeans as the first day I’d seen him, and a faded Metallica T-shirt. His boots were crossed at his ankles, and resting in his lap was a paperback book.
The sound of the horses tucked in for the night filtered in and out as his smooth voice read to them.
He could talk.
Well, I knew that he could, but in the three Sundays since I’d been there, I’d only heard him say one word and this…this was so much more magical than that.
That word when he said it had been bitten out like gravel through a trash disposal, like it pained him to say it. This was different. The words fell off his lips like they’d been written for him and only him to speak. His body looked relaxed, that air of a tornado that usually surrounded him had subsided.
His voice was deep and smooth, like honey-covered peaches in August. Warm to the touch and sweet in the way that made your toes curl.
It didn’t take but a moment to realize the book he was reading was The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. Somehow it seemed fitting to him in a way, but I wasn’t sure I could put my finger on why.
Listening to him, I never wanted it to stop. I’d intruded on some closed-off part of another person, but for the life of me, I couldn’t walk away.
I lifted my backpack higher onto my shoulder and leaned sideways, but instead of my hips finding the wall, they found only air. Air then more air.
I screamed as I fell, completely submerged into one of the water troughs.
My arms flailed in the water as I thrashed around in the dark to grab the edge of the trough. It took me a second, and when I did, I sputtered as I pulled my head out from under the water.
Looking around into the black, I absentmindedly noted that I no longer heard the sounds of Crow reading, and then I felt hands under my arms.
“Oooph,” I stammered as something in the dark pulled me out of the tub.
I was soaked, completely. Luckily, somehow, my backpack managed to land on the floor as I regarded when I nearly tripped over it as the hands set me down on my feet.
Blinking rapidly, I felt, more than saw, him leave me, but he returned a few seconds later, wrapping what smelt like a horse blanket around my shoulders.
“T-t-thank you,” I stuttered through clanking teeth.
I’d always been one of those girls who tended to run on the cold side, even in the heat of summer, so being soaked in the dead of night meant I was nearly frozen to the touch.
He didn’t speak. Instead I felt his hands as they moved up and down my arms, patting me dry and securing the blanket around my body with the straps.
My eyes re-adjusted to the darkness, and the ridges of his jaw caught the moon through the skylight.
He was rough, not in the way my dad and Owen were, but rough just the same.
“You… you have a beautiful voice,” I told the shadow in front of me.
He stilled.
“I was… I was listening,” I added for some reason. “I love that book.”
I felt his hands slide down my arms and drop away as he took a step back.
“Why don’t you talk more?” I pressed and took a step in what I hoped was his direction.
The once-faint outlines of his face recessed deeper into the shadows of the barn as he stepped back once more.
My teeth clattering together offset the pounding of his heart that could be heard from where I stood across the isle.
“Girls like you shouldn’t be in dark places with men like me,” he rumbled.
I fought back the smile tugging on the edges of my mouth. Somehow, in the few minutes since I’d last heard it, I’d missed the sound of his voice. Except, this time, it was different than the reading. It once again carried that haunting of pain.
But he’d spoken to me directly, and somewhere in my heart, that felt like a victory worth a fortune.
Stepping under the skylight, I felt a water drop run down the bridge of my nose. “I’m not scared of you.”
The shadows around where I knew he stood sighed.
“Go on home to your country club boyfriend, angel,” he said, and I almost felt like I was being chastised. “There’s no place for you here.” I heard his boots scrape the pavement. “Not tonight. Not with me.”
It was then that the hollow surrounded me, and I knew he was gone.
Making awkward jabs into the darkness with my legs, I found my backpack and hauled it along beside me. Then, using the wall as a guide, I counted the paces and stopped where I thought it might be. I knelt down and felt around the cool floor until my fingers curled around the edges of a book.
The Black Stallion.
I wanted to keep it. Maybe he’d speak to me again in order to get it back.
I left the barn in a hurry—or in as much of a hurry as one fumbling, shivering person in the dark could manage—and darted for Grant’s office. It was locked, but I knew the code and tapped it into the keypad as quickly as my cold fingers could muster.
I flicked on the lights and went straight for where I thought they might be. Grant had asked that prior to starting my new position at Equine for Hearts, I familiarize myself with each of the volunteers and program members so I could better assist him.
Now felt like as good a time as any to do so.
Reaching the desk, I hauled open the file cabinet and scanned the labels. There were four names written on the top of four files near the back of the top drawer. I grabbed the first one labelled Anthony Johnstone and flipped it open. There was a photo of Glitch along with his name and documents from the prison. I stifled back a small giggle at the realization that his real name was Anthony before shoving the folder back where I found it.
The next two were labelled Robert Karlson and Hank Armstrong, or as I had come to know them as I scanned the photos in the files, Fun Bobby and Dirt.
I decided not to read their files until I found the one I was looking for. The last one, at the very back of the drawer, was labelled Rhys White. I flipped it open.
There was a mug shot of a younger version of Crow, or I guess his name was Rhys.
I liked his name.
I scanned over the file. Arrested at seventeen years old on two charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder.
My heart thundered in my chest.
He was tried as an adult and sentenced to ten years in prison with the possibility of parole after seven. He was released on parole after eight years this month into the custody of Grant for a court-ordered period of twelve months.
Rhys had been in prison for eight years.
In the file, it listed the details of his parole, but nowhere did it list why he’d done what he’d done and whom he’d done it to. In fact, the file left out almost everything about him save for numbers and a few photos.
Deep in my heart, something shook and it wasn’t from the cold.
SWEAT RAVAGED MY
BODY.
It was hot, so fucking hot.
Somehow, in the span of a week, as May rolled into June, the sun had gotten hotter than a two-dollar pistol, and my skin felt like it was burning up.
Grabbing the shirt I’d stuffed in the back pocket of my jeans, I used it to wipe the sweat from my forehead.
“Hotter than the devil’s asshole out here today,” Dirt groaned.
We’d been working on a gate for one of the wood horse enclosures most of the morning.
“Watch how you talk ‘bout the Lord, boy,” Fun Bobby hissed and poured what was left of his water glass down the front of his bare chest.
I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses. Sometimes it felt like he was filming con porn in his head or something with the way he behaved.
“Fact is,” Dirt started up again, “I’m sweatin’ like a whore in church, and this thing ain’t half done yet.”
The arches of my feet roared inside the weight of my motorcycle boots, and my back ached from the labor. I ignored both—the pain of a workingman felt satisfying.
“Quit bitchin’,” Glitch snapped at him.
The boy was so willowy, he looked like he’d snap in half if the sun got any hotter.
Dirt glared at him, and for a split second, I thought Glitch might have pissed himself in fear. Dirt was a huge guy.
Fun Bobby doubled over in laugher, clutching his sides while Glitch pitched a fit at being the only half-normal one of the four of us. He wasn’t all that wrong, though.
I was almost, close to itchin’ on forty percent, enjoying the day when that piece-of-shit convertible roared into the parking lot and parked next to her truck.
She’d been around two days already this week. Staying overnight in the main house and all. Rumor had it with the volunteers that she’d taken up some new job with Grant that involved her living here a few days a week.
I tried my best to pay no mind to her at all, especially since that night in the barn.
It’s possible I should have felt a whole lot more violated than I did, her sneaking up on me and all, but I didn’t, and I wasn’t all that ready to dive into why.
The loafer guy, who from eavesdropping on volunteers, I’d learned his name was Wells, left the engine running but folded out the car and started straight for us.
“Hey,” he hollered, and Fun Bobby groaned. “Any of you seen Aurora?”
Glitch opened his mouth to answer, but Dirt slapped him in the chest and shook his head. Glitch took the hint and shut his mouth up tight.
Loafers didn’t look pleased.
“Aurora!” he screamed into the courtyard. “Aurora!”
Within a few seconds, her blonde frame appeared in the open barn doors. Her hair was twisted up in some bun thing on the top of her head, and she’d forgone the boots in exchange for sneakers in the heat but otherwise, she looked as she did every day.
Her nose scrunched up at the sight of him, and when he opened his mouth to yell again, she stormed in his direction.
It was the first time in weeks of being here I’d seen her face twisted into anything but kindness, and I had to admit, she looked really cute all wound up.
“Wells!” she whisper-yelled as she approached. “What are you doing here?”
He reached forward to grab her, but she backed away. The hackles on my neck stood up.
“We need to talk,” he hissed.
She shook her head wildly and some fire lit up in her eyes. Yah, she looked cute when she was wound up, but I was sure as shit happy she wasn’t all wound up and loose in my direction.
“There’s nothing left to talk about.” Aurora crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him.
His fingers curled around one of her wrists and he whined, actually whined. “It was an accident.”
Her nostrils flared and her eyebrows shot up to her forehead. “How exactly is you ending up in bed with Holly Holbrook an accident?”
“Ziiiiing,” Dirt hollered in their direction.
Loafers shot a scowl in his direction before tugging on Aurora’s wrist again. “I didn’t mean it.”
She rolled her eyes and stood her ground each time he pulled. “It was an accident or you didn’t mean it? Which one is it, Wells?”
“Point, baby girl,” Glitch whistled, and I shook my head.
We were four convicts acting as a peanut gallery, and it was more amusing than it should have been.
“You’re really going to let these guys talk to us like that?” Wells’s voice rose and the steel in my spine shackled together at his tone.
She laughed. “They’re not talking to us like that, they’re talking to you,” she corrected, and I couldn’t help the smile that crept its way onto my face. “And they can talk to you however they want.”
“I’m your boyfriend, damn it.” Loafers curled his other hand around her bicep.
“You were my boyfriend, Wells.” She shook her head, and for the first time during their altercation, she looked sad. “Not anymore.”
“Game. Set. Match.” Glitch cupped his hand under his mouth to act like an announcer, and I slapped him on the shoulder.
The boy was practically a toddler in need of a babysitter half the time.
Loafers dragged her toward him, and my eyes focused in on the way her skin went white under his touch.
“Wells, no,” she hissed as he leaned down to kiss her.
The loose grip I maintained on reality gave way and I lunged in their direction, but I was met by Dirt’s iron grip around my waist.
“That’s enough,” Fun Bobby intervened, stepping behind Aurora.
Wells shook his head. “This is a private conversation.”
“And it’s over now.” He glared at where Loafers still held on to her arm.
His grip didn’t budge.
“You do realize I’m a felon.” Fun Bobby laughed. “And so is he.” He nodded in the direction of Glitch, who waved. “And so is the big one.” He motioned towards Dirt. “And see the one that looks Marilyn Manson’s godson?” I growled when he pointed at me. “He is, too. So best you be on your way, kid.”
He assessed the four of us, as I struggled against Dirt’s hold, before finally letting her go. “I’ll call you later,” he said, backing up toward his car.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” she called after him.
Fun Bobby tucked her behind him, and I felt my heart rate settle to an even pace.
“You good?” Dirt asked in a low whisper.
I nodded.
“You be fightin’ and shit, Grant will have you sent back in, Crow,” he said as he let me go. “Be smart, dude.”
I nodded again as Loafers roared out of the parking lot.
My body was pulled toward her of its own volition. So much so that when Dirt completely released me, I almost fell face first onto the driveway.
“Are you okay?” The words came out like sandpaper on my throat as I stood beside her.
“What’s it to you?” Her eyes dropped to my bare chest, which was small in comparison to Dirt and Fun Bobby’s.
Speech died on my lips, and suddenly I felt suffocated standing so close to her.
“You never liked my country club boyfriend anyway, Rhys White.” She smiled like she knew all my secrets and liked them.
My heart swelled against the barbed wire that surrounded it.
She knew my name.
“Rhys.” I heard her saying it in my head even as she walked away.
Just saying it brought her light closer to my shadows.
I guess sometimes, angels do fall.
I’D BEEN PORING OVER these files, one in particular, for a week straight. I knew all the information written inside by heart.
Glitch had robbed a liquor store with his little brother, who’d only been nineteen at the time, a mere two years younger than Glitch himself. It was the third time the brothers had been arrested and the judge, who I’d googled, was a hard ass. She’d sentenced both the brothers on the same day. It was Glitch�
��s brother who got the most time. During the robbery, he had hit the store clerk when he hit the panic button and broken his nose. He was still in jail.
Fun Bobby was a cocaine dealer, or had been. He dealt to all the local bars in town but had a strict no minors policy when it came to purchasing. If someone he dealt to turned around and sold to a minor, Fun Bobby would blacklist them, and though no one had ever been able to prove it, beat them to a pulp. When the cops arrested him on distribution, he was high himself and knocked out one of the cops in a single blow, which resulted in two extra years on his sentence.
Dirt was a car thief and a picky one at that. Every vehicle he’d stolen had a purchase price of no less than eighty thousand dollars. His file listed ten counts of grand theft auto since the year he turned thirteen. He was arrested on his eighteenth birthday in a Tesla V8, which from what I’d found on Google, was a big deal. During the police chase, he hit a man crossing the street. The prosecutor had pushed for vehicular manslaughter, but the man survived and charges were reduced. Dirt pled guilty to attempted manslaughter.
I knew as much about those three men as I did about the fifteen volunteers and the twenty-two youth cases we currently had, including Josh.
Despite all of this—the skeletons in all these closets—I kept coming back to one file.
Rhys White.
In fact, I half wondered if I’d become a bit obsessed with it. The edges of the folder had started to bend from being shoved in my backpack repeatedly.
I flipped it open for the umpteenth time.
His file was lighter than the others. During his prosecution, Rhys never once spoke in his defense. He pled guilty to both charges of assault with a deadly weapon and the charge of attempted murder. It was noted that his lawyer requested he be tried as a minor, but Rhys declined. There were no notes listed in his prison records other than the indication of good behavior which resulted in his granting of parole after eight years.
Eight years.
If I rewound my life eight years and thought about being stuck in a cage all that time, my heart rebelled. What a life that would be.
