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E very bump on the dirt road vibrates against my ass on the drive home. The twenty minutes from Lucille’s to our farm drags and I glance in the rearview mirror, ensuring my unwilling passenger is still a motionless lump. Long stretches of pasture broken up by dense patches of woods pass by outside the window, the mountains towering in the distance.

The isolation I hated as a child is a blessing now that Catalina and I are on our own. Isolation makes our home a safe harbor for our relationship that society refuses to understand or accept. Isolation conceals the way I’ve chosen to deal with the wrongs life has dealt me. No one bothers us unless we take a drive. Isolation keeps my physical body far from the bar , but no distance can keep my mind from continuing to return.

I push the unwanted thoughts back into the recesses of my mind. I have a new piggy, whose squealing will keep thoughts of that night at Drifters far away. I glance back again. He’s still unconscious, his body rocking only slightly from the movement of the truck.

Our gate comes into view, the lonely farm house further behind it. There are no neighbors within shouting distance, no other house we can see, not unless I ride Jasper to the back edge of our property line. I turn up the radio, belting my heart out to a familiar country ballad. I drum my hands against the steering wheel and rock my body in time with the twang of the guitar. Thoughts of Catalina drift through my mind. My big sister is the glue holding my broken pieces together, never worrying if they’re too jagged to hold or too shattered to fix.

I still remember the day we met, when Pop finally brought her and her mama home. The day we became a family, she was thirteen, and I was an eleven-year-old pit, empty and just waiting to be filled with love—or rage. She was smart and scrappy, able to fix tractors without reading the manual. I was bruised and exhausted from long days helping Pop raise hogs. Our love was slow burning, until one day, it just caught like wildfire. Sneaking into each other’s beds at night turned into sharing one. Sibling squabbles turned into lovers’ quarrels. Then that night at the bar blew through us like a tornado, making us cling even harder to each other to survive the storm.

The truck rolls up to the gate, and I get out to swing it open. Movement catches my eye as the piggy starts to stir. I hurry the truck past the house and back to the barn before he really comes to, backing it up to the barn’s big double doors. Leaping from the cab, not bothering to shut the truck door, I race inside to grab a coil of rope and the cattle prod from its hook on the wall. Time to herd this swine into his new pen.

Little piggy groggily lifts his head, a large gash from the belt buckle now adorning it. He struggles to reach his cuffed hands down to the belt around his legs, sweat from his brow dripping into his eyes. His face hardens when he registers me standing behind him as I drop the tailgate. “You fuckin’ bitch,” he spits. “You stupid fuckin’ bitch.”

“Piggies don’t talk,” I scold, wagging the prod at him. “But if you don’t wanna play along and squeal on your own, I’m happy to make ya.”

“You crazy fuckin’ bitch!” he shouts like a broken fucking record. He starts hollering when I climb up on the tailgate. They always do, thinking if they just scream loud enough, someone will come save them. Their carrying on annoys Cat, but not me. No, I get off on it. These pigs finally know what it feels like to scream for help with no one to listen.

“Scream for me, piggy boy,” I crow, letting out a scream of my own. “Loud as you want! I promise, there’s no one out here to hear ya.”

The belt begins to loosen from his frantic scramble to shift himself upright. Not wanting to chase this asshole across the pasture, I lift his shirt with the prod and give him a jolt. His scream turns into a strangled cry as tears well in the bottom of his eyes, and his look of anger fades into fear. Another jolt makes his back contort, and he attempts to scoot away from me. I climb further into the truck, the prod held at the ready in front of me. He moves to kick me as I close in, but another two jolts leave him struggling for air, a wet spot spreading across the crotch of his jeans. The muscles in his neck spasm, rippling cords beneath a layer of dirty skin. I allow him another second to catch his breath before I zap him one more time—just for fun.

I sit on my haunches, thinking about my next move. Normally, I move the pigs with Cat’s help, while they’re still unconscious. I could wait, probably should wait, for her to get here. She can’t be more than a few minutes away. The piggy uses my moment of contemplation to sit up and hawk a spray of bloody saliva at me.

“Shouldn’ta done that,” I snarl. I jam the prod to his throat and hold it there until his skin goes from a mean red to black. The scent of burned flesh lingers around us. His head slams back down, clanging against the metal floor of the truck bed. The corner of my mouth turns up, and I wipe his spittle from my face. “That’ll teach ya.”

When he makes no further attempt to move, I shimmy towards the tailgate until my legs hang off it. I hop to the ground and walk around to the still-open truck door. I exchange the prod for a baseball bat from behind the seats. Gripping it by the end of the handle, I twirl it in slow circles as I take slow steps back to the rear of the truck, whistling to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had A Farm.” Little piggy whimpers as I appear in his line of sight again.

“Piggies belong in their pen.” I point the bat at him. His lips thin until they're almost nonexistent on his clammy face. He stares at me through the narrow slits of his half-open eyes but doesn’t budge. “Fine. Have it your way.”

I slide the bat between his legs and pull it against the rope I replaced the belt with. Using both hands, I pull him towards me. Once he’s close enough, he lurches forward while flailing his arms to grab at me. With lightning speed, I slip the bat out and deliver a blow to the side of his mouth. There’s a loud crack, and teeth go flying. At least three land with little clinking sounds against the side of the truck. Clink. Clink. Clink. On the second hit, blood sprays out in a fine mist, coating the bat and my face in a thin red sheet. The piggy’s head rolls back, and he’s out again.

I roll his slack body out of the truck and finish dragging him inside the barn. I undo the rope around his legs once he’s in the cage. I start to reach for the shackles, but the faint rumble of an engine diverts my attention. A dust cloud appears in the distance, and the piggy’s truck emerges from it, making its way towards the house. Cat’s home!

As soon as she’s in the gate, I dart toward her like we’ve been apart for days instead of minutes. Brakes squeal, and the truck stops just short of me. I continue running, letting myself collide with the truck’s hood, slamming both palms flat against it. “What the fuck, Sadie?” Cat shouts from the cab, horror evident in her expression.

My face twists into a wide smile between pants as I catch my breath. I make it around to her window before she can open the door and wrap my arms around her neck. I use my hold to pull her head out of the open window before I pepper it with kisses. The sweet smell of her shampoo with a hint of motor oil engulfs me. She swats me away, and I jump back, giving her space to step out of the stolen truck.

“I’ve got ‘em all ready for us. I had to prod him a couple times, though. Made him piss his pants, so we’ll need to hose ‘em down next,” I yap, clasping my hands together and bouncing on the balls of my feet.

“Geez, Sadie. You couldn’ta waited just a little longer for me to get here? I was right behind ya,” she questions. She takes a step towards me, reaching for one pigtail, twirling the end around her finger. I yelp as she gives it a soft yank and bat her hand away. “I kinda miss the red, ya know?” she teases, cocking her head to the side and winking.

My jaw clicks as my face tenses. The tips of my hair were freshly dyed black last week after a failed attempt at bleaching out the red left them orange. I know she’s joking, but part of me still wonders if she doesn’t like the new color. I use a pigtail to wipe some of the blood from my face. “There,” I retort. “Now it’s got some red in it.”

“I’m just teasing,” she laughs, sweeping me up into a bear hug. She easily has six inches on me and uses the advantage to lift me until our noses touch. I groan, pretending to protest, but I quickly nuzzle myself into her neck. “Show me what’s gotten you so dirty,” she whispers into my ear.

I wiggle free from her arms, eager to show her what I’ve accomplished in the short time we’ve been apart. As we get closer, Cat raises an eyebrow at me. The truck sits empty, soft clinking still coming from the cooling engine. “Don’t give me that look.” I pout. “The belt was startin’ to come loose, and I hadta move him before you got here.”

Inside the barn, blood and piss taints the usual smell of hay and horses. Cat’s eyes expand at the sight of the piggy slumped in his cage. His body leans against the wall, strings of drool dribbling down his cheeks. Every few seconds, his muscles twitch, like they’re trying to rouse him. Beneath streaks of blood, his swollen face is already several shades of purple.

“He wouldn’t shut the fuck up,” I explain. “So I helped him out.” I shrug and skip to the cage. I rattle the bars with both hands, like I’m trying to make a sleepy animal at the zoo move, but the racket doesn’t faze him.

“Well, he certainly seems more...compliant,” she says, letting out a whistle. “Why don’t you let him rest for a bit? Let’s head back to the house; I’m starving.”

I puff my bottom lip out, reluctant to stop playing with my new toy. She’s right, though. He won’t last long if I keep going, so I concede and set my sights on something better to play with.

“I’ve got something you can eat,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows. I take off towards the house, calling to Cat over my shoulder. “If you can catch me.”