Page 14

I sit on the back porch of Sophie’s big-ass house, a place that don’t feel safe even though my crew’s scattered across the lawn like loyal guard dogs.

The mansion looms behind me, too clean, too perfect.

Like it’s tryin’ to pretend the world ain’t rotten underneath.

Sophie’s somewhere inside, tucked in all that quiet grief, and I’m out here on the edge of it all, like always.

Funny thing about memories, they don’t knock. They just barge in.

And this one kicks the damn door off the hinges.

We were kids. Hell, I couldn’t have been older than fifteen.

Sophie was younger by almost a year, wild as a stray, already tasting rebellion like it was her birthright.

I was workin’ the stables, muckin’ stalls and sweatin’ my weight in the Kentucky sun while my old man barked orders and smelled like cheap whiskey and worse.

She showed up one night like moonlight with a death wish. Boots unlaced, curls wild, freckles dancing across her cheeks like sin and sugar, and a smirk that could gut a man.

“I stole something,” she whispered like it was a secret meant just for me.

She pulled a bottle out of her coat. Damn thing shimmered like treasure in the barn light. Pappy Van Winkle. Twenty-three-year. Worth more than my old man made in a month of Sundays.

“You’re insane,” I muttered, but took the bottle anyway.

We passed it back and forth, sittin’ on bales of hay with our knees touchin’. The bourbon burned, smooth and deep, and the whole world felt far away, just horse breath and crickets and the thrum of my pulse as I stared at her mouth.

“Why do you always look at me like that?” she asked, voice husky, eyes locked on mine.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m an alien.”

I leaned in. “Maybe you are.”

She clutched my shirt, pulled me closer, and for a second the world tilted just right, her breath, her skin, her damn heartbeat against mine. Sophie Montgomery kissed me. Hudson Welles. The kiss hit like a lightning strike. Soft lips, sharp hunger, the taste of heat and forbidden fire.

Then the barn door slammed open.

“Sophie Montgomery, get your damn hands off my son!”

My father’s voice cracked like a whip. Sophie bolted like a spooked filly, hair flying, boots thudding across the barn floor as she disappeared into the night.

I stood frozen. My old man staggered in, wild-eyed and mean.

“You think you get to touch a girl like that?” he spat, grabbing the bottle outta my hand. “She’s money. You’re dirt. You hear me, boy?”

He took a long swig of the bourbon. Her bourbon, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“She ain’t for you. None of this is.”

I didn’t say a damn word. Just stood there, fists balled, fire in my chest.

Because maybe he was right.

But that kiss? That kiss said different.

Now I sit on her porch, years and scars later, and that same fire still burns. Sophie Montgomery is upstairs, probably curled up alone, carryin’ more than any girl should. And me? I’m still sittin’ outside the glass, starin’ in.

Still wantin’ the one thing I was told I could never have.

Damn.

It’s the kind of night that makes a man bleed memory. The bottle’s half gone, and I ain’t feelin’ shit but the weight of everything I buried out here.

Some nights you drink to forget. Others, you drink to remember. Tonight’s the second kind.

I lean back in the creaking porch swing, boots planted wide, the wood groanin’ beneath me like it remembers too. Bourbon burns its way down my throat, but the sting don’t touch the ache sittin’ in my chest. Not tonight.

Because I can’t stop seein’ that damn night. The one that split my whole goddamn life in two.

Not long after that kiss, I was fifteen, raw, mean, and dumb enough to think I could outrun the shadows.

My old man, Mike, had me workin’ sunup to sundown on this land like sweat and pain were love languages.

He was a mountain of a man, part legend, part bastard.

Ex-wrestler, current asshole. Never said much unless it was to knock me down a peg.

That night, he left me to lock up the stalls while he rode out to check the fence line, cold wind snappin’ at my collar, smell of hay and horse thick in my nose. I remember thinkin’ the night was too quiet.

Then I heard it. That scream. Sharp, high, wrong. It sliced through the dark like a blade and hit me right in the damn chest.

Dropped the bucket. Didn’t think. Just ran.

My boots slammed gravel, heart poundin’ so loud it drowned out everything but fear. When I hit the paddock, I skidded to a stop, and the world flipped upside down.

Midnight Glory, best horse we had, laid out like a rag doll. Blood every-fuckin-where. But that wasn’t what froze me. It was what was standin’ over her.

Big. Hulkin’. Furry and goddamn unnatural. Breath foggin’ in the cold air, claws red, eyes glowin’ yellow like some hellspawn outta a fever dream. Thing turned and looked straight at me. I swear it smiled. Teeth like razors. No mercy in that stare, just hunger.

I ran. Or tried to. It roared, deep, violent. Enough to shake the ground. I tripped, slammed into the gravel, busted my face, and everything went sideways. Last thing I remember was the sound of footsteps comin’ closer. Slow. Sure. Like death had all the time in the world.

Woke up weeks later, half-conscious, wanderin’ outside town like a stranger in my own skin.

People talked, said I cracked my head, made it up.

The creature. Said my daddy got fired ‘cause he was drunk or cruel or both. They accused him of killin’ me like the horse.

He disappeared, swallowed by the bottle like it owed him somethin’.

But I know what I saw. And I’ve been carryin’ it ever since.

I rub the grit from my jaw, eyes locked on the dark tree line. That night twisted me up, made me who I am. Ain’t no shrink gonna talk me outta it. That creature was real. And it damn sure didn’t come from any nearby zoo.

The screen door groans open. I don’t have to look to know it’s her.

Sophie.

She pads out barefoot, wrapped in some oversized blanket, lookin’ like trouble in silk and shadows. Her voice cuts soft through the silence. “You good?”

I grunt. “Define good.”

She settles beside me on the swing, not touchin’, but close enough I feel her heat. She don’t say anything for a second, just stares out into the dark like it might give her answers.

“You thinkin’ about that night?” she asks, voice small.

I glance at her, surprised. “That obvious?”

She shrugs. “It’s been haunting me, too. The way no one talks about it? That silence is real loud.”

I let the silence hang a second longer before I speak. “You believe me? About what I saw?”

Her eyes meet mine. Steady. No bullshit. “I always did.”

Those four words hit me harder than any punch. I’ve carried that story like a scar I couldn’t show. She just ripped the bandage off and looked me dead in the eye like it didn’t scare her a bit.

“You know,” she says, soft as the wind stirrin’ the trees. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t on you.”

I clench my jaw, the guilt coiled tight in my gut. “It was my watch, Sophie. I was there. I should’ve done somethin’.”

She reaches over, her fingers skimming mine. Just a whisper of touch, but it lights me up all the same. “You were a kid. And you survived it. We’re both still here. Maybe a little broken but still kickin’.”

I twist my hand and hold hers, just for a second. “Sometimes survivin’ don’t feel like livin’.”

She leans her head back, eyes closed, blanket pulled tighter. “It’s a start, Legend. You don’t gotta carry it all alone.”

And for once, I believe her.

We sit like that, the two of us in the dark, spirits swirling just outta reach. Bourbon in my blood, Sophie by my side, and the night stretchin’ out like a loaded gun waitin’ to go off.

Yeah, the storm’s still comin’. But tonight? I ain’t facin’ it alone.

Not anymore.

At least I think, but her hand leaves mine too soon. Without a word, she leaves her blanket behind for me and goes back inside.

Damn.

Always just outta reach.