Page 35

I wake to darkness and the cloying scent of sweat, rust, and gasoline.

My wrists are zip-tied behind my back, my mouth gagged with something rough and cloth.

My body aches like I'd been thrown off a horse and dragged for miles. There’s hay under me, damp and rank, and a faint rocking motion that tells me I’m in a trailer.

Livestock hauler, maybe. One of the old kinds, with slatted walls and rust-eaten doors.

I take a deep breath of diesel, piss, and something metallic, blood, maybe.

My head throbs. My knees are scraped raw.

There’s something sticky on my neck, blood or sweat, I can’t tell.

The floor’s uneven beneath me, like the trailer hasn’t been cleaned out since its last haul.

It’s too dark to see much, save for a single bare bulb swinging from the ceiling, casting jagged shadows along the riveted walls and over a set of chains bolted to the floor.

Panic claws at my throat, sharp and wild, but I force it down. I’ve spent my whole life wrangling wild things. Stallions that kick. Mares that bite. I can do this. I won’t let these bastards break me.

Voices outside.

Low. Male. An accent.

“Heard the bidding’s already started. One of those international rings wants her. Top dollar.”

“She’s worth more alive. Especially if we get her to sign over the deed before the race. Montgomery bloodline’s like bourbon, aged right, it sells.”

I froze.

Paradise Falls.

This isn’t just about revenge or scaring me off. This’s calculated. Surgical. My name, my land, my legacy, they wanted it all. The Derby isn’t just a finish line. It’s leverage. And they are going to use me to win.

They think I’m just a pawn.

They don’t know I come from a long line of stubborn women.

I start working at the ties around my wrists, twisting, straining until the plastic cut into raw flesh. Pain flares bright behind my eyes. I welcome it. It means I’m done yet.

That’s when I spot it, half-buried in the hay, rusted and jagged.

A piece of broken halter.

Probably from the trailer’s last use, the asshole hauling stock without cleaning out the floor after. Their mistake. My salvation.

I twist onto my side and edge toward it, inch by inch, pretending to stay limp when I heard footsteps outside. My shoulder screams as I reach for the shard with numb fingers, but I got it. Wedge it between my palm and the plastic tie.

Saw.

Hours blurred. The bulb swung like a pendulum counting down the end of my goddamn life. My lips are cracked. My limbs shake. But by nightfall, one of the zip ties snaps.

I’m free.

Not whole. Not strong. But free.

I work the gag loose with my teeth and tongue, my jaw burning, and shove the door latch with my shoulder. The trailer creaks loud, too loud, but I don’t stop. I drop to the ground, bare feet hitting gravel and dirt, and run.

Run like the woods might open up and swallow me whole.

Thirty feet. I make it thirty feet.

Then a voice shouts. A shape moves fast. Too fast.

Arms catch me around the waist, yanking me back like a goddamn rag doll. I kick, scream, bite, but it amounts to a hill of beans.

I escaped once.

Now I had to survive long enough to do it again.