We inhale breakfast, then say our goodbyes. It’s always hard leaving Maggie, but the sooner we go, the safer she is. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her because of us.
Leaving her porch feels like tearing a bandage off and exposing the raw wound underneath.
We’re about a quarter mile away when we shift again. That’s when I smell the sage. Stronger than usual—she’s burning a shit-ton to mask our scent. It’ll mask the cubs’ scent too.
My chest aches at the thought. Maggie shielding us even now, even when we bring nothing but danger to her door.
The twelve hours helped, but it wasn’t enough. We need to run faster. The good food fuels us, but exhaustion still hangs heavy. We’ve got at least a full day until the Canadian border. Even with rest, we’re running at a deficit.
My muscles feel like they’re filled with wet sand; every stride drags, every breath scrapes. The finish line feels a lifetime away.
My eyes keep drifting closed. I’m not thinking anymore, just putting one paw in front of the other. Head low, senses numb. Which is exactly why I don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
The world narrows to the mud beneath my paws and the breath shuddering out of my lungs. No past, no plan, just instinct and survival. But even instinct is fading.
The forest thins.
The trees spread out.
And we come face-to-face with two horses.
My heart lurches, too tired to decide whether to panic or pray.
Chapter 6
Violet
The air at the sanctuary always smells like holiday camp, warm hay, clean leather, and that earthy sweetness of the horses that clings to your clothes long after you’ve left. It takes me back to a simpler time, and maybe that’s why I love coming here so much. For a couple of hours every Tuesday, I get to step out of the scary part of my life and into something quieter. Calmer. Kinder. And definitely safer.
It reminds me of Papaw and Meemaw’s farm.
It reminds me of the place that caught me when everything else in my life fell apart. My father was a drunkard and a cheater, and when I was six, he finally left for good—traded us in for a girl ten years older than my sister. My mother slipped deeper into her addictions after that, turning our house into a storm you never knew how to stand in. And my sister, seven years older and already half gone in her mind, packed a bag soon after and vanished. She never called. Never checked in. She just… left.
So, Papaw and Meemaw took me in and raised me on their farm.
They homeschooled me, and also taught me the kind of lessons you don’t find in books: how to collect eggs, how to bottle-feed calves, how to muck a stall properly. The farmbecame the only stable, safe place I’d ever known. The only place where people didn’t leave. Sometimes, when I’m surrounded by horses, and the warm, familiar scent of hay wraps around me, it feels like stepping back into those years—the only part of my childhood that didn’t hurt. When I first heard about Joe’s Animal Sanctuary and all the disability programs from Melissa, my occupational therapist, I wasn’t sure it would be a good fit for me. Honestly, I was terrified. Terrified that I’d show up and fail at the things I used to do without thinking. Terrified my old memories would be overwritten by reminders of everything I’ve lost.
But the team leaders and therapists were patient in a way that felt like… well, a sanctuary. They were gentle, slow, and persistent.
Over the past year, the sanctuary has become my second home. I’ve tried almost everything they offer: gardening with raised tactile beds, grooming ponies, feeding sheep, and even trying—and failing—to help shear alpacas.
Alpacas do not care that you’re disabled. They will kick whoever they want, and I have the bruises to prove it.
Slowly, the therapists have guided me through every tiny step, and my confidence has stitched itself back together, one new skill at a time.
The first thing I ever grew here was onions. It was small, maybe even silly, but pulling that onion from the soil made me feel capable again. Like I could still do things without seeing them. Like the world wasn’t permanently closed off to me.
Every week since, I’ve learned to find the joy in the simple tasks. I was eventually able to trust myself because if the sanctuary trusted me, the animals trusted me (alpacas aside), then I could start trusting myself again. Well, here at least.
I inhale deeply now, lifting my face toward the sun. The warmth seeps into my skin and settles in my chest, stretchinginto a soft bubble of peace that will cling to me long after I leave this place.
Maybe it’s because, since the accident, this is one of the few places where I don’t feel stared at. Or pitied. Or… delicate.
Here, I get to live. Not just exist. Blindness and trauma be damned. This place reminds me there’s still a version of me in here worth fighting for.
“Low branches coming up in about five paces,” Jenna calls from beside me.
I duck my head until she says the path is clear. Her horse’s hooves thud steadily on the trail, four soft beats I’ve learned to track better than the shifting horse beneath me.
