Not at the fire. After. The crowd has thinned out—Marlena took Cal inside, Shadow carried Waylon to the truck, Grace followed with the diaper bag and the exhaustion weighing on her face.
Shiver and Siren disappeared about an hour ago.
Presley went to the bunkhouse.
Most of the brothers have drifted off to their trucks, their rooms, or whatever corner of the compound they call home.
I’m at the round pen. Alone. Or I was alone until Phantom’s boots hit the gravel behind me.
The mustang is at the far rail.
Black. Sixteen hands. Wild-caught out of a BLM holding facility in Nevada eight months ago, shipped to a rescue network in New Mexico, transferred to us six weeks ago because nobody else could handle him.
He doesn’t let anyone within twenty feet.
Won’t eat if a human is visible. Stands in the corner of the pen with his ears pinned and his weight on his hindquarters like he’s calculating the odds of going through the fence.
I’ve been working with him every morning. Slow. The kind of slow that makes you wonder if anything is happening at all, and then one day the ear unpins and the head drops an inch and you realize the horse has been deciding about you the whole time.
All you had to do was wait for the verdict.
Phantom leans on the rail beside me. He doesn’t speak for a minute.
We watch the mustang together—two men staring at a horse in the dark, which is either very peaceful or stupid depending on who you ask.
“How’s he coming?”
“Slow.”
“Slow good or slow bad?”
“Slow, honest. He’s not fighting anymore. He’s just not trusting yet.”
Phantom nods. He understands the difference.
Phantom understands most things that involve patience, pressure, and the long game of earning something that can’t be taken.
He’s quiet for another minute. Then he speaks up. "Raine Lockhart."
I heard the name at church yesterday. Everybody did. But hearing it again in the dark from Phantom's mouth hits differently.
"Rogue's still digging. She's been asking around the rescue network. Our operation specifically."
"Venom's—"
"We don't know yet. Maybe." Phantom’s voice is level. Controlled. The voice he uses when something is a problem but not yet a crisis. “Maybe. Could be nothing. Could be a coincidence.”
"Lockharts aren't a coincidence."
"No. They aren't."
We’re both quiet. The mustang shifts at the far rail.
An owl calls from somewhere behind the barn—low, steady, the kind of sound that’s been happening on this land since before any of us were here and will keep happening after we’re gone.
Phantom turns his head and looks at me.
Not at the horse, not at the pen.
