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“No!” I scream. “How can you do this to me? I hate you!”

Tears blur everything.

My father pulls me into his arms anyway.

“We don’t know how to reach you anymore,” he says into my hair. “We tried everything.”

His grip tightens.

“This is the only thing we have left.”

He pulls back, searching my face.

“The only way to get my daughter back.”

Something inside me shuts down.

Cold. Immediate.

I step out of his arms.

“You just lost her forever.”

The words come out flat, but my chest tightens immediately after, something sharp twisting under my ribs.

I crush it down before it can surface. I won’t feel that.

I can’t.

Jude

June has brought summer with it, and the heat hangs heavy.

Indigo, my new black mare, is being difficult.

I got her yesterday. Her owner told me he wanted to put her down because she doesn’t listen. If you ask me, it’s the other way around.

I’ve always known how to listen to horses. How to understand them without the need for words.

Most horses shift, graze, breathe into the ground beneath them.

This one stands like something carved out of stone, legs locked, head too high, ears flicking back and forth like she’s listening for something that isn’t there.

Or something that is.

I step closer, my movements slow, measured. Her head snaps toward me.

Too fast.

Her eyes are wide, not wild, but sharp. Tracking. Calculating distance, escape, threat.

Ready to bolt.

I stop.

Let the silence settle between us as I study her. Her chest rises too quickly. Too shallow. Like she forgot how to breathe all the way through.

“Easy...” I murmur under my breath, more to myself than to her.