It was almost two in the morning, and Chase still could not sleep. He rolled over in his bed and groaned. Something was bothering him, but he didn’t know what. It couldn’t be the new project mare he’d taken on. She would be fine, he reassured himself. She was the perfect chance for him to prove himself. He’d only ever been trusted with low-profile cases until Laci came, but he never made a mistake. Every horse he trained turned out wonderful, with glowing reviews from riders. Laci wouldn’t be any different.

  Or would she?

  He walked downstairs to the staff kitchen, and spotted Nathan over by the microwave. He was heating up popcorn for the night shift.

  “Hey, Chase, how’s it going? What are you doing up so late?” he asked.

  Chase sighed and took out a mug. “It’s fine. I just can’t sleep. Work is stressing me out lately.”

  “I’d be stressed too, with that mare they assigned you. She sounded like a nightmare from the paperwork. But you know, that’s why they keep me on the night shift and not training,” the draft said, tearing open his popcorn.

  Chase poured himself a cup of hot tea, took a sip, then added more sugar. “She’ll be fine. I’ve co-trained horses like her, anyway. I’m glad to finally have something I can put on my resume. Main trainer for Laci of Lebanon.”

  Nathan paused. “Just..don’t rush it. I’ve seen horses mess up the high profile cases before. It’s not pretty. I know your training style is fast and furious, but maybe it’s time you slowed down.”

  Chase put down his drink. “I wish I could, Nathan. They’re going to push me for results. That’s all they want these days. Results. If I can’t get her backed in the first two weeks, I’m worried they’ll reassign her.”

  “On Epona, Chase, that’s mental. Have you read her records? That can’t be all the time they gave you,” Nathan said.

  “That’s not even an exaggeration. The company is expanding. There’s talk of upping the quotas from sixteen horses a year to twenty. You either have to train five horses at once, or get them a buyer fast.” he explained.

  Nathan munched on his popcorn, kicking back in a donated folding chair. “Honestly, that’s all I ever hear from rabbits these days. More horses, faster.”

  Chase stared out the window reflectively. “I’d know. How do you think a champion reining horse ends up in this dump? A rabbit decided I’m not their favorite toy anymore.”

  A scream came from upstairs, and the two of them pricked their ears. Nathan grabbed his tranquilizer gun, and they dashed up to see what was going on.

  Laci was standing in the dim hallway, blood sloughing off her lips, head tilted sideways. She let out a long, low whine that sounded desperate. The door to her room was smashed into the wall across the hall from its frame, and it was splintering at the center where it had been kicked out. The glass on the front of the holding cell beside her room was scattered all over the floor, and its spotted inhabitant, Oliver, stood behind her shaking in fear. He was covering his right eye with a quivering hoof.

  “Holy mother of-” Chase started.

  Laci galloped forward and pounded Chase into the floor, grabbing his throat in her teeth and ripping it out. Nathan shot her with the tranquilizer twice, but it didn’t even slow her down. He grabbed her by the mane and ripped her off of Chase, and she slammed him against the wall, pinning him down. Blood trickled down the places where she held him, her hooves so sharp they sliced him right open. The tranquilizer then began to take effect, and she released him slowly, falling on the floor dazed. He used his magic to take care of his wounds, then immediately went to Chase’s side and repaired his throat. Chase didn’t get up, and his eyes were still glassy.

  “Hello? I can’t see out of this eye,” Oliver called out, completely undeterred by Laci’s path of destruction.

  “Oliver, would you be patient? I know you don’t care, but you’re not the priority right now,” Nathan said.

  “Epona forbid a stallion wants his eye to work. This hurts like hell,” Oliver complained.

  “Watch your mouth. You’re like, three years old or something,” Nathan said, still fussing over Chase.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Four, mind you. Turning five next month,” he said.

  Chase finally lifted his head, and Nathan exhaled. “You gave me a heart attack.”

  “I’m going to have a heart attack if you don’t take me to the damn hospital for my eye,” Oliver said, his voice cracking at the end of his statement. “This is really starting to hurt like a-”

  “Shut up!” Chase shouted. He stood up and grabbed Nathan’s gun, aiming it at Oliver’s neck while he held his mane. “Behave, or you’re going to have a nice nap on the way there.”

  “What do you want me to do with Laci?” Nathan asked, looking down at her bloody and limp body.

  “Just put her in a spare holding room for now, I guess. I’ll figure it out when I’m done with this bronc.”

  He walked Oliver down to the infirmary office and knocked on the door. Nobody answered, and he was forced to knock again. Still nothing.

  He cursed under his breath. “Guess we’re going on a trip.” He took the hobbles off his belt and restrained Oliver to a bench. “Don’t try anything, or you’re dead.”

  Chase fetched Nathan and they wrestled Oliver into the back of a company truck. Nathan offered to take the wheel, and they veered off into the middle of nowhere.

  “This is the worst. How did she even break the door? I’ve never seen that before,” Chase said.

  Nathan shook his head, but kept his eyes fixed on the road. “Who knows. Crazy mare,” he said.

  …

  Oliver walked off the truck with a foul look on his face. His eye hurt worse than anything, and there were shards of glass stuck all over the right side of his face. To top it off, Nathan and Chase were chatting away like nothing was wrong. If Chase kept being too forward with the gun to his neck, Oliver was tempted to kick him in the fetlock. Nathan was certainly annoying, but Chase was a top-of-the-line imbecile. He seemed to flaunt the new skin on his neck like a trophy, while Oliver had to sit around waiting for them to decide if he should be able to see or not.

  He finally ended up on a hospital bed, and luckily a pretty little pony nurse attended to him. It would have been much more lucky if there weren’t two enormous pains in his neck standing next to him, but a win was a win.

  “So I see there was an accident involving a window. Can you tell me about how it happened?” the nurse asked, inspecting his wounds closely.

  “The window got smashed-”

  Chase jabbed the side of his neck with the end of the gun, silencing him. “This colt is always making up stories. It was an accident, plain and simple. They were moving furniture out of storage, it slipped off the dolly, and bam-window’s gone.”

  “I see,” the nurse said, not buying it. “I’ll take this information to the surgeons. They might be able to preserve the eye.”

  She left quickly, and to Oliver’s surprise, the two babysitters followed her. It sickened him that they thought their little refurbished hotel project was helping anyone. If there was any advantage to staying at that dump for so long, it was the privileges. Sometimes they would leave him alone in public for long enough to have a moment’s peace. And of course, the pièce de résistance was the cell phone. Sure, they liked to think they could track his every move with the restrictions on it, but he had jailbroken it weeks ago. Now would be the perfect time to upload some videos.

  He looked both ways before pulling out the phone. He always did that, ever since the first incident. It had saved him more times than he wanted to admit. He felt the pierce of guilt as he opened the footage. He believed in his cause firmly, but if he was caught with this incriminating evidence, he’d be screwed. Shod, even.

  He tapped on the play button hesitantly. He didn’t need the volume on to replay Laci’s singing. Blood started to run into view. He winced.

  Two bloody shoe prints were pressed into the glass. She lifted her feet away and turned to kick with her hind legs. The camera moved to the back of the room. Even without audio, he was reminded of his heavy breathing. With a single kick, she shattered the glass, sending it flying across the room. She turned again, as if to look at the camera, but her eyes were completely empty. She tried to lick the blood from her lips, but they were still dripping red. She sauntered out of view. The camera was thrown under a sheet, then a few minutes passed and he picked it up to turn it off. His gouged eye glinted in the fluorescent lighting.

  He didn’t know what to do next. He could delete the part with his face, as he usually did with these leaked videos, but there was still too much identifiable paraphernalia in the background. He could post the audio alone, but his scream of pain and the glass shattering would give his identity away. If he posted any of this and ERUJ found it, he’d be done. But if he didn’t, they’d get away with their dirty work like they always did. He had to take the risk.

  He tapped upload on his backdoor server after double-checking that his VPN address was in another continent. Hearing footsteps, he lowered the brightness and threw the phone back in his stupid canvas bag with the ERUJ logo on the front.

  The little pinto pony entered and shut the door behind her softly. “I’m sorry, it’s bad news. The surgeons were consulted, but they couldn't salvage it. You’ll have to have it removed to prevent infection,” she said nervously.

  Apparently she didn’t know Oliver wasn’t an axe murderer, he just wanted to be left alone. So what if he was losing the right hemisphere of the world? What was there to see anyway? Rich business horses making money off of his suffering? Laci slitting the throat of another moronic employee? He said nothing.

  “Sorry again,” she said, and left promptly.

  Alone at last, he checked the upload again. 78% complete. They might have 22 more percent until they get completely exposed, but they didn’t have even one percent of his patience to mess with.