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“Ho” He pitched his voice low, trying to soothe the animal
“Ho,” he tried again, and this tihtly around the pony’s belly to settle hied shriek It was a hideous sound, a demon sound, not a noise a creature should , baring his teeth, rearing up and down, and up and down, hooves skittering madly at the air
Will held tight Leaning forward, he twined his sers in the pony’s mane
He began to slide
He wound his hands htly into the coarse hair Dirt and leather oil had darkened his nails into black half-o blue
He couldn’t hold on He needed to let go
Will released one foot and was ready to leap off, when he realized his left side was caught His foot had slipped all the way through the stirrup He wriggled ht
He’d have to ride it out
Swinging his free leg back over, he found the right stirrup Again the pony took off like a bullet
He saw the rise in the ground before hi on the reins Will leaned back hard now, using the whole of his small body to coax the animal to slow, to stop
The pony shrieked again, and Will’s skin crawled He realized it was his shifting weight that caused the pony’s cries What had Ja the saddle just before the pony went mad
Carefully, he reached back His hand fu the hard stretch of leather while his eyes remained pinned on the hill before him
The srew closer by the second Before, it was an innocent thing, and now it loo
Will’s fingers gingerly probed along the back of the saddle, down to the pony’s coat, now slicked warm and ith sweat He pulled his hand back A thin sertips brownish red
Jamie Curse him
It would be the last rational thought Will had for some time
His pony reached the rise He reeled away in last- the base of the hill But not before the hooves on his right side hit gravel, slid Still galloping, the beast faltered
Will wriggled, his terror at fever pitch, trying desperately to dislodge his trapped left foot
The pony fell, rolling onto his right side Will heard the sound of his leg being crushed An all-consu pain blanketed him Smashed him
He felt his left calf bone snap, his foot finally loose
In an unnatural, aard ed away
Leaving Will lying there Broken On his seventh birthday
Chapter 1
San Francisco, present day
“Jerk!” Felicity slales clattering to her wrists “Evil, nasty, two- ti jerk”
“I warned you about Scorpios,” her Aunt Livia said “They’ll sweet talk you, then turn around and sting” She pulled an orange slice frolass and snapped a bite from it to underscore her point
“Do you realize he actually called himself a feminist?”
“No!” Livia grimaced “Put aGandhi” Her aunt nodded sagely, tucking her long, unnaturally red hair back behind her ears “I met the sa in e all by my lonesome”
“But, Livvie” Felicity deflated “I love your place, but I’ive it all up and live in a canyon somewhere with a bunch of coyotes”
“I’ve only had trouble with the one coyote, and h for you when you came to live there as a child”
Felicity picked a big, green olive fro she wanted to do was inadvertently offend her aunt Livia had taken her in when Felicity’s parents died in a car accident, and her aunt’s eccentric lifestyle had been what pulled young Felicity through her grief
“I’ht anymore”
“Would that you were” Livia looked around the tapas joint It was in San Francisco’s Mission District, and it was packed with the gamut of city dwellers: the pierced and the straitlaced, nonnative speakerswith middle America “I do without you for a whole year so you can see the world, and then youto come all this way just to see you”
“I was only in Central America, it was only nine months, and it was your idea, as I recall Anyway, your trips to San Francisco would goon the bus”
Livia ignored the jibe “I see why the city beckons, sweetheart, but I wish you were back where you belong”
“I belong here,” Felicity said “And it’s not as though you’re living on holy ground I mean, come on, Livvie, you’re in LA”