*Jinxxs POV*

“Something’s not right, we know her, it’s not in her nature to be cruel, and did you see how pleased her mother was acting?, there’s no way she didn’t hear what was going on” Sandra says, her voice shaking from the adrenaline. “I know, it was really weird, I’ve always felt like something was off about her mum… actually, her dad too, she always acts different when she’s around them.
The changes are subtle, the girl is skilled at hiding what she doesn’t want us to see, that’s always scared me about her” I reply, feeling slightly numb from the whole experience.

After a few minutes of silence, both of us thinking, Sandra takes a deep breath, I look at her expectantly. “I’m still pissed at her, but we need to find out what’s going on, despite what she’s done, we have to help her, it’s what friends do, and it could be why she dumped Andy and turned her back on us all.” I think it over, “you’re right, but we have to be careful, if we rush it we could blow it, I knew something was wrong ever since that day at lunch…” I muse almost to myself.

“What day at lunch?, what happened?, if you knew something was wrong why didn’t you say anything?!” she practically growls. “Calm down Sandra,” I sigh, “I didn’t say anything because I sensed she was vulnerable and clearly didn’t want anyone to know.
I wanted to protect her, she felt like a little sister even then, breaking her trust wasn’t something I planned on doing, and I still don’t.” I watch Sandra begin to visibly calm down and I let out a sigh of relief. “Ok, I get that,” she says after a moments thought, “so, what should we do?.”

*Dakotas POV*

I slide down my door in shock, I can’t believe I did that, but I know that it had to be done. After staring into space for several minutes, I stop hugging my knees and bolt upright, climb over the bed, and off onto the other side into my cats safe area. There, I curl up into a fetal position around my sleeping cats and close my eyes, tired of thinking.

I wake up to banging on my door, I rush over to unlock and open it, standing there is mum, it’s dinner time. I rub my eyes sleepily and shuffle out behind her to the dining room. When I sit down mum places a bowl of my favourite soup in front of me, chicken and corn, yum. I smile a little, surprised she made soup just for me when all the others were eating chicken fillets with salad. I know I’ve been given the soup because of my diet, but I’m choosing to ignore that part, besides, tomorrow I finally get to adopt my brumby, I’ve got that to look forward to.

****Time Lapse****

It’s the morning of the adoption, I’m nervous but excited, I’m not exactly thrilled to see Mr. Pierce again, but it’ll be worth it. I choose to wear my favourite out of my old pairs of jeans, and an All Time Low shirt, of course, I wear a nice long sleeve to go under it, a grey one, since white would get too dirty too fast and it’s just too hot for black. Finally ready, after putting my hair into a simple pony-tail, and make-up to cover the bruises, I’m ready to go, just in time too, Mr. Pierce has arrived.

The ride to the adoption centre was awkward, he kept trying to win me over like he hadn’t fucked me over, but it was worth it to see the centre’s beautiful oak sign arched over the drive ways entrance, with ‘Save the Brumbies’ and a simple drawing of a few running horses burned into it. After we’ve parked, we meet up with a worker and follow him to where the brumbies are. When Mr. Pierce had initially told me of his intentions to adopt a brumby for me, once he’d left, I had looked up the centres website. What I learned from the site, is that most of the brumbies were rescued from the Guy Fawks National Park from dire conditions, which ranged from mass arial culls to doubts, and that most of them are sturdy Galloways ranging from 13.2 to 14.2 hands.

As we reach the horses, I see that some are in corrals, mainly the orphaned foals, yearlings and aged brumbies, others are in paddocks. Bored with listening to Mr. Pierce and the worker talking like I’m not there, I wonder off to look at the horses in peace. I look at several corrals, with nothing catching my eye that feels… I don’t know… right…I go to turn back, when I see a lone stallion in a corral further back. I feel a pull in his direction and decide to follow it.

I stop a few paces away, not wanting to make the stallion uneasy. I watch as he looks longingly at a small paddock further back the way I had come. My heart breaks as I realise that must be his family. I sniffle, holding back tears, hearing me, he turns his head slowly in my direction and watches me with sad and wary eyes. In this moment I know he’s the one, I need to rescue this horse from the torture of being in eye-shot of his family with no hope of ever reaching them, and to rescue him from loneliness. He and I are the same, both tired, scared, lonely, and wary of people. I will heal his heart and soul if it’s the last thing I do.

****Time Lapse****

I scowl at the men before me, both Mr. Pierce and the worker, Jeremy, have been trying to talk me out of adopting the stallion for an hour, but I refuse to budge, they think I can’t do it, that I can’t reach him and should go for a placid gelding they picked out. “Look, I know you think I can’t handle the horse, but I know I can, I’ve handled horses most of my life, from placid to downright nuts, I can dothis, please, I want to adopt him, let me adopt him” I plead, and after huddling together and furiously mumbling to each other, Mr. Pierce and Jeremy turn to face me, with a defeated sigh Mr. Pierce nods and Jeremy turns to lead us to the main office.

While I wait for Mr. Pierce to fill out the necessary forms, I read the stallions file. Originally I thought that he was a young stallion, maybe 3 or 4, because of his small, pony-sized stature, but it turns out that he is a fully grown, mature 7 year old stallion of 13.2 hands. The little stallion, a gorgeous dark bay, has no white markings on his coat, with some tender loving care, I’ll have his beautiful coat healthy and shiny again like it is in the provided photo of him when he first came here. I stop looking at the photo and read on, now up to the description of his personality. I smile at the discovery of his naturally cheeky nature, but frown briefly when I remember how he was when I saw him. I’ll have to change that… I shake my head and read that he’s also very intelligent, loving, and stubborn. It says he must be kept in a large paddock with very high fencing due to his love of running -which according to the file is very fast- and his ability to clear fences with the ease of a trained jumper.

After several hours, I’m finally called in to sign the forms of ownership, after that’s done, Mr. Pierce pays the adoption fee and the sad, little stallion is finally mine, though I won’t get to see him again until the place Mr. Pierce found to keep him is inspected and deemed acceptable. On the way home, I smile as I imagine the stallion running alongside the car, ears pricked forward, clearing all obstacles with ease. I wonder what life will be like with my new brumby in it, will we be able to heal each other?….

Notes

FINALLY the chapter is up, I'm so sorry it took so long, I've been sick and when I wasn't sick I was too busy to type it up, but I finally made the time tonight and it was worth it.

I hope you guys like the chapter, even if it is more of a filler, I like it so I guess I've got that going for me at least haha.

Let me know what you guys think, it's you I write this for so I love to know what you think. OH! and Kodas brumby has been added to the character list so check it out :)

Ch. Title Credit: Natasha Bedingfield - Wild Horses