Countryside | Ruralburgh 2

Chapter 11: I Will Hunt AND Haunt Whoever Has the Audacity to Pull this Crap

Chapter 11: I Will Hunt AND Haunt Whoever Has the Audacity to Pull this Crap

       On the bright side, Paint wasn't sick. A vet checked him over and confirmed that he wasn't ill. Well, physically, that was. As it turned out, his anxiety was really bad. Extremely bad. I didn't know if it was because he was away from home or what. All I knew was that it made me want to sleep in the stables at night.

       I wasn't allowed to. 

       The only compromise I could make was to stay as late as I could and make sure I got to the stables as early as I could. 

       I didn't want to drop out of the tour but if Paint couldn't compete anymore, I wasn't going to force him. Lauri suggested that I could always compete with another horse, but I told her I would never do that. I know some riders were fine competing with different horses, but I couldn't do that to Paint. I didn't even think I could ride another horse if I'm just going on a trail or something. 

       I was too worried about Paint that I couldn't even sleep. On the bright side, it was only practice tomorrow. No actually competitions so I didn't technically have to get a proper amount of sleep. Even if there was a competition, I probably wouldn't care about sleeping properly.

       Sawyer rolled over in the bed so that he was facing me. He lazily opened his eyes, seeing that I was not only wide awake but also on my phone. He sighed heavily. "You should be asleep, Jamie."

       "You should be asleep, too," I pointed out.

       "I was sleeping," Sawyer said. "You probably haven't slept at all."

       "I can't sleep," I said. "I tried. I'm too worried about Paint. So I figured since I can't sleep, I might as well look at videos or something. I've also been researching ways to help ease a horse's anxiety. I just wish they would let me sleep in the stables. It's like they think I'm going to manipulate other people's horses or something."

       "I don't blame them."

       "Huh?!"

       Sawyer laughed. "I'm not saying you seem like the person who would. I'm saying that there has been people who think it's okay to mess with other people's horses or equipment. It won't be the first time."

       I scowled. "Yeah, well, those people who do are trash. They're worse than trash. Who would mess with a horse? Makes me wanna bap bap them."

       "No getting into fights."

       "Make me."

       "You'll get banned from the competition if you start a fight."

       "Then I'll make a note of those I wanna fight and then fight them after the competition."

       "Of course that's your solution."

       "So... Since we're both awake..."

       Sawyer turned around and reached for his cell phone, sighing heavily when the screen lit up. "It's three in the morning, Jamie. So absolutely not." He locked his phone pulled the blanket over his head. "Good night."

       "If it's three in the morning, shouldn't you technically say 'good morning'?"

       "I'm not going to argue with you about technicalities. Go to sleep, Jamie." 

       "Make me."

       "I won't have sex with you for a week."

       "Okay, I don't think I can no longer say 'make me' because you always seem to have an answer to that. Meanie." I was about to lock my phone and attempt to go to sleep, but my cell phone started ringing. Kitty was calling, and it made me furrow me eyebrows as I answered it. "Kitty? Is everything okay? Why are you ca--"

       "The stable is on fire," Kitty cut me off.

       I sat up immediately. "It's what?"

       "All the horses are out. I think they're all physically okay, but they're all shaken. Paint especially. We're allowed to come down here to check up on them so get your ass down here."

       "I'm coming." 

       I hung up as Sawyer sat up, wondering what was going on from hearing only my side of the conversation. "What's going on?"

       "The stable is on fire," I told him as I got out of bed. "I-I don't know how. Kitty said all the horses are out but they're so shaken."

       Sawyer got out of bed as well without another word. We didn't even bother changing out of our pyjamas as we threw on a sweater; really, who would want to take the time to get changed?

       We got to the stables as fast as we could. Many people were already there, either talking to the police or firefighters, or trying to calm their horses. The fire was already put out, but that didn't change the fact that the damage was already done.

       I looked around, trying to spot Paint. It didn't take long; I knew he wasn't going to be close to the other horses so I had to look in the distance. He was far away from the others, though Raven was a bit close to him so both Sawyer and I headed over there to try and calm them down.

       Raven almost immediately calmed as soon as he saw Sawyer. Paint, on the other hand, took a very long time to calm down. I didn't blame him. He was already so skittish having to be alone at night. He hated staying in his stables at time. It was probably going to take him an even longer time to get him settled in there.

       I looked over at Sawyer. "I know you told me not to start any fights, so can I murder someone instead?"

       "Who do you want to murder?"

       "Uh, whoever started the fire."

       "We don't know if it was intentional."

       "It was," Kitty suddenly said, now standing nearby with her horse. She made sure to keep her distance, though, because he knew how Paint could be at times. "They said it wasn't an accident."

       "Holy shit, are you serious?" Sawyer asked. "Who the hell would do something like that?"

       "Beats me," Kitty said. "There's going to be an investigation, and I think they're even talking about putting the competitions on hold for a bit."

       "How did the horses get out?" I asked. 

       "The people who live nearby saw it and immediately came here while calling the firefighters," Kitty said. "They helped get the horses out. Except Paint. He was already out for some reason."

       "I don't blame him," I said. "He has a habit of breaking the stall whenever he doesn't want to be in there. I still can't believe someone would start a fire in the stable. I really am going to start a fight."

       "I'll help," Kitty said.

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i'll help too :D

i missed jamie, the little horny tornado. i'm glad i finally figured out what to write for this lol.