You, Me: Us

9. The Search

Barely even 12 hours later, everyone was back to the stables early in the morning. Becky, Jade, and Lainey, while they had never formally talked, walked into Raven's stable together, where Zoe was. They needed to be there for their friends.

They each hugged her as she stood there staring, "we're going to find him, Zoe," Jade promised.

"There's no way Raven would let himself get stolen for long," Becky jokes.

Lainey nodded, "yeah, he's probably overcoming the thieves right now, you know how much he likes to fight."

The blonde smiled before chuckling, "He's probably driving their van back as we speak." Zoe shook her head. "That would be so Raven, wouldn't it?"

"Old Raven would've fought back. Now I'm not so sure," she said sadly, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Lainey squeezed her extra tight before Sam yelled for a team meeting.

While she wasn't on the county team, she was on the Bright Fields team so she gathered with them. Sam looked at Zoe, "are you alright." The girl didn't say anything and Mia decided it was her turn.

"No. No, I'm not alright. I've had two horses stolen!" Lainey jabbed her with her elbow. She understood Firefly, but she never cared about Raven unless it had to do with competing with Zoe.

Sam nodded, "We're all upset. It's awful."

"Daddy's absolutely livid. He has a good mind to sue the stables," Mia threatened and her cousin rolled her eyes.

Sam slightly gulped and Zoe glared at the spoiled girl, "That's not gonna help bring Raven home, is it?"

"What's it to you, he's my horse."

"Look! There were three guys at the stables the first time they tried to take him," she explained, looking at the officer. "The photographer guy must have been working with them. You should be questioning him right now."

Derek shook his head, "I'm sorry, Zoe. We didn't have enough evidence to charge him. He was released this morning." Lainey got filled in on everything that happened with them arresting a horse thief after trying to find Ghost Pony, but to hear that he had been released, well, everyone was shocked.

"WHAT?"

"Just let us deal with the investigation," Derek pleaded and Lainey scoffed.

"Oh please, you're barely half decent at your job, you're basically damage control. Maybe you should let us deal with it and you just swoop in when we need you?" She asked sarcastically, glaring at the poor man who just wanted the teenagers to stop getting in the middle of dangerous situations.

"Lainey," Sam chastised. "Look, the best thing we can do right now is carry on. We've got the county show tomorrow."

Zoe turned to her, "how can you think about that with Raven missing?"

"Life must go on." In other words, they needed the money or they would be losing the stables and then there goes everything. "I want you all in the tack room in an hour. We're gonna go over the show courses together and we're gonna work out how we can win this thing."

The group dispersed. Lainey was going to get Angel ready. He was a back up horse just in case one of the others got spoked, nervous, sick, anything. However, that almost never happened.

She was brushing his tail when she got a call from Pin, "hey, what's up?"

"The pony's up!" He celebrated and Lainey was just about to say how awesome that was when he said something else. "And we think Raven's still on the island. Get Priscilla ready and find something of Raven's, she's the best at tracking."