Part 2
Mary’s question hung in the quiet room like a thread stretched too tight.
Holly looked down at the illustration—the little brown horse in the lonely field, the painted clouds, the fence that seemed too high for any creature that wanted to leave.For a moment, she did not answer.
Mary watched her with those solemn gray eyes that looked too much like Weston’s and too little like a child’s.
“Does the horse have a mommy?” Mary asked again.
Holly closed the book gently over one finger to keep the page.“I think,” she said softly, “the horse had a mommy once.”
Mary’s small fingers tightened around the teddy bear.
“Where did she go?”
Holly’s throat moved. The right answer, the safe answer, the nanny answer, would have been something gentle and false. She could have said the mother horse went to another farm. She could have said the horse was brave and didn’t need anyone.But children like Mary Hargrove had already been lied to by silence.
“She went somewhere the little horse couldn’t follow,” Holly said.
Mary stared at the blanket.
“Did the little horse cry?”
“Yes.”
“For a long time?”
“Yes.”
Mary nodded as if this confirmed something she had known but needed an adult to admit.“Did someone stay with him?”
Holly opened the book again.
“Not at first.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is.”
“Then what happened?”
Holly’s hand rested lightly on the page. Outside, beyond the tall windows, the estate stretched wide and cold under a pale sun. Men in black coats moved along the driveway. One of Weston’s guards stood near the fountain, his posture relaxed, his eyes never still.“Then,” Holly said, “someone patient came along. Someone who didn’t try to make the horse stop being sad. Someone who sat in the field until the horse understood he wasn’t alone.”
Mary leaned against her arm.
“Did the horse get better?”Holly looked at her.
“Not all at once.”
Mary seemed to accept that. Children understood time differently. They did not trust quick miracles. Adults invented those to comfort themselves.
Holly continued reading.
By the end of the chapter, Mary’s eyes had grown heavy. The milk was half finished. The teddy bear had slipped from her arms onto the quilt. Holly marked the page, pulled the blanket up to Mary’s shoulder, and stood.At the door, Mary spoke again.
“Miss Bennett?”
Holly turned.
“Yes?”
“Midnight doesn’t have a mommy either.”
Holly’s fingers tightened around the brass doorknob.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think he does.”
“Maybe you can sit in his field.”
Holly’s face softened in a way almost no one in that house had seen.Maybe I can.”
When she stepped into the hall, Weston Hargrove was waiting in the shadow near the far window.
He had a talent for stillness. He could make a hallway feel like a courtroom simply by standing in it. His charcoal overcoat was gone now, replaced by a dark vest and rolled shirtsleeves. There was no tie at his throat. No visible weapon.That made him no less dangerous.
“How much did you hear?” Holly asked.
“Enough.”
She closed Mary’s door with care.
“Then you heard she’s asleep.”
“I heard you tell my daughter the truth.”
Holly met his gaze.
“I told her a story.”“Same thing, sometimes.”
Neither of them moved.
From downstairs came the muffled sound of a phone ringing, then a man’s voice answering it. Somewhere deeper in the house, a door closed. The Hargrove estate was never truly silent. It breathed with guards, cooks, drivers, accountants, secrets.Weston studied her as though she were a ledger with a missing column.
“You did not put equestrian experience on your application.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was applying to care for your daughter, not your horse.”
His mouth did not smile, but something in his eyes shifted.
Finn says you saved me a fortune.”
“Finn exaggerates.”
“Finn says Midnight would have been shot by sunset.”
That time, Holly looked away first.
“Was he wrong?”
Weston let the question sit.
“He has hurt men.”
“Men were hurting him first.”
“Careful, Miss Bennett.”
Her eyes returned to his.
“With what?”
“Sounding certain in a house where certainty is expensive.”
Holly took a slow breath. She had known men like him before, though none wore power as elegantly as Weston Hargrove. Men who asked questions as if answers were things they already owned. Men who believed money could purchase obedience, silence, even memory.
But there was something else in him too.
Not softness.
Never softness.
But damage, locked behind discipline.
“Midnight isn’t vicious,” she said. “He’s terrified.”
“He destroyed a stall.”
“Because he was trapped.”
“He kicked a man’s finger off.”
“Because the man had a chain over his gums and a twitch on his nose.”
Weston’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You saw that?”
“I saw the marks.”
“From the fence?”
“From his mouth.”
He was quiet for a beat too long.
Then he said, “Come with me.”
Holly did not move.
“Mary may wake.”
“There are six women in this house paid to hear a child breathe.”
“Not one of them is me.”
For the first time, something like impatience crossed his face.
“I am not asking you to abandon her.”
“And I am not asking for your permission to do my job.”
Down the hall, Tristan appeared at the top of the stairs.
His presence changed the air immediately.
Where Weston was winter glass, Tristan was a polished blade. Younger by four years, leaner, with a face made handsome by charm and dangerous by amusement. He wore a navy suit and no overcoat, as if the cold never had the nerve to touch him.
“Am I interrupting?” Tristan asked.
“Yes,” Weston said.
“No,” Holly said at the same time.
Tristan’s smile deepened.
“Miss Bennett, you are becoming the most interesting employee we’ve had since the chef tried to poison Uncle Rafe.”
Holly blinked.
Weston did not.
“Joke,” Tristan said lightly. “Mostly.”
“Go downstairs,” Weston said.
Tristan’s gaze flicked toward Holly, then back to his brother.
“About the file—”
“Downstairs.”
The smile stayed, but Tristan’s eyes cooled.
“Of course.”
He turned and descended, his shoes silent on the carpet.
Holly watched him go.
“He doesn’t like me.”
“My brother doesn’t like unexplained things.”
“And you?”
Weston looked at her for a long moment.
“I dislike them more.”
He walked away without waiting to see whether she followed.
Holly looked once at Mary’s closed door.
Then she followed.
The stable yard smelled of hay, leather, rain-soaked earth, and money. Everything on the Hargrove estate was immaculate, even the danger. The stables had heated floors, imported cedar stalls, brass fixtures polished bright enough to reflect fear.
Midnight stood alone in the far paddock.
No halter. No saddle. No man close to the fence.
He lifted his head the moment Holly entered the yard.
Finn O’Donnell stood near the tack room with two grooms and a veterinarian. His left cheek was bruised yellow beneath the eye. His pride seemed worse off.
“I told Mr. Hargrove this was a bad idea,” Finn said.
“You tell me many things,” Weston replied. “Few of them matter twice.”
Finn flushed.
Holly stopped at the paddock gate.
Midnight stared at her.
The big stallion looked unreal in daylight. Black coat shining blue where the weak sun touched it. Feathered legs. Arching neck. The kind of beauty that made men greedy and careless.
His ears pricked forward.
Holly reached for the latch.
Finn stepped in sharply.
“Don’t.”
Midnight slammed one hoof into the ground.
Everyone froze.
Holly did not.
“It’s all right,” she whispered.
The words were not for the men.
Midnight’s breath plumed white.
Holly opened the gate only wide enough to slip through. She did not carry a rope. She did not carry a crop. She did not even wear gloves.
Weston watched from the rail with a stillness that fooled everyone except Tristan, who had returned without being invited and now leaned against the stable wall with his arms crossed.
“You trust her?” Tristan murmured.
“No.”
“Yet there she goes.”
Weston’s jaw tightened.
Midnight took three hard steps toward Holly, then stopped. His muscles bunched. His tail snapped once. He was deciding whether to run, strike, or submit to the panic trained into him by rough hands.
Holly lowered herself slowly onto the cold ground.
The grooms exchanged looks.
Finn swore under his breath.
“She’s mad,” he said.
“No,” Weston said. “She’s waiting.”
Holly sat in the dirt with her knees bent, hands loose, eyes down. She did not call to Midnight. She did not coax. The paddock became a stage where nothing happened, and because nothing happened, every man watching grew more uneasy.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Midnight circled her once.
Holly stayed still.
He came close enough that his breath stirred a loose strand of her hair. His massive head lowered. He smelled her shoulder, her sleeve, her empty hands.
Then he stepped back and pawed the dirt.
Holly turned her face slightly away from him.
Midnight snorted.
Another minute passed.
Then the stallion lowered himself.
Not fully. Not comfortably. But slowly, unbelievably, he folded his front legs beneath him and sank to the ground near her like some dark king surrendering to an older law.
Finn’s mouth fell open.
One groom crossed himself.
Tristan stopped smiling.
Weston’s hands closed over the rail.
Holly did not touch Midnight at first. She waited until he stretched his neck toward her. Only then did she lay her palm against the side of his face.
The stallion closed his eyes.
No one spoke.
The estate, for that small impossible moment, seemed to forget what it was.
Then a black SUV came screaming through the outer gate.
The spell shattered.
Midnight lurched upright, but Holly rose with him, one hand still raised, her voice low and steady.
The SUV braked hard in front of the main house. A man jumped out before the driver fully stopped.
He was bleeding from the temple.
Weston turned.
The man ran across the gravel, ignoring the guards moving toward him.
“Mr. Hargrove!”
Weston did not raise his voice.
“What happened?”
The man staggered to a stop.
“Rossi took the shipment. South pier. Four dead. He left a message.”
Tristan pushed off the wall.
“What message?”
The bleeding man swallowed.
“He said the widow’s ghost still burns.”
For the first time since Holly had known him, Weston Hargrove’s face changed.
Not much.
Only enough.
But it was like watching a crack appear in marble.
Holly saw it.
So did Tristan.
Finn looked at the ground.
No one mentioned Mary.
No one had to.
Weston walked toward the SUV.
“Lock the house,” he said.
Tristan fell into step beside him.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Weston—”
“I said no.”
Tristan grabbed his brother’s arm.
Three guards reached for weapons and stopped only because Weston lifted one hand.
“You don’t get to shut me out of this,” Tristan said, voice low and sharp. “Not when it’s about Elena.”
Weston stared at the hand on his sleeve until Tristan released him.
“This is why I do shut you out.”
Tristan’s face hardened.
“You think grief belongs to you because you married her?”
“I think rage makes you stupid.”
“And ice makes you blind.”
The brothers stood close enough for violence.
Then Weston turned away.
“Keep Mary safe.”
Tristan’s laugh had no humor in it.
“You mean keep the nanny close.”
Weston looked back once.
His eyes found Holly across the yard.
“Both.”
Then he got into the SUV and left with six armed men behind him.
Dust rose from the gravel.
Midnight tossed his head nervously inside the paddock.
Holly stood very still.
She had heard the name Elena before. Everyone in the house had. They spoke it like a candle flame cupped from wind.
But the widow’s ghost still burns.
That was not grief.
That was a threat.
By evening, the Hargrove estate had transformed.
The gates were sealed. Guards doubled at every entrance. The kitchen staff whispered over trays of untouched food. The housekeeper, Mrs. Vale, moved through rooms with a ring of keys and a face like pressed linen.
Mary noticed everything.
Children always did.
“Is Daddy angry?” she asked from the window seat.
Holly was brushing her hair.
“I think he’s worried.”
“Daddy doesn’t worry.”
“Yes, he does.”
“No. Daddy makes other people worry.”
Holly paused.
Mary said it without pride or fear. It was simply a fact she had learned, the way other children learned the color of the sky.
“Everyone worries about someone,” Holly said.
Mary looked at the dark glass of the window, where her small reflection floated over the black lawn.
“Who do you worry about?”
Holly continued brushing.
“You.”
Mary turned.
“Only me?”
The brush slowed.
“No,” Holly admitted. “Not only you.”
“Who else?”
A knock came before Holly could answer.
Tristan opened the door without waiting.
“Mary,” he said with theatrical warmth, “your uncle is here to rescue you from boredom.”
Mary’s face changed in the smallest possible way. Not happiness exactly, but recognition. Tristan was one of the few people who could make her almost smile.
“Do you have cards?” she asked.
“I have cards, chocolate, and a shocking willingness to cheat.”
Holly stood.
“It’s nearly bedtime.”
“It’s nearly the end of civilization downstairs,” Tristan said. “Bedtime can negotiate.”
Mary slid off the window seat and came toward him.
Tristan offered his hand, then glanced at Holly.
“Weston said you’re to stay with her.”
“I intended to.”
“Good. Then come lose at cards.”
They went to the small sitting room adjoining Mary’s bedroom. Tristan dealt cards with elegant fingers, palming sweets from his jacket like a stage magician. Mary caught him cheating twice and accused him in a whisper that sounded dangerously close to delight.
For nearly an hour, the world shrank to cards and chocolate.
Then the lights went out.
Mary froze.
The entire mansion dropped into darkness.
A second later, emergency lamps glowed red along the baseboards.
Tristan was already standing.
“Stay here.”
Holly pulled Mary close.
From somewhere downstairs came a shout.
Then another.
Then gunfire.
Not one shot.
Many.
Mary’s hands clamped over her ears.
Tristan drew a pistol from behind his back and moved to the door.
Holly’s blood turned cold, but her voice stayed calm.
“Mary, look at me.”
The child stared at her with wide eyes.
“We’re going to play the quiet game.”
“I don’t like this game.”
“I know. But you’re very good at it.”
Tristan opened the door an inch, listened, then shut it again.
His face had changed. The charm was gone. The blade remained.
“They breached the east service entrance,” he said.
Holly knew the east service entrance. It was beneath them.
“We need to move,” she said.
Tristan looked at her.
“You know the house?”
“I know Mary’s routes. Bedrooms, kitchen, library, back stairs.”
“Not enough.”
Another burst of gunfire cracked through the hallway below.
Mary whimpered.
Tristan knelt in front of her.
“Mouse,” he said softly.
Mary swallowed.
That single word did what reassurance could not. Her posture shifted. Her breathing hitched, then steadied. Some old routine between uncle and niece. Some emergency language no child should have.
“Where do mice go?” Tristan asked.
“Walls,” Mary whispered.
“That’s right.”
Holly stared at him.
“There’s a passage?”
“Several. Old smuggler house before Weston made it a fortress.” Tristan went to the bookshelf, pulled a green volume, then a red one. A panel clicked behind the curtains.
The hidden door opened into blackness.
Mary gripped Holly’s hand.
“Inside,” Tristan said.
Holly entered first, guiding Mary behind her. The passage smelled of dust and cold stone. Tristan followed, closing the panel just as footsteps pounded past the bedroom door.
They moved through the narrow dark with only Tristan’s phone light covered by his palm.
The gunfire below grew muffled.
Mary did not cry.
Holly had seen brave children before. Bravery in children always made her want to break something.
“Where does this lead?” Holly whispered.
“Old chapel, west side.”
“That’s across the lawn.”
“There’s an underground exit.”
They descended a cramped staircase.
Then Tristan stopped so suddenly Holly nearly ran into him.
Voices echoed ahead.
Men.
Not Hargrove men.
Tristan killed the light.
The darkness became absolute.
A voice drifted through the stone corridor.
“Girl’s upstairs. Boss wants her alive.”
Another voice laughed.
“And Hargrove?”
“Rossi wants him to come home to ashes.”
Mary’s hand went limp in Holly’s.
Holly pulled her closer, covering the child’s mouth gently before fear could become sound.
Tristan leaned close to Holly’s ear.
“Back.”
They retreated slowly, but the passage behind them creaked.
A flashlight beam cut across the wall.
“Hey!”
Tristan fired first.
The gunshot inside the passage was deafening.
Mary collapsed against Holly, silent but shaking.
Tristan shoved them toward a side opening.
“Go!”
Holly ran.
The passage angled sharply downward. Her shoulder struck stone. Mary stumbled. Holly lifted her without thinking, the child’s small body clinging to her neck.
Behind them, Tristan fired twice more.
Then cursed.
Then something heavy hit the wall.
“Tristan!” Holly called.
No answer.
Only running footsteps behind them.
Holly reached a low wooden door barred from the inside. She fumbled with the latch. Rust bit her fingers. Mary buried her face against Holly’s shoulder.
The footsteps came closer.
Holly tore the bar free and shoved the door open.
Cold air hit her face.
They spilled into the old chapel.
It was a private ruin at the edge of the estate, preserved because rich men liked owning beautiful dead things. Moonlight fell through narrow stained-glass windows, painting the cracked floor blue and red.
Holly slammed the door shut and dragged an iron candle stand across it.
“Under there,” she whispered, pointing to the altar.
Mary crawled beneath.
Holly grabbed the nearest object she could find: a rusted iron cross from a broken stand.
The door shuddered.
Once.
Twice.
The candle stand scraped.
Holly stood between the door and the altar, both hands around the iron cross.
The door burst inward.
A man came through with a gun raised.
Holly swung before she could think.
The iron struck his wrist. The gun flew. He lunged, cursing. Holly drove the end of the cross into his throat. He choked, stumbled, and she hit him again across the side of the head.
He fell hard.
She grabbed his gun with shaking hands.
Another man appeared in the doorway.
Holly raised the pistol.
“Don’t.”
He smiled.
“You know how to use that, nanny?”
Her grip steadied.
“Yes.”
Something in her voice made him hesitate.
It was only a second.
But a second was enough for the black shape behind him to move.
Midnight came out of the dark like a nightmare given muscle.
The stallion struck the man from behind with both front hooves. Bone cracked against stone. The man dropped without a sound.
Holly stared.
Midnight stood in the chapel doorway, wild mane tangled, reins snapped and trailing from a broken halter. His sides heaved. His eyes burned white in the moonlight.
Behind him, Finn stumbled into view, blood on his sleeve.
“Found him loose,” Finn gasped. “Or he found us.”
Mary crawled from beneath the altar.
“Midnight,” she whispered.
The stallion’s ears flicked.
Holly stepped toward him carefully.
The horse lowered his head.
Not to Holly.
To Mary.
Everyone stilled.
Mary reached out one trembling hand and touched the white star hidden beneath his forelock.
“He came,” she said.
Holly swallowed hard.
“Yes.”
The chapel filled with approaching footsteps.
Hargrove men this time. Tristan among them, limping, one sleeve dark with blood but alive.
He looked at the two bodies, then at Holly holding the gun, then at Midnight standing over Mary like a sworn guardian.
“Well,” he said breathlessly. “That’s going to complicate everyone’s opinion of the nanny.”
By the time Weston returned, the attack was over.
Rossi’s men were dead, captured, or gone. The estate smoked in three places. Two guards lay beneath sheets near the east service entrance. The grand foyer smelled of gunpowder and wet wool.
Weston entered through the front doors just after midnight.
His coat was torn at the shoulder. Blood marked his collar, not all of it his. His face held the terrible calm of a man who had spent the night killing pieces of the past and found no peace in it.
Tristan met him at the foot of the stairs.
“Mary?”
“Alive.”
Weston’s eyes closed for half a second.
“Hurt?”
“No.”
“Holly?”
Tristan’s gaze sharpened.
“Also alive.”
That made Weston look at him.
“What aren’t you saying?”
“Many things. Most of them unbelievable.”
Weston found them in the stable.
Mary had refused to go back inside until Midnight was settled. No one argued with her. Not after the chapel. Not after the stallion followed her across the lawn with his great head lowered near her shoulder.
Holly stood in the stall with him now, washing blood from a shallow cut on his chest. Mary slept on a bale of hay nearby, wrapped in Weston’s overcoat, guarded by two men and one horse who watched everyone with ancient suspicion.
Weston stopped outside the stall.
Holly looked up.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Weston said, “My daughter is alive because of you.”
“Because of Tristan. Because of Finn. Because of Midnight.”
“Because of you.”
Her hands stilled in the basin.
“I did what anyone would do.”
“No,” Weston said. “You did what almost no one would do.”
His voice was quiet, but it seemed to fill the stable.
Holly looked down at the pink water.
“Don’t make me into something I’m not.”
“And what are you?”
She did not answer.
Weston opened the stall door and stepped inside.
Midnight lifted his head sharply.
Weston stopped.
Holly raised a hand.
“It’s all right.”
The stallion’s ears flicked, but he did not strike.
Weston looked from the horse to her.
“He listens to you.”
“No. He believes me.”
“That’s rarer.”
She wrung out the cloth.
“Your men found the attackers?”
“Some.”
“Rossi?”
Weston’s expression hardened.
“Gone.”
Holly nodded slowly.
“Then he’ll come again.”
“You know that?”
“Men who use ghosts don’t stop after one haunting.”
Weston studied her.
“You have experience with men like Rossi?”
Holly’s face closed.
“I have experience with men.”
A faint sound came from the far end of the stable.
Tristan stood near the tack room with one hand pressed to his bandaged side. He held a manila folder.
Weston saw it.
“What is that?”
Tristan walked closer.
“Her file.”
Holly went still.
Weston’s gaze did not leave her face.
“I told you quietly.”
“I was quiet. The contents are loud.”
Holly set the cloth into the basin.
“Mr. Hargrove—”
“Weston,” he said.
The correction surprised them both.
Tristan looked between them with open interest despite the blood loss.
Holly’s voice lowered.
“Weston. Don’t.”
But Tristan had already opened the folder.
“Her name is Holly Bennett,” he said. “Mostly. Born in Oregon. Mother named Ruth. Father unknown. Worked farms from age thirteen. Not just any farms.”
Holly’s eyes shut.
Tristan continued, less amused now.
“Horses. Expensive ones. Damaged ones. Fighting-bred, abused, stolen, laundered through auctions. She was good. Very good. Then seven years ago, a fire at a private training facility outside Spokane. Three men injured. One owner dead. Forty-two horses released.”
Weston’s face changed.
Holly whispered, “Stop.”
Tristan did not.
“The facility belonged to Victor Kline.”
The stable seemed to shrink around the name.
Weston knew it.
Every powerful man with money in bloodstock knew it.
Victor Kline had been a trafficker, gambler, and breeder of animals ruined for rich men’s entertainment. He had died in a barn fire under circumstances officially ruled accidental and privately discussed over expensive whiskey.
Tristan pulled out a photograph.
It showed a younger Holly, bruised along the jaw, standing beside a pale mare with bandages over both eyes.
“She testified under seal,” Tristan said. “Then disappeared. New name. New city. Hospital debt. Agency job.”
Weston looked at Holly.
“You were in witness protection.”
“Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because protection ends when the people funding it stop caring.”
Tristan slid another paper from the folder.
“There’s more.”
Holly opened her eyes.
Fear moved through them then. Not for herself.
For Mary.
Weston noticed.
“What more?”
Tristan’s voice dropped.
“Victor Kline wasn’t alone in that operation. He had silent partners.”
Weston took the paper.
His eyes scanned it.
Then stopped.
For the first time all night, he looked truly unguarded.
Holly saw the moment he understood.
“Rossi,” Weston said.
“Yes,” Tristan replied. “And someone using a Hargrove account.”
The stable went silent except for Midnight’s breathing.
Holly looked at Weston.
“I didn’t know when I took the job.”
His eyes were cold now, but not at her.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No,” she said. “I expect you to decide whether it matters before someone else dies.”
Tristan stepped closer.
“There’s another thing.”
Weston’s hand tightened around the paper.
“Say it.”
Tristan looked toward Mary, asleep under the coat.
Then toward Midnight.
“The account was opened eight years ago. Before Elena died.”
Weston’s face turned deadly still.
Holly felt the air leave the room.
“No,” Weston said.
But denial did not suit him. It sounded foreign in his mouth.
Tristan’s voice was almost gentle.
“The account paid Kline for one horse. A black Friesian colt. Unregistered. Violent bloodline. Sold twice. Disappeared. Reappeared at auction this year under a clean history.”
Midnight shifted in the straw.
Holly turned slowly toward him.
A mark was hidden beneath his mane. She had seen it earlier and told herself not to think. A thin crescent scar at the base of the neck. Old rope burn. Old cruelty.
Tristan finished what no one else wanted to say.
“Midnight came from Kline’s ring.”
Mary stirred on the hay bale.
Weston stared at the stallion.
The $1.4 million killer horse. The death-ring survivor. The creature that had bowed to a broke nanny and guarded his daughter in a ruined chapel.
Holly’s voice was barely audible.
“He knew me.”
Weston looked at her.
“From where?”
Her hand trembled as she reached for Midnight’s mane.
“I was there the night the barn burned,” she said. “I opened the stalls. But there was one foal I couldn’t save.”
Midnight lowered his head into her touch.
Holly’s eyes filled, but no tears fell.
“I thought he died.”
Outside, a car rolled slowly up the gravel drive.
Every guard turned.
Weston stepped out of the stall.
The vehicle stopped beneath the stable lights.
The rear door opened.
An old woman emerged, wrapped in a black fur coat, leaning on a silver cane.
Tristan went pale.
Weston did not move.
Holly whispered, “Who is that?”
Weston’s voice was flat and dangerous.
“My mother.”
The old woman looked toward the stall, toward Mary sleeping in Weston’s coat, toward Holly with one hand buried in Midnight’s mane.
Then she smiled.
“Good,” she said. “You found the girl.”
Midnight screamed.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.