Three - DEFCON 2
THREE
THEY’RE NOT TALKING much—that’s the first thing I notice.
It’s a small team, scattered around the drop-off zone.
One leans against a post, fingers tapping lazily against her thigh.
Another tests the latch on a collapsible panel gate, then steps back and doesn’t move again.
Off to the side, a medic holds a black kit in both hands, with three other bags at her feet—green, yellow, red—plus a blue backpack.
No one is on their phone. No one is making small talk.
I don’t know what that means yet, but it doesn’t feel casual. Whatever is about to come off that trailer, they’re not treating it like luggage.
If anything, these guys are the bomb squad.
I shift my weight, sneakers grinding against the buggy’s floorboard. Rey hasn’t said anything in a while, eyes closed, leaning back, legs up over the steering wheel like there’s nothing on her schedule for the rest of the day.
Except there is. We’re literally waiting for it .
For the millionth time, I glance out past the curve of the tree line. This time, something white flashes through the dust. A truck.
“Is that it?” I ask.
Rey lifts her head just enough for a peek over her tattooed arms, crossed over her chest. At the far edge of the road, a white truck starts to take shape, a big-deal professional trailer hitched behind.
“I reckon it is,” she says with a grunt, unfolding her arms and scooting back on the buggy’s driver seat. One foot on the pedal, she drives us from the shade where we’ve been waiting to the edge of the wide-open drop-off zone.
There’s no noise from our buggy—electric, so it doesn’t spook any horses—just gravel crunching softly under the tires until we’re close enough and Rey hops out.
I leave my bag and follow as we cut across the drop zone, stopping as the truck gets closer and the quiet gets swallowed.
The rig hums like a wave crawling onto the beach, but this one keeps coming, keeps there, under the whining brakes and the aluminum creaks.
Until the engine cuts. Except the noise doesn’t stop. It shifts. To something louder, rawer, alive.
Then a bang.
I flinch. Anyone would recognize the sound—hooves against steel.
Hard. Mean. The trailer rocks in all directions.
The whole rig jerks a full boot’s length sideways, kicking up dust and etching new skid marks into the dirt.
Then once more, a damn wrecking ball. Metal groans like it’s one harsher breeze away from snapping.
And I know it’s just a horse in there. In a standard transport trailer, like a thousand others I’ve seen in my life. But damn, it sounds like a trapped elephant shaking off lions.
The truck’s cabin doors swing open, a pudgy driver emerging on one side, and a lanky dude from the passenger’s, who I’m assuming is the horse handler. They don’t waste time climbing down and half-jogging over.
“We’ve had trouble,” the handler says the second they’re in hearing distance. “Didn’t settle once the whole ride. Kicked through his leg wraps. Had to tighten the lead, but he bit it off completely. The only thing holding him is the mid-partition gate. Otherwise, he’s loose in there.”
Rey nods, feeling her vest for a pen she eventually finds. “Was he sedated?”
“Pre-load, yeah. Didn’t take.” He gives her a clipboard, continuing as she scans the papers.
“Fed him lightly before boarding. Drank fine then, but wouldn’t touch it on the road.
” He takes a big breath, eying the trailer with equal parts tension and tiredness.
“Gotta tell ya, been hell-and-a-half, this ride. Only thing that kept was the tail wrap.”
“Nearly cracked a window at the fuel stop,” adds the driver, obviously pissed. “Pure luck the partition gate’s still holding. Damn thing’s feral.”
Rey hums, flipping a page. “That what you’d say if you spent all day in a hot metal box, taken against your will to God-knows where?”
The driver scoffs. “Look, I just move ’em. Can’t coddle something that wants to kill ya.”
“Sir, you and I are as close to speaking the same language as we both are to speaking his.” She points at the trailer with her pen, not even looking up. “So let’s just leave this conversation as it stands.”
With a flick of her wrist, she signs one page, tears part of it off, then hands the clipboard back to the handler with a pressed smile.
And I almost slow-clap at the most polite fuck-off I’ve seen in a while. Classy as shit.
“He’s in the front compartment?” Rey asks, slipping the pen back into her vest. The handler nods. “Alright. Drop the ramp, will ya?”
The driver hesitates. “It’d be safer for your vet to go in through the side. Make sure the sedation’s working before you open him up.”
“Sir, this is Riverlight. Only place horses get sedated is on my surgery table.”
“ You’re the vet?” The man eyes her up and down like he’s questioning her sanity more than her station.
“Correct. I’m also the Chief Operations Officer, so ya may save your breath asking for my manager.” She slips her hands back in her pockets. “Please drop the ramp ‘n stand aside. This’ll all be over in three minutes.”
“Three minutes.” The driver huffs, spinning on his heel and stomping away. “Lucky if we’re done in three hours.”
The handler stands frozen for a moment before meekly asking, “You guys… You got this, right? Getting him out?” He bolts before Rey even nods, past the trailer and directly into the cab.
Rey snorts. “So much fear in such a scrawny body.”
My head shakes. “I don’t know. Never seen a horse make a trailer skid like that.”
“Me neither.”
“For real?” And it doesn’t bother her?
“Never ever,” she says, almost grinning. “Just know how this ends, so why would I be scared?” She glances at me then, and something in my face must amuse her enough for a chuckle. “I ain’t delusional, Fancy Pants. Just look around.”
So I do.
And it’s not obvious because nothing changed, but that’s exactly her point. Everyone is still calm, still poised. The whole ranch team, all ready and in position, exactly as they were before the truck ever came into view.
Like nothing about this moment lifts the hair on the back of their necks. Like it’d be weirder if that was a perfectly still trailer holding a perfectly happy horse, just back from a Sunday drive.
Like these guys have all binged this book at least five times while I’m still at the title page. Hell, I’m not even sure this shit’s in English.
The moment the driver starts unhooking the external locks for the ramp, the rig rocks again—a gunshot of a bang.
Then another, hooves slamming hard enough to make the guy stagger back.
Eventually, he manages, and the ramp unlatches and lowers with a groan.
The inside stinks of sweat and ammonia, traveling in a heat wave even this far out.
Gravel dust fills the air like fog, like it can’t settle either.
I focus. I want to see him—my stallion—but it’s too dark inside.
The trailer has gone lifeless too. Or at least the kind of lifeless you hope for in the dark, but your body is so tense you can’t tell for sure. Just feels like I’m in the crosshairs of a sniper who’s taking his time.
Until his breath takes shape, white and hot like engine smoke. And a flicker—two—where his eyes catch the light. White rims and something glinting. Watching.
Then, all at once, I see him. All the ways he’s wrong.
How he’s oversized, over-wired, so over this whole shit since yesterday when he got boxed up in there. His head lifts first, too high and too fast, like he’s scanning for exits, not friends. Foam clings to his mouth, saliva and sweat soaking his jaw, neck, chest—diesel over gunmetal.
His shoulders roll as surfacing boulders, massive and off-rhythm. Legs too long, stance too wide. Hair too wild, rough like steel wire, like you’d need gloves just to touch it. There’s no softness on him, only rage and raw voltage. The image of literal horsepower.
Who in their right mind breeds a war tank and trains it to jump for sports?
Because whoever it was... Fucking genius. I’d watch that thing nap—he’s that intense.
And suddenly, an image flashes in my mind. A memory.
A pony—the first one I ever rode. Large patches of black and white on his coat, reminding me of the cow on the milk cartons we had at home, only with tiny white braids and rainbow-colored hair ties.
I was six. He looked massive too, from my perspective. Intense. Amazing.
And I remember it so clearly—the first words out of my mouth when I saw him that day. After gagging at the sight of my first horse poop, after all the icky smells and the danger beasts Mom called horses that were bigger than her, bigger than our car.
I remember. My voice was so tiny. Barely a whisper.
“When can I ride him?”
Rey snorts. “Would ya look at that. Thought for sure you’d nope out.”
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“Ya get your eyes on that ”—she gestures at the stallion—“’n your first instinct is, ‘ when do I get on?’ I’m impressed.”
No. No, I did not say it out loud.
Shit. Did I?
I straighten up, readjust my footing. Shoulders wide, chin up. One hand holding the other behind my back so my spine shoots up and no one can tell if my fists are shaking. Or how white my knuckles are, and what that says about brand integrity and the future of Olympic showjumping—more at eleven.
There’s always a reporter. Always a headline. So focus.
“I need to ride it,” I tell her. “That’s the whole reason we came here.”
“Sure, sure.” Rey leaves it at that, thankfully. But still…
I look away, toward the forest, the mountains. This place is making me too relaxed. Too open, which is worse. There are literally cameras in the trees—closed circuit, but still—and I’m fucking daydreaming in public. Of something that happened when I was a kid.
I catch my thumb rubbing at the scar on my wrist. I slide it away. Close my eyes. Breathe deeper.
Can’t go back twenty years and do anything differently, so… Waste of my damn time.