MILA Origins 2.0 - The Fire

stalked past them. She moved so quietly, so smoothly, that her blond ponytail barely bobbed behind her.
    She was only three stalls from the end of the row when we heard it again.
    Clank.
    Our heads swiveled as one toward the last stall on the right. My breath hitched in my throat. If there was a crazy stalker or horse thief in there, he or she could probably hear my heart slamming against my rib cage by now.
    But under the rapid-fire beat of my heart lurked something else. An anticipatory tightening of my muscles, an unshakable determination to help Mom.
    No matter what.
    I traced Mom’s careful footsteps as she picked out a silent path that led to that last stall. I watched while those slender, capable fingers wrapped around the handle, squeezed, and eased the door open.
    Maisey let out a startled whinny when Mom leaped across the threshold, Maglite poised for action.
    The long black flashlight lowered an instant later.
    “What the…?” I heard Mom say as I leaned into the stall. Maisey was the lone occupant.
    My heart decelerated to a gentler rhythm while I scratched the mare’s soft muzzle. Meanwhile, Mom performed an itemized inspection of the stall’s contents, running her hands along the walls. She stopped on the feed bucket attached to the wall.
    Slipping farther inside, she reached over and pulled the bucket away from the wall, then pushed it forward.
    Clank.
    “Silly girl. Was that you, playing with your bucket? Mrs. Greenwood warned me about that.” Mom said, her laugh flowing like water; the easiest, purest laugh I’d her from her in ages. The sound released the tension from my limbs, like a valve had opened up and drained it all away. Part of me wanted to join in. The other part worried. This type of reaction, it wasn’t Mom. Had Dad’s death finally sent her over the edge?
    But when Mom slipped her arm around my shoulder and smiled at me, I gave in to the laughter, pushed aside the niggling voices.
    Like a squirrel, I felt compelled to store every spare scrap of affection I could find. You never knew when winter would strike and make the scraps scarce again.
    It wasn’t until we reached the barn door that Mom’s smile slipped.
    I followed her gaze and realized what she was thinking. “I’m sorry I left the door open. I was in a hurry and forgot.”
    Her brows lowered at that news. And then she laughed it off. “Actually, I’m relieved it was you. This time,” she tacked on hastily. “You need to be more careful in the future.”
    The thing was, I was pretty sure I had closed the barn door. But as we ran from the barn back to the house, the tiny lie felt worth it. There was no sense in making Mom worry unnecessarily. I mean, despite her obvious jitters, we were in Clearwater. What could possibly happen here?
    The question I should have been asking myself was, how had I possibly heard Maisey banging her feed bucket from so far away? But the thought didn’t even occur to me. Not until it was way too late.

SIX
    T he next morning, I felt the happiest I had in weeks. My newfound camaraderie with Mom made my smiles come easier and the hallways seem less overwhelming. Kaylee snapped her fingers just as we reached her locker. “Shoot, I left my economics book in the car—I wanted to try to study for that quiz during homeroom.”
    Yesterday’s weirdness seemed to have blown over. I hadn’t mentioned her little freakout, and in return, she hadn’t brought up mine.
    “Do you want me to go with you?” I said, just as the warning bell rang.
    She speed-walked toward the main door, fast as her two-inch heels would allow. “No, you go ahead,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll only be a second.”
    I settled into my usual spot in homeroom. Even though I purposely tried to ignore the students already in class, apparently that was too big a challenge for my analytical brain. Five boys, three girls. None of them Hunter.
    I smiled at all of them anyway.
    I busied myself digging a notebook out of my backpack. Still, I sensed Hunter’s presence several seconds before he dropped into Kaylee’s spot next to me.
    “Hey,” he said in his soft voice, those blue eyes fixed on me beneath a sweep of messy hair.
    “Hi.” Nervous flutters kicked up inside me. Silly. He was just a boy. Okay, not entirely true. He was a boy who Kaylee happened to like.
    Kaylee, who’d be back any second, expecting to sit in her spot.
    Nervous flutters or not, the boy had to sit somewhere else.
    Just then, Hunter