“What are all those for?” he asked. Nora didn’t wear
T-shirts very often and certainly not in size large.
“One for Griffin.”
“Of course.”
“One for Michael.”
“Who’s Michael?”
“His sub.”
“Why do I ask these questions?”
“One for Juliette.”
“Who?”
“Kingsley’s secretary. Well, she’s also his sexual property. He’s white and French. She’s black and Haitian.”
“That should be illegal.”
“They’re so cute together.”
“Your friends terrify me.”
“They’re harmless. Well, as long as you don’t piss them off. This one’s for Talel. He should have a memento of his big win today.” Nora threw the T-shirt over her shoulder and strode from the gift shop.
“He’ll have about a hundred thousand dollars in purse money and a wreath of roses and a trophy. Isn’t that enough of a souvenir?”
“Who would say no to a T-shirt?”
Wesley said nothing more, guessing Nora merely wanted an excuse to go talk to one of her kind again. He led her back to the stables and toward Spanks for Nothing’s stall. They’d be lucky to get to Talel. With that sort of win, he’d probably be surrounded by well-wishers and sports writers and others trying to let a piece of that victory rub off on them. Spanks for Nothing had proven himself a hot property today. The price of his stud fees had probably tripled. At least.
But a scene of celebration wasn’t what greeted them at they neared the stall. Wesley saw uniforms, track doctors, racing authorities... It was a sight he’d seen before.
“Nora…let’s go.”
“No, I want to see Talel. What’s wrong?”
“Something.”
She stopped and gave him a searching look. He took her hand, but she pulled away quickly and forced herself through the crowd ahead.
“Talel?” she called out, and Wesley had no choice but to race after her.
“Nora, let’s go,” he said when he caught up to her, right in front of the stall. “Shit.”
“Wesley…” He heard the heartbreak in her voice, the distress, and he saw the reason why.
Big, beautiful Spanks for Nothing lay on his side in his stall, quiet and unmoving. Nothing seemed to be broken. Nothing seemed to be wrong. A sleeping horse…that was all. Except horses didn’t stay down for long and they certainly didn’t lie like that.
Talel knelt at the horse’s side, a track veterinarian whispering next to him.
“Come on, Nora. We can’t help here.”
Talel looked up and met Nora’s eyes.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“He’s dead.”
NORTH
The Past
He told no one where his injuries came from. All questions he refused to answer. His grandparents came for Kingsley on the last day of school and gasped when they found him in the infirmary covered in bruises, his lip split open, his forehead stitched up, cuts on his knees, welts on his arms and one rib either strained or cracked. And those were only the wounds he let the doctor see. He knew he’d been hurt internally—torn. Definitely torn. But he kept that pain secret, as secret as he kept the little silver cross he’d ripped from Søren’s neck. He clutched it in his hand all night and all day and refused to let it go.
His grandparents interrogated him as thoroughly as the priests had. Kingsley didn’t even consider lying, although he could have said, “I fell in the woods,” and that would be the end of it. But that night with Søren in the forest…it meant too much to him to sully it with a lie. He simply said, “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine.” He took comfort in the words. In two days he must have said them a hundred times, said them until they were the only words he knew. But even those words weren’t entirely true. He did want to talk about it, but with Søren only. And he wasn’t fine. Fine couldn’t even begin to describe the bliss he’d experienced that night Søren had ripped him open and laid him out under the stars. Kingsley had no word for it other than perhaps God. He wasn’t fine. He was God.
And Søren was God and Kingsley had worshipped him and did worship him. But he’d been isolated in the infirmary, not allowed to leave, not allowed to have visitors. He assumed the priests hoped the isolation would force him to open up and explain what had happened. Instead it reinforced his vow of secrecy about that night. He didn’t have the words, not in English or French, to explain what had happened to him in any way that anyone would ever understand. A wall had come up between him and the rest of the world. The priest, his grandparents, the other students…they would say “rape.” But Kingsley knew better. He’d run because he’d wanted to get caught. He’d let himself be stripped and violated. And when he surrendered himself to Søren, that had been the moment he became himself.
“Kingsley…please. S’il vous plaît…” Kingsley’s grandmother laid her hand gently on the unbruised side of his face. He smiled at her attempt at French. It touched his heart that she would plead to him in his language, but still he wouldn’t tell.
On the second night, his friend Christian broke into the infirmary. Kingsley woke from a light sleep to find his classmate staring at him with horrified eyes.