Howdy and welcome to the second installment of Children of Two Worlds! If you missed last week’s, you can find it here! Or the story now has it’s own special page where you can find every installment in order.

Enjoy!

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When Cassie came to she saw several faces hovering above her. A high pitched ringing echoed in her ears. She must have really hit her head. Then she realized it was someone shouting. She knew that voice. It was Emerald City’s owner.

“Hey, don’t try and move. You hit your head pretty hard on the wall,” Frank said.

“Can you try and make her be quiet?” Cassie mumbled.

José, the Hispanic jockey, flashed a pearly white smile and vanished from view.

“How long was I out?” she asked.

“A few minutes. They got here early,” Frank explained. Great. The last thing Cassie needed was a high maintenance owner freaking out about her passing out in the horse’s stall.

“What happened?” the shrill voice was back in force and a tall, diet-skinny, woman shoved her way into Cassie’s face. “What were you thinking, Frank? Does she have a problem with fainting spells? Emerald City is delicate! She can’t have this kind of stress around her!”

Frank attempted to calm the owner down as Cassie sat up. Delicate, yeah right! She thought. Although, if she remembered correctly, Emerald City had tried to protect her from that freak. She might just kiss the mare for that and never complain again.

“My blood sugar must have dropped. I got dizzy and hit my head on the wall,” she decided on a reasonable explanation. Frank didn’t quite buy it, but he wasn’t going to argue with Miss White Pants standing there. Seriously, who wore white slacks to a barn? Cassie saw Emerald City sticking her neck over the stall door and looking in their general direction.

“She ok?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah, she must have gotten really spooked by your fainting act,” Frank said. Great, he didn’t buy that, she thought. José finally managed to escort Her Royal Highness 2.0 away to comfort the “delicate” Emerald City.

“What really happened, Cassandra?” Frank asked seriously.

“I don’t know. Some guy came around wanting to ask me questions. He must have really spooked Emerald and I got thrown against the wall in the chaos,” Cassie tried a simplified version of the truth this time. Thankfully Frank decided to buy it.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. Guy never gave me his name. He had red hair though.” And orange eyes. She shuddered as those burning eyes flashed before her again.

“Hey, take the day. I called Sam.”

“Why’d you call Sam?” Cassie’s voice rose in slight annoyance.

“To give you a ride. You’re not climbing on that motorcycle after hitting your head. Those things are dangerous anyway,” Frank argued.

“I wear a helmet!” she argued right back.

“He’s coming.” That was the final say and she subsided with a grumble. Frank had basically become her father after she had run away from her real parents four years ago. Her family couldn’t handle what she was. Tears budded in her eyes just thinking about them. She rubbed her calloused hands together, dirt falling away from her light brown skin. She’d gotten her coloring from her Hispanic mom. Her dad was an all- American boy. Tall and built like a quarterback, he was a fighter pilot- retired now.  They’d met when her dad was stationed in San Antonio. True love and whatever.

“Hey!” someone interrupted her morose thoughts. She glanced up to see Sam. He was even grungier than she was. He worked at a mechanic’s shop in town and never could seem to get the grease off his hands. “I put your bike in the back of the truck,” he said.

That was Sam. She looked ok, so she must be ok. She waved to Frank and followed Sam out to his beat up truck. He pulled out of the stable’s raked gravel drive and turned onto the paved road. Cassie watched the lush East Texas landscape roll by for a few minutes before turning to her companion who knew exactly who she was because he was like her. A freak.

“I think we might have a problem.”

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