I took Toby’s outstretched hand and got to my feet. My white T-shirt was smeared with dirt and stained with Joe’s blood. I took it off and dumped it in the bucket I’d loaded up with ruined cloths and paper towels.
Then I reclaimed Toby’s hand and shook my head. “I’m not built for that kind of carnage anymore. Never was.”
Toby squeezed my hand. “You dealt with it better than me. I’m still fucking shaking.”
“Because of what happened to Joe before?”
“I guess. It was years ago, though. I was sixteen. And he didn’t die then either.”
“It looked far worse than it was, if that’s any consolation.” I started walking, taking Toby with me. “Scalp wounds bleed a lot.”
“I heard him hit the fence. It sounded the same as when Shadow kicked him.”
I winced. Couldn’t help it. I’d heard the sickening crack of Joe impacting the fence too, and it was only because I’d seen the damage with my own eyes that I now knew it had been his helmet doing its job. “I’m scared I’m going to be awake all night worrying I made the wrong call in not taking him to hospital.”
“Do you think you made the wrong call?”
“No. He was winded as fuck when I got him up, but he’s fine now. The head wound will be sore for a couple of days, but the hospital would’ve taped him up just the same and sent him straight home.”
“So why are you worried?”
“I’m not. I’m worrying about worrying.”
Toby didn’t tell me that made no sense. He just held my hand tighter and we kept walking until we came to the scene of the crime.
Shadow was in a different field, apparently unaffected by the chaos he’d left behind. I wanted to dislike him, but he was too beautiful.
“He came from a breeding stable in Ireland,” Toby said. “The—what’s the word for the oldest woman... matriarch?”
“That’s the one.”
“Yeah, well. She said he was cursed and they were sending him for dog food. Joe’s grandfather bought him and shipped him over here, and he’s been trouble ever since, but Joe will never get rid of him. We used to joke that he’d die first, but it’s not funny anymore.”
“Maybe he shouldn’t ride him.”
“Maybe,” Toby echoed. “But Shadow needs to work. He’s too clever to amble round the fields all day. And he gets lonely too.”
“He needs a mate.”
“In the primal sense, or a friend?”
“Either. Both. They don’t have to be separate things, do they?”
I wasn’t talking about Shadow anymore, and Toby knew it. He sighed and turned his gaze to the horizon.
“I don’t want to talk about last night if you’re going to give me a speech about being an old man with baggage and how we’re better as friends. You’re twenty-eight and I don’t give a shit.”
I started to smile but thought better of it. “I wasn’t going to do that. But the part about baggage is true, and I’m not even talking about Ella.”
“Ella’s not baggage.”
“I know. That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean then? That I’m too fucking green to handle the fact that you’re traumatised from doing a traumatising job?”
“Toby, I spent two weeks in a psychiatric hospital.”
“I know. I heard Harry and Rhys talking before you got here, though I didn’t know it was about you at the time.”