My mother-in-law locked me inside a horse stall while pregnant because she said my pregnancy sickness made me no cleaner than an animal. My husband took my water, his brother removed my crutches, and his sister scattered food beyond my reach. Blood marked the straw beneath my injured leg. Then they opened the adjoining stall and something heavy moved inside.

The iron pin of the stall latch was rusted tight, frozen in its groove from years of damp air and neglected maintenance.

Hannah grabbed the heavy iron bolt with both hands, her teeth gritted, her boots slipping against the loose dirt of the aisle floor as she pulled with all her strength.

"Hannah, don't you dare!" Evelyn yelled, her voice dropping into a shrill, venomous command as she took two rapid steps across the concrete aisle. "Get away from that door!"

"Get out of the way, Mom!" Hannah screamed back. It was the first time in twenty-one years she had ever raised her voice to her mother.

She hammered her fist down onto the iron handle.

Clang.

The rusted pin gave way with a sharp screech of metal, sliding out of the keeper. Hannah shoved the heavy wooden gate open three feet, her shoulder catching the frame as she squeezed herself inside the stall.

Goliath tossed his broad head at the sudden noise, his long tail sweeping through the air with a heavy swish-swish that struck the partition wall above my head like a whip. He snorted, his front hooves shifting sideways, his heavy iron shoe brushing against the calf of my good leg.

"Easy, boy," Hannah gasped, her eyes wide as she pressed herself against the swinging gate to keep from getting trampled. "Easy, Goliath... easy..."

She dropped to her knees in the dirty straw right beside me, ignoring the fresh red blood that immediately soaked into the knees of her light denim jeans. She reached out, her hands shaking so violently she could barely control them, and pressed the mouth of the silver water bottle against my dry, cracked lips.

"Drink," she sobbed, holding the back of my head with her cold fingers. "Ellie, drink. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't know—"

I didn't waste time speaking. I grabbed the metal bottle with both hands and tipped it back, letting the ice-cold water pour down my burning throat. Half of it spilled down my chin and across my dust-caked chest, but the cold shock of it cleared the dark fog that had been closing in around the edges of my brain for the past hour.

Outside the stall, Caleb stood frozen for a second, staring at his sister on her knees in the blood-stained straw.

Then his face twisted into a mask of pure, ugly fury.

"You soft-headed little idiot!" Caleb roared, shoving the heavy pine stall gate fully open until it slammed back against the wall studs with a sound like thunder. He stepped into the stall, his heavy work boots crunching through the food Hannah had scattered earlier.

He reached down, grabbed Hannah by the collar of her denim jacket, and yanked her off her knees with enough force to tear the top button clean off her shirt.

"Get out of here!" Caleb spat, dragging his sister toward the aisle. "You want to take her side? You can go sit in the house until I'm finished here!"

"Let go of me!" Hannah shrieked, kicking wildly at his shins. "She's bleeding, Caleb! Look at her leg! Look at her leg!"

Thomas rushed into the stall behind Caleb, grabbing Hannah's flailing arms from behind and pinning them against her sides. His face was pale, sweat running down his neck in dark, greasy tracks.

"Come on, Hannah," Thomas muttered, his voice shaking as he dragged her backward into the aisle. "Don't make this worse. Just let Caleb handle it. Just come outside—"

"You're monsters!" Hannah screamed, her heels dragging through the dirt aisle as Thomas pulled her toward the light of the open barn doors. "All of you! You're going to kill her! You're going to kill the baby!"

Evelyn stepped into the doorway, her cold eyes following her daughter until Thomas had dragged her past the tack room. Then she turned back toward the stall, her gaze settling on me where I lay pinned against the wall, holding the half-empty water bottle against my ribs.

"Look at what you've done to this family in six months," Evelyn said softly, her voice cold and level, completely devoid of emotion. "You've turned my daughter against her own blood. You've brought shame onto this house."

"You did this yourself, Evelyn," I whispered, holding the metal bottle like a weapon in front of my stomach. "You did this the day you decided my baby was a threat to your farm."

Caleb turned away from the door, his chest heaving, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He looked down at me, then at the bay gelding standing three feet away.

Goliath was growing increasingly restless. The shouting, the slamming gate, and the smell of fresh blood had set the big horse on edge. His ears were pinned flat back against his skull, his skin twitching along his flanks, his white eye-whites showing in the dim light of the stall.

"Get up, Eleanor," Caleb said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.

"I can't get up, Caleb," I said, pointing at my crushed, plaster-bound leg. "The pins are tearing through the skin. I need an ambulance."

"You don't need an ambulance," Caleb said. He stepped closer, reaching down to grab the front of my maternity shirt. "You're walking out of this barn on your own two feet, and you're going to apologize to my mother before you step foot in that house again."

"If I stand up on this leg, the bone will shatter!" I screamed.

He reached for my shoulder.

Before his fingers could touch my collar, Goliath let out a high, piercing bugle—a sound of pure animal panic—and slammed his heavy fifteen-hundred-pound body sideways into the wooden partition.

The oak boards cracked with a sound like a rifle shot.

The horse's massive rear left hoof kicked out blindly in the enclosed space. The iron shoe caught Caleb squarely on the side of his right knee.

There was a sickening, wet crunch of tearing cartilage and snapping bone.

Caleb let out a high-pitched, strangled yell and collapsed sideways into the filthy straw, his right leg buckling under him at an unnatural, horrific angle. He hit the floor two feet from my good knee, clutching his leg with both hands, his face instantly turning the color of curdled milk.

"Caleb!" Evelyn shrieked from the aisle, her composure shattering in a single second as she lunged toward the stall gate.

Goliath whirled in the narrow space, his heavy chest smashing into the open stall door, swinging the iron latch around like a pendulum. The big horse backed out into the aisle, his hooves clattering wildly against the concrete floor as he bolted toward the bright sunlight of the open pasture doors.

The barn went dead silent, save for the heavy, wet gasps coming from Caleb as he lay curled in the straw at my feet.

His right knee was completely dislocated, the lower half of his leg turned ninety degrees inward, the denim of his work pants torn open to reveal a jagged white tip of bone pressing against the skin.

He looked up at me through a haze of blinding pain, his eyes wide, his lips trembling.

"Ellie..." he choked out, his hand reaching toward my ankle. "Ellie... help me... my leg..."

I looked down at his reaching hand.