Titans by Victoria Scott Page B

the Titans for the last five years. And maybe I’ve got a knack for racing like Barney says. But those other jockeys will have studied their Titans too, probably for much longer, and with better resources behind them.
    I brush the drying mud from my jeans and avoid Rags’s gaze. “I thought of a name for the horse.”
    Rags, Barney, and Magnolia stare at me. I roll my eyes. “What? It needs a name, right?”
    Rags smiles like my grandpa used to after downing a mint julep. It’s infectious, that smile. And I find myself mirroring the emotion. The old man slaps his leg and jogs to the front of his truck. When he returns, he’s holding an envelope. He gives it to me, and after I take it, he shoves his hands into the pockets of his orange hunting vest and rocks back and forth on his heels. He doesn’t look so old in this moment. Just the opposite, really. I can almost glimpse the young man behind those hooded blue-gray eyes. A man with a mischievous grin, a brain that sizzled, and dreams so big only a blueprint could capture them.
    I open the envelope and shake my head with disbelief. Because there’s my name, and the serial number for our Titan 1.0, and race dates and legal jargon and signatures on clean, crisp lines. Only two spaces are empty, in fact; one where I’ll sign, and another where I’ll fill in our Titan’s call name.
    “Our registration papers.” I hold them to my chest and glance up at Rags. “I almost forgot.”
    “Good thing I didn’t.” He practically dances as Magnolia leans over my shoulder, saying she wants to see.
    “Get her a pen,” Magnolia orders.
    I gaze at her, my best friend. My rock when the ground beneath my feet trembles. Is there anything I wouldn’t do to keep her in my life through the years? “Thank you, Magnolia.”
    “For what?”
    “For believing in me,” I reply. “For being my friend.”
    “This whole thing still makes me nervous.”
    “But you’d do it too,” I say in almost a question, wondering if she’s ever upset that Rags gave me this opportunity instead of her.
    “Heck, yeah,” she says. “Sometimes I pray you hurt yourself just enough so that I can step in and save the day.”
    I chuckle at her honesty, and when Rags returns with a pen and offers his back as a place to sign, I move toward him. Laying the white paper between his bony shoulder blades, I hold the pen above my signature spot, and write my name with intention. Thick letters so the Gambini brothers know I mean it.
    Then I move the pen to the Titan’s call name. I glance once more at the horse strutting in the field outside the barn and shake my head. I remember the way Rags transported him in that jumbo coffin. And how the Titan rose to his feet from his dark prison within seconds of that lock being removed. How he ran to stretch his legs, to breathe the air and feel the soil beneath his hooves. It’s like he’d waited a lifetime for that run. Like he was trapped for years without an outlet. And then, suddenly, he was free.
    I shake the pen a couple of times, and I write his name.
    Padlock .

After church the next morning, I pack a small bag with an extra T-shirt, a clean pair of socks, and a stick of deodorant, planning to sneak out of the house for the day. In previous years, the lineup for the sponsor race was announced the morning of. But since my father didn’t come in to kill me in the middle of the night, and didn’t say anything this morning, I have to believe the list has yet to be revealed.
    And I can’t be here when it is.
    Zara stops me on the way out the door, a pout on her face. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and glance down the hallway to ensure my mom or, more importantly, my dad, isn’t coming. “You’re leaving again?” she whispers.
    I grab her shoulder and give it a friendly shake. “I’ll be back soon enough.”
    Zara pulls away, igniting a painful ache in my chest. “You’re gone like Dani is now.”
    “That’s not true.”
    Or is it?
    Zara kicks